Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in

Hydrogen electrolysis aka green hydrogen 4

My thoughts on Electric vs Hybrid:
1) I'm not rich. I just want one efficient car that can meet most of my needs. One that is as fuel efficient as possible. Hopefully one that costs 40k or less.... Honestly, I've even thought about just getting an e-bike and letting my wife and kids have the cars most of the time. Mostly I just need to be able to run errands, shop for groceries. But, when I really started thinking about it, I realized how many little trips I take each week where that would be really, really inconvenient.

2) California has (in the recent past) told consumers not to charge their electric cars for some really hot days during the summer. That's sort of a deal breaker for me. I want freedom from the whims of California lawmakers / regulators / utilities and such.

3) My best friend had a natural gas powered Honda Civic for a number of years. It was a great car. But, he always had to be planning out when and where he was going to fill it up. That was a pain in the butt for him. But, it worked because he got an HOV lane pass that dramatically reduced his commute. He paid a lot extra for that sticker too. Something like 10~20% of the price of the car if I remember correctly.

4) The infrastructure for electric is actually probably pretty good here in Southern California. I've seen plenty of charging stations nearby. More are popping up all the time. Unfortunately, I get the impression that a Tesla can only use the Tesla charging stations and vice versa. That seems like a pretty big problem to me. I can go to any gas station in any city in the country and feel perfectly secure about getting my car filled up. Maybe if I added a charger to my garage I'd feel better about it.

5) I can see the limited EV Range as a bit of a problem for some people. In reality, I don't do much long range driving. So, I could get away with an EV +90% of the time. Sure, I'm driving up to the Bay Area next month for a company event (and to have a memorial service for my father). But, I could just switch cars with my wife for a few days when something like that comes up.

6) The other thing is the charging time. One of my friends has a Tesla and talked about how he went on a long trip and the charging took forever. It's supposed to take less than an hour. But, that is dependent on the amperage of the charger and such. And, when he traveled, there were a ton of cars charging at the same time... reducing the speed of charging. I think it said it took something like 6 hours to charge. That's like doubling (or tripling) the time it takes to get somewhere. Drive for 3 hours. Stop for 6 hours to charge your car! Maybe drive only halfway and stop somewhere overnight to charge your car. Ugh! I don't want to deal with that. At least not yet.

Ideally, I'll get a Hybrid sometime in the next couple of years. See how that goes for the next 5~10 years (I keep my cars for a long time). Then I'll see what sort of infrastructure is built up for electric and what the price differences are. Or, maybe when it's time to replace my wife's car we'll look at a full EV then.
 
1 Chevy Bolt, Hyundai Kona, Nissan Leaf (but I don't recommend that one due to its oddball and being-phased-out CHAdeMO fast-charge plug)
2 most of the time (except on road trips) charging is overnight. Dunno about SoCal but here, our peak electrical demand (not only daily pattern but also annual pattern) is daytime in summer. Overnight is always low demand. But the nuke plants that supply most of our power, can't throttle down all that well. So ... overnight power is cheap. (C$0.10 per kWh)
3 no question with EVs, some planning-ahead for longer road trips is necessary; the need for this will diminish over time as more charging spots are built. Locally, every motorway rest stop also has a DC fast-charger, and those are roughly every 80 km apart. On long trips, I just use those, although certainly others are available.
4 unfortunately, for now, there's Tesla, and then there's everybody else who use SAE J1772/CCS(and then there's the Nissan Leaf, LOL). Tesla is using what's called a "Magic Dock" on new-build supercharger stations, and retrofitting some older ones, which can charge CCS vehicles, and next year there's supposed to be an adapter to fast-charge CCS vehicles using all but the oldest Tesla superchargers. There's already an adapter to fast-charge a Tesla at a CCS station. And the slower AC "level 2" chargers are already plug-adapter-compatible. I don't have a Tesla-to-J1772 adapter for my Bolt. It's never been an issue. I have PlugShare (phone app) to show me just the J1772 (AC) and CCS (DC fast-charging) stations. I don't know nor care where the Tesla stations are.
5 I betcha there's plenty of fast-charge stations along whatever motorway you plan to use. Check PlugShare.
6 No way did a DC fast-charge on a Tesla take 6 hours unless there's some missing tidbit of information that you weren't told ... 6 hours is Level 2 (AC) recharging time! My understanding of the Tesla stations is that they operate in pairs, and if there are two vehicles plugged into the same master unit then each one will be limited to half the capacity of the station - which is not necessarily half the capacity that the car will take. If it's a 250 kW station (which I believe most of the newer ones are) then your charging rate will be limited to 125 kW ... but that'll still charge up a Model 3 from completely empty to 80% in half an hour or thereabouts.

