Hydrogen Vehicles - Truly Beneficial?
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Most people who label themselves environmentalists haven't done so, and just go around screaming about how everything needs to be green.
Yeah, but we need those people if the Overton window is ever gonna shift in the direction it needs to.
I have friends to whom I have spent considerable time explaining that the single best argument against nuclear power is not the awful risks associated with the various ways it can go wrong, but its punishingly high total cost per generated megawatt hour when you take its total lifecycle (design, build, operate, decomission) into account. Even the most expensive currently viable renewable replacement (wind + flow-battery storage) already leaves nuclear for dead price-wise on a total lifecycle basis, and looks set to keep doing so at an ever-increasing rate.
But most people aren't interested in boring shit like total lifecycle analysis, which is why Big Nuke can continue to lobby for Government handouts and Government investment and Government policy that squelches investment in renewables, and get them. Big Nuke and Big Coal are as one in this regard. Big Nuke, in particular, knows full well that the only clients it's ever going to get are governments to whose representatives it can slip little gifties under the table - private money tends to employ accountants who are paid to add things up correctly, not spin them for public consumption.
The extreme green brigade certainly alienates some folks, but to the extent that its theatrics are managing to inject a visceral fear of nuclear power into the public mind I'm all for them. Basically I see them as the most effective counter that we environmental rationalists have to the power of Big Nuke and Big Coal's hired shills.
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The extreme green brigade certainly alienates some folks, but to the extent that their theatrics are managing to inject a visceral fear of nuclear power into the public mind I'm all for them.
You'll never make me fear nuclear power. I understand the dangers, and the actual possibility of the those dangers, too well. Probably comes from having grown up within 50 miles of one of the largest nuclear waste repositories in the continental United States: the Hanford Nuclear Repository. Honestly, they've started having problems there in the past few years, but that's got a lot to do with government mismanagement. When my dad worked there, part of his job was to monitor waste tank conditions. He warned his supervisors repeatedly that certain tanks needed to be replaced before they started leaking, and they passed the information up. The response always came back that there was no budget to do so. Now, some of those tanks are starting to leak.
On second thought, I do fear nuclear, but only because of the bureaucracy involved.
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As opposed to Baby Nukes?
Filed Under Fallout'd That For You?
Or how about Little Boy?
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part of his job was to monitor waste tank conditions. He warned his supervisors repeatedly that certain tanks needed to be replaced before they started leaking, and they passed the information up. The response always came back that there was no budget to do so.
Makes sense. Government revenue comes from taxation, and people resent paying tax, so it's only natural that a government will budget for only those things that its citizens are actually clearly in favour of. And as I said, most people are not interested in boring shit like total lifecycle analysis, so it's no surprise to me that what it actually costs to manage the waste we've already generated was never properly budgeted for.
Really, bureaucratic incompetence is but one link in a causal chain that drives your leaky repository; what's actually important is government priorities. If the folks who made the decision to commission the reactors that produced all that waste had budgeted properly for its lifecycle handling requirements, there would not now be a shiny-arsed empty suit in charge of deciding what to do about your leaks. So to the extent that screaming irrational greenies are driving public opinion in the direction of noticing shit like this, they're doing your dad's local community a favour.
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So to the extent that screaming irrational greenies are driving public opinion in the direction of noticing shit like this, they're doing your dad's local community a favour.
No so sure about that. Despite the increasing number of leaks, the budget given to them by the DOE is continuing to shrink. More and more people are being laid off. Projects that would help to avoid this kind of situation (such as the vitrification plant), have been put on hold or cancelled. So instead, they have growing leaks, moving toward local ground water, and the nearby Columbia river. If the leaked sludge reaches the groundwater, the local community will have some serious issues. If it reaches the Columbia, it will not only negatively impact the local community, but also every downstream community, including Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon.
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Sure, nuclear waste leaks are horrible. My point is, who is actually saying so in public, loudly? Is it the greenies dressed in their funny vegetable costumes, or is it Fox News? Here's a clue: it's not Fox News.
