Hydrogen Station Explodes, Toyota Halts Sales of Hydrogen Cars In Norway (electrek.co) 217
Socguy writes: The Uno-X hydrogen station in Sandvika in Baerum exploded on Monday and resulted in two injuries in a nearby non-fuel cell vehicle. The company operating the station has suspended operation at its other locations following the explosion. With the refueling network crippled, Toyota and Hyundai have announced that they are temporarily halting sales of fuel cell vehicles. Jon Andre Lokke, CEO of Nel Hydrogen, the company operating those hydrogen refueling stations, commented: "It is too early to speculate on the cause and what has gone wrong. Our top priority is the safe operation of the stations we have delivered. As a precaution, we have temporarily put ten other stations in standby mode in anticipation of more information."
Here's what Toyota Norway manager Espen Olsen had to say: "We don't know exactly what happened on the Uno-X drive yet, so we don't want to speculate. But we stop the sale until we have learned what has happened, and for practical reasons, since it is not possible to fill fuel now." He added: "This does not change our view of hydrogen, and it is important for us to point out that hydrogen cars are at least as safe as ordinary cars. The hydrogen tanks themselves are so robust that you can shoot them with a gun without knocking them."
Here's what Toyota Norway manager Espen Olsen had to say: "We don't know exactly what happened on the Uno-X drive yet, so we don't want to speculate. But we stop the sale until we have learned what has happened, and for practical reasons, since it is not possible to fill fuel now." He added: "This does not change our view of hydrogen, and it is important for us to point out that hydrogen cars are at least as safe as ordinary cars. The hydrogen tanks themselves are so robust that you can shoot them with a gun without knocking them."
Hydrogen! (Score:1, Offtopic)
Nothing will excite gasoline lovers like this news of unwarranted destruction. I predict a sudden surge in demand for hydrogen cars.
Re: (Score:2)
nah, we're not fans of diesel nor gasoline explosions either.
be funny if this explosion was the result of sabotage by big oil, eh?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since it is Norway, whatever it is, it is "big oil" by definition. Big oil is how Norway is making the money to pay for its "eco-friendly" image. https://cdn.theculturetrip.com... [theculturetrip.com]
Re: (Score:2)
nah, we're not fans of diesel nor gasoline explosions either.
be funny if this explosion was the result of sabotage by big oil, eh?
Diesel doesn't explode unless you aerosolize it somehow. Vapor point is too high.
Re: (Score:2)
Diesel doesn't explode unless you aerosolize it somehow. Vapor point is too high.
Diesel doesn't need to be an aerosol to explode, that just makes it easier. A very high air to fuel ratio, and high compression is needed to make it explode - and even at that when the temperature starts hitting -20C the air gets cold enough(in turn dense enough) that it won't explode without a helper mixed in(glow plugs, ether injector, etc). To even make it burn you need a high-voltage arc or plasma arc(like with modern boilers/furnace boxes) to get it going. Unlike gasoline which will pool in low lyin
Re: (Score:2)
Uno X is an oil company brand.
Re: Hydrogen! (Score:2)
be funny if this explosion was the result of sabotage by big oil, eh?
It'd be certainly be odd, considering hydrogen-based is a nonstarter and thus no threat to any incumbents.
Re: (Score:2)
Funny sure, but not true. hydrogen is largely produced from splitting up hydrocarbons, IE fossil fuel.
A energy + methane (can substitute with other hydrocarbons including coal) to get your H (H2) for use in your green hydrogen powered. Oh and CO, CO2 and anything else mixed in all being released into the envionment.
What, you think they dump a crap ton of energy into splitting water? How wasteful, best you can hope to recover that energy cost is 60%.
Hydrogen is nothing more than a battery, one continualy cr
Re: (Score:2)
Big oil might be unhappy about hydrogen even from nat gas.
40% (and maybe soon 30%) energy waste in hydrogen production is fine down the road, if done from solar or geothermal. There is more supply of that energy than a hundred civilizations could ever use...