I've done my place (northwest of Toronto) to Ottawa, visit with a customer for 3 hours, then drive home, 950 km total, in winter, in my Chevy Bolt (which is pretty much the slowest fast-charging vehicle out there) in about 15 or 16 hours. I planned for meal stops to coincide with charging stops at our OnRoute motorway service centers, and it wasn't a big problem.

No question the vehicle is a different beast from a petrol vehicle, and there are some fine points that people used to combustion engine vehicles might not realise:
- The "fill'er up" mentality doesn't work. Batteries charge the fastest when they're empty and slow down as they fill up. So ... it's better to run the car down to (let's say) 10% or 20% state-of-charge, and then charge it to 70% or so, because charging slows down after that. Two shorter charging stops from 20% to 60% will be much, much faster than one 20% to 100%. Most EVs gently remind their owners to not fast-charge past 80% unless they really, really have to ... but of course, not everyone pays attention to that (or can get on board with changing their mind-set).
- Batteries charge fastest when they are in their happiest temperature range. On vehicles with proper battery temperature management (like mine, not like the Nissan Leaf) they're most likely to be in that happy temperature range after driving. So, if there is a choice between doing a DC fast-charge at the end of a long driving session, or doing it first thing the next morning ... do it at the end of the day, don't wait for the next day. Some newer models have a "battery conditioning mode" in which, if you set the built-in navigation system to have a fast-charger as a destination, they'll automatically bring the battery to optimum temperature as you drive there. If your vehicle has that, use it. Remains true that it's best to fast-charge at the end of the day rather than the beginning of the next one.
 
and Kia Niro (= Kona) and e-Mustang from Ford (and Polestar from Volvo) etc.

Ottawa, eh ... NE of the center of Canada (and the universe) ?? Yes, recharge at home ... much cheaper than at a station. I notice a drop off in range (= charge) in winter ... nothing SoCal would worry about. A trip to Ottawa is 4 hours by gas, 6-7 with recharge ... not the end of the world ... heading to Thunder Bay and beyond would take more planning (like travelling in western NSW with an 80s Mini ...).

Yeah, 20-80 ... not something they talk about when talking range ... typical recharge is between 20% and 80% of battery (so useful battery is about 1/2 of what it's capacity is. Yes, you can do 0-100 but not recommended regularly.

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.
 
dik not to worry there is no "fossil" to use.

Its called "mineral oil. Any animal fluids are consumed by other life forms.
Fossil is a catch term of the party that uses it for an agenda. Pseudo science at its finest.
 
Two points about that article.

Most hydrogen from methane requires this to be "blue" H2, where you take the CO2 and sequestrate it somewhere, usually old Oil or gas fields or massive aquifers.

But there is always going to be a penalty between energy from electricity and energy from electrolysis. The issue is whether that cost extra is worth it in order to essentially store electrical energy or use it in pipes which transport it more economically or less visually damaging than overhead power lines.

To compare electrolysis hydrogen with electricity is a fools game. Who pays?? We all will, but the alternative is not attractive either. Climate change is self evidently happening right now and could be catastrophic for mans ability to live, farm and survive in significant areas of the world.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
LittleInch, do understand that climate change IS what has allowed humans to thrive in this world. Without it we would not have some of our most fertile agricultural regions such as the San Joaquin Valley. So far to date climate change has only been beneficial to humans. Citing evidence, why do you think future climate change is going to have the opposite effect?
 
