Why did we abandon hydrogen cars so quickly?

[FordGT90Concept]

The reason why hydrogen for transportation is kept at 700 bar is because it isn't explosive like that. If the tank is punctured, the hydrogen wants out more so than to react. There is absolutely no evidence that hydrogen vehicles are less safe than comparative combustion vehicles.

I suspect hydrogen aircraft will be like the roll out of the Concorde. Initially planes will be built to fly between only a handful of airports and those airports will have the infrastructure at them to produce hydrogen. Airports will have to fundamentally become hydrogen fuel plants too. They often own a lot of land so not much reason why they couldn't install solar panels on some of that land for the purpose of performing electroylsis. Further, there's no reason why they couldn't sell surplus fuel to the local economy too. Most airports also have freight hubs close by so the freigh hubs could reasonably change to HFCEV too and partnership with the airports on initial investment in the infrastructure.


What we need, and what Nikola is working on, is deployable water-plus-electricity-in/compressed-hydrogen-fuel-out systems. Businesses of all kinds need to be able to phone up company to get a quote and have it installed in a year or two.

Keep in mind that grids have a lot of capacity at night that is unused. Generating hydrogen fuel with that excessive capacity is a no brainer.


Leading fuel has been banned for decades. I don't know of anyone that still does it. It represents great environmental harm and the only benefit is that gasoline engine designers could be lazier. Modern engines in the West, at least, are everything but lazy.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

ITM Power is making 100% green hydrogen fuel today.

 

[Space Lynx]

ITM Power is making 100% green hydrogen fuel today.

Thank you for sharing this, watching it now!

 

[Bomby569]

Renault reveals electric-hydrogen hybrid concept car, says it will have range of up to 497 miles

Renault's idea of developing a passenger vehicle that uses hydrogen technology is not unique.

www.cnbc.com

 

[r9]

The reason why hydrogen for transportation is kept at 700 bar is because it isn't explosive like that. If the tank is punctured, the hydrogen wants out more so than to react. There is absolutely no evidence that hydrogen vehicles are less safe than comparative combustion vehicles.

I suspect hydrogen aircraft will be like the roll out of the Concorde. Initially planes will be built to fly between only a handful of airports and those airports will have the infrastructure at them to produce hydrogen. Airports will have to fundamentally become hydrogen fuel plants too. They often own a lot of land so not much reason why they couldn't install solar panels on some of that land for the purpose of performing electroylsis. Further, there's no reason why they couldn't sell surplus fuel to the local economy too. Most airports also have freight hubs close by so the freigh hubs could reasonably change to HFCEV too and partnership with the airports on initial investment in the infrastructure.


What we need, and what Nikola is working on, is deployable water-plus-electricity-in/compressed-hydrogen-fuel-out systems. Businesses of all kinds need to be able to phone up company to get a quote and have it installed in a year or two.

Keep in mind that grids have a lot of capacity at night that is unused. Generating hydrogen fuel with that excessive capacity is a no brainer.


Leading fuel has been banned for decades. I don't know of anyone that still does it. It represents great environmental harm and the only benefit is that gasoline engine designers could be lazier. Modern engines in the West, at least, are everything but lazy.

Nikola motor ?
If that is the same Nikola only thing he is working on is scamming people out of their money.

 

[Operandi]

Nikola motor ?
If that is the same Nikola only thing he is working on is scamming people out of their money.

Its the same company but what you are talking about is how the CEO operated the company (and its not his first time either). If you look past the sensational and scandalous headlines you'll see they have a lot of talent in both the hydrogen and automotive field and what Nikola is working on is the real deal.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Its the same company but what you are talking about is how the CEO operated the company (and its not his first time either). If you look past the sensational and scandalous headlines you'll see they have a lot of talent in both the hydrogen and automotive field and what Nikola is working on is the real deal.

Ehhh. Nikola is very hype-based. I find it difficult to believe in anything they do. If they end up being some kind of sleeper-success, good on them. But they really burned a lot of public trust with their shenanigans already.

But Hyundai, Daimler, Toyota betting on Hydrogen, and those are automakers I can respect. It seems like Hydrogen is the real deal, the question now is of economics more so than technology.

 

[r9]

Its the same company but what you are talking about is how the CEO operated the company (and its not his first time either). If you look past the sensational and scandalous headlines you'll see they have a lot of talent in both the hydrogen and automotive field and what Nikola is working on is the real deal.

