The Lemon Fool

UK can be 'Saudi Arabia of wind power' - PM

He said the country would also be investing in renewable hydrogen fuel technology "for trucks, for trains, even perhaps for planes - for vehicles that aren't readily capable of being moved by electric batteries".

AiY

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:UK can be 'Saudi Arabia of wind power' - PM

He said the country would also be investing in renewable hydrogen fuel technology "for trucks, for trains, even perhaps for planes - for vehicles that aren't readily capable of being moved by electric batteries".

AiY

Says the man with a reputation for spouting hyperbole on subjects about which he knows nothing...

Mike4 wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:UK can be 'Saudi Arabia of wind power' - PM

He said the country would also be investing in renewable hydrogen fuel technology "for trucks, for trains, even perhaps for planes - for vehicles that aren't readily capable of being moved by electric batteries".

AiY

Says the man with a reputation for spouting hyperbole on subjects about which he knows nothing...

Have you by any chance seen the commercial by Hitachi, which appears on Sky News regularly. That gives details of what they are doing about the hydrogen economy. Incidentally, hydrogen derived power is seen as an appropriate means of decarbonising our railways.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:

Mike4 wrote:Says the man with a reputation for spouting hyperbole on subjects about which he knows nothing...

You're too gentle on him there.

Have you by any chance seen the commercial by Hitachi, which appears on Sky News regularly. That gives details of what they are doing about the hydrogen economy. Incidentally, hydrogen derived power is seen as an appropriate means of decarbonising our railways.

TJH

What do Hitachi have to say for themselves about the energy required to extract hydrogen (never mind store it safely)?

Much more efficient to burn fossils to power a large vehicle, than to burn fossils to extract hydrogen to power the vehicle. But I expect Hitachi will be happy to flog the technology to whoever has a budget for it.

UncleEbenezer wrote:What do Hitachi have to say for themselves about the energy required to extract hydrogen (never mind store it safely)?

Much more efficient to burn fossils to power a large vehicle, than to burn fossils to extract hydrogen to power the vehicle. But I expect Hitachi will be happy to flog the technology to whoever has a budget for it.

I'm not sure if I have seen the same advert and clearly you haven't seen the one that I have.

The one that I saw started with hydrogen seperated electrically using PV, so no fossil fuels used in that.
Then on to reforming the methane produced by animal and human waste. Here we already burn the human stuff to make electricity. Naturally the heat needed for steam reformation could be produced from the same bio-methane.
On from that to some hotel (ignore that bit).
Then on to using pyrolysis to process platic waste to hydrogen.

The advert that I recall was set in Japan, as is Hitachi. Japan has to import all it's fossil fuels.
Of course Saudi Arabia is not short of fossil fuel......
Then again the UK is still not short of coal.

Battery technology is developing so fast, and costs are plummeting, so hydrogen, with its need to introduce new infrastructure, is being squeezed out.

Buses and delivery vehicles are already going electric, long-haul trucks will do so in a decade, because no-one will invest in hydrogen fuel distribution and storage for a small fraction of the current diesel market. The only exception will be aircraft, where energy density without weight is key, and there are many fewer airports to equip.

Overnight truck re-charging will be valuable for grid-balancing, and hauliers will see the benefits of cheap power. If this can be done directly using batteries rather than with a hydrogen intermediary, it will be.

Wikipedia quotes " Fuel cell vehicles running on compressed hydrogen may have a power-plant-to-wheel efficiency of 22% if the hydrogen is stored as high-pressure gas, and 17% if it is stored as liquid hydrogen." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#In_practice

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:UK can be 'Saudi Arabia of wind power' - PM

He said the country would also be investing in renewable hydrogen fuel technology "for trucks, for trains, even perhaps for planes - for vehicles that aren't readily capable of being moved by electric batteries".

AiY

No. Hydrogen is not an energy source.

GS

UncleEbenezer wrote:What do Hitachi have to say for themselves about the energy required to extract hydrogen (never mind store it safely)?

The video shows very large solar panel fields. I believe that this is how they derive the energy for the hydgrogen production.

https://power.mhi.com/special/hydrogen might provide more information. I haven't investigated the web site further as yet.

TJH

JohnB wrote:Battery technology is developing so fast, and costs are plummeting, so hydrogen, with its need to introduce new infrastructure, is being squeezed out

I think this is the nub of it.
After all, we've had a 'clean' fuel for decades - LPG - but where is the takeup and the supply and servicing Infrastructure?

V8

88V8 wrote:After all, we've had a 'clean' fuel for decades - LPG - but where is the takeup and the supply and servicing Infrastructure?

V8

Errr, would that be LPG, as in Liquid Petroleum Gas? As in a fossil fuel?

The point's about hydrogen being derived from fossil fuels, assume a method of production. The term LPG insists on fossil fuel.

The difference between LPG (used extensively in big fork lifts) or indeed CNG* and Hydrogen is that only one can be renewable (just like batteries). For road vehicles there simply hasn't been a requirement till now

*CNG
https://www.marketwatch.com/press-relea ... 2020-09-21
Sorry, I knew of CNG vehicles in the 70's. Special circumstances need to exist for it to make sense.
Such special circumstances suggest that we should avoid fossil fuels as much as possible.

The underlying problem is that few politicians understand the second law of thermodynamics. Boris clearly does not. Nor does the Westminster Bubble. I know that well because I used to inhabit the Westminster Bubble.

