This is just an ESG ploy so they can get investors. It won't go anywhere for the reasons posted above. And to add to that list H2 has a major embrittlement issue when you transport it via carbon steel pipelines, so transporting it around will be an issue that needs to be solved.
Yes I think realistically hydrogen is about as cheap as gasoline to produce, given a reasonable electrical cost. It makes a lot more sense as such vs. BEV's which only deplete a very finite resource of precious metals for each one built.
Yet again, a choice would need to be made as to which type of structure for fueling/transportation society wishes to embrace if moving away from the much demagogued fossil fuels. Hydrogen makes a lot more sense, logically, but geopolitically there is less advantage for China/graft for politicians in moving to this vs. the precious metals/imbalances BEV's facilitate. A year ago there were less than 50 hydrogen fuel stations, period, in the entirety of the US.
In a 'reality' of truth, AGW is a BS scam and there's no need to move from cheap, reliable, locally sourced fossil fuels anyway, but at least hydrogen would also mean automakers continuing to invest in ICE engines.
Anyway, Cummins seems to be led by a woke CEO who is also prone to blathering about fuel cells/zero carbon by 2050 blah blah blah so I certainly would steer clear of any direct investments in them moving forward;
Electricity is the worst way to store energy. Hydrogen is second.
A PEM electrolysis unit will give you about 20 kg of H2 per MWh. So at cheap electric prices, it theoretically could compete. But the devil is in the details.
Those pushing the H2 agenda will often brag about its energy density. It is true, that H2 is very energy dense on a mass basis. 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of H2 contains approximately the energy of 1 gallon (~8 lbs) of gasoline. Looks good, right?
But when it comes to transportation fuels and the infrastructure to move the fuels around, mass doesn't matter, volume does. This is true for storage tanks, pipelines, pumps, compressors, etc. And that is where H2 is a big loser.
At 1000psig of pressure, that 1 kg of H2 takes up almost 50 gallons of space. Even at 10,000psig, it is still going to occupy 7 gallons of space.
So, you can't compress your way to the volume energy density of gasoline (and compressing H2 is very inefficient/expensive), so you liquefy it, right? That's what some propose.
Well, liquefaction has its own challenges. The main one, of course, is how cold you have to get. We're talking 21K to liquefy H2. If you're not familiar with Kelvin, 21K equals -422F. Oh, and even when liquefied, that 1 kg of H2 is still going to occupy over 3 gallons of space.
Yes have not watched this video but they are bringing it to market quick!!
THIS is fascinating. Renewable Hydrogen coming from cow manure. This would create an amazingly sustainable supply chain for both beef and hydrogen. The Japanese appear to be leading to way on this tech.
This is the way I have seen conversions done on existing vehicles. I would also think on site production for filling point would be better for infrastructure purposes if the on vehicle route is not used.
Imma just take your word for it on all of that math.
I do still think hydrogen vehicles are silly, yet not quite as silly as battery electric vehicles. Being forced to choose one or the other for a future transportation architecture seems vaguely "Life of Brian" -ish to me.
There are a lot of dumb people in the world, I guess.
There's a lot of chatter in the ESG space about hydrogen as some miracle energy source. That this is the next trend. Not only for vehicles but everything.
THIS is fascinating. Renewable Hydrogen coming from cow manure. This would create an amazingly sustainable supply chain for both beef and hydrogen. The Japanese appear to be leading to way on this tech.
You would have to gather manure from confined feeding operations (CAFO), which the greenies hate. Dried manure from free range livestock has almost no methane, as it outgasses quickly. That's assuming it would be possible to gather.
I doubt that there is enough cow poop from CAFOs to run even a tiny percent of US autos.
H2 is typically made in steam methane reformers, processed nat gas.
Why is h2 better then just running nat gas? The tailpipe from the h2 car is just water but only because you pre burned the nat gas in the reformer (so to speak)
One problem: most of our hydrogen on earth is bound to oxygen, sulfur, carbon, etc. it takes energy to liberate it from those chemical bonds, more than you get reacting it again when you include thermal losses.
Hydrogen is a great clean fuel if you can get a lot of it as H2.
H2 can be generated where there is an energy source (hydroelectric plants) and then piped where it in need. Less waste then electrical power grid transfers.
Yes have not watched this video but they are bringing it to market quick!!
THIS is fascinating. Renewable Hydrogen coming from cow manure. This would create an amazingly sustainable supply chain for both beef and hydrogen. The Japanese appear to be leading to way on this tech.
If you already have methane, why not just compress and use it as a fuel? Going from biomass>methane>hydrogen is silly.
So let's say you're not going to combust the H2, but instead use it in a fuel cell like the PEM fuel cell mentioned in the video. This is just the reverse of the PEM electrolysis unit I mentioned in an earlier post.
In a H2 fuel cell car, the fuel cell basically replaced the batters of a BEV. So let's do some basic math.
A Tesla uses about 34kWh of electricity to get you 100 miles. 1kg of H2 using PEM technology will produce around 50kWh of electricity.
