Problems with a hydrogen transportation future

From the following, what I here is:
- most of hydrogen is created by methods that emit significant greenhouse gasses
- hydrogen is tough to contain, because molecules are so small that they even infiltrate metals they contact, making them brittle over time.
- hydrogen must be stored highly pressurized, which is expensive in energy and possibly dangerous.
- fuel cells depend on iridium and platinum, which are rare and thus incredibly expensive.
- fuel cells create water, which freezes in cold weather, thus damaging the fuel cell.

There are at least a couple hydrogen cars available, but are sold only in locations where hydrogen is available, such as the CA Bay Area and LA. Populating America with hydrogen filling stations and enough hydrogen would be a major expense. Also, SF and LA really don't have freezing weather. And, these hydrogen filling stations have a significant rep of not having hydrogen available.

It would be great if some of these issues were solved in a more significant way than at present.

Maybe people can point to solutions?

 

I think some of those points are a bit overgeneralized...

-I refuse to accept CO2 as a 'greenhouse gas' being a bad thing. Sure, at some concentration, everything dies. Thats true with all gasses. But right now, in addition to caputuring more light( and thus heat) CO2 ALSO makes crops produce MORE food with LESS water. For a few degrees in temperature rise (at most), we've also added several large rain forests-worth of foliage density to the planet (which is handy because we're still cutting them down...). We can adapt to a warmer climate, and we can do it a lot easier as farming becomes more efficient with higher CO2. We can irrigate deserts, farm thawed tundra and drain/fill swamps. Its really just a matter of ENERGY.

-Not sure how storing hydrogen is 'expensive.' I mean, so are solar panels. So are wind turbines. True, a hydrogen tank needs better gaskets and more expensive materials, but HOW much MORE expensive is that really? 5%? 200%? I truly don't know, but the degree matters.

-Storing propane is dangerous. A BLEVE is the most potentially destructive explosion outside of nukes. The damage caused by a 30,000 gal propane tank BLEVEing isn't going to be much different than a 30,000 gal H tank exploding. Both are going to level everything within sight. That hasn't stopped us from putting huge propane tanks everywhere. It won't stop hydrogen either.

-Fuel cells only depend on rare metals if you want them to be extremely efficient. Copper or steel will work too. If we're worried about the almighty $, we should keep using coal. If we're worried about the environment, we can generate hydrogen a bit less efficiently with common metals just fine.

-What do you mean by 'fuel cells'? It was my understanding that fuel cells split water into H and O using a process that also HEATS the water, and then combusting them creates water. If that water is drained via exhaust, it won't matter if it freezes. Or are you talking about some other chemical fuel cell like dissolving aluminum in drain cleaner? Cuz thats a terrible way to make H...

Other than that, yes H has some inherent problems. Just like how manufacturing solar panels creates heavy metal pollution and burning wood creates smoke. Until everyone has their own deep earth geothermal generator (and what does THAT do to the earth on a large scale???), we're stuck with picking the best from a list of relatively poor options.

 

Producing hydrogen from renewable sources is very inefficient. Much better to recharge batteries.

 

That is not really true, or maybe we should say not necessarily true.

Once you have the electric power, electrolysis of water into hydrogen is typically between 75 to 80% efficient. One new electrolysis technology claims to be able to reach 95% efficiency.

Supposedly there are also additional losses in energy somewhere between 5 to 35% necessitated by required compression or cooling of the hydrogen gas to be able to store it.

Typical lithium ion batteries lose 5% energy in charging. Power converters used to charge electric batteries are 85% efficient for typical residential chargers, though the most efficient commercial chargers used at charging stations are 95%.
Typical losses in transmitting electric power from power plant to consumers are around 8 to 15%.
Added up all together that might be about a 25% efficiency loss, maybe a little more.

Guessing the power transmission loss from a power plant to an industrial electrolysis facility would probably be lower, for various reasons, only around 5 to 6%.

It is also possible to produce hydrogen directly from coal or natural gas, in a special industrial chemical process. This is relatively inexpensive and efficient. But the storage of hydrogen is usually much more problematic and expensive than its generation.