Re: (Score:3)
I do believe you are correct that the oil industry is a supporter of new sources of hydrogen but hydrogen is not an energy source. Where is this energy coming from? I have my guesses but I'd like to hear where others believe this energy for hydrogen production is coming from.
Re: (Score:2)
I do believe you are correct that the oil industry is a supporter of new sources of hydrogen but hydrogen is not an energy source. Where is this energy coming from? I have my guesses but I'd like to hear where others believe this energy for hydrogen production is coming from.
I believe it's imported from Germany, at least that's where the gas driven ferries get their gas. To the best of my knowledge there is currently no production of liquid hydrogen in Norway.
Re:Hydrogen! (Score:4, Informative)
...and in order to get that 600 kJ, you have to supply >600 kJ to the extraction process. Cause, see, all the hydrogen is already burned up.
Hydrogen is an energy storage resource, nothing more.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, gasoline fumes have nothing on hydrogen. Burns in almost any fuel-air mixture, ignites with an order of magnitude less energy, and readily undergoes deflagration-to-detonation transitions at STP. Which is apparently what happened here - this wasn't just a deflagration (fireball), but a detonation (explosion). The people who got injured were injured because the detonation set off the explosive charges in their airbags.
There were only three public hydrogen fueling stations in Norway. Now there's
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
You betcha. It overcomes what I detest about today's electrics: The ton or two worth of super-nasty-in-so-many-ways batteries that no one likes to talk about.
The hydrogen fuel cell car solves all the problems except for the explosive stuff.
You do realize these are electric cars, right? They don't burn the hydrogen, they turn it into electricity and you get back water you can drink.
It's all about mass. This is the electric option with the least mass. A car with less mass will always be more fun to drive
It does solve for the explosive stuff, generally.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The hydrogen fuel cell car solves all the problems except for the explosive stuff.
Like the summary said (or maybe it was the article), you can fire a gun as the fuel cell tanks in a car and nothing will happen... So they are really even safer than giant battery packs in terms of fire risk.
It seems like storage for distribution is more an issue, but I figure they will get that worked out more over time. Gas stations catch fire sometimes too but we aren't getting rid of all those...
I, for one, wish all the
Re: (Score:2)
Like the summary said (or maybe it was the article), you can fire a gun as the fuel cell tanks in a car and nothing will happen... So they are really even safer than giant battery packs in terms of fire risk.
The problem isn't the fuel cell. THe fuel cell is the very expensive, but safe bit.
The problem, as far as things that can go boom, is where you keep the hydrogen in the car: A heavy-ass steel cylinder. A cryo tank. It's still a lot (tons) lighter than batteries.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Some people are just scared of any new technology, regardless of actual risk statistics. These people will irrationally cling to something they perceive as old and irrationally denounce the new thing as "bad", "insane", etc. In the case of battery cars, there is sound risk analysis at work, or you could not even begin to sell them in Europe, were mandatory insurance coverage usually is in the millions or "unlimited". If these were significantly riskier to drive than other cars, that insurance would be far t
Re: (Score:2)
And you think the insurance companies do not monitor that very carefully? For reasonable safety levels, just mandate it has to be fully ensured. These people know how to handle risk.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
A cryo tank. It's still a lot (tons) lighter than batteries.
If Tesla can maintain the current rate of improvement, within another 10 years, the batteries will be lighter than any H2 rig.
How long before they're weightless?
Re: (Score:2)
That means they take up huge amounts of space in a car (Think the size and shape of an engine block). ... problem solved.
That is why you put them where in a traditional ICE car the engine block is
Re: (Score:2)
You should really have some basic knowledge about a topic before you post. The tanks in FCEVs are typically made from carbon-fiber composite materials. Also, they are not cryo tanks. The hydrogen is stored as a gas under lots of pressure. Not a liquid.
Finally, the Toyota Mirai is actually heavier than a Tesla Model 3 (4078 pounds vs. 4072 pounds).