I can't see why you'd blame the folks who are actually taking a position that aligns with your local community's best interests simply because their particular brand of handpainted propaganda has not been able to compete effectively with that of a billion dollar enterprise with a total lock on America's public airwaves. Sure, an extreme green's motivations are in many cases based on irritatingly ill-informed misreadings of reality, but at least the resulting positions act to push the discourse in the direction it needs to go: 180° away from the wilfully and self-servingly ignorant misreadings pumped out 24*7 by the dominant propaganda engine - the very same engine that never, ever misses an opportunity to portray all its ideological opponents as wild-eyed, know-nothing, probably violent anarchist loons.
Were it not for the antics of the facepainted hippie stiltwalking jugglers occupying the boundary zone where sensible environmental thought bumps up against truly irrational green extremism, there would not be space in the public discourse for reasonable rationalist environmental points to be made. Instead, it would be folks like me who would appear to be the out-there extremists, and sensible ideas like wellhead reforming would never get a second look.
If you want somebody to get pissed off at for the problems besetting your local waste storage facility, don't waste time on goodhearted if not particularly bright greenies. Save your irritation for those with a strongly vested interest in maintaining Business As Usual and the money and influence to keep on doing just that.
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Government revenue comes from taxation, and people resent paying tax, so it's only natural that a government will budget for only those things that its citizens are actually clearly in favour of
Let me introduce you to the United States Congress...
Actually, most governments are like this. It's more like, stuff with concentrated benefits but diffuse costs are the things that make it into the budget. Bureaucratic budgeting priorities are similar, and often you have things like executive bonuses driving the bus.
I don't know enough about the history of decisions at Hanford (other than that it's a WTF) to say what drove it.
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Sure, nuclear waste leaks are horrible. My point is, who is actually saying so in public, loudly? Is it the greenies dressed in their funny vegetable costumes, or is it Fox News? Here's a clue: it's not Fox News.
Your formulation is kind of a "water is wet" thing, though. The costume people are like the crazy Republican congress critters who think we have to all get rectal exams when we get on an airplane or else we'll all get killed by Al Qaeda. Both of them are talking about Bad Things, but being hysterical about it in unproductive ways.
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stuff with concentrated benefits but diffuse costs are the things that make it into the budget.
And again I make the point that this is because most people are not interested in boring shit like total lifecycle analysis; instead, most public opinion is based fair and square on feels, with the terms of any debate that does occur set largely by the noisiest available propaganda. Which is why I have no objection to any propaganda tactic that might push public opinion in the direction that the best available analysis says it ought to move, and disapprove of propaganda that says the opposite; which is why, in 2014, I sympathise more with the irrational idiots on my end of the spectrum than with those on yours.
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the crazy Republican congress critters who think we have to all get rectal exams when we get on an airplane or else we'll all get killed by Al Qaeda
got elected. Why?
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Government revenue comes from taxation, and people resent paying tax, so it's only natural that a government will budget for only those things that its citizens are actually clearly in favour of.
One thing I've noticed is that governments tend to cut things that are actually needed or high-profile things that are likely to be missed (e.g. sports, art classes) whenever there's financial pressure. My theory is that the alternative is admitting that they are wasting money somewhere else.
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I can't see why you'd blame the folks who are actually taking a position that aligns with your local community's best interests ...
I wasn't blaming them, I was simply saying that I'm not so sure that they are doing my dad's community a favor. I think, overall, they are being pretty ineffective when it comes to nuclear energy.
Save your irritation for those with a strongly vested interest in maintaining Business As Usual and the money and influence to keep on doing just that.
I am most definitely irritated by them. See here:
On second thought, I do fear nuclear, but only because of the bureaucracy involved.
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One thing I've noticed is that governments tend to cut things that are actually needed or high-profile things that are likely to be missed (e.g. sports, art classes) whenever there's financial pressure. My theory is that the alternative is admitting that they are wasting money somewhere else.
+1
They all have their pet projects. On top of that, you have to consider the effect of lobbying as well. Congress isn't going to cut something that might result in the loss of a kickback. No, they'll cut the stuff that makes the public feel the pain instead, so they can say,"See, we had to cut stuff that's needed, so obviously everything else is more important. Guess we better raise taxes."
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“Guess we better raise taxes.”
