General > General Technical Chat
The Hydrogen fuel economy will not be viable.
mendip_discovery:
--- Quote from: Infraviolet on January 14, 2023, 10:57:05 pm ---I do find it perplexing why so many places are considering switching natural gas pipelines for supplying fuel to static equipment (household boilers, cookers...), but not working on hydrogen for transport. It would seem to me that for anything static the eventual end result must be to power it electrically, directly from the electricity produced from nuclear/renewable sources. If nuclear and renewables were built at the proper scale they could bring the price of electricity low enough to outcompete gas for such uses. Chemical fuels are something you reserve for transport, less effiicent in energy terms but necessary for energy density reasons. Its a long way off, but I see the ideal energy grid of the future as being an electrical only one, with hydrogen generated by electrolysis at the filling stations where it is needed for vehicles. Using hydrogen like natural gas just looks like a way to complicate things.
--- End quote ---
I am not keen on the "just use electric it's clean" logic, it just moves the problem to somewhere else. I have gas for the boiler, electricity for the hob and ovens, and a multifuel stove in the living room. This has meant during the recent panic I was able to use the fuel with the best price for the task at hand and if I lose one due to an issue I usually have the other two as a backup. I live in a rural area so it is not unknown to have supply issues. Would having everyone for transport/house/work reliant just on electricity not create a monopoly of sorts.
Back to Hydrogen, it may have its uses and we are in a Betamax type situation we need to look at the alternatives as some might work well for solving a certain issue or there may be a breakthrough and suddenly a lot of problems will just sort themselves out. I can't go electric for my car as I have to street park and have no chance of charging it at home so I have to wait until they can be charged easily at a station in a short period of time. But I doubt I will have to change during my lifetime, I own a 20yr old vehicle as my daily and that has enough parts around for it to carry on for another 20/30 years.
BrianHG:
This is the current cleanliness of EVs:
It depends where on earth you live and how much you drive before it overtakes the conventional ICE solution.
As for practicality, if you own your own home or have a guaranteed parking spot where you can plug it in every night, if most of your travel is under the range of you EV's battery with occasional longer trips, then it is a very practical solution in countries with a good support infrastructure. Also, you will save a shit load on your petrol bill.
Anything short of my above paragraph, for now, just go for an ICE car.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: BrianHG on January 15, 2023, 11:52:02 am ---Anything short of my above paragraph, for now, just go for an ICE car.
--- End quote ---
More specifically: a hybrid.
Marco:
I'll just rephrase my usual argument, here and on youtube.
Currently hydrogen is planned as a reducing gas and heating gas in industry, for long haul trucking, marine and aviation. This will require vast quantities of hydrogen, quite regardless of potential use in seasonal storage, domestic heating and consumer cars where there are arguably alternatives (nuclear or vast overprovisioning vs seasonal storage, heatpumps vs domestic hydrogen heating, EV vs hydrogen cars).
What are the alternatives at net zero for industry, long haul trucking, marine and aviation?
- Synthetic fuel? Not actually an alternative, needs hydrogen to begin with ... but will be likely way more expensive than transporting/storing/using hydrogen directly.
- Carbon capture offsetting with continued fossil fuel use? Atrociously expensive.
- biofuel? Just for aviation/marine use would require more arable land and irrigation than we have on the planet (salt water crops are a boondoggle). Closed bioreactors could work, but atrociously expensive again.
Hydrogen is truly horrible, every alternative at net zero is worse.
Every realistic net zero alternative has more problems to overcome than hydrogen, not less. This is why hydrogen is going ahead regardless of all the nay saying, because the nay sayers aren't coming with real alternatives and 2050 is too close to listen to them.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: tom66 on January 15, 2023, 12:23:56 am ---Have you used induction hobs? I had a short stint with one, and besides having to take care with the cookware you used, I think they struck the perfect balance. They are fast and responsive and cook well. It's worth noting that cooking using gas produces a lot of indoor air pollution, especially NOx and fine soot particulates, both of which are known hazards to health.
--- End quote ---
I second that. Currently I have a ceramic stove but if that needs replacing, I'll go for an induction hob. For emergencies you can always keep a butane camping stove.
--- Quote from: Infraviolet on January 14, 2023, 10:57:05 pm ---I do find it perplexing why so many places are considering switching natural gas pipelines for supplying fuel to static equipment (household boilers, cookers...), but not working on hydrogen for transport. It would seem to me that for anything static the eventual end result must be to power it electrically, directly from the electricity produced from nuclear/renewable sources. If nuclear and renewables were built at the proper scale they could bring the price of electricity low enough to outcompete gas for such uses. .. <snip> ..Using hydrogen like natural gas just looks like a way to complicate things.
--- End quote ---
Your reasoning makes sense up to a point. You have to look at cost versus benefit. The question is whether converting hydrogen back to electricity which is then turned into heat OR burn hydrogen to produce heat is cheaper. The gas infrastructure is already there to deliver hydrogen. The electricity grid OTOH would see yet another load added in a situation where the electricity grid is already under a huge strain and needs upgrading.
But you can also think in terms of moving to more centralised ways of heating homes like district heating. The residual heat from a nuclear power plant can be used for heating and hot water which replaces the use of natural gas or hydrogen for heating. Over here in the NL many cities are installing piping for district heating.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version