 

I don't want to discuss climatology here. But, I'll point out this is not what climate science is saying.

I think the storage expense being referenced is that hydrogen must be seriously pressurized.

Yes, and we carry propane in tanks on our roads, and there are even conversions for fueling ICE vehicles with propane. I don't know how dangerous it is, but one does have to carry a lot of hydrogen to have good range and there would have to be numerous filling stations operated by civilians.

Fuel cells for cars combine hydrogen and oxygen in nicely controllable manner that results in electric energy and water. The concern is the water near the membrane inside the fuel cell. Freezing weather after stopping can damage the membrane.

Burning wood is a cycle. Plants grow, removing carbon from the atmosphere to make wood. Then the plant decays, burns, ?? and releases that carbon. That cycle isn't so problematic.

The problematic source of carbon is when we mine ancient carbon in the form of fossil fuel and then add that carbon to our current environment.

Also, burning fossil fuel on our city streets is well known to be expensive in health care.

Also, electricity is a cheaper fuel for transportation, that EVs require less maintenance (see study by Hertz), and that manufacturing an EV can be done at less cost.

One hope has been that hydrogen plus a fuel cell would offer a better way to store electricity for transportation than electric batteries. Batteries are a major expense in making an EV, plus they include rare Earths, too.

Are you opposed to nuclear power?

 

If we're gonna store hydrogen for energy, might as well burn it in an ICE. I mean a fuel cell and an electric motor is cool too, but a couple grand converting an old car to run on hydrogen is gonna be a much more doable option for the average joe than buying a new H and/or electric vehicle. A conversion is likely to be less efficient, but lets face it- saving up a big chunk of cash for a new car is something a lot of people simply can't/won't do, they will spend more over time rather than save up to spend less later. The bulk of car sales are still used cars, and that trend isn't likely to change anytime soon. BUT if a H cell turns out to be better than EV batteries, great!

I don't have any problem with nuclear power. I have a problem with the tendency for humans to put nuclear power plants in earthquake and tsunami zones, let their infrastructure rot to bare minimum functionality, and cut as much safety corners as possible to make a profit. That's what ruins nuclear power. Every single one of our nuclear plants in the US are known to be leaking (SUPPOSEDLY within safe margins, for now), and the NRC has several times increased what it considers 'safe' levels of radioactive emissions SUPPOSEDLY 'not' just to compensate for increasing leakage... nuclear power would be the solution to all our problems IF WE WERE RESPONSIBLE WITH IT. We're not. I don't think it would be physically possible to build a H storage tank big enough to cause a similar amount of death and destruction if it exploded as a nuclear reactor could if we simply stopped paying attention to it for long enough. They're basically designed to eventually melt down, and we get energy from them by continually preventing them from doing so with careful regulation. Eventually someone WILL F it up bad enough, its just a matter of time

 

ICE is FAR less efficient. Engines, transmissions, cooling equipment, oil pumps, drive trains - the list of overhead goes on and on. With hydrogen being far less dense in energy than is gas, the hydrogen tanks would have to be huge for the same distance. And, hydrogen isn't that cheap.

You were complaining about solar panel manufacturing heavy metal pollution.

That doesn't come close to nuclear plant pollution, including mining, refining and fuel element production, leakage a little bit, and spent fuel and cooling water.

I'm more positive about nuclear plant safety. But, it's shocking to see what is happening in UK with their new plant projects. They are stupendously expensive, even when built on existing nuclear sites. And, the result is that the generated electricity is far more expensive than current rates.

 

And if I recall correctly, hydrogen has a fairly low level of stored energy to release- something on the order of 10% of something like gasoline or diesel. And given the energy that must be used to release hydrogen from something like water, it's pretty much a waste of time.

And none of that can be improved.

 

I wasn't complaining. I was noting that every energy source has downsides. I'm making some panels myself (because I think I can make good ones cheaper than good ones cost). So I'm not anti-solar. Just honest that they arent great for the environment.

As far as spent nuclear fuel goes, we could store it a lot better than we do. Another reason why nuclear would be a better option if humans were more responsible with it.

