Hydrogen fuel

[buggerit]

Saw a news report from ABC Australia on break through with storing and transporting hydrogen converted to a ammonia?.
Toyota and Hyundai are on board with the project run by CSIRO who developed the tech , 800KM range and same refuel time as petrol and similar price

[JMemonic]

Saw a news report from ABC Australia on break through with storing and transporting hydrogen converted to a ammonia?.
Toyota and Hyundai are on board with the project run by CSIRO who developed the tech , 800KM range and same refuel time as petrol and similar price

Excellent idea coming out of Australia once again, lets convert an explosive product the rapidly dissipates to become none hazardous to an highly toxic product that tends to linger, and even at minor levels can cause respiratory injuries that are difficult to heal. Yeap great plan.

[russd7]

Excellent idea coming out of Australia once again, lets convert an explosive product the rapidly dissipates to become none hazardous to an highly toxic product that tends to linger, and even at minor levels can cause respiratory injuries that are difficult to heal. Yeap great plan.

and the difference to our current combustion source is??
i understand what you are saying J but unless they come up with vehicles that self charge on the move then i still see lecky vehicles as to restrictive, some of us like to travel reasonably long distances without hassle, so unless i can travel over 1000km on a single charge on NZ roads or have the ablity to fully recharge in 15mins or so then lecky as a traveling vehicle wont work for me, and i am talking cars here not MC.

[Hoonicorn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JYD5Sm1zAc

I had to look this up for myself. Since I found the video I've posted it.

[Drew]

Great. Now fender benders need to be attended by HAZMAT.

[JMemonic]

and the difference to our current combustion source is??
i understand what you are saying J but unless they come up with vehicles that self charge on the move then i still see lecky vehicles as to restrictive, some of us like to travel reasonably long distances without hassle, so unless i can travel over 1000km on a single charge on NZ roads or have the ablity to fully recharge in 15mins or so then lecky as a traveling vehicle wont work for me, and i am talking cars here not MC.

Ok Russell here's why I think things could go west with this very fast, and very easily.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzObhHet9QM

Now unless everyone operating a vehicle was carrying BA and trained as you are in it's use then this could easily happen at what might have once been a non fatal MVA. You would need to attend every one in full BA until you determined there was no risk. Hell even working on the car or driving it if there was any sort of leak could be fatal, far more so than dino juice, now hydrogen would have a greater risk of flammability than our current dino juice but it would dissipate faster, taking the mixture outside the combustible range rather fast.

As to lecky vehicles, potentially great around town, hydrogen fuel cell technology to replace the current dino juice powered hybrid tech could be a go but there's a rule about energy, that summed up in a nut shell is you ain't going to get nothing free, sure maybe more efficiently than currently, (think injectors vs carbs), but never free.

Now please folks don't think I am getting all tin foil hat here but years ago I read a very interesting article on a paper presented by a university in the good ol USA, it was about a battery of sorts that the electrolyte carried a charge and was replaceable, the idea was you drained the electrolyte into a holding or charging tank, then replaced it with a charged version, so pull into a variation of a current filling station , drain the used, flat juice, refill with charged juice. It was an interesting concept and was working on a bench in a lab but heck I can't even find a reference to it now, maybe it was all BS and never worked but could have been an interesting idea.

[buggerit]

Ok Russell here's why I think things could go west with this very fast, and very easily.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzObhHet9QM

Now unless everyone operating a vehicle was carrying BA and trained as you are in it's use then this could easily happen at what might have once been a non fatal MVA. You would need to attend every one in full BA until you determined there was no risk. Hell even working on the car or driving it if there was any sort of leak could be fatal, far more so than dino juice, now hydrogen would have a greater risk of flammability than our current dino juice but it would dissipate faster, taking the mixture outside the combustible range rather fast.

As to lecky vehicles, potentially great around town, hydrogen fuel cell technology to replace the current dino juice powered hybrid tech could be a go but there's a rule about energy, that summed up in a nut shell is you ain't going to get nothing free, sure maybe more efficiently than currently, (think injectors vs carbs), but never free.

Now please folks don't think I am getting all tin foil hat here but years ago I read a very interesting article on a paper presented by a university in the good ol USA, it was about a battery of sorts that the electrolyte carried a charge and was replaceable, the idea was you drained the electrolyte into a holding or charging tank, then replaced it with a charged version, so pull into a variation of a current filling station , drain the used, flat juice, refill with charged juice. It was an interesting concept and was working on a bench in a lab but heck I can't even find a reference to it now, maybe it was all BS and never worked but could have been an interesting idea.

From the article it appears that the ammonia is converted back to hydrogen at point of sale for use by cars.

[Drew]

From the article it appears that the ammonia is converted back to hydrogen at point of sale for use by cars.

Soooo, it's just massive tankers full of the lung dissolving liquid.

Sounds much better.

[TheDemonLord]

Soooo, it's just massive tankers full of the lung dissolving liquid.

Sounds much better.

To be fair - that's how Ammonia is currently transported...

