Toyota's Prototype 'Cartridge' Is a Way To Make Hydrogen Portable (engadget.com) 223
Toyota and its subsidiary Woven Planet have unveiled a new portable cartridge prototype for hydrogen. "The idea is that they can be filled up at a dedicated facility, transported where needed, then returned when you receive your next shipment," reports Engadget. From the report: The cartridges would be relatively small at 16 inches long, 7 inches in diameter and about 11 pounds in weight. Toyota calls them "portable, affordable, and convenient energy that makes it possible to bring hydrogen to where people live, work, and play without the use of pipes.. [and] swappable for easy replacement and quick charging."
They could be useful for "mobility [i.e. hydrogen cars], household applications, and many future possibilities we have yet to imagine," Toyota said. It didn't mention any specific uses, but it said that "one hydrogen cartridge is assumed to generate enough electricity to operate a typical household microwave for approximately 3-4 hours."
In its press release, Toyota acknowledges that most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels and so not exactly green. But it thinks that it'll be generated with low carbon emissions in the future, and that the cartridges could help with some of the infrastructure issues. Toyota plans to test that theory by conducting proof of concept trials in various places, including its "human-centered smart city of the future," Woven City in Susono City, Zhizuoka Prefecture in Japan. The company is also "working to build a comprehensive hydrogen-based supply chain aimed at expediting and simplifying production, transport, and daily usage," it said.
They could be useful for "mobility [i.e. hydrogen cars], household applications, and many future possibilities we have yet to imagine," Toyota said. It didn't mention any specific uses, but it said that "one hydrogen cartridge is assumed to generate enough electricity to operate a typical household microwave for approximately 3-4 hours."
In its press release, Toyota acknowledges that most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels and so not exactly green. But it thinks that it'll be generated with low carbon emissions in the future, and that the cartridges could help with some of the infrastructure issues. Toyota plans to test that theory by conducting proof of concept trials in various places, including its "human-centered smart city of the future," Woven City in Susono City, Zhizuoka Prefecture in Japan. The company is also "working to build a comprehensive hydrogen-based supply chain aimed at expediting and simplifying production, transport, and daily usage," it said.
DOA (Score:4, Insightful)
Despite investing billions into making hydrogen fuel cells a more attractive option than batteries, Toyota has already admitted defeat. Hydrogen simply isn't a viable path forward without an absurd influx of excess suuuper cheap electrical power. However, by the time that happens, solid state lithium batteries will have already hit the market, so they'll still be a technological failure.
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Despite investing billions into making hydrogen fuel cells
Sure, but they aren't stupid: The money spent came from Japanese taxpayers.
Mobility? Let's do the math (Score:5, Interesting)
If it can run a microwave for 3-4 hours, that's somewhere in the 1000 - 1200 watts, about 1.5 horsepower. Similar to an entry-level motor scooter. They would really need to scale this up for a car, otherwise the range will be pitiful
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Yes, but, how many pizza slices can you nuke in 3-4 hours?
Also what would one pizza slice look like after a 3-4 hour nuke?
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What kind of monster warms pizza in a microwave?
Re:Mobility? Let's do the math (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, round up and call this cartridge 5kWh. A gallon of gas (which weighs about 7 lbs) is worth somewhere around 30-35 kWh, IIRC. If you figure an ideal small engine is about 30% efficient at extracting that energy, you get about 10 kWh out of a gallon of gas, give or take.
And you have to take cartridge cylinder back to a station, which transports it back to a fill plant and back to the station? This is pretty horrible. Why would Toyota be proud to display a prototype container that is handily beat by a lowly propane cylinder? I guess because it looks like Apple designed it? What a joke.
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They are already getting onboard,
Toyota Selects North Carolina Greensboro-Randolph Site for New U.S. Automotive Battery Plant [toyota.com]
Toyota Launches All-New bZ4X SUV Battery-Electric Vehicle [toyota.com]
$44-48k, 252 miles. Not amazing by any stretch but I think they know where the winds are blowing...