 

Too bad we couldn't combine hydrogen and another atom like carbon. This would solve the storage problem.....except explosive possibilities....and the energy density problem.

 

And then we could apply a huge amount of electricity to get the hydrogen back out! Only somehow better!

Oh, wait a minute......

 

You can. It's called regular car fuel. (Maybe you were being sarcastic?)
Or you can combine even more hydrogen with carbon and then you get natural gas.

The problem though is that these cannot be directly used in a fuel cell to power an electric car, so the efficiency will be lower. Which is an important thing if generating that hydrogen from renewable sources. Since renewable energy is expensive to generate, and so efficiency really matters. There are also additional energy losses if trying to convert hydrogen to hydrocarbon fuel, rather than just using the hydrogen.

There does exist a technology to be able to convert natural gas to hydrogen onboard the car, so it can then be more efficiently used in a fuel cell to power an electric motor, but the conversion is more complicated and expensive.
Natural gas is a little bit easier to store in a car than hydrogen.

There are many options and possibilities, each one with their own complicated or subtle pros and cons, trade-offs.

 

Impressive! I'd love to hear how your project goes!

 

Who needs an electric car? I propose that electric cars are a big rip off. Natural gas is ready to go in ICE engines. A few adjustments in timing and some add ONS is all ya need.

 

Do you have range and cost per mile figures?

Can a natural gas tank be fited into the space of a gas tank?

These conversions do exist, I think. At least for propane. But, they tend to be pickup trucks where the truck bed is used for tanks.

 

I don't really want to go into a lot of work here but natural gas can run with much better fuel economy than gas or diesel. Since nat gas fuel tanks are thicker for vehicles they run about 200 miles per tank. A auto with 35mpg on gasoline will get 45 on natural gas. You can also go duel fuel... gasoline and natural gas

 

I suspect natural gas would be cleaner that gasoline, too.

Yes, it would take some work to figure out the various arguments for this option. I'll keep my eyes open as I'm sure others will as well.

 

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adfc.energy.gov.vehicles

 

Lesson 1: solar cell encapsulation material must be flexible. Resin epoxy works until temperature fluctuation causes expansion, then the epoxy separates from the cells and/or the panel. Silicone epoxy seems to be the industry preference now, and thats prolly what I'll end up using for my 2nd attempt, but it has a short shelf life, so cant just order it and stash it away for the next time I have free time.

 

And Natural Gas is the largest input for electric cars, so electric cars are essentially natural gas vehicles, just with hard to dispose of batteries.

 

You didn't even TRY to justify that claim.

Your energy analysis is weakening. Green energy is about 40% and growing. Fossil fuel electricity generation is not growing. In fact it is shrinking. As solar technology continues to improve, it offers a future of homes being mostly independent of grid power. Plus, wind and solar are cheaper grid solutions.

EVs are a clear solution to the billion dollar health care costs of burning oil on our city streets. And, that's where 2/3 of our oil consumption goes.

EVs are cheaper to fuel and maintain. As I've cited, Hertz is pretty excited about the low cost of maintaining its EV fleet.

As EV prices continue to drop (as new tech always drops in price, especially when competition arrives), the advantages of EVs are going to win throughout most of the auto market.

EV batteries are designed with recycling in mind. There are companies that do the recycling, but that can't grow right now, as Tesla batteries are said to last between 300,000 and 500,000 miles.

 

Why would he need to justify anything? It's common knowledge that natural gas is the current largest used fuel (or at least one of them) to generate the electricity.

Your random suggestions about the costs of renewable and wind, even if true, doesn't have anything to do with the current reality of electricity generation.

 

Truth is it's own justification.

Fake news, it's 20%.

They aren't on demand. You can't fuel an advanced economy on an intermittent fuel source. Further, a single wind generator requires four tons of copper, copper which is mined with diesel equipment and do you have any sense of how many tons of ore have to be dug, crushed, and purified to make 4 tons of copper?

 

In the Bronze Age copper was actually worth more than gold.

As Bronze is around 88% copper and 12% tin