[nerrrd]

Any particular reason why they can’t do swappable battery packs for electric cars? Then you could just roll up and swap an empty one for a fully charged one and be on your way just like filling your tank with hydrogen (or petrol).

Having a dedicated charging infrastructure might help manage the increase in demand on the grid? Standardising the batteries across all vehicles would probably help offset development costs as well.

I bet they could make really cool robotic swapping-stations...beep boop.

[caspernz]

Great. Now fender benders need to be attended by HAZMAT.

Or stand back and let the invisible flame take care of it :innocent::blink::shutup:

[JMemonic]

From the article it appears that the ammonia is converted back to hydrogen at point of sale for use by cars.

That seems like a solution for transport, kind of like acetone for acetylene the the cylinders are constructed in a manner that lowers the risk of the carrier liquid being accidentally released, but it seems odd to use another gas as a carrier.

A couple of things to remember about this from the video link of course, Australian politicians recently believed it was a great idea to convert coal to hydrogen gas, a rather dirty process, they are looking for a method to export hydrogen gas to other countries, and to be honest not a bad idea for long term energy exports. Before they go raving about how clever they are in being able to export hydrogen gas produced by solar and wind though wouldn't it better if they could use the same solar and wind to replace their coal burning power generation system they currently have? As I understand these plants run on a dirty brown coal, and Australian power generation for one city, I can't remember which on but have a though it might be Melbourne produces more CO2 emissions than the whole of NZ, not to mention the other by product toxins released into the environment.

[russd7]

gas or liquid fuels are dangerous now and yet we cart them round reletavely safely, and work with them in our vehicles as well as many other uses. luckily i have never had to attend an incedent involving a petrol tanker or an LPG tanker as a volly, but I did attend the incedent bacck in 1989 (if my memory serves me correctly) where a full LPG tanker lost his brakes going down the Shanendoa hill and jammed a car in to the side of the Shanendoa bridge at the bottom, the force moved the bridge off its foundation. now that tanker could have burst in to flames or spilled its content everywhere but it didn't.
these tanks are designed to take impact and stay intact. (that is not to say it cant happen)

everyone goes on about risk etc, our instructions are that if we come across an EV with the battery on fire our only option is to dowse with copious amounts of water to try and cool it down, the risk of one going on fire is apparently low but it is not zero, so should we not be stopping them as well.

from my point of view when i need to get somewhere i don't want to be mucked around and have to take another day to have to wait for batteries to charge.
as an example, my wifes family live in Richmond (nelson area) that is approx 1050km from where we live, we do that trip in one hit so as not to lose a day, we generally travel up the west coast but either of the three options we have include numerous hills and winding roads, currently there is not an EV that would do that trip and i don't see one in the near future,
as for changing batteries as a quick form of turnaround, the practicality of that is kinda like "wow" really, with the number of vehicles on the road how would that even work, putting aside the size and weight of the battery packs for these vehicles, do we have charging stations with hundreds of these batteries getting charged and ready to install, some people get shitty enough with having to wait five minutes to get to a fuel pump, how are they going to wait for batteries to get changed.

EV as a shopping trolly (or as some have pointed out, busses or refuse trucks) in other words around town vehicles where its not so critical is definitely a way to go but they are not the be all and end all that a lot seem to think they are, we will definitely consider one as a daily runner for the wife to get to work and back but not as a main vehicle and hybrids are not all they are cracked up to be yet either.

technology in all these fields is moving fast and it will be interesting what the shakedown will be like in the future

[russd7]

interesting read
http://nh3car.com/faq1.htm

[JMemonic]

interesting read
http://nh3car.com/faq1.htm

Interesting find there, and as you pointed out there are inherent risks will all fuel sources, but I go back to my first point ammonia is a highly toxic gas, even the best systems we currently have in place can be damaged, ammonia is often used as a refrigerant in commercial applications, (think large coolstores, factory fishing ships etc), and in these applications the risks are well known. We as a species need to find viable alternatives to the current hydrocarbon fuel sources we use, but to replace a dangerous substance with well known risks with something like ammonia, imagine if you will the recent bridge collapse in Italy as horrific as the toll was had there been an ammonia leak if could have easily tripled.

[Drew]

I can't see anyone getting consent to regularly move large volumes of ammonia. Christ, the only safe way to do it is to keep the road clear 200m fore and aft, to keep the risks tolerable.
Petrol/diesel spills are nasty, but no where near the same level of nasty as melting the lungs of anyone withing sniffing distance.

It's a big nope from me.

[Swoop]

Any particular reason why they can’t do swappable battery packs for electric cars?
Tesla was supposed to have that technology.

Much like the other stuff supposedly coming out of the "wonder car manufacturer" Musk.

It seems the spaceflight stuff works well, just not the tin-top shit yet.

[GazzaH]

The ultimate solution is to reduce travel to just the essentials ... which I realise means different things to different people.

It's going to involve significant cultural changes. Motorbiking for fun? Yeah, nah. Jetting off to the sun? Nah. Nah.

Meanwhile, lap it up.