Renewable Energy Research - Internet Flamewars
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@blakeyrat said:
You don't need to pressurize a gas tank.
And gas(oline) doesn't seep through your tank walls, either.
We have a pretty big hydrogen gas cylinder in our chemistry lab. The same pretty much every school over here has.
We haven't really exploded yet. Nor did I hear of anyone else blowing himself up with hydrogen in our schools.
There have been plenty of accidents with Bromine, diverse acids and several schools which had to call the bomb squad because they neglected to top up the water of the picric acid container. We've had explosions in my university due to vapors of solvents and two incidents where people suffocated themselves by accident with nitrogen.
For the actual incidents I did find, it seems that hydrogen is more harmless than gasoline - simply because it escapes upwards.
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We haven't really exploded yet. Nor did I hear of anyone else blowing himself up with hydrogen in our schools
Has your school ever collided with another school at 70 miles per hour?
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@Rhywden said:
We haven't really exploded yet. Nor did I hear of anyone else blowing himself up with hydrogen in our schools
Has your school ever collided with another school at 70 miles per hour?
That was aimed at the sentiment that "hydrogen leaks through the cylinder" - because if it did that in non-negligible amounts we'd have a problem in our lab.
And if you collide with something at 70 mph then you have plenty of other problems, a gas leak being the least of them. One of those problems would be: "Do I actually survive the initial impact?"
Think about it: A gas tank can be built much more sturdy than squishy humans - we usually object to being structurally fortified.
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We haven't really exploded yet. Nor did I hear of anyone else blowing himself up with hydrogen in our schools.
Are you storing it under pressure? How expensive is this tank? How expensive would it be, scaled down to fit a car, compared to a regular gas tank?
My point wasn't necessarily that it would leak enough to have an explosion risk, but that (AIUI) it does leak at all, which means you'd have to top it off periodically. You don't have to worry about the gas in your car evaporating.
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Are you storing it under pressure? How expensive is this tank? How expensive would it be, scaled down to fit a car, compared to a regular gas tank?
My point wasn't necessarily that it would leak enough to have an explosion risk, but that (AIUI) it does leak at all, which means you'd have to top it off periodically. You don't have to worry about the gas in your car evaporating.
Of course it's pressurized. For that reason it has two different sequential valves. And expensive? Not very. It's a hunk of metal with two valves. Nothing high-tech about it. Bigger problem would probably be the weight.And while the leak is indeed there, the rate is so low that you only have to worry about it if you use your car once a decade. I mean, our gas cylinder is about 10 years old now and still plenty of pressure left (I'm the only one who actually uses it).
I mean, we're already using liquid gas in quite a number of cars here (though it's natural gas) - they are actually more secure than the gasoline ones because the security requirements are quite a bit higher. I mean, the gastanks have to be made of steel - and gasoline tanks can made of plastic, for example.
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You have called me an idiot for not getting it, but as yet you have most adamantly not tried to explain why wind power is more vulnerable, cannot be used for base load,
Isn't that obvious? No place on Earth has reliable steady 24/7/365 winds.
It could work with huge batteries or other energy storage devices ("pumping water uphill" is mentioned frequently.)
We have a pretty big hydrogen gas cylinder in our chemistry lab. The same pretty much every school over here has.
We haven't really exploded yet. Nor did I hear of anyone else blowing himself up with hydrogen in our schools.
Ok?
Why do you people post this garbage? Like, are you making a point? Or you just like typing?
For the actual incidents I did find, it seems that hydrogen is more harmless than gasoline - simply because it escapes upwards.
Did you try slamming the tank into a concrete wall at 60 MPH? This is obvious, but everybody on this forum seems to have lost all their braincells overnight, I'll point it out anyway:
A building is not a car.
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Did you try slamming the tank into a concrete wall at 60 MPH? This is obvious, but everybody on this forum seems to have lost all their braincells overnight, I'll point it out anyway:
A building is not a car.
If you slam your car into a concrete wall at 60 mph you won't have to worry about the tank.In fact, you won't have to worry about anything, ever again.
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You don't have to worry about the gas in your car evaporating.
I wonder what the hydrogen loss rate is, and whether it's actually significant. Gasoline will turn into jelly if it's in a tank longer than, say, a year and a half or so. (Which is, BTW, why movies like the Mad Max sequels don't make sense. You can't have cars for more than a few years without a functional refinery somewhere, and that society certainly didn't have resources to keep a refinery going.)
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If you slam your car into a concrete wall at 60 mph you won't have to worry about the tank.
In fact, you won't have to worry about anything, ever again.
Excellent. I'll get my remote controller ready, because I like the idea of not having to worry any more.
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I mean, the gastanks have to be made of steel - and gasoline tanks can made of plastic, for example.
It seems to me that a plastic tank would be a lot better at resisting an impact and still holding liquid than a steel one.