Re:It does solve for the explosive stuff, generall (Score:5, Informative)
I think the future of hydrogen storage isn't as a gas, but as a solid. Probably adsorbed (stuck to the outside of a substance with extremely high surface area) or intermetallic hydrides (metal/hydrogen matrix) are the best bets.
The best bet for hydrogen storage is as a liquid. Attach those hydrogen atoms to some carbon chains and you have gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, rocket fuel, heating oil, and liquid propane. That destroys it's use in a fuel cell but makes it ideal for so many existing vehicles.
Attach that hydrogen to nitrogen and you get ammonia, which is useful as a liquid fuel (at least liquid under moderate pressures), a fertilizer, and as a precursor to many other useful compounds.
Re: (Score:2)
Basicly, you store protons (light charged particles, and Hydrogen nuclei are just protons) in a reversible way. With the same amount of effort, you could also store electrons (other charged particles, and even lighter). We call cells which store high amounts of electrons in a reversible way accumulator cells, and if you have several of them connected together, you have a battery.
Kubas Manganese Hydride - 1 (Score:2)
A inexpensive to produce solid. Absorbs 10.5% H2 by weight. Absorption is initiated by pressure at about 120 bar, which is easy to build a tank for (less pressure than a scuba tank). Desorption happens when the pressure is reduced. The output gas is H2 of sufficient purity for direct use in a Fuel Cell stack. 10.5% H2 by weight is 4X 700 bar H2 gas and 2.5X liquid H2 cryo storage by volume.
Some things are still unknown. How long the absorption takes. The available endurance (how many times can you ch
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hydrogen! (Score:5, Interesting)
The hydrogen fuel cell car solves all the problems except for the explosive stuff.
No it doesn't.
Hydrogen is not an energy source, but petroleum is. We still need to figure out where this energy comes from for producing the hydrogen, then how to get it to the consumer. We have an already existing infrastructure for distributing electricity, natural gas, and liquid petroleum fuels, the infrastructure for hydrogen is still experimental. There could be an argument made that the electric car charging infrastructure still needs a lot of work but it's still much further along than hydrogen, and with hybrid electrics (gasoline, diesel, natural gas, or whatever internal combustion engine being common on board backup) the issue is largely moot. A hybrid charges up with electricity when it can, and gets a boost from some hydrocarbon when it must.
We don't need petroleum products to run our vehicles, but hydrocarbon fuels are exceedingly convenient fuels. We don't need to drill for oil if we build the infrastructure to synthesize hydrocarbons. I realize that synthesized hydrocarbons are not an energy source either. This brings us to the same problem that hydrogen has, finding an energy source to produce it. We can simply use whatever the plan was to produce hydrogen. The advantage is that we have an already built infrastructure to store, distribute, and dispense these products to the consumers.
Most importantly to using synthesized hydrocarbons is we don't need any new vehicles. Maybe people would like the convenience that electric cars have of being able to charge up at home. We can get that with a hybrid or taking advantage of the built up infrastructure for natural gas and distribute a synthesized stand-in for natural gas on the same lines.
Synthesized hydrocarbon fuels close the carbon loop if the carbon is extracted from the air or from the CO2 dissolved in water. There would be hydrogen produced from cracking it off water but by attaching the hydrogen immediately to a carbon chain the problems of creating a new and separate hydrogen infrastructure evaporates.
I believe we will see a new hydrogen economy. What I envision as this hydrogen economy differs from most because I envision that hydrogen being distributed to the consumers in the form of hydrocarbons. We can experiment a bit with passenger cars, ships at sea, trains, and such but with aircraft it's got to be a hydrocarbon fuel if it's going to be adopted widely any time soon. If we adopt synthesized hydrocarbons then we can make this switch to a carbon neutral energy infrastructure far more quickly, and not have to be concerned about the already solved problems of fuel fires.