“…Except for our very good friends with a few spare billions of loose change who obviously really deserve a large tax cut. Because theygive very nice kickbacksare true wealth creators.”
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That's some heavy-duty boombait.
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“…Except for our very good friends with a few spare billions of loose change who obviously really deserve a large tax cut. Because they <s>give very nice kickbacks</s> are true wealth creators.”
Thanks for the fix.
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got elected. Why?
They were probably more reasonable people before getting elected (and in many ways probably still are). But being in office makes people like the power, and they start acting more like statists / progressives. Then you end up with all sorts of incumbent protection laws that do things like curtail free speech, and you just can't get them out.
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That's some heavy-duty boombait.
Meh. It's pretty lame, but I'll do it for you.
“…Except for our very good friends with a few spare billions of loose change who obviously really deserve a large tax cut. Because they
give very nice kickbacksare true wealth creators.”Most of the lameness is due to simple innumeracy and envy about large dollar amount.
TRWTF isn't tax breaks (anyone who thinks the US is under taxed is crazy) but all the other corporatism that goes on. Some of the worst was saying, "Let's get rid of 'Too Big To Fail,' but really making it worse."
And then retarded taxes like on medical devices. But God forbid you try to cut back on the Cowboy Poetry Festivals. When you can't even get rid of the obviously absurd and minute things, what hope have we in the big things?
Filed Under: Can you guys hook me up with some of that Koch bros
I've been hearing about?
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The main problem with hydrogen for vehicles is the insane pressures you need to put the stuff under to get the volume energy density up to feasible levels. The upside of this problem is that any container strong enough to resist that kind of pressure is also going to be virtually indestructible in a crash, and would certainly pose a lower fire risk than a conventional tank of petrol.
I remember reading about experimental metal hydride storage that was ahead of compressed and liquid tanks in terms of energy density, but it took something like half an hour to refill them. There's that problem, and then the other problem about there not being a hydrogen refueling station on every street.
Tesla S
I like the idea of the Tesla, but its advocates reek of smug. They seem to overlook that it costs $20-30k more than a Corvette Stingray, and that that kind of money will buy a lot of gas, oil changes, etc. over the life of the vehicle. If the price were cut in half, and the chicken-and-egg problem of charging stations were solved, it would be a much more compelling option.
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the chicken-and-egg problem of charging stations were solved
That's at least as much a problem with any other alternative to gasoline too; new infrastructure will have to be built. (Of course, new infrastructure is being built and older infrastructure renovated the whole time, so we shouldn't beat ourselves up over it too much.)
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TRWTF isn't tax breaks (anyone who thinks the US is under taxed is crazy) but all the other corporatism that goes on.
Agreed. In many ways, the worst part (both in the US and the UK) is that there's a group of corporations that work very hard to ensure that theirs is the only voices that are heard consistently by politicians. Like that, absolutely everyone and everything else is seen as ignorable noise.
@boomzilla said:When you can't even get rid of the obviously absurd and minute things, what hope have we in the big things?
You need a body that is dedicated to condensing, codifying and (where they're no longer relevant) repealing laws. And you need to stamp out the pork barrel practices; the people doing it might not be corrupt but the very practice itself is. At the very least, those things should be on separate bills so that each piece of legislation is kept focussed on the purpose stated in its preamble. (In fact, perhaps that should be forced through a constitutional amendment, so that the Supreme Court can overturn the worst of those bills.)Filed under: Pipe dreams…
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Actually, the whole efficiency thing has been studied by the IEEE and they came up with this summary that is about as close as you are likely to get without breaking the laws of physics:
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I like the idea of the Tesla... If the price were cut in half, and the chicken-and-egg problem of charging stations were solved, it would be a much more compelling option.
Yeah, at present the electric car industry is in that awkward stage where it's flopping over your eyes and getting in the way but isn't really long enough just to brush backwards and forget about.
I give it ten years before it starts to get good in the back, but I really do think it has the potential (see what I did there?) to outperform ICE-based transport on every conceivable metric. Electric motors are just better.
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at present the electric car industry is in that awkward stage where it's flopping over your eyes and getting in the way but isn't really long enough just to brush backwards and forget about.