Dude is a scam artist. End of story.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

But Hyundai, Daimler, Toyota betting on Hydrogen, and those are automakers I can respect. It seems like Hydrogen is the real deal, the question now is of economics more so than technology.

Trucks, trains, and planes have far more to gain from hydrogen than cars do simple because of the energy density involved. Put bluntly: if you're really honest about zero emission, batteries cannot achieve that for trucks, trains, and planes. This is why companies like Nikola are important: they're building the infrastructure and vehicles to reach zero emission. Cars that need endurance can piggy back on truck, train, and plane hydrogen infrastructure but cars definitely won't be the driving force behind it because battery electric works well enough in most cases (especially with hyper-efficient offerings coming like Aptera that solve the range problem entirely).

To be honest, trucks are at a crossroad now: either they go natural gas or they go hydrogen. Luckily, Russia/Ukraine politics has made natural gas soar so over the last few months, hydrogen has become the best viable fuel for zero emission trucking.

An electric truck is really only good for moving trailers around a yard or short delivers in cities. They are wholly unsuitable for city-to-city deliveries because they'll spend more time charging than driving and deliver far less freight than a comparative diesel truck when they arrive (because battery weight has to be countered by cargo weight).

 

[Space Lynx]

Trucks, trains, and planes have far more to gain from hydrogen than cars do simple because of the energy density involved. Put bluntly: if you're really honest about zero emission, batteries cannot achieve that for trucks, trains, and planes. This is why companies like Nikola are important: they're building the infrastructure and vehicles to reach zero emission. Cars that need endurance can piggy back on truck, train, and plane hydrogen infrastructure but cars definitely won't be the driving force behind it because battery electric works well enough in most cases (especially with hyper-efficient offerings coming like Aptera that solve the range problem entirely).

To be honest, trucks are at a crossroad now: either they go natural gas or they go hydrogen. Luckily, Russia/Ukraine politics has made natural gas soar so over the last few months, hydrogen has become the best viable fuel for zero emission trucking.

An electric truck is really only good for moving trailers around a yard or short delivers in cities. They are wholly unsuitable for city-to-city deliveries because they'll spend more time charging than driving and deliver far less freight than a comparative diesel truck when they arrive (because battery weight has to be countered by cargo weight).

Aptera solar powered cars for people who live in the southwest or other very very sunny areas, new hydrogen infrastructure for semi-trucks, planes, trains (and hopefully coincide along with long haul specific autopilot semi trucks and hydrogen refill stations strategically placed for these autopilot long haul trucks (but leaving most other trucks alone and you still keeping real life drivers for the shorter and medium hauls and still on diesel at first), a staged improvement over time... and nuclear power plants ala bill gates and warren buffets in Wyoming as the new model to make, and coincide those along say Nevada where the largest lithium mine is, wait for solid state battery tech to progress - EV's for cloudy/less sunny areas...

I think we are in agreement that the answer is very simple, in that the answer must be varied and deployed in stages... sadly for me and you we live in a failed nation state who just spent over a trillion dollars on old world tech infrastructure and throwing money at EV because it makes them feel good on the inside and sleep well at night. I'd be fine with spending money on EV if it included a government mandate moving to solid state battery tech ala Toyota sharing their tech with everyone else (toyota has solid state EV's coming soon) in return Toyota would get a tax credit on their cars for x amount of years, and possibly some of the money would also go into a united effort where solid state batteries all come from the same factory and all companies chip in to make it a good one outside of Nevada where we have plenty of lithium, and a water pipeline built to the lithium mine from one of the great lakes.

I don't know. Honestly, I don't have much hope for the future, there is so much complexity needed, and government officials just don't have that level of detail nor that freedom from lobbyists required to do well.

 

[the54thvoid]

Material and chemical sciences will keep pushing technology forward. Look at how far things have come. There are things we won't reach for some time (Fusion), others will be dead ends. But there are breakthroughs across the globe all the time.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

BEVs have 98% efficiency where HFCEVs are about 30% (talking the entire process of converting water into hydrogen/water, compressing it, transporting it, and converting it back into water for electricity). In all instances where BEVs make sense (especially urban areas), BEVs are going to dominant. Yes, they have enormous up front purchase cost but electricity, especially off peak, is significantly cheaper than fossil fuels. A new F-150 Lightning, for example, would only cost $6 to fully charge off peak here which is enough to get 230 miles by their claims. The same money will only buy about 1.5 gallons of gasoline which will translate to about 40 miles in a regular F-150. That fact makes BEVs really attractive to everyone that doesn't have to travel very far.