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It seems to me that a plastic tank would be a lot better at resisting an impact and still holding liquid than a steel one.
And by which magical mystery not based on real-earth physics would this wonder come about?
We better build our next tank out of plastic then. "Tank" as in: Has a big gun and drives on chains.
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Seriously, it's worth sacrificing a $40,000 car (and the brick on the gas pedals) to be free of worries forever.
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And by which magical mystery not based on real-earth physics would this wonder come about?
Possibly something that can deform without breaking?
Hey, I think there's even a word that can be used to describe that. It's not steelicity.
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And by which magical mystery not based on real-earth physics would this wonder come about?
We're talking about crushing, not shooting it with bullets. There are lots of very, very tough plastics that can be deformed a lot without creating gaps, and unlike steel a plastic tank could be made to pop back into shape once the deformation is over.
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Possibly something that can deform without breaking?
Hey, I think there's even a word that can be used to describe that. It's not steelicity.
Erm, deform, yes. Deform without creating leaks: no. Because you don't usually ram just the tank into the wall. There's still a car around it.
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Of course it's pressurized. For that reason it has two different sequential valves.
Could you expand on that? .
Actual question, although I am pleased with the punI mean, we're already using liquid gas in quite a number of cars here (though it's natural gas)
At what pressures?
What I've seen written makes me.... uncomfortable.
Maybe I'm being irrational, but I'm perfectly willing to let other people get years of experience with driving around with 5000psi bottles of liquefied gas...
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It's 200 bar, usually. That's about 3,000 psi.
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And by which magical mystery not based on real-earth physics would this wonder come about?
You should look into FIA-spec fuel tanks sometime
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@Rhywden said:
And by which magical mystery not based on real-earth physics would this wonder come about?
You should look into FIA-spec fuel tanks sometimeAnd? So, it's supposedly possible to create gasoline tanks which are non-leaking at high-speed impacts.
And of course it's absolutely impossible to create such tanks for gas.
Do you guys actually think just for one minute about what you're saying here?
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So, it's supposedly possible to create gasoline tanks which are non-leaking at high-speed impacts.
Not 'supposedly'. It is possible.
@Rhywden said:And of course it's absolutely impossible to create such tanks for gas.
Why?
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Why?
I don't know. That's what Frostcat and Blakey are ranting about.
And while it may be possible, I don't see very many Formula1 racing cars or Leopard tanks on the street.
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I don't see very many Formula1 racing cars on the street.
Monaco and Singapore would beg to differ.
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It's 200 bar, usually. That's about 3,000 psi.
Well - that's certainly close enough to 5000psi.
Mmm... possible left-vs-right pond stuff, but...
So, we're talking about the regular 1.5m or so tall cylinders about as big around as a futbol (give or take) with the protective caps that screw into the tops for transport/storage?
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Well - that's certainly close enough to 5000psi.
Mmm... possible left-vs-right pond stuff, but...
So, we're talking about the regular 1.5m or so tall cylinders about as big around as a futbol (give or take) with the protective caps that screw into the tops for transport/storage?
Something like this:
http://www.chempage.de/versuche/AC/AC 050/gasflasche1.jpg
The first valve (it's the bottom one in the picture) reduces pressure down to manageable levels (it's also reversed - you don't screw it "open", you screw it "shut" to open the valve), the second one to the right then opens to the outside.
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And of course it's absolutely impossible to create such tanks for gas.
Has anybody (other than you) made that claim in this thread?
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@Rhywden said:
And of course it's absolutely impossible to create such tanks for gas.
Has anybody (other than you) made that claim in this thread?
I don't know, what with your insistence on slamming cars at 60 mph into concrete walls? Or were you just using stupid examples?
On second thought, don't answer that because it's pretty much a given.
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And while it may be possible, I don't see very many Formula1 racing cars
That's because they'd crack in half the first time they came across a pothole.
or Leopard tanks on the street.
That's because Leopards are wimpy euro-tanks and all the cool kids are driving around in T-90s or Abrams.
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Not to mention, even if accidents do happen with nuclear plants, they're probably still safer on average than coal.
In fact
http://www.who.int/gho/phe/outdoor_air_pollution/burden_text/en/In the year 2012, ambient air pollution was responsible for 3.7 million deaths, representing 6.7% of the total deaths. Worldwide, ambient air pollution is estimated to cause about 16% of the lung cancer deaths, 11% of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) deaths, more than 20% of ischaemic heart disease and stroke, and about 13% of respiratory infection deaths.
sounds like we could have a Chernobyl disaster every few years and still have a net positive result, if it brought down air pollution enough.
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I don't know, what with your insistence on slamming cars at 60 mph into concrete walls? Or were you just using stupid examples?
