Featured Ford F-150 Lightning BEV - US$39,974*

unlike the gasoline in your car, which everybody knows is made from sunshine and children's laughter.
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Unlike hydrogen, which is non-toxic, or water vapor produced from hydrogen and air, which is non-toxic.

 

I completely agree with you on this point. The problem, though, is that NO ONE is making the second one of the options you describe. And from a practical point of view, it would require double the infrastructure support. Not really completely double since it would be less of both...but still more.
And about 9 of the top 10 automakers are doing the first choice. It is game over.

Mike

 

That isn't an answer to my question.

Is anyone supporting hydrogen cars making the design you proposed? How about for commercial trucks?

Both are also products of biological processes. Fish essentially piss ammonia. While spills would be bad in the immediate time and area, the long term effects will have a much lower impact than the fuel oil ships now use, as there already organisms present than will consume them.

We know of their toxicity because we have been using them for quite some time. Safe handling practices are known. The distribution infrastructure already exists. If it comes to using them in cars, the fuel and dispensing systems will be much cheaper than those for hydrogen.

 

Volume is a packaging problem and it's not hard to solve. We have cars and trucks with large amounts of excess volume.

They could.

And yet, we have to manufacture it, in large-scale, from natural gas.

We're comparing to hydrogen, not oil.

You can say the same about petroleum products. I'd still rather not use them.

And less energy dense, and harder to use, and much more toxic even than gasoline in a spill.

"Inhalation: Ammonia is irritating and corrosive. Exposure to high concentrations of ammonia in air causes immediate burning of the nose, throat and respiratory tract. This can cause bronchiolar and alveolar edema, and airway destruction resulting in respiratory distress or failure."

The Facts About Ammonia

 

Submarines and aircraft carriers do, well, the implied nuclear power...

moto g(7) power ?

 

Agree with the sentiment but lets look at a few things and it gets much worse for fuel cell vehicles. A 50 mile phev, sure that makes a lot of sense if it is flex fuel. A mix of these and shorter range phevs and bevs are all incentivized, and a mix will require less new electrical infrastructure and all the gasoline infrastructure is built.

Let's look at the f150 electric. Estimates are that it has a 150 kwh battery weighing 1800 lbs for an estimated 300 miles of range. That is about 1000 lbs more than the v6 ecoboost f150. The truck is 1.7" taller because of the battery pack, and gets a better active rear suspension versus live axle and a 14 cubic foot frunk with power outlets and a basin. First thing when you add hydrogen is now you have to put in the tanks, and its not 150kwh because you need a lot more hydrogen since fueling stations are few, and it needs to be converted down to electricity, and . Let's say a little over 500 kwh hydrogen storage or 15 kg of hydrogen with tanks probably weighing 600 lbs. That 50 mile battery will probably will weigh more than 400 lbs. Add the extra protection and size to have the same bed volume and the plumbing, fuel cell stacks, we probably add another 200 lbs or more. That is 600 lbs less than the 6500 lb f150 lighting, but probably not even that if it is going to have the same handling, hauling, and towing capacity. It will not sell. If you are towing 5000 lbs then we are talking 11,500 lbs, versus 10,900 lbs. I'm sure some hydrogen diehards will pretend its a big deal. How much more upfront would you pay for that and the higher maintenance and fuel costs in the future.

 

And yet packaging seems to be a hurdle in the hydrogen cars you can buy or lease today.

Does any company even have a concept car of it? The closest I know of is Nissan, but they took out the plug and charger, and the fuel cell ran on ethanol.

Just like hydrogen. In fact, the process for making ammonia begins by making hydrogen. Any big breakthroughs for lower cost green hydrogen will benefit the production of ammonia and methanol.

Green methanol and ammonia plants are being built.
Abu Dhabi Plans Green Ammonia Production Plant
https://cen.acs.org/energy/hydrogen-power/CF-plans-green-ammonia-plant/98/i43
Proman to build world’s largest green methanol plant at North Sea renewables hub - Proman
Methanol production capacity may quintuple on decarbonized industry transformation: study | IHS Markit

The hurdles and costs of shipping hydrogen means that it may get shipped to stations as ammonia, if it were to succeed for cars.

And hydrogen has the widest range of flammable and explosive mixtures in air of any chemical. They all have downsides. The shipping industry will look more to costs than toxicity. It was being cheaper that had us switch to oil and coal from whales and wood.

Still trying to divert the discussion from the volumetric energy density of hydrogen. Ammonia and methanol hold more energy per volume than liquid or compressed hydrogen. They are even better once the tanks are accounted for.

If we can make hydrogen dispensers that the general public can use without causing a fire or explosion. We can make such safe dispensers for ammonia.

Russia also has nuclear icebreakers.

 

Can you buy or lease a decent PHEV H2 car today?

That would be stupid.

But it's so light and has such high diffusion, it's hard to get it within that range.

Because the specific energy density is more important.

[/quote] Ammonia and methanol hold more energy per volume than liquid or compressed hydrogen.[/quote]

And less per mass - by a factor of like 4 IIRC.

In a wreck, I'd rather have a cloud of hydrogen above me than a puddle of ammonia below me.

 

No, because the companies pushing hydrogen cars are unwilling to put a plug on one. And reducing the fuel cell size for a bigger battery isn't going to make packaging the hydrogen tanks any easier if you want 400 miles of range of hydrogen.

And yet money and time is being spent on it because shipping around hydrogen is so costly, and there doesn't look like there is going to be a big breakthrough there.

Explosions at stations and hydrogen plants show it isn't impossible.

Ammonia and methanol hold more energy per volume than liquid or compressed hydrogen.[/quote]

And less per mass - by a factor of like 4 IIRC.[/quote]For something small like a car, volume will be more important.