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That works out to about 30 of these giving you about a 300 mile range in a typical electric car. About 330 lbs for the cannisters. Unknown weight for the fuel cell, but probably 200-300 lbs, then maybe a 50 mile range battery. Overall, probably slightly less weight than a typical electric car battery. I'm assuming that the cannisters would go into some sort of loader that would load up one at a time to feed to the fuel cell, maybe with a small intermediate tank to even out flow while the cannisters automat
So, basically, they invented the welding tank? (Score:4, Funny)
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No. Hydrogen storage is much, much harder.
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No, because hydrogen is the smallest element. Containing it within much larger elements is effectively impossible. It will always leak. Its atoms are just too small not to.
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So extra super duper welding tank? How many "extra"s do we need here?
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So extra super duper welding tank? How many "extra"s do we need here?
Ten. As they say, a problem an order of magnitude different is a different problem.
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"Containing it within much larger elements is effectively impossible."
The water in the lakes, rivers, and oceans, and all those hydrocarbon chains under the ground would like to have a word with you.
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Yes, that's the only way realistically to make hydrogen manageable - bond the hydrogen atoms to a larger atom. Oxygen isn't a good choice, as it needs more energy to unbind than you'd get from the hydrogen. Carbon works - bond four hydrogens to a carbon, and the gas becomes much easier to contain. Bond a chain of about four carbons, you can even make it a liquid. Take it up to about eight or so, it will be a liquid anyway. And you've just reinvented compressed natural gas, LPG, and petrol. Incidentally, nit
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Yes, but you can't stop at the first law. The first law of thermodynamics says that energy can't be destroyed. But that doesn't mean that you can use it, as the second law says that entropy increases. If you try to "burn" water by splitting the hydrogen from the oxygen then burning the hydrogen, you will end up with less usable energy than you started with - and some useless heat escaping to the environment. The energy hasn't been destroyed, but it is no longer accessible for you to use, so in practical ter
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Also, since you mention it, if what you're saying is true, then designing valves and seals for a hydrogen containment vessel of any sort would be extremely difficult, more difficult than designing the rest of the vessel, since H2 would want to squeak by just abo
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I think steel does contain it, but in order to get a useful amount in a tank, you have to go to extreme pressures (10'000 psi) or cryogenic storage (at around 20K). Using some chemical binding gets around both problems, because both approaches are not really possible in a small tank. For comparison, liquid propane needs 200 psi or so and liquid Oxygen apparently needs around 400 psi.
But I have not really looked at the details. No idea how much leakage or valves are a problem.
They keep trying to make it happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't clear to me why this makes sense. Can anyone speak the the following?
1. I thought one of the advantages of hydrogen is that it was fast fill compared to BEV. So is swapping out these high-pressure canisters really going to give much improvement over established hydrogen fill?
2. So if you are going to swap out fuel carriers, why not do that with regular solid-state batteries? I realize that this didn't catch on for passenger cards for various reasons, one of which was that people didn't like the idea of trading in their batteries for potentially inferior ones on a regular basis. But a commercial truck fleet operator would have a different attitude about that.
3. As the article states, hydrogen is already not green and is not efficent use of energy, so wouldn't this add transport costs on top of what it has to carry already? Wouldn't it be better to just manufacture hydrogen at the point of load?
I really don't get why so much money is being put into making hydrogen happen. For my money, it ain't gonna happen.
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I really don't get why so much money is being put into making hydrogen happen.
1. Hydrogen sorta made some sense 30 years ago when batteries were way worse than they are today.
2. The funding comes from the Japanese government. Politicians don't grok the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
3. Japan has a consensus-focused society so no one wants to stick their neck out and say that the emperor has no clothes.
For my money, it ain't gonna happen.
Well, it isn't your money, so don't worry.
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My understanding is that Hydrogen technology is "just another battery"
Correct. Hydrogen is basically just a horribly inefficient battery technology that destroys everything it touches (embrittles metal, degrades seals and gaskets).
oh the humanity! (Score:2)
oh the humanity!
Well, there is another hydrogen tech... (Score:2)
...which is even cooler. Was blocked by the government because it was too "disruptive" but now it seems the "man" gave it the OK.