I thought you were talking about partial erections, but then I realized that would be the reverse of your point.
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they came up with this summary
Those figures for battery roundtrip look a little optimistic to me, and if you're going to make hydrogen via electrolysis then that can be done close enough to the point of sale to raise the transport/transfer efficiency rather closer to 100%, but even so it's pretty clear that an FCV is indeed starting from a considerable efficiency disadvantage.
Mitigating that is the fact that a given amount of energy stored as hydrogen weighs a lot less than the same amount stored in a battery, even a lightweight Li-ion one, which means you can design a much lighter FCV than a battery vehicle around a given amount of stored energy, which in turn means that the FCV's relatively woeful generator-to-wheel energy efficiency vs. that of a battery car might not end up translating to quite so woeful a figure on a per-passenger-kilometre basis.
Also worth thinking about is that there already exist ways to crack water directly using sunlight, some of which look as if they might be capable of bettering the not-shown 20% efficiency of today's PV solar panels further diminished by feeding an electrolyzer.
So I wouldn't be writing off the FCV quite as quickly as that chart suggests I should. We need to make a few and try them out and find out in practice whether their problems are too fundamental to engineer our way out of.
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Having to wait a couple of hours every couple hundred miles is probably going to be the biggest restriction to widespread adoption of electric cars. There needs to be an enormous leap in battery technology before it is really completely feasible. Clean burning diesel technology is damn near zero emissions now, far cleaner burning than any conventional gasoline engine - and now they can genetically engineer bacteria that practically shits diesel fuel, so I think diesel plug-in hybrids (or a diesel generator with electric motor the way many trains are now, hopefully better implemented than the crappy Chevy Volt) will be the way to go.
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Another thing to think about in these energy analyses is thermolysis, where water is converted into hydrogen and oxygen gas by heat directly. Most analyses show that its overall efficiency of conversion is somewhere around 30% from thermal energy, somewhere close to the maximum thermodynamic efficiency of electric power generation. Using the IEEE graphic, this means that a liquid hydrogen system would have an overall efficiency of 7.8%, and a electric system would have an overall efficiency of 9.6%.
I should also note that it would seem that the added weight of the battery system would reduce efficiency of the EV vs. the hydrogen fuel cell system, though I'm not positive.
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I think diesel plug-in hybrids (or a diesel generator with electric motor the way many trains are now, hopefully better implemented than the crappy Chevy Volt) will be the way to go.
I'm inclined to agree, as long as the diesel part isn't something I'd need to waste energy on lugging around for every trip.
Seems to me that if plug-in electrics were properly integrated into our city systems, every parking space would have a charge point; the car would automatically log in to my preferred electricity retailer on connection, and I'd be able to preset a charge-discharge policy based on near-term range requirement and the spot buy and sell prices for stored electricity. With that kind of capability in place, and given the amount of time that cars spend parked compared to that spent in motion, it should be just about possible to run the thing purely electrically without ever needing to wait specifically for a charge, and paying very little for the net energy required to do that.
98% of the trips I make in my present (non-electric) car don't require anything even close to its maximum range, and an electric that charges as I park would improve my life by getting rid of my fortnightly visit to a smelly petrol pump. But I do also value the ability to drive the 280km each way to the capital city and back on a single two-minute fuel stop, and would appreciate keeping that ability when I do eventually acquire my second-hand electric car.
A towed fixed-speed gas-turbine or diesel genset with a bit of extra space for luggage would probably be the Right Thing to cover that rare but very useful case. Or perhaps the fairies at the bottom of my garden will deliver on their promise to help EESTOR actually make something that works ):
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Buses can be charged as they drive
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has developed a pair of electric buses called Online Electric Vehicles or OLEV. These buses are different from your typical electric vehicles that have to be parked to recharge the batteries. Instead, they can recharge while driving down the road. - See more at: http://www.dailytech.com/South+Koreas+OLEV+Electric+City+Bus+Recharges+via+Cables+Buried+in+Road/article33124.htm#sthash.TzEEECgg.dpuf
Filed under: pipe dreams
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Instead, they can recharge while driving down the road. - See more at: http://www.dailytech.com/South+Koreas+OLEV+Electric+City+Bus+Recharges+via+Cables+Buried+in+Road/article33124.htm#sthash.TzEEECgg.dpuf
Any significant difference? I know the cabling is hidden in the road, but I don't know if it's actually a good idea.
