Featured Hydrogen fuel a strong possibility?

That would be for the 'easy path' to fusion. The path that has slipped more than year-for-year for over a half century. But it looks like the hydrogen in regular seawater is about 150 ppm of deuterium (by population, not mass), so that makes about 20 trillion tons of it available in the oceans. Plenty for a considerable time.

I suspect that by the time the seawater supply starts running low, folks will have figured out the 'hard way' too, making use of regular hydrogen by first converting to deuterium.

 

yep - that was plan A. But after the disaster, Australia is Plan B.
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The land of the rising sun has....sun. And wind, and waves, and geothermal...but not 'natural' resources like coal and oil.

 

true - & they use it wherever they can, but there's not a lot of space to put it up, compared to all the open land that even any one of our 80% larger States has. If they have any spare space, it's used for terraced farming. Think roughly the size of California, having 1/2 of our entire nation's population crammed into it. A tanker load of liquefied hydrogen doesn't take up much space.
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Just opposition to bad solutions when superiors ones are available.

That being said, I do think there is space for hydrogen in vehicles. Particularly, retrofitting current ICEs to run on partial or full hydrogen combustion: HyTech Power may have solved hydrogen, one of the hardest problems in clean energy - Vox

Also, I think solar-hydrogen FC setups are viable for houses. Here are some examples:
Hydrogen House Project: The Hydrogen House
main page

But new hydrogen FCVs? A good example of throwing good money after bad.

 

I agree. I'm just saying that all the other fusion projects admit they are decades away.
And where are they getting the funding to support a lifetime of employment with no results?
It is curious that Lockheed is funding this themselves (I presume)
Who cares if they are a few years late?

Mike

 

Around the time the Mirai came out, I asked why the car companies pushing hydrogen weren't offering hydrogen ICE vehicles that would be cheaper than a FCEV in order to support hydrogen stations with more customers? Well, BMW and Mazda did have bi-fuel hydrogen and gasoline cars with limited availability in their home countries.

BMW Hydrogen 7 - Wikipedia
Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen RE - Wikipedia
Mazda Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid - Wikipedia

Hydrogen's low energy density means choices need to be made with the gas ICE conversion. You can keep the power output equal to that as when burning gasoline, or keep the same relative level of fuel economy. The BMW does the first. Its a 7 series with a 6L V12, so fuel economy is not good to begin with. It's 16.9mpg with gasoline, and 4.7mpg on liquid hydrogen. The RX-8 choose the second, and power drops 99hp on hydrogen from the 206hp on gasoline.

Premacy was the Mazda5 in the US. The first used the drive train from the RX-8 with a mild hybrid system. The Wiki is sparse on details. The second iteration was series hybrid. It seems to even have had a plug. Sounds like the battery wasn't much bigger than one in a typical hybrid though, so not sure why they bothered. Though Mazda is working on a rotary series hybrid PHEV currently. Early research for that?

A hydrogen ICE is going to have the same packaging issues as a FCEV with the hydrogen tanks. No getting around their size and bulk. Liquid hydrogen isn't much of a solution. That requires venting, and the BMW's hydrogen tank can empty itself in a week.

Injecting hydrogen into diesel for lower emissions is interesting, and commercial trucks are big enough that a secondary hydrogen tank may not be an issue. However, propane and natural gas are being researched for the same purpose. Hydrogen will need to be notably better at the job for it to overcome the existing infrastructure of the other two.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095809918303515
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196890418304394
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1110016815000162
Reduction of emissions with propane addition to a diesel engine | SpringerLink
Don't know if there is any commercial systems available for that use. There are aftermarket propane ones used for a performance boost.

I think home hydrogen will have the same problems as hydrogen cars. A battery is simply cheaper and more efficient for supplying electricity once the sun is down. Between heat pumps, induction cook tops and microwaves, hydrogen for cooking and heating may not have much of an advantage either.

 

Or nuclear irradiation of lithium: Main properties and behavior under neutron irradiation of lithium-metazirconate ceramic breeder material for fusion reactors

For many years a research program on lithium metazirconate has been underway in the framework between ENEA and the Department of Applied Chemistry and Science of Materials (Bologna University). This research is aimed to verify the possibility of using such material as a breeder in future nuclear fusion reactors. The research program includes studies on nuclear properties and experimental work on the development of fabrication methods and the characterization of sintered samples, with the aim to verify that lithium metazirconate has the nuclear, physical, chemical, and mechanical properties able to satisfy the requested performance in the blanket of a fusion reactor. . . .​

Bob Wilson

 

Heavy hydrogen is plentiful, yes, and the amount of energy generated by the reaction, if recoverable at sufficient efficiency, is huge.

 

The toughest problem is cost of fueling, and I doubt they solved it. They seem to have cracked the hydrogen injection efficiency problem. Here they claim a more efficient small electrolyzer and better software to time injection. At a price of $10,000 and the only other penalty needing to fill a water tank to provide hydrogen, it likely could be a help reducing diesel polution and making diesel engines more efficient, but its not 10,000 psi hydrogen.

On the fcv side they claim a breakthrough on metal hydrides to cut the cost and size of the hydrogen tanks, but you still need to pay for expensive fuel there or make it at home, which seems silly compared to getting a plug-in and using fewer solar panels (about 1/3 electricity needed for similar distance).