Re: (Score:2)
Petroleum is NOT a source. It is STORED and "petrified"
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody cares what some Democratic candidates plans are. Not for five more years, anyhow.
The entirety of the US House and 1/3rd of the US Senate come up for a vote every 2 years. Next year is the primary for the Democrat contender against Trump, and obviously then comes the general election for POTUS.
Maybe nobody cares who the Democrats put up against Trump because they consider Trump unbeatable, and instead are looking towards 2024. If voters want their favorite energy policy to become law then they should care what some Democrats plan to do in office. If they don't care what Democrats thin
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's all about overall efficiency. Mass isn't as important in EVs because of regenerative braking. FCEVs are really FC/B hybrids because they need a battery for regenerative braking. However, with a small battery, regenerative braking will be limited to significantly less than pure BEVs.
FCEVs are not as light as you think and there are some points of horrible inefficiencies involved.
Re:Hydrogen! (Score:5, Informative)
Really?
Toyota Mirai: 4078 pounds
Honda Clarity: 4134 pounds
Tesla Model 3: 4072 pounds.
Last time I looked, 4072 was less than 4078 and 4134.
I pity people who make buying decisions based on bad information. Just where are you going to buy that FCEV that is lighter than a comparable BEV?
Re:Hydrogen! (Score:4, Informative)
.
Tesla Model 3
EPA Interior Volume - 112.0 cu.ft.
Cargo Capacity, All Seats In Place - 15.0 cu.ft.
https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/... [edmunds.com]
Toyota Mirai
EPA Interior Volume - 98.5 cu.ft.
Cargo Capacity, All Seats In Place - 12.8 cu.ft.
https://www.edmunds.com/toyota... [edmunds.com]
Honda Clarity
EPA Interior Volume - 116.0 cu.ft.
Cargo Capacity, All Seats In Place - 14.5 cu.ft.
https://www.edmunds.com/honda/... [edmunds.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You can't even rent it yet.
And comparing a 2-seater to a 5-seat sedan. LOL.
Their concept is interesting, although I suspect that it is not compelling enough to break out of niche usage.
I think they over-state the importance of weight on efficiency. As soon as you take it on the freeway/motorway, air resistance becomes primary.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, but all that re-thinking means that it does not show any benefit of a FCEV over a BEV.
300 miles out of 1.5Kg of H2 isn't actually such good economy for a tiny, slow car. 1.5Kg of H2 is approximately the same amount of energy as would be stored in a battery 2/3 the size of the Model 3. Downsize the Model 3 and you would probably get the same efficiency.
What this car does show is that you can make a highly compromised, small, ultra-efficient car that isn't much use for anything other than local driving, b
Re:Hydrogen! (Score:5, Informative)
You betcha. It overcomes what I detest about today's electrics: The ton or two worth of super-nasty-in-so-many-ways batteries that no one likes to talk about.
Ignoring that you're off by a factor of 2–4, lithium-ion batteries aren't really particularly nasty chemically. And they're also highly recyclable.
It's all about mass. This is the electric option with the least mass. A car with less mass will always be more fun to drive than a heavy pig. Everything gets better. Braking, going, turning, all of it.
That's actually not true. Even if someone built a fuel cell car that was actually lighter than a BEVs (they currently aren't), fuel cells would still have terrible weight distribution compared with BEVs. Like traditional ICE cars, much of the weight in a FCV is up in the front of the car. By contrast, with a BEV, a large chunk of the weight is in a flat pack underneath the passenger compartment. That weight placement matters a great deal in terms of stability.
Lowering the center of gravity results in less weight transfer (changing the load on wheels during acceleration and deceleration), which significantly improves traction, whether you're accelerating, decelerating, or cornering. Also, lowering the center of gravity results in less body roll, which is why the Tesla Model X has the lowest rollover rate of any SUV, despite weighing half again more than most of the others.
Go drive an EV for a week, and I can pretty much guarantee you won't ever want to drive anything else again. Seriously, if you want a car that's fun to drive, has incredible acceleration, great cornering, etc., you shouldn't even consider a FCV or ICE car.