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Any significant difference? I know the cabling is hidden in the road, but I don't know if it's actually a good idea.
We had those around here from what I heard, but they stopped using them before my time. Trams are still operational here and widely used.
Overhead wires are more of a pain in the ass really. Easier to get damaged by the weather or traffic accidents (pole gets knocked over, in one instance I saw a case where a car hit a pole, badly attached lamp fell over and managed to short the wiring in the process), more dangerous if a live wire snaps and falls on the road, and generally just a giant mess if you have other overhead wiring in use already.
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We had those around here from what I heard, but they stopped using them before my time. Trams are still operational here and widely used.
Same here. Some town still employ the trolleybuses, they work pretty okay-ish, but aren't too popular - basically because they combine all the bad things about trams and buses.
The point is, though, I fail to see the revolution in what you posted. It's basically a trolleybus with a battery and with hidden cabling. Granted, that makes the thing somewhat more convenient, but it looks like a lot of pointless wheel reinventing.
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It's a charger, and it removes the most common complaints about EVs: But it takes so long to recharge! Only 300 km range? Not enough, I work 7000 miles from home!
Perfect solution? No. But it works. And also, I think it's quite, in a lack of a better phrase, cool.
Filed under: unit conversion left as an exercise to the reader
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If it was an infrastructure for cars, you'd have a good point. You drive around town freely, and on the off chance you need to get somewhere else, you have a battery fully charged.
But it's a bus. And for those, range is not much of an issue, because they usually do fairly short trips around town, and always on the same route. And I'm not exactly sure that maybe being able to drive a part of this route without wires over- or underneath justifies the cost of this magnetic fieldy thingamajig and a battery vs. a pole and two wires.
Filed under: i agree on the "cool" part though
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Overhead wires are more of a pain in the ass really. Easier to get damaged by the weather or traffic accidents (pole gets knocked over, in one instance I saw a case where a car hit a pole, badly attached lamp fell over and managed to short the wiring in the process), more dangerous if a live wire snaps and falls on the road, and generally just a giant mess if you have other overhead wiring in use already.
On the other hand, anything sub-surface will have to deal with a lot more punishment. The impact of a vehicle on the road surface is approximately dependent on the 4th power of its weight, and a heavily-laden truck is absolutely terrible for the road. (At the other end of the scale, a bicycle only ever damages the most lightly-made of tracks; anything capable of taking regular motor traffic will never be damaged meaningfully by the passage of bikes. Unless you've got a troupe of cycling elephants from the circus.)
More to the point, buses definitely cause some damage, and any sub-surface infrastructure for powering them will have to deal with it. And anything sub-surface tends to be considerably more expensive to fix or replace.
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Wow, we already have a thread about hydrogen vehicles, beyond the thread about electric vehicles
.Let me add a chapter on Hydrogen Trains. The public transport services of Frankfurt area have a train line into the Taunus "mountain" range, of which only 23 km are electrified, 37 aren't. Previously, Diesel trains were used.
They decided for the more modern "climate friendly" hydrogen technology. Hydrogen is produced at an industrial site just west of Frankfurt, so the trains can refill there. Looks like a good starting situation. But...
Alstom did not deliver all ordered 27 trains, only 6. That's a minor deficit, isn't it?
And shortly afterwards, those trains just broke. TFA mentions that the engines will get a new injection pump (so not fuel cells but combustion engine?), apart from a software update (
). Several diesel trains are held as a backup...
Wasserstoffzüge für Taunusbahn werden nachgerüstet
Die weltgrößte Flotte an Wasserstoffzügen sollte seit Jahreswechsel im hessischen Taunus verkehren. Doch erst lieferte der Hersteller nicht, und dann fielen die neuen Triebwagen aus. Nun wird wieder Diesel verbrannt.
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@BernieTheBernie this is just standard German misengineering - nothing reflects on the tech. Don't Hire Bavarians.