By comparison, hydrogen is going for about $12/kg and in power terms, a kg is about equal to a gallon of gasoline. When gasoline starts hitting $10/gallon, suddenly hydrogen starts looking a whole lot more attractive.

I'm convinced there's a lot more research and innovation to be done with hydrogen; there's not much for batteries. Hydrogen production can also solve a lot of problems associated with power grids (act as a very inefficient battery) so it's attractive for a variety of reasons. The problem is that market forces haven't made hydrogen competitive yet. If governments do something stupid like banning fossil fuels in trucks/trains/planes, then the industry will be forced into hydrogen because it's the only viable zero emission solution. Without that nudge, hydrogen will keep improving until it becomes competitive with fossil fuels.


What we really need is a nuclear power plant constructed for the primary purpose of generating hydrogen fuel. I don't know if anyone ran the numbers for how much per kg that would be, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being cheaper than diesel. The upfront investment cost is huge though.

If a company like Westinghouse started producing 10 MW fission reactors w/ hydrogen loop that can be transported virtually anywhere via truck and requires nothing for 40 years except water and filter replacement then any company could buy these things, plop them down anywhere, and start selling hydrogen and surplus electricity, they would trigger a hydrogen age. They could even have modules on them to use salt water, for example. Combine that with a regulation requiring all vehicles to recover and store water from the hydrogen fuel cell, this infrastructure could transport water from places where it is abundant (like oceans) to places where is not (like deserts) and almost all of the water in the system is recycled/kept out of the environment. Fuel pumps would have two nozzles: one to vacuum water and one to push hydrogen so fill up time would be the same. This kind of regulation is what the government needs to be doing now so when hydrogen does take off, everyone is on the same page and prepared for an almost truly zero impact fuel system on the environment.

Not only that, it would democratize energy like never before seen in human history: remote villages would have equal access to energy as urbanites. It has the potential to end poverty permanently. Sounds like a fantasy but isn't. We already have all the technology to do all of this. The only thing missing is government approval. I wish I were joking.

 

[Space Lynx]

@FordGT90Concept

I was just wondering about this https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/zero-emission/hydrogen/zeroe and it could deliver the clay below:

Minerals Used in Kitty Litter Could Help Fight Climate Change

A MIT study shows how, when treated with copper, a clay called zeolite can convert methane to carbon dioxide, a less powerful greenhouse gas

www.smithsonianmag.com

so if we use this zeolite clay on methane leaky areas, I wonder if we could really halt climate change much better than we realize? like if the permafrost in Siberia melts and releases all that methane, could we not take airplanes loaded to max with zeolite clay, and drop it over the methane leaky areas (satellites would show the biggest methane leaks I imagine)

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Planes are a lot harder because electric motors have limits on how much thrust they can produce. Here's hoping Airbus (and others) find a viable solution. I think if hydrogen fuel were plentiful, there would be an incentive to design a jet engine that isn't electric based but still gas expansion based. It might be possible to provide a linear environment (like a jet) where hydrogen can fuse, expanding into water vapor, which drives the compressor fins. There would have to be really strong, water-resistant blades in the compressor and getting the hydrogen conditions right will probably take supercomputers to solve.


It's better to just sequester and burn methane.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Planes are a lot harder because electric motors have limits on how much thrust they can produce. Here's hoping Airbus (and others) find a viable solution. I think if hydrogen fuel were plentiful, there would be an incentive to design a jet engine that isn't electric based but still gas expansion based. It might be possible to provide a linear environment (like a jet) where hydrogen can fuse, expanding into water vapor, which drives the compressor fins. There would have to be really strong, water-resistant blades in the compressor and getting the hydrogen conditions right will probably take supercomputers to solve.


It's better to just sequester and burn methane.

Syngas Kerosene for airplanes seems like the most reasonable (short term anyway) 100% renewable jet fuel.

Hydrogen -> syngas -> Kerosene is the steps IIRC from a chemical perspective.

 

[Shrek]

At that point we might as well make synthetic gasoline for cars.

 

[dragontamer5788]

At that point we might as well make synthetic gasoline for cars.

Each step is a loss of efficiency. Hydrogen would be preferred, but has severe volume restrictions.