Solid Hydrogen [youtube.com]
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Trying to have a intelligent conversation with angel'o'idiot is like trying play chess with a pigeon. All he will do is upset the pieces, shit on the board, and then strut around like he won the game.
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An you are doing a damn good job of it. There is no questions here about that. I mean you got a quote by Greta Thunberg in your signature. If that doesn't prove the point, then nothing else will.
Very relatable. (Score:2)
"one hydrogen cartridge is assumed to generate enough electricity to operate a typical household microwave for approximately 3-4 hours."
Very relatable example.
Surprised they didn't go with 'can charge X Zunes'.
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The typical household microwave is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 watts.
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Hydrogen batteries?? (Score:2)
And? (Score:3)
Like a lot of hydrogen solutions they are a solution in search of a problem.
The hydrogen comes from oil and gas (Score:5, Insightful)
It is has really been disappointing to watch the once strong and innovative Japanese in continuous decline for the last 30 years. Toyota and Honda had hybrid EVs in the late 90s FFS - they had a head start on Tesla of over a decade and threw it away.
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It is has really been disappointing to watch the once strong and innovative Japanese in continuous decline for the last 30 years. Toyota and Honda had hybrid EVs in the late 90s FFS - they had a head start on Tesla of over a decade and threw it away.
As I've commented before, Toyota was an early investor in Tesla, and basically sold them the Fremont factory for cheap because they believed in Tesla so much. But then the Toyota boss had a falling out with Musk and they've been pushing this hydrogen thing ever since. Knowing a bit about how Japanese business culture works, and egos in general, it would not surprise me if this entire loss of opportunity is due to a personal hatred of Musk.
However, I believe Panasonic is still the main battery partner for Te
So, 10-ish miles of range per pod? (Score:2)
Back of the envelope calculation: EVs gain range of 3-4 miles per hour of charge at 120v / 12-15 amps. Microwaves draw about 10 amps. So running a microwave for 3-4 hours equates to maybe 10 miles of EV range out of one of these tanks. So you'd need to carry around 40 tanks, weighing 440 pounds, to get 400 miles of range, and since it's hydrogen, you'd likely need additional heavy framing around the area where the tanks are stored.
Put the fuel cell in the cartridge (Score:3)
Put the fuel cell in the cartridge, and if you can deliver that at reasonable cost you might actually have something: a better battery.
Of course it wouldn't recharge from the grid like a normal battery. It'd be competing with the delivery of primary cells for powering vehicles, which is pretty much a non-existent market vs. H2 which is just barely existing. IIRC, there were some proposals to use zinc pellets in cars, which would produce electricity while transforming in to zinc oxide which could then be pumped back out and re-processed. The zinc cycle isn't energetic enough though, and we're stuck with the same problem of delivering chemicals vs. delivering electricity.
It's really hard to compete with the grid that delivers energy already and simply needs "more of the same" to power all vehicles vs. "a lot of something different".
Bad energy density (Score:2)
"Can run a microwave for 4 hours" is a bit vague, but it should be around half a liter of gasoline, or 2-4 12v car batteries. In 18650 li-ion cells it's much better, about 300-500 of them.
Maintaining control (Score:2)
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This whole push to Hydrogen just stink of businesses investing to maintain control of a commodity that can be restricted and controlled by a few big players like the current OPEC cartel do.
...because electrochemical water splitting is a huge trade secret? They literally teach the process to high school students.
Rechargable batteries allow too much democratic and uncontrolled usage of energy.
Lithium is far from well-distributed, and the electricity to charge it is still most commonly coal, gas, oil, or even uranium...not exactly 'democratic'.
3.3KwH / 5Kg gas only (Score:3)
its 3.3KWh / 5Kg, which is about 2X production Li Ion batteries. They don't specifiy what fuel cell efficiency they are assuming.
This is tank only, and doesn't include the valve weight, OR the fuel cell to convert. So its not a fair comparison with batteries .
Producing hydrogen is not very efficient, and transporting these cells will cost energy and labor.
I don't see an obvious application that isn't better served by batteries. For a car, swapping out a dozen of these every day at a service station seems like a lot of work vs, just charging your electric car. If you really need > 300 mile range, maybe... but they we are talking about swapping at least 50X units. Its possible they are slightly better for aircraft, but when you add the weight of the (high power) fuel cell and the certification issues, it seems like a long shot.