Re:Hydrogen! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Super nasty? You mean long life, highly recyclable and reusable batteries that are environmentally better than fossil fuels?
Re: (Score:3)
You do realise that hydrogen fuelled electric cars use lithium-ion batteries because the fuel cell cannot supply sufficient electrical power for high acceleration. In other words, the fuel cell charges the battery which powers the electric motor(s). The hydrogen electric car is a hybrid car which uses hydrogen instead of petrol (gasoline) to charge the battery. There is a performance + cost race between a hydrogen fuel cell + small lithium-ion battery compared to a big lithium-ion battery used in a pure ele
Re: (Score:2)
Hydrogen cars use a relatively small battery, and that part of the vehicle is cost-effective, and well-understood.
Diesel-electric locomotives were invented because nobody could build a transmission which could handle the load, the end.
Regen Battery in FCEVs (Score:2)
These are very small, but still larger than an ICE hybrid. The Prius regen battery was about 0.5 KWh and it is a NiMH battery (not Lithium Ion). As such, it is fairly large. The Mirai regen battery is 1.5 KWh and is still NiMH (and about the same size as the Prius regen battery). Toyota chose NiMH because these batteries have better "endurance" (charge discharge cycles).
In a full BEV, the regen only uses a tiny range of the battery capacity, so endurance is not determined by regen. In a hybrid, the cha
Re: (Score:2)
Your analysis ignores the peak regeneration power as an issue. With smaller batteries, the peak power rate for charging is lower, which means that a vehicle will only capture a smaller percentage of power under braking. This reduces overall efficiency.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why we normally use high-voltage lithium batteries, high charge rate. The original Honda Insight wasn't particularly high-voltage, but it has a shitload of cells just like we use today. If you use NiMH for regen, you need a lot of cells.
Re: (Score:2)
It's all about mass. This is the electric option with the least mass.
It is more about volume. Compressed hydrogen has about 2 times better volumetric density than lithium-ion batteries. But there are big disadvantages of compressed hydrogen when compared to batteries: it must be stored in cylindrical or spherical containers, it is a high pressure system.
Hydrogen Infrastructure and Efficiency (Score:3)
It overcomes what I detest about today's electrics: The ton or two worth of super-nasty-in-so-many-ways batteries that no one likes to talk about.
Ok so you prefer hydrogen. Fair enough. Have you solved the fueling infrastructure problem yet? No? Come back and we'll discuss it when you have an economically realistic solution.
You do realize these are electric cars, right? They don't burn the hydrogen, they turn it into electricity and you get back water you can drink.
How do you think that hydrogen is normally obtained? It's obtained primarily by reforming/gasification of fossil fuels when they are burned. You seem to be turning a blind eye to that fact and it's not a clean process. Much dirtier than the batteries you seem to have a fixation on.
It's all about mass. This is the electric option with the least mass. A car with less mass will always be more fun to drive than a heavy pig. Everything gets better. Braking, going, turning, all of it.
It's not all about mass. It's all about eco
Re: (Score:2)
My cheap leaf has an 80 mile range and it's never been a problem. If you drove a 300 mile commute, you would be doing it wrong.
FCEV Range (Score:2)
Actually, the AC poster is exactly on point.
I drive from south Orange County California to San Francisco. I am a "paranoid" range related driver. If the car has less than 100 miles available, I am concerned.
I fill in Playa Del Ray or West LA on the way north. Make a quick stop midway at Harris Ranch (Colalinga). Fill in San Jose and drive on that tank for days around the Bay Area. Repeat on the way south.
The tech does work. The fueling infrastructure needs to get better, but it will.
The safety issues
In other news -- Santa Clara (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/ba... [sfchronicle.com]
SF Bay Area Toyota Mirai owners have nowhere to refuel.
Re: (Score:2)
Musk is just dealing with the competition.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Go here:
https://cafcp.org/stationmap [cafcp.org]
then click on the individual stations.