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@Gribnit Do you where Alstom is from?
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@BernieTheBernie https://www.fnp.de/lokales/hochtaunus/hochtaunus-die-taunusbahn-der-zukunft-91354556.html
According to this, they are very much fuel-cell powered vehicles. As for the injection pump, keep in mind that storage is high pressure whereas fuel cell is very much not so.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Hydrogen Vehicles - Truly Beneficial?:
@Gribnit Do you where Alstom is from?
Not lately. They've asked me to stop.
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An article in the FAZ (in german, and paywalled)
discusses a project in Switzerland.
Wasserstoff-Lastwagen: Schweiz testet Brennstoffzellen-Lkw
Womit fährt der Lastwagen der Zukunft? Viele glauben mit Wasserstoff. In der Schweiz laufen 47 Brennstoffzellen-Lkw von Hyundai im täglichen Betrieb.
47 Hyundai trucks equipped with fuel cells are in use. Their drivers are enthusiastic, because they trucks are powerful and quiet, and also reliable (what a contrast to the railway project mentioned above).
Trucks have tanks for 34 kg hydrogen at 350 bar pressure, a buffering battery of 73 kWh, 350 kW electric engine. Range is about 400km, enough for transports in Switzerland.
The truck can take 7 tons of payload, plus a trailer of 18 tons. Refuelling takes about as much time as with diesel.
Where is the catch? The enormous price of hydrogen. The project insists on "green" hydrogen, and they get to €170 per 100 km - more than 3 times the price for a comparable diesel truck, at the high Swiss diesel prices.
Anyway, new technology often starts expensive, let's wait and see if they get it eventually running.
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@BernieTheBernie huh, seems we need to get Gray (neutral impact) and Red (someone died, at least) grades on the market and see what Der Handnt says.
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The hydrogen colour spectrum
From green to pink hydrogen, we reveal the rainbow of hydrogen colours and the different types of technology used to produce each.
ETA: TFA is wrong about the very last one.
Filed under:
is right twice a day
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@remi said in Hydrogen Vehicles - Truly Beneficial?:
TFA is wrong about the very last one.
I read this as
TFA is wrong about every last one.
and was totally
.
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@remi said in Hydrogen Vehicles - Truly Beneficial?:
the rainbow of hydrogen colours
Did hydrogen enter the LGBT
circles?
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@BernieTheBernie said in Hydrogen Vehicles - Truly Beneficial?:
Where is the catch? The enormous price of hydrogen.
Also the total lack of hydrogen filling stations presumably?
Hydrogen cars are available here too, but there are less than 20 filling stations for cars in the entire country.
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@loopback0 said in Hydrogen Vehicles - Truly Beneficial?:
@BernieTheBernie said in Hydrogen Vehicles - Truly Beneficial?:
Where is the catch? The enormous price of hydrogen.
Also the total lack of hydrogen filling stations presumably?
Hydrogen cars are available here too, but there are less than 20 filling stations for cars in the entire country.
But fleets of vehicles typically don't need that network so much since they're more centralized and often have their own fueling station at the depot or whatever.
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@boomzilla Well, you'll at least need a compressor for that - and those things aren't fast. One I've found states that it'll go from 1 bara to 201 bara in 1 hour for 535 Nm³ which is roughly 48 kg of Hydrogen. Keep in mind that the referenced trucks need a higher pressure but a lower amount.
So, while the actual act of refueling only takes a short while, providing the fuel takes quite a bit longer.
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Let's signal virtue. That's the most important thing in politics.
The town of Wiesbaden purchased a hydrogen driven garbage collection vehicle. At 1.1 million Euros. A Diesel version would be 300 thousands only. But "green" hydrogen is better for the environment.
Wasserstoff-Müllautos in Wiesbaden: Wer soll das bezahlen?
Die Vorstellung eines abgasfreien Fahrzeugs für die Entsorgungsbetriebe in Wiesbaden wirft viele offene Fragen auf. Grüner Wasserstoff ist zwar besser für die Umwelt als Diesel, aber schlechter für die Finanzen.
Trolleybus - Wikipedia