Hydrogen is great for high delta-V upper stage rockets, but not much else.
What's new about... (Score:2)
Nice (Score:2)
"The cartridges would be relatively small at 16 inches long, 7 inches in diameter and about 11 pounds in weight. "
So they'll fit in dildos?
Thank god.
Only 3000wh? (Score:2)
"one hydrogen cartridge is assumed to generate enough electricity to operate a typical household microwave for approximately 3-4 hours."
Assuming they mean a 1000w or less microwave, this means that this cart holds around 3000wh of energy.
The dimensions of this thing are not published, but it looks MASSIVE. FAR FAR larger than the lithium ion batteries needed to store 3000wh. It may be lighter though (again who knows since it is not published).
TL;DR what was the point of this when you can just use batteries
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I see that the other article did publish the size. However my comments still stand - it is way larger than the equivalent LiON battery. Lighter though - but not very relevant.
Any word on the storage mechanism? (Score:2)
the devil is in the details (Score:2)
based on the assumption of using a future iteration, high-pressure hydrogen tank with an electricity output of approximately 3.3 kWh/unit
Soo they hope to develop these tanks some day....
But let's assume they do and look at the numbers. With the specs posted, the energy density works out at 325 Wh/L (same as LiFePo4) and 660 Wh/kg (3x times than LiFePo4) for a single tank. Multi-tank systems will have lower values, as you have to include the 'pack' volume and weight then....
All of this for a system that most likely won't be possible to be charged at home overnight. I don't see the point, really.
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Big trucks are 23 percent our fuel use, trains 3 percent. Not the part of the pie to worry about. Cars, motorcycles, light trucks are the big fish at 58 percent.
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Not that it is a competition with electric, hydrogen is a battery competitor not an electric competitor and there is definitely nothing green about lithium batteries. There are some distinct advantages here, not the least of which is weight.
Re: I keep hoping... (Score:2)
Re:I keep hoping... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone see hydrogen getting serious attention as an alternative?
Hydrogen got serious attention from GWB and other fossil fuel industry advocates as a way of spreading FUD to delay the adoption of BEVs. But that battle is lost and H2O has way too many disadvantages to be taken seriously.
Toyota continues to advocate it only because they get big subsidies from Japanese taxpayers. When the subsidies run out, common sense will prevail.
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Looking at how much energy is stored in that canister, I might be able to run an air conditioner from a generator about two hours and some change (assuming 1500 watts used per hour) The same volume filled with gasoline would last significantly longer.
I don't understand the push for hydrogen. Why not a more stable and safer fuel like ethanol, synthetic diesel, or propane? All of those have far more energy per volume, require a simpler containing system, and can be used with some type of fuel cell.
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I don't understand the push for hydrogen.
Hint: Nobody pushing for hydrogen is spending their own money.
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Well that's not true; The fossil fuel industry that controls the natural gas supply which would end up being the source of hydrogen should it be widely adopted is certainly spending a lot of their own money to maintain their monopoly control of the fuel supply...
(And before anyone chimes in with some nonsense about hydrolysis - yeah in theory we could do that but we all know that ain't gonna happen as long as there's cheap natural gas to exploit)
=Smidge=
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I don't understand the push for hydrogen.
Most of the people pushing it are trying to delay the adoption of battery-electric cars.
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Keep your BEVs. They are great for high trust societies like Europe where you won't be accosted by addicts on every street corner, or be robbed at knifepoint
Thanks to Brussels' trusting attitude toward "refugees, " this is changing fast. And in gun-free Europe, you can't fight back.
Re: I keep hoping... (Score:3)
I kind of like my EV because I almost never need to charge it in a public space, and when I do it's on a well lit and monitored highway rest stop.
I spend far less time public charging my EV, and never am forced to in a high crime area (not that I've ever had to in a gas station either).
It's only on days of extreme driving that I need to public charge at all.
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I see you live in Fox News fantasy land.