I should note that the Mountain View station to be online, but I suspect that this isn't true. Every other station in the area is offline due to lack of supply. It's unlikely that one station has its own supply.
Red state tested (Score:2, Insightful)
"The hydrogen tanks themselves are so robust that you can shoot them with a gun without knocking them." #Red state tested
this is bad news (Score:1)
for all twelve people clinging desperately to the past
hydrogen is dead
Hydrogen is insane! (Score:2)
The ridiculous infrastructure to produce and support it is even crazier. It's Rube Goldberg at his best.
Re:Hydrogen is insane! (Score:5, Interesting)
really? less crazy than catalytic cracking we use to make gasoline? Don't see that, even making hydrogen from hydrocarbons makes half the pollution.
You are way behind research on producing hydrogen (Score:5, Interesting)
Or you generate it by electrolysis.
Or, in the future one of the many alternative means of hydrogen production is used... like biomass production [sciencedirect.com], which as a byproduct produces fertilizer that helps pay for the conversion process.
As for transport if the means of hydrogen production is simpler you need transport it less distance than gas is today, and you don't need too many stations around for fuel cell vehicles to be able to find fuel almost anywhere. We already store natural gas in a ton of places which is not vastly different in concept for storage - there are also lot of potential options [energy.gov] for easier storage of hydrogen.
People are super focused on how hydrogen is to use now, without thinking "what will be possible in 20 years".
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
industrial scale electrolysis loses half the energy you could get back though. Some recent developments currently only at lab scale devices may make it a much better deal with only 30 percent or less loss
Re: (Score:2)
Or you generate it by electrolysis. But then you still have the problem of storage and/or transport.
If you generate H2 by electrolysis, you can make it on-demand, and neither storage nor transport is needed. Just electricity and water. You can generate it in your garage, and refill overnight.
Re: (Score:2)
Without a technological breakthrough, your suggestion is horribly inefficient. Firstly, there is the inefficiency involved in H2 via electrolysis, then, there is all the energy wasted in compressing the H2. It might be possible to recover the energy used in compressing the gas, but this is only going to be practical i
Re: (Score:2)
there is all the energy wasted in compressing the H2.
Electrolysis can be done under pressure, so no compressing is needed.
Re: (Score:2)
Again, it still takes more energy. The H2 needs to be compressed to 10k psi.
Ultra-high-pressure electrolysis is unlikely to be practical and economic at household scale.
Re: (Score:2)
Again, it still takes more energy.
Generating under pressure takes far less energy than generating under low pressure and then compressing, because in the the latter case much of the energy is lost as heat. You will end up with very hot compressed H2, and then you need to dispose of the waste heat, and you will also lose pressure at it cools.
Re: (Score:2)
your suggestion is horribly inefficient. Firstly, there is the inefficiency involved in H2 via electrolysis, then, there is all the energy wasted in compressing the H2
No it is not.
Wikipedia or google is your friend.
Re: (Score:2)
The ridiculous infrastructure to produce and support it is even crazier. It's Rube Goldberg at his best.
So was the gasoline infrastructure. What, you think the corner gas station just happened? Always there?
Can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. If you people truly want to get off "fossil" and "non-renewable" then you're gonna have to start cookin'. Batteries are not the answer, they're just a cheap cop-out. A temporary phase. We'll grow out of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Please explain how Hydrogen FCEVs get society off "fossil" and "non-renewable".
Re: (Score:2)
Well, our local train company has ordered several fuel cell multiple units as a replacement of diesel ones, until the route is electrified in 15 years or so, or maybe never because there is a very low bridge on the route, so an overhead line won't fit.
Re: (Score:2)
There are a whole range of options from track lowering, demolishing and rebuild to jacking it up even if it is a brick or stone arch bridge and track lowering is now possible.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, apparently it is more expensive and time consuming than ordering hydrogen trains.