I never said it was impossible. In fact, I said it's already been done, hundreds of times. Almost every garbage truck in the Seattle area, for example.
It does, however, make your vehicle significantly more complicated and expensive. (Or significantly less safe-- that's the trade-off.)
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It does, however, make your vehicle significantly more complicated and expensive. (Or significantly less safe-- that's the trade-off.)
I think you're massively overstating the cost of such a tank.
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Greenpeace
Ironic they kill the one viable solution to green energy.
I think they'd be happier if everyone but them was dead.
It would certainly decrease the human-energy-cost/everything-else-energy-cost ratio.
And then when the sun takes a break and we have the next ice-age, they can run around screaming "burn more fossil fuel, burn more fossil fuel"
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Ironic they kill the one viable solution to green energy.
Penn and Teller did an episode of Bullshit! on them and came to the conclusion that they were anti-corporation, not pro-environment. (And 99% of their members were just after warm fuzzies and had no idea what the organization's positions even were, but we all already knew that.) It was pretty interesting.
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Most of these special interest groups are anti-other, rather than pro-anything.
It keeps them, in their minds, well divided from all those other people causing all the problems. And gives them this benefit without requiring an actual solution.
For example. Bill Nye blaming global warming for Houston flooding. It's all so convenient to sit back and blame something rather than coming up with a way to keep people from dying.
I'm sure that if we all just went electric and the power magically came to us from wind turbines that don't need oil to grease, or oil for production, and also float on water, then the flood in Houston would have never happened.
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For example. Bill Nye blaming global warming for Houston flooding. It's all so convenient to sit back and blame something rather than coming up with a way to keep people from dying.
Scientists don't implement actual solutions. Engineers do. People should take a look at the research that Burt Rutan, who's of course very much an engineer, has done into climate chaos. One of the things he finds interesting about it all, is that a vanishingly small number of the big names who talk-talk about climate chaos are engineers; instead, they're politicians, who never waste a crisis; scientists, who live on government grants; and actors, who... what do they bring to the table, again?
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Something like this:
TIL. Round here they haul those things around in the back of flatbeds... secured and placarded of course, but not exactly in concrete blast-proof caissons, either.
We don't have daily armageddons on the road (from this cause) but I wouldn't bet lunch on that setup (above) getting a 4-
rating in a crash test.a) I'm marginally less irrationally Frightened of hydrogen-ing cars.
b) I'm giving those trucks hauling bottled gas a much wider berth.
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I'm giving those trucks hauling bottled gas a much wider berth
Gee, why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6ZXOLbFD6M
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Gasoline tanks don't look much better, though
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I don't know, what with your insistence on slamming cars at 60 mph into concrete walls? Or were you just using stupid examples?
Have you ever watched a video of a vehicle being tested for frontal impacts? One of the tests they do is literally ram the car into a concrete wall.
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Not at 60 mph, though. The deceleration at such a speed in a normal car will most likely cause ruptures of the lines of internal organs.
You're more likely to survive if you don't wear a seatbelt and are thus ejected from the car. At least you would be if there wasn't still the concrete wall.
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Not at 60 mph, though.
You're right. IIHS does those tests at 40 MPH.
The deceleration at such a speed in a normal car will most likely cause ruptures of the lines of internal organs.
You're more likely to survive if you don't wear a seatbelt and are thus ejected from the car. At least you would be if there wasn't still the concrete wall.
You're a little caught up on the concrete wall bit. The wall is a stand in for another vehicle (after all. why destroy two vehicles when you only need to destroy one?). And head-on impacts at relative speeds of 60+ MPH do happen without killing the seatbelted occupants.
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@Rhywden said:
Not at 60 mph, though.
You're right. IIHS does those tests at 40 MPH.
You're a little caught up on the concrete wall bit. The wall is a stand in for another vehicle (after all. why destroy two vehicles when you only need to destroy one?). And head-on impacts at relative speeds of 60+ MPH do happen without killing the seatbelted occupants.
Well, since kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared, those additional 20 mph make quite a bit of difference.
And with two vehicles you have two crumple zones. Huge difference. Really. Because you just doubled the deceleration distance.
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Nice. Just found something I can inflict on my pupils :)
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It's 200 bar, usually. That's about 3,000 psi.
Oh, yeah, 3000psi is totally fine, while 5000 is ridiculous.
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And of course it's absolutely impossible to create such tanks for gas.
Nobody but you said that, I don't think. I just said it was probably harder and/or more expensive.
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Nobody but you said that, I don't think. I just said it was probably harder and/or more expensive.
Those crashproof plastic tanks won't be the exact epitome of cheap either.
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Those crashproof plastic tanks won't be the exact epitome of cheap either.
Welcome to realizing my point. All I ever said, originally, was that a H2-gas tank would probably cost more--maybe a lot more, but I don't know--than the ones in use today.