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The thought of hydrogen being unsafe is a myth that has been put to bed many times. In many instances using hydrogen as a fuel would be safer than just about anything else. Yes, I know some of you now have pictures of the Hindenburg going up in flame a hundred years ago. Well hydrogens roll in that event is greatly over blown and that was a 100 years ago. We have much better materials and technology to store hydrogen in now.
But the rest of your post is spot on. When compared to alternatives, hydrog
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There is a even longer list of people being killed by gasoline explosions but yet it has been declared safe for use.
There is a even longer list of people being killed by electric shocks but yet is has been declared safe for use.
There is a even longer list of people being killed while taking a shower but yet it has been declared safe to take a shower.
There is even longer list of people who have been killed while having sex but it has been declared safe to do the mattress mambo.
There is a even long
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It also turns out that our national gas grid (in the Netherlands) can be converted to hydrogen with minimal e
Re: I keep hoping... (Score:2)
Are modern heating systems really so bad?
I've never lived in a house with a boiler under 20 years old, my current one is 50+ (the home inspector estimates it's from the late 50s).
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Hydrogen is 8x more explosive than natural gas (at 40% mixture with air). Combine this with how difficult it is to keep pure hydrogen from leaking and the resulting safety profile is far from comparable to natural gas.
Using 50% hydrogen/50% natural gas would work (you'd get something comparable to coal gas, where heavier hydrocarbons act as explosion retardant). However doing so would not eliminate CO2 and methane emissions, only cut em in half.
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"GWB"?
George W. Bush, who was president of the United States at the time he advocated for hydrogen to slow the adoption of BEVs.
"H2O"?
I meant to type "H2". My fingers reflexively added the "O". Although I was technically correct: H2O is a terrible fuel.
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I keep hoping for hydrogen to get a foothold, because I don't see battery EVs working for trucking, rail or recreation vehicles.
What? You must be blind then or deliberately looking away:
1. Trucking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2. https://www.wired.com/story/ba... [wired.com]
3. https://www.theverge.com/2022/... [theverge.com]
AN these are just some references. Seriously, look around before shooting your mouth off.
Re:I keep hoping... (Score:5, Informative)
Ah yes, the myth of the electric truck. That magical thing that somehow solves the weight problem of the batteries, and isn't so insanely heavy at any even remotely reasonable range, that it would rapidly destroy road surface it drives on and would be illegal pretty much everywhere where there are weight limits on trucks.
Which is most of the world, including pretty much entire developed world.
There's a reason why Tesla semi is not coming, and why everyone else who tried to do the same thing also quietly killed their efforts under the umbrella of "we're still working on it".
I would indeed recommend following your own advice, and looking into it using math, rather than wikipedia and clickbait outlets, things that are fundamentally allergic to math. Things to look at: battery weight to vehicle weight and range ratios, legal limits on weight of trucks, both for the total and per axle. Tesla semi for example is impossible as suggested because it's both too heavy on tractor axles and even if you move batteries all around the trailer to mitigate and somehow succeed, it becomes basically useless because it has very little weight capacity left for payload.
If you're just far too lazy, you can also google the countless videos and articles done on Tesla semi and electric trucking in general that instead of hyping it up actually do the math.
The solution to trucks is trains (Score:2)
In Australia, most freight between capital cities goes by truck because it is just too hard to use trains. That is mainly a management issue. Technically, containers can be moved quickly and easily between trucks and trains.
Short haul is a different matter, but also more suited to electric.
Hydrogen is for the fairies. Way to inefficient and difficult.
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But, I think, they will not continue to be too heavy forever. The energy density has been doubling every seven years and the cost is halving every seven years. And the switch over from diesel to batteries will not be sudden, will not be for all use cases at the same time.
Trucking fleets with their own charging infrastructure is likely to switch first. Again not all the 80,000 lb trucks all at once. There are a lot of bu
Re:I keep hoping... (Score:5, Informative)
Don't keep the batteries inside the mega truck (Score:3)
That magical thing that somehow solves the weight problem of the batteries, and isn't so insanely heavy at any even remotely reasonable range, that it would rapidly destroy road surface it drives on and would be illegal pretty much everywhere where there are weight limits on trucks.