There's a big difference between doing things to affect agriculture and the wholesale rapid changes to things like the ice sheets, the North Atlantic currents, heat waves, sea level rises, droughts, floods, more extreme weather events.

Whilst all of these are things which have occurred, it it the intensity and rapid change which is the issue.

I do not accept that climate change has allowed humans to thrive... It is humans ability to change and modify things, create tools and harness power.

The incredible increase in CO2 since the 1950s is the cause, not the effect of climate change. IMHO.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
The change is happening more slowly today than it has at any other point in human history. We have thrived through 410 feet of sea level rise in only 12,500 years.
 
We didn't build cities and permanent structures for most of that 12,500 years. That's +/- 500 human generations, and mankind was nomadic for most of the period with the most significant melting of ice-age glaciers. If the sea flooded the grass hut, you just built next year's hut further up. If wildlife moved, you moved with them. Famines and epidemics were essentially uncontrolled (but also tended to be limited in scope prior to the era of worldwide travel of mankind).

The earth has survived climate change before, it will survive this one as well. The question is how much different it will look afterward, and it isn't guaranteed that much of humanity will survive whatever happens.

 

I strongly disagree...





The changes have happened in decades, rather than millennia... just a heads up for possible future changes.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
It's also how often things are happening.

So it's not "Do you remember the winter / summer of xxxx, some twenty five or thirty years ago, its now the norm.

That's happened in my lifetime.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
...or the summer of 2023?

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
Exactly. At the moment each is worse / hotter / wetter / drier / stormier than the previous year. Take your pick depending on where you are.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
Climate stripes... or barcode at


Visually shows the increase for most places on earth.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
Another climate capitalist?

Screenshot_20240225-092419_euoi0v.png
 
I guess in some ways capitalistic in your sense... Careful, barcodes could give capitalism a 'bad name'. If you look at nearly all the 'barcodes'... there seems to be a marked increase to the right. You cannot, however, detract from the overall impact. Looking at the Global... there seems to be a marked trend in increase...

Clipboard01_pesimz.jpg


Capitalism... see the shift to the right?

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
A comment from an engineer working on green hydrogen

I am sceptical about the touted ubiquity of hydrogen as a green energy solution. I think it is hyped beyond belief by vested interests like O&G, and is a long long way off if at all, so the opportunity to work on H2 stuff really doesn't entice me. ...

Round trip efficiency of about 30%, cryogenic storage and transport temperatures (energy intensive; see first point), very high storage pressures which adds huge design complexity and cost, overhaul of existing infrastructure (all valves, compressors etc. In existing NG systems would need replaced), metal embrittlement, highly flammable, not to mention its success hinges entirely on aggregating sufficient demand to make all the aforementioned make sense to do, terrible volumetric density. I could go on

You are adding extra steps, complexity, cost and losing energy at every stage to take electricity to make an intermediary, to transfer back to electricity.

The 1% is for otherwise impossible to abate sectors like industrial high temp heat and a few other very niche applications.

All of this underpins a very very shakey business case yet its still being discussed. My mind boggles.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

GregLocock
  • Locked
  • News
Green hydrogen enthusiast moans about the unreliability of renewables 2
Replies
5
Views
6
SnTMan
SnTMan
GregLocock
  • Locked
  • News
Hydrogen from coal - it's like magic
Replies
6
Views
7
SnTMan
SnTMan
GregLocock
  • News
Green methanol
Replies
1
Views
10
BrianPetersen
BrianPetersen
GregLocock
  • Locked
  • News
Green Ammonia powered tugboat
Replies
11
Views
12
rb1957
rb1957
GregLocock
  • Locked
  • News
Green jet fuel - problematical 1
2
Replies
34
Views
35
btrueblood
btrueblood
Back
Top