And yep, brick bridges and tunnels [wikipedia.org]. Very rural, these railway lines between Frankfurt am Main and small towns and villages in the Taunus mountain range to the north and west of the city. But also close to one of the largest industrial parks of Germany with its hydrogen infrastructure already on site.
Re: (Score:2)
Currently on vacation in Japan, I get the impression that the Japanese would not take any crap from a brick bridge. The train gets priority. The bridge would get adjusted to accommodate the train.
Re: (Score:2)
They could use an electric train with some battery onboard to handle short sections where there's no room for a catenary wire. The contractors are retractable.
Re: (Score:2)
Beware, battery-electric trains are soon to be a thing... again...
https://electrek.co/2018/09/14... [electrek.co]
Lithium batteries rule (Score:5, Interesting)
See Youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] tldr; Tesla Model 3 (Lithium batteries) costs between 2 to 2.4 cents per km. Toyota Mirai (Hydrogen Fuel Cell) 17.7 cents per km. The approx 15 minute video goes into deep detail backing up the calculations.
Re: (Score:2)
Hydrogen is just for people who can't overcome their range anxiety or who have been brainwashed by anti-EV media. It's also great for car manufacturers who missed the EV boat and want an alternative they can patent up and develop their own tech for.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hydrogen is for military use, if you have nuke-powered ships sitting around supporting a battle then you have assets devaluing. Might as well use them to produce fuel. If you're doing all your fighting in proxy wars in deserts, then the water output of the fuel cell becomes a significant benefit. GM produced the tech for military use (which is why their demo vehicles thus far have been mostly military vehicles - even the pickup they did got a military flavor) but there's no reason why they wouldn't try to s
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm, if an electric Tesla Model X can pull a semi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
then maybe it could pull a boat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Perhaps a plane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The nice thing about the boat video is that it still manages to accelerate and overtake like crazy while going up a mountain towing a boat.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the silly videos prove electric vehicles can pull a trailer
Re: (Score:2)
The guy in the boat video used to earn money towing stuff around Norway. He left his job and just towed stuff around and made youtube videos. He did it for a couple of years. I think his car can still pull stuff or at least he never mentioned a problem.
The Tesla is expensive, I'll grant you but as this was a response to the "EV cars can not be used to pull a trailer" statement above it probably isn't relevant. Now other EV's can pull stuff too but not as much as the Model X
Re: (Score:2)
2nd City TV (Score:2)
Hydrogen was always a dumb idea (Score:2)
The question is why Toyota is pursuing this techological dead end and the only reason I can think is to spread FUD. Toyota's have long said they are developing soli
Re: (Score:3)
Producing H2 by electrolysis is ~60-80% efficient. The fuel cell to convert it back to electricity is around 40-60% efficient, so the total system efficiency is ~35%*, which is worse than a battery system that has around 80% charging efficiency. We can assume the H2 system is a factor 2 or 3 less efficient than the battery system. 6x is way off.
Hydrogen for transportation is for this reason not really in competition with batteries (Unless we just cannot produce enough batteries which is a real concern). Hyd
Re: (Score:3)
BTW that 50kWh figure comes from a spokesman for Nel Hydrogen [pv-magazine.com] whose Norwegian plant just went all kablooey.
Re: (Score:2)
You should re-google your numbers, because: all are wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
it would something like 6x the energy to split / capture to run a car with the same range as an EV.
No, it is roughly twice as much, not six.
Electrolysis is ~70% efficient, a fuel cell is about ~70% efficient (hydrogen fuel cells actually more), that leads to ~50% efficiency. Get regenerative breaking like in a true EV and you get quite close to a EV.
Re: (Score:2)
Aside from that it doesn't scale well either. Either you electrolyse on site and produce a pathetic a
There go my dreams of buying (Score:2)
I like ICEs (Score:2)
Yeah, I know. A battery and electric motor has very few moving parts and instant torque blah blah. But I like mechanical things. I like reciprocating engines for the same reason I prefer mechanical watches to battery operated quartz ones. I'm fine with the majority of people who think of cars as appliances driving BEVs, but hydrogen is probably going to be the future replacement for gasoline for people who like nice things.