On the other hand, the very heavy mega-trucks tend to follow very specific routes.
You wouldn't necessarily need to take the energy for the whole end-to-end trip in a single battery pack.
As the route is known and very predictable, it should be possible to swap batteries at regular stops along the typical routes.
Also the shorter the interval between stops, the less mass of battery you need to pack in the long mega truck, leaving a larger fraction of the mass for the payload.
In fact, as the routes are very pre
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There is no problem that a electric truck will solve that a modern diesel engine and a cleaner fuel can't do better. Contrariety to what people think, there is nothing wrong with the internal combustion engine. The problem lies in the fuel we have chosen to feed it.
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There are in fact several problems. Easiest one is reliability. Electric is far simpler and therefore far less maintenance intensive and suffers less downtime. There are several others, ranging from superior torque, which actually matters when pulling heavy loads to ability to distribute it easily on per wheel basis, as has been done for a long time in mining haulers. Those are typically powered by a diesel generator spinning inverter which feeds power to four in-wheel mounted electric engines. Even after a
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Internal combustion engines when subject, like anything else, to regular maintenance are extremely reliable and have a indefinite lifespan. If you don't do any maintenance to a electric car it too will break down.
It is also not true that electric is far simpler than a ICE. A ICE can be as simple as a lawnmower engine. Something anyone with above room temperature IQ, basic tools, and trial an error can fix. Even the simplest electric, depending on the failure, can be impossible to fix with out specia
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On maintenance point when ICE needs regular maintenance often and electric doesn't, the winner is self evident.
You lost the argument right there. All complex machines, ie cars, be it electrical or ICE need regular maintenance.
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There's a reason why Tesla semi is not coming
But the Tesla Semi is coming. Tesla didn't want to make it until they had 4680 cell production working at large scale.
Right now they have 4680 cell production working at small scale and have released a very few Tesla Semis.
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/12/14/pre-production-tesla-semi-tractors-emerge-from-gigafactory-1/ [cleantechnica.com]
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/tesla-semi-production-on-hold-until-company-can-make-its-own-batteries.html [cnbc.com]
Tesla announced that the Semi is expec
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You can buy these and they get used, at least in Europe.
Trucks are more short-haul and delivery phase or city-area use as reach is still a bit low: https://www.scania.com/group/e... [scania.com]
Trains are in productive testing. The issue with trains is to pack the batteries in, not the electric driving: https://www.railway-technology... [railway-technology.com]
Always plenty of people that cry "Impossible!" on anything new because their tiny minds cannot deal with change.
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It makes sense in a world where electricity is in such abundance that the efficency doesn't matter. In a future where we possibly have so much excess renewable energy (or more likely in a farther off future where fusion exists) we can crack water on the cheap or we've displaced so much natural gas for power generation and heating that it makes more sense to reform it into hydrogen for use bases batteries can't deal with.
In my opinion hydrogen is super neat but not viable now or in the near future. Questi
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This is not happening. Pressure systems needed to keep hydrogen in are heavy, while hydrogen is far worse than kerosene in terms of energy density. Hydrogen is not a future of aircraft.
Neither are batteries, unless we discover a way to make lithium-air work. That's the fusion power of battery chemistries. It's perpetually 20 years away, just like fusion power on Earth's surface is perpetually 50 years away.
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This is why airbus are looking at liquid H2 rather than pressurised. The weight is much less and you can still power a jet.
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In that hypothetical world, it makes more sense to use the abundant energy to capture carbon from the atmosphere and bind it into a fuel that is easier to store and transport than hydrogen.
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If the process in question is expecting to get some carbon from the fuel(as with some areas of steel production) you either need to adjust the process or just make an exception; but as a carbonless alternative in a case where you'd normally want a natural gas flame or similar it has its points.