Definitely a cool project but it cost $500K for it in 2007 (and ford gave them a $3M prototype car to help). The governments paid for 80% of it, but won't do it for you. They claim to have done a second one for $150K in the caymen islands but I can't find references to what was included.

Today's tech is definitely less expensive if you use lithium batteries for the bulk of storage. Before government incentives you can probably build a 21 kwh solar system (same size as the hydrogen house) with 27 kwh of tesla power wall for about $70K with professional installation. You still may want to generate hydrogen for a bigger buffer and to use in place of natural gas as they did, but it would require a much smaller system. The hydrogen house is grid tied, and would be able to sell more power back to the grid because it would be more efficient. Most people don't have lots big enough to hold all the hydrogen that was used in the hydrogen house, less space is needed if buffering daily power needs in batteries. When the project was done over a decade ago batteries were much more expensive, now with lower costs paying to generate and store hydrogen seems less economically viable outside of countries with very high electricity costs. It can be viable for businesses with much higher power requirements.

Agree here, but who knows perhaps methanol fuel cell phevs will be effective. Distribution and fueling of methanol is much less expensive than 10,000 psi hydrogen. If hytech power really has solved the metal hydride storage problem (I doubt it) then carrying hydrogen around will be less expensive.

 

Each Country is going to do what they darn well feel like doing poltically.

For example, in USA we like gaso and we grow corn for ethanol. EU likes diesel and grows yellow flowered rapeseed (Canola) all over the place for mandated biodiesel.

 

Irony is, even as fuel cell tech gets better and better, BEV's continue to get closer and closer to cost parody with ICE ....... & that's not even taking into account lower maintenance then ICE. Yet the traditional transportation industries keep trying to get fuel cel costs down - so that it can be argued to not be TOO much much more expensive than regular BEV's.
Makes one ask why the continued interest after 5 decades.
Could it be because you can make your own electricity at home? But you can't in all practicality) make your own oil or gasoline or hydrogen? Also - you can homebrew & score stuff at a junkyard to build ICE cars. Even parts are available for building your own BEV. Good luck rebuilding your own fuel stack.
Follow the money.

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Wow.
Gargantuan thread here.

Listen, as many posts as I have authored in Prius Chat? I don't claim to be an expert on....well, anything. Certainly not Hydrogen Fuel.

So it's with a shield of detached ignorance that I say...

I think as far as alternative go? It's clear at the moment that the movement is toward EV's. That seems to be the direction.

But like with any applicable technology, who can really predict the future?

Somewhat like VHS vs. Beta...it comes down to what works, what get's produced and embraced, and what people accept. Sometimes over even what is actually tangibly the best.

Then things like infrastructure support, happen,- inevitably.

Even though I think at the moment with Tesla, the benchmark technology is full EV vehicles, charged and powered by battery, I also think any breakthrough be it Hydrogen Fuel or otherwise, could immediately and rapidly change the game.

In the meantime, the vast majority continue to try to put out the growing fire.....with gasoline.

 

That’s a not-unreasonable point, but again,

In short, the pure-and-simple Laws of Physics put HFCEVs at a big disadvantage compared to BEVs.

I certainly can’t rule out the possibility that a derivative of HFCEV technology might emerge at some point in the future and prove better than BEVs. But if so, then that is a new, derived technology, not HFCEV technology.

When it comes to actual HFCEV technology though, it already exists, and it has a huge battle to wage against the Laws of Physics. The Laws of Physics tend to win such battles!

Plus, it also has huge battles ahead of it with respect to fueling infrastructure and cost.

 

No I don't think it is possible for hydrogen fuel to rapidly change the game.
Even if a miracle happened.

Let's review.
1. No matter what happens you can't install thousands of places to refuel with hydrogen rapidly.
2. Hydrogen is expensive and producing it from renewables is even more expensive. There is no miracle going to happen here. But even if it did, see #1
3. You can't (easily) refuel with hydrogen at home like with EVs. The early adopters are already using EVs and getting use to this. Sorry, even if hydrogen and electricity were at parity or nearly so, EVs would win.
4. Battery costs are dropping faster than fuel cell costs. A miracle could happen here...but not counting on it. EVs are already posed to have ranges of 400 miles
5. Fast DC charging of 250 and 350 kw are chipping away at the only advantage of hydrogen -- faster refueling speed

Sorry hydrogen...you had your chance, but physics, chemistry and thermodynamics conspired against you.

Mike

 

You’re absolutely right on all of this, but in this point, I’m not sure I’d say “early adopters,” although I suppose that depends upon “how early is early.” I personally think BEVs are largely, although maybe only just barely, past the “early-adopter” phase at this point.

 

I would say we are nearing the violent opposition phase (or into in most areas)
and not the general acceptance phase.

 

I see one possible drawback to hydrogen as a fuel for cars as being, the by product. And it fits right in with other mistakes made in trying to combat the accelerating growth of the human population and it's effects on the planets environment.
If hydrogen becomes the main fuel for personal vehicles sometime in the future and the rising ambient temps create higher water levels, adding more water to the environment in the form of hydrogen by product could be problematic.

I still would have bought a honda FCV in 2002 instead of the civic EX along with the Plug Power Home fueling station, heating furnace, water heater, if it was release for public consumption when announced.

 

K
Mods can delete, this was an early morning slip of the finger on the keyboard.