Heavy pressure canisters seem to solve the problem from a car / vehicle perspective, but those canisters are too heavy for airplanes IIRC.

 

[Shrek]

I think you are right, and ships and trucks might be the place for them.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Or smaller, lighter, autonomous drones. There's really no economical reason going forward that 100 people should crowd into one aircraft.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Or smaller, lighter, autonomous drones. There's really no economical reason going forward that 100 people should crowd into one aircraft.

USA airports are liftoff/landing bound. More people crowding into one airplane means more bandwidth for our system. More airplanes with fewer people per-airplane basically means cutting the throughput of our airplane system significantly.

Airplanes also benefit greatly from the efficiencies of scale, much like trucks and boats. Bigger means more efficient. Drag is surface area, but carrying capacity is volume. So drag increases with meters-squared, while volume / capacity increases with meters-cubed.

If you wanna see inefficiency, look at the costs of general aviation, 1-person Cessnas and whatnot. The joke is that small-airplanes use money to generate lift because its so absurdly expensive / inefficient.

 

[KLiKzg]

Is heating the limiting factor for fast charging?

In a way, it is...as more power insertion into cells, will generate more heat...while more heat will irreversibly damage the cells!

The reason why hydrogen for transportation is kept at 700 bar is because it isn't explosive like that. If the tank is punctured, the hydrogen wants out more so than to react. There is absolutely no evidence that hydrogen vehicles are less safe than comparative combustion vehicles.

This is simply not true, as they are threated as CNG vehicles - which do have a compressed fuel in tank. So does the HEV!

That is why in most countries they have a sticker saying that it has tank under pressure.

 

[defaultluser]

Planes are a lot harder because electric motors have limits on how much thrust they can produce. Here's hoping Airbus (and others) find a viable solution. I think if hydrogen fuel were plentiful, there would be an incentive to design a jet engine that isn't electric based but still gas expansion based. It might be possible to provide a linear environment (like a jet) where hydrogen can fuse, expanding into water vapor, which drives the compressor fins. There would have to be really strong, water-resistant blades in the compressor and getting the hydrogen conditions right will probably take supercomputers to solve.


It's better to just sequester and burn methane.

Hydrogen fuel in a plane will also require a complete redesign of the in-wing fuel tanks.

Why are fuel tanks located in wings?

Passenger aircraft have fuel tanks in the wings. Why? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this location ? examples of disadvantages I would suspect: added weight increases the structural ...

aviation.stackexchange.com

putting a pressure vessel inside such a sharply-angled surface means allot of wasted space!

 

[Space Lynx]

Hydrogen fuel in a plane will also require a complete redesign of the in-wing fuel tanks.

Why are fuel tanks located in wings?

Passenger aircraft have fuel tanks in the wings. Why? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this location ? examples of disadvantages I would suspect: added weight increases the structural ...

aviation.stackexchange.com

putting a pressure vessel inside such a sharply-angled surface means allot of wasted space!

Why are you even discussing this? They already have the design sorted out...

ZEROe

Discover ZEROe, Airbus’ hydrogen-powered concepts that are shaping our future zero-emission commercial aircraft.

www.airbus.com

 

[defaultluser]

Why are you even discussing this? They already have the design sorted out...

ZEROe

Discover ZEROe, Airbus’ hydrogen-powered concepts that are shaping our future zero-emission commercial aircraft.

www.airbus.com

Because "Single plane concept" definitely screams to me "ready for ,mass-production?"

.Just like the flying Wing passenger aircraft that keeps making a pitch every decade? From the exact same company?

Airbus’ Maveric Brings B-2 Bomber Style to Passenger Jets

Starting with the small-scale model Maveric, the planemaker says this new design could produce major efficiency gains.

www.wired.com

 

[FordGT90Concept]

USA airports are liftoff/landing bound. More people crowding into one airplane means more bandwidth for our system. More airplanes with fewer people per-airplane basically means cutting the throughput of our airplane system significantly.

Airplanes also benefit greatly from the efficiencies of scale, much like trucks and boats. Bigger means more efficient. Drag is surface area, but carrying capacity is volume. So drag increases with meters-squared, while volume / capacity increases with meters-cubed.

If you wanna see inefficiency, look at the costs of general aviation, 1-person Cessnas and whatnot. The joke is that small-airplanes use money to generate lift because its so absurdly expensive / inefficient.

You assume drones need airports.