I would have loved (but could not afford) one of these a dozen years ago - https: [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There have been successful "green" solutions, it's just that solar power, hydrogen as a fuel, and electric vehicles are not among them.
What has been successful has been wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear. Wind makes economic sense in many places, off shore is rarely one of those places. Hydroelectric power has been successful as an energy source for centuries, as a source of electricity since electric lights, and more recently as an energy storage solution. Nuclear power has been successful for decades, ag
Re: (Score:2)
Great Britain has plenty of wind in the North Sea which has a relatively high sea bed. Massive winds turbines have been erected in off-shore wind farms in the North Sea. The UK government did provide some minimal financial assistance and this off-shore wind power is cost competitive against other energy sources. More off-shore wind farms are being planned.
Unfortunately, the UK government does not support on-shore wind and solar which is short-sighted of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Solar has been successful in spite of the historical lack of funding. If it'd had the same kind of government subsidies all along as nuclear, even if it didn't develop any faster, we'd still have absolute craptons of it installed by now.
Wind, hydro, and nuclear don't NEED government money
Wind doesn't. Hydro does; it needs eminent domain. Nuclear does; it needs to be insured by government, because no private insurer will cover it. And nuclear plant decommissioning costs always exceed estimates, and the difference winds up being covered by the taxpayer.
Re: (Score:2)
You've got to be kidding on digging up a 10 year old article to make your point. I did a search on that same website for "nuclear power" to find something more current, and here's the first two results:
https://www.hoover.org/press-r... [hoover.org]
https://www.policyed.org/intel... [policyed.org]
Hoover Institution did a complete 180 on nuclear power since that article you gave was first published. They now consider nuclear power an essential part of a plan on meeting our goals of a carbon neutral energy policy.
Jimmy Carter last studi
Re: (Score:2)
Umm... I said that in many climates it is worse than coal, which last I checked was neither oil nor gas. The fact that oil and gas are horrible is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
Put another way, if hydro is green merely because it is less bad than other things that are clearly not green, then similarly I must be a professional football player because I am better at it than a toddler. As
Re: (Score:3)
That would be Å menneskeheten!
Re: (Score:2)
The US has 114,000 petrol stations, and 39 hydrogen stations. I can't find world numbers, but presumably the ratio is similar: about 3000 petrol stations for each hydrogen station. It's thus 3000x more concerning when a hydrogen fueling station explodes.
Re:Hydrogen is not an energy source. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no more excuses. It's nuclear power or the lights go out.
Yep. I'd rather the lights stay on.
Right now these shuttered coal and nuclear plants are being replaced with natural gas. Since the majority has been coal so far we've seen our CO2 output go down in the USA. If that starts to flip to a majority of nuclear being replaced by natural gas then any future hydrogen (or electric) cars will increase our CO2 output.
We will need to double the rate of new nuclear capacity from our peak in the 1970s and 1980s just to break even. That means one gigawatt per month of new nuclear. Again, that's just breaking even.
We had better get started real soon.
Re: (Score:2)
A Tesla carries a 1400 pound battery pack. A fuel cell car carries a pack that is about 500 pounds.
The fuel cell itself is about 100 pounds and is typically about 15 Kw output for a 20 PSI gas input.
The fiber reinforced plastic tank holds about 5 Kilos of compressed H2 gas at 5000 PSI.
5000 PS!!!!! Oh no! That's high pressure!!!!! SCUBA tanks are 3000 PSI .
Rocky Mountain Institute did fuel leak testing on LPG, gasoline and hydrogen. LPG and gas blew the test cars apart. The hydrogen car was damaged but
Re: (Score:2)
...With a side dose of VERY high temperatures and hard radiation .
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to refill at home, just an electric vehicle. Plug it in, recharge overnight. No new equipment required.