Re: I keep hoping... (Score:2)
It has a few big things going for it. 1) you can make your gas engine run on it today by feeding it into air intake, (but bad for engine longer term, so modifications needed to fuel /car) 2) 1kg will fuel same as 2.2 kg of gas, so super energy dense, light swaps at gas station. 30lbs= full tank. 3) price quoted here is $5.60 kg, if still true, beats gas in some places:
https://askinglot.com/can-i-ma... [askinglot.com]
4) is transitional fuel with easy green production or get from natgas well, and it can be mixed with natgas
Not this again. (Score:2)
No, its terrible for IC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Not this again. (Score:2)
The main issues are safe storage, NOx, price. It can be stabilized to safe solid forms with heat released gas, and with gas prices so high, the price equation changes. Cars that run both gas and H2 IC have been done:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
But with fuel cells the efficiencies are even higher, so with low gas prices they were abandoned. (2005-2007 for beamer)
I think the fuel cell mpk improvements are mostly because electric cars are simply superior with regen braking. But the point is, if we are hea
Re: Not this again. (Score:2)
And btw, based on todays gas price, the price per mile for gas and hydrogen for the BMW are comparable, though back then the gas was way cheaper.
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I keep hoping for hydrogen to get a foothold, because I don't see battery EVs working for trucking, rail or recreation vehicles.
People used to say the same about EV and hybrids like Tesla or Prius. Heck, there were people who said the same about combustion engines (an extreme example) or, not too long ago, how e-commerce was a pipe dream.
Current battery tech doesn't work for trucking or rail. Current tech, that is. Tech just simply keeps overcoming obstacles.
In the extreme heavyweight case of rails, batteries don't need to be the primary source of power. It can simply be a supplemental source of power for running things inside
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The problem is that best battery tech has been lithium ion for last twenty years or so. Remember the massive release that was "Tesla battery day" when they were supposed to finally show what decade of research into battery technology produced?
They showed a battery element that had 50% more volume that had... 50% more energy capacity. In ten years, battery capacity did not progress. The main thing we did was polish the lithium ion controllers, partially address the worst aspects of lithium ion, such as dendr
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And for rail, we don't need batteries. It's fixed pathways, so we can just pull wires overhead. Which has been done across the world for many decades.
This could potentially be done for trucks as well, saving the batteries for the first/last few miles.
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The problem is that best battery tech has been lithium ion for last twenty years or so. Remember the massive release that was "Tesla battery day" when they were supposed to finally show what decade of research into battery technology produced?
They showed a battery element that had 50% more volume that had... 50% more energy capacity. In ten years, battery capacity did not progress...
We don't need more capacity, we need faster charging. If I can charge 300 miles in five minutes then I no longer care about capacity.
(nb. cars are already getting close to this)
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I'm not sure why you don't see EVs working for trucking?
Care to elaborate?
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It's one of the options that may actually work, like we have no solution for problems of batteries like horrible weight to energy ratio.
Just like we don't have a solution for hydrogen leaking issue.
Wrote about hydrogen in the early 1980s (Score:2)
> Does anyone see hydrogen getting serious attention as an alternative?
Hydrogen SOUNDS great, in the first 60 seconds. The idea intrigued me as a kid. (Yeah a nerdy kid). In the early 1980s I wrote about how it would be awesome, if only we could solve a few major problems. Problems that made it unusable at any kind of scale - but if if only we could solve them.
About forty years later, those problems are still there. Physics is still physics, and the physics of hydrogen fuel are still a bitch.
There are so
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Does anyone see hydrogen getting serious attention as an alternative?
Only people who are still drinking the cool-aid.
Re: I keep hoping... (Score:2)
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I suppose the other thing to compare it to would be portable propane cylinders. Those are standardized size, and are already commonly used for camping, so are a fair insight into what sort of market the PHC is looking to target. The cylinders are usually not refillable and disposal/recycling is an issue. These PHC cylinders are refillable but are definitely going to be a headache to recycle. (they'll probably be thrown away, like used wind turbine blades, which are just as hard to recycle) H2 still lose
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Don't use the Nissan Leaf battery as a reference point, just don't. The energy density, by space, not weight, of that cartridge is on par with Li-Ion batteries if I compare it with the batteries in my OSET motorcycle (1kWh) or my Tesla PowerWall (13kWh).
Not sure where you get the idea of "nearly instant" refueling? For me a return trip to town takes 30 minutes, assuming the cartridges would be trucked the 600km from nearest hydrogen source