Therefore, 1kg of H2 will move you around 150 miles.
Sounds good, right?
But remember, that 1 kg of H2 at high pressure is 50 gallons. So that's around 3 miles to the gallon.
So this technology suffers from the same issue that BEVs do in terms of range. Its advantage is that the car can be refueled more rapidly, but you're still going to be stopping. A lot.
The video guy is a little confused. Hydrogen fuel cells and tanks holding hydrogen to burn are two completely different things. At one point he says that, then he confuses the two several places.
Regarding the burning of hydrogen, sure it's clean, and you can do it with a normal internal combustion engine. Really don't need to develop a special engine to do so. It does appear that Cummins is working on a hydrogen engine specific to semi trucks.
I think the more interesting thing is that they are developing an engine that shares a common block, but can be built with different heads and intakes, to burn diesel or gas or other fuels.
Hydrogen, propane, or liquified natural gas, all burn very clean. The problem always has been and will be, two fold. Tanks and refilling.
It takes high pressure tanks for propane, and extremely high pressure tanks for H2 and LNG. That means weight, space, and safety concerns.
Then the problem becomes refilling. There is one LNG terminal in Amarillo, I have no idea where there is another. Propane is pretty common, but mainly for 5 gallon bottles. And as the video says, the only H2 stations are in California.
Hydrogen adds another problem. If you're not making it by refining fossil fuels, you make it by electric hydrolysis of water.
Our electric grid is at capacity now. Are we going to add millions of electric cars, and thousands of H2 plants?
It will only be possible if we start building nuclear power plants again.
Do you mean CNG? LNG can be, and is, stored at near atmospheric pressure. For transportation use, I think it's stored at similar pressure to propane.
Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but if you're interested in this you guys should read up more on Power to X framework. Short story is it's the long road to reformulating hydrocarbons, using water and captured CO2, powered by wind/solar. These are also called ElectroFuels, or e-Fuels if you see those floating around. We're looking at some pilots to formulate Jet on a small scale
I've seen some long ball pitches on cleaning up produced water, powering w/captured flare gas and using CCUS projects as a circular O&G solution. Expensive and likely non viable because of cleaning required for the water, but pretty cool
I remember eons ago, when the new style Dodge Chargers were being designed for hydrogen fuel. Now, I think they have something called a "Hydra" that is being developed for Hydrogen fuel to replace the Hellcat.
Yep, it would best be a complimentary fuel source to hydrocarbon fuels and products. It's down there, may as well use it. Maybe some of it can be extracted in the refining processes.
Yep, it would best be a complimentary fuel source to hydrocarbon fuels and products. It's down there, may as well use it. Maybe some of it can be extracted in the refining processes.
Oh I completely agree. Would be some great hilarity. No wells get shut in. There's just a separator in the surface manifolds where it says 'green energy' on one pipeline and 'energy' on the other.
And we know the Obamians were anti-Western strength, anti-energy, and basically green bent- so maybe the Bush admin was developing something useful.
Honestly it was pretty incredible bc as other fuel sources gas stations where installing hydrogen fill-ups. There are still hydrogen pumps in multiple state. Obama scrapped it for the heap of **** known as the volt. Which was a massive flop.
Inb4 the engineer and his team who invented this engine is found dead with two bullet holes in the back of his head and the cause of death ruled a suicide
Honda has had hydrogen fuel vehicles being tested for like 20 years. They've had a fleet to lease in California for what seems like forever. And provide a handful of refueling stations throughout the state.
As noted, the issue is refueling. Compressed hydrogen is difficult to supply. But once in place, it is completely clean, with the "exhaust" being water. The issue is, how dirty will it be to make the hydrogen to begin with? Electrolysis to break up water using electricity? I'm actually not sure where things are on that side of things these days. If we couple this with nuclear to power this process, we could theoretically have an unlimited fuel supply in our homes and powering our vehicles. Would be nice, eh? Too bad that would never happen. It just makes too much sense…
One problem: most of our hydrogen on earth is bound to oxygen, sulfur, carbon, etc. it takes energy to liberate it from those chemical bonds, more than you get reacting it again when you include thermal losses.
Hydrogen is a great clean fuel if you can get a lot of it as H2.
I've seen YouTube videos of hydrogen stations in southern California where the hydrogen is supposedly generated on site. Generating it from electrolysis of water doesn't make sense, certainly not in California. Best as i can tell, the hydrogen is generated from natural gas.
I would prefer hydrogen fuel and/or hydrogen fuel cells over EV's based on lithium batteries.
Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787
In a 'reality' of truth, AGW is a BS scam and there's no need to move from cheap, reliable, locally sourced fossil fuels anyway...
The left is clearly using AGW as a power play, but have you ever been to Los Angeles or Mexico City or Shanghai? The smog and dirtiness are freaking terrible. You can feel it in your lungs.
There are lots of great reasons to drastically reduce our fossil fuel consumption over the next few decades aside from "OMG we're all gonna die!!"