This may be of interest

https://youtu.be/f7MzFfuNOtY

88V8 wrote:

JohnB wrote:Battery technology is developing so fast, and costs are plummeting, so hydrogen, with its need to introduce new infrastructure, is being squeezed out

I think this is the nub of it.
After all, we've had a 'clean' fuel for decades - LPG - but where is the takeup and the supply and servicing Infrastructure?

V8

Fascinating. I learn SO MUCH on here.

I never realised LPG burned without carbon dioxide being released. Very odd because the flue gas analysis I do on LPG boilers shows the stuff present in spades. Must be summat wrong with my gas analyser, must get it fixed.

Mike4 wrote:Fascinating. I learn SO MUCH on here.

I never realised LPG burned without carbon dioxide being released. Very odd because the flue gas analysis I do on LPG boilers shows the stuff present in spades. Must be summat wrong with my gas analyser, must get it fixed.

LOL, thanks for brightening up my morning. There seem to be some more solid figures here: https://www.drivelpg.co.uk/about-autoga ... -benefits/

So, 11% to 12% less carbon dioxide than a petrol car, but a slightly bigger advantage when viewed as "well to wheel". (I don't quite follow the science well enough to see how they get to a figure of 26.8%, since they also seem to say 15% elsewhere in the same piece.) The significant advantages over diesel in particular are in terms of particulates and NOX. (Although once again, the source fails to say what sort of diesel vehicles it's comparing the LPG ones to - cars, trucks, with or without DPF?)

Then again, maybe I'm just not sufficiently up to speed on the scientific intricacies? A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

BJ

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:

GoSeigen wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:UK can be 'Saudi Arabia of wind power' - PM

He said the country would also be investing in renewable hydrogen fuel technology "for trucks, for trains, even perhaps for planes - for vehicles that aren't readily capable of being moved by electric batteries".

AiY

No. Hydrogen is not an energy source.

GS

Very strictly speaking, hydrogen is the source of all energy in the known universe. Is it not?

RVF

Well, if you want to drop by the sun or one of the other stars to fill up I guess that's a valid point, yes. Meantime, on planet earth, hydrogen is an energy storage technology. The energy to run the large vehicles is actually coming from elsewhere.

GS

OK OK, LPG isn't perfect, it always seemed a lot of BS to me with its worse fuel consumption and inferior power output.

My point, which I did not elucidate, was that back in the day it was marketed as a clean fuel, and subsidised to the hilt. And yet, there was minimal takeup by the public, there are few filling stations, and most garages won't touch it with a bargepole.
This precedent suggests to me that for road vehicles, new fuels will struggle to establish themselves.

Railways and aviation, yes I think the case is well made.

V8

88V8 wrote:OK OK, LPG isn't perfect, it always seemed a lot of BS to me with its worse fuel consumption and inferior power output.

My point, which I did not elucidate, was that back in the day it was marketed as a clean fuel, and subsidised to the hilt. And yet, there was minimal takeup by the public, there are few filling stations, and most garages won't touch it with a bargepole.
This precedent suggests to me that for road vehicles, new fuels will struggle to establish themselves.

Railways and aviation, yes I think the case is well made.

V8

LPG did, to an extent, become significantly established in some countries. Two obvious ones were NL and Brazil. No fuel is perfect and the industrial groups behind each fuel are well aware of the limitations. For a time LPG established a beachhead but ultimately it has become understood that it is a niche technology/fuel and is essentially dead-ended. That experience informs many of the strategies being employed by the H2 fuel proponents, primarily they are all limiting their exposure and none of the major industrial groups are betting the farm on H2.

regards, dspp

The problem is the catch 22 situation. If there’s no H2 fuelling infrastructure in place, no one’s going to buy an H2 vehicle, and if there are no vehicles to fuel, why build the fuelling stations.

dspp wrote:

88V8 wrote:OK OK, LPG isn't perfect, it always seemed a lot of BS to me with its worse fuel consumption and inferior power output.

My point, which I did not elucidate, was that back in the day it was marketed as a clean fuel, and subsidised to the hilt. And yet, there was minimal takeup by the public, there are few filling stations, and most garages won't touch it with a bargepole.
This precedent suggests to me that for road vehicles, new fuels will struggle to establish themselves.

Railways and aviation, yes I think the case is well made.

V8

LPG did, to an extent, become significantly established in some countries. Two obvious ones were NL and Brazil. No fuel is perfect and the industrial groups behind each fuel are well aware of the limitations. For a time LPG established a beachhead but ultimately it has become understood that it is a niche technology/fuel and is essentially dead-ended. That experience informs many of the strategies being employed by the H2 fuel proponents, primarily they are all limiting their exposure and none of the major industrial groups are betting the farm on H2.

regards, dspp

As I understand it LPG is a by-product of petroleum production. It used to be flared off at the wellhead but then they decided to try to make use of it. It is limited in availability and much more expensive to capture, process and store than oil, hence the lack of enthusiasm by the oil companies for marketing and promoting it. I suspect the only reason it is cheap is because road fuel duty is not charged on it here in the UK. Not sure about that though.

Mike4 wrote:I suspect the only reason it is cheap is because road fuel duty is not charged on it here in the UK. Not sure about that though.

I don't know how the rates compare but fuel duty on LPG is 31.61 p/kg.