The first Mirai held 5kg hydrogen. It sat four, and had a tiny trunk without pass through. The volume of those tanks was around 30 gallons. A Prius can go over 1500 miles with that much gasoline. It might hit 700 with methanol. As liquids, they don't need the thick walls and cylindrical shape to contain high pressure hydrogen, so holding that much fuel would take up far less space in a car, if needed. Of course, that much fuel isn't needed for a personal car. the current Prius has plenty of range on gasoline as is, and the tank only needs to 50% bigger to get the same with methanol. Which would put the tank at half the volume held of the Mirai hydrogen tanks.

Depending on how that hydrogen got out, you may no longer have any opinion, but more likely it will be a puddle of methanol, or e-gasoline under you.

Green ammonia is happening because we'll still need fertilizer. As a fuel, it is being considered for ships. Hydrogen isn't great for transport ships. Yes, its lighter than the fuel oil, but the ship will need about three times the hydrogen in volume in order to have the same range. That's before factoring in the insulation needed for liquid hydrogen, which will still have losses to venting. Ammonia is in the same boat in terms of volume of fuel, but the tank packaging is much more compact without losses. Not needing a carbon source, green ammonia will likely end up cheaper than methanol.

 

We already have the shipping problem licked - don't do it. Make the hydrogen on-site and store it in tube trailers.

Just almost.

And less per mass. And mass is what matters for efficiency and therefore for range.

I disagree. Mass is much more important. It's easy to design for volume, it's hard to design to be light.

But now the conversion system (to convert the liquid fuel to energy) has to be many times larger. I actually rode in a car where the fuel cell was in the center console - the size of a shoebox.

You don't lose much, if any, to venting if it's designed right. You use the boiloff to run the vehicle.

And nastier.

You seem stuck on volume, which is the easy part, and careless about weight and conversion systems, which are the hard parts.

 

Smaller on site systems are less efficient, and may not have the volume production to support major stations that will see thousands of vehicles in a day. It also doesn't address how regions with bountiful renewable energy like the sunny Middle East will get that energy to other markets like Japan.

Volume can impact size and shape, and also have an impact aerodynamics and range. More importantly, it has an impact on sales. People won't buy a long range car if it can not carry all their stuff for those trips. Customers care less about the vehicle weight.

The Prius Prime is a couple hundred pounds heavier than the Prius, and is more efficient in hybrid mode.

Liquid hydrocarbons can be fuels for a fuel cell.

Did you include the engine whenever bringing up the energy density of gasoline? There are engines that fit in a brief case that could likely perform the same role as a shoebox sized fuel cell. We actually had a small engine, big battery PHEV once available for sale. The space savings of using a fuel cell instead of the generator wouldn't be enough to get enough hydrogen on board for the same range.

A concept car no one wants to commercialize can't save hydrogen cars.

 

No, they're not.

You don't get it - none with *ever* see thousands of vehicles per day. These would be *plug-ins* and the H2 stations are for the same purpose as fast-charging stations are now.

Distributed energy production is the way to go. You aren't moving around electricity for BEVs either.

Again, you don't get it.

Customers don't care about the size of the *outside* of the vehicle. Make it a little longer *outside* and the same size inside. Customers do care about range and range goes linearly with efficiency. A longer, lighter vehicle will have vastly better efficiency and thus vastly better range.

Because the hybrid system is more efficient, not because the car. Irrelevant to the discussion about cars with big batteries anyway.

A bad fuel cell.

Yes. That's why it's 1kWh/kg instead of 11kWh/kg.

And we should be using them. Free-piston engines, for example.

So make the car a little longer.

Hydrogen cars can't be saved, despite being a vastly superior solution to BEVs. And that's a shame. Like I said before, this mess-up may have set our transition to sustainability back by a decade or two.

 

I guess you just don't get it. I do care about the length of the car...it has to fit into my garage.

You were probably one of the people who insisted on watching movies on Beta since it was far superior to VHS.

Mike

 

Most F-150s don't fit in garages. My garage is 5 feet longer than my Prius.

And proud of it. I also still use separates instead if sound bars because separates are better. I use an SLR because it's better than a phone or a compact and I used compacts instead of phone cameras until I couldn't get one anymore.

If you don't mind the lower quality of sound bars, phone cameras and BEVs, that's your choice. However, people like you have in the past and continue to negatively affect my life by your choices for lower quality. Phone cameras killed compacts, mirrorless cameras are killing SLRs, sound bars are killing separates and BEVs have killed the hydrogen economy. And, yes, VHS killed Beta despite being inferior, just like the rest of these examples.

 

VHS killed Betamax because a Betamax cassette couldn't hold a full movie. Matching VHS 2 hour length meant Betamax matched VHS picture quality.

Hydrogen lost because of cost. The breakthroughs promised by supporters never happened. The costs for the cars, stations, infrastructure, and the hydrogen itself could not come down to compete with the alternatives.

 

No hydrogen is reformed (most of the time - to reduce the asinine high price) via coal, brown coal, or natural gas or diesel oil ... just to keep it real.
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Hmmm, so perhaps there are fewer people than you thought that had driving patterns like you

 

There's a hydrogen plant and filling station on the CSULA campus near us where my son just finished his freshman year. I'll try to find out what they're using...

Anyone else notice the multiple notes that the MSRP is not a guarantee of pricing through the dealer? I'm really worried about dealer mark-up. (Wonder what is happening to Mach E purchasers)?

moto g(7) power ?

 

There never was a hydrogen economy to be killed. Just as fictional as the transporters in Star Trek.

Mike