Mercedes-Benz wants hydrogen fuel cells mainstream, kinda

[Coaxialgamer]

This is the way we should be going. Hydrogen has a much higher energy density vs lithium-ion batteries. They're less expensive, and can more easily deliver high amounts of energy quickly. We're already running out of lithium at this rate too... 

[samcool55]

I don't understand why they don't use formic acid.

It's really easy to store (it's a fluid between 8°C and 100°C, very similar to water) and can easily be converted to hydrogen on the fly.

If you would expose formic acid to a ruthenium-based catalyst you get hydrogen which can be send into the engine straight away.

 

Also there are (maybe apart from the catalyst, i'm not a chemist) no toxic gases released from this system, only hydrogen and oxygen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formic_acid_fuel_cell

[kasugatei]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

While you can still say the energy produced per area of used land is low compared to other energy

Yes, that was my point on that.

 

But my whole point, which you are missing a bit is the following - more and more countries are preparing to ban fossil fuel vehicles and the power consumption surge of putting that many relatively high electricity consumers is just too much for the current grid. All renewable power sources are great, don't get me wrong BUT they don't have big enough output for the upcoming electricity demand. 

Tesla model S requires 10kW minimum, and using that as the reference point you need a 2000MW output (that is huge output even for the nuclear one) nuclear power plant just to charge 200000 cars at the same time. Most of the people will charge their cars during the night and although 200000 cars sounds like a lot, that is only one city of ~500000 people, give or take.

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

I don't understand why they don't use formic acid.

It's really easy to store (it's a fluid between 8°C and 100°C, very similar to water) and can easily be converted to hydrogen on the fly.

If you would expose formic acid to a ruthenium-based catalyst you get hydrogen which can be send into the engine straight away.

 

Also there are (maybe apart from the catalyst, i'm not a chemist) no toxic gases released from this system, only hydrogen and oxygen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formic_acid_fuel_cell

This will be why

 

Quote

As of April 2006, Tekion[2] held the exclusive license to DFAFC fuel cell technology using PEM membranes and formic-acid fuel from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and with an investment from Motorola,[3] was partnering with BASF to design and manufacture power packs by late 2007,[4] but development appears to have stalled, and almost all information was removed from Tekion's web site before April 24, 2010.

That's the problem when someone holds exclusive rights over technology.

[samcool55]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

That's the problem when someone holds exclusive rights over technology.

Well fuck... Does such exclusive right eventually expire? If not i guess we'll be stuck with EV cars then

[leadeater]

18 minutes ago, Niksa said:

 

But my whole point, which you are missing a bit is the following - more and more countries are preparing to ban fossil fuel vehicles and the power consumption surge of putting that many relatively high electricity consumers is just too much for the current grid. All renewable power sources are great, don't get me wrong BUT they don't have big enough output for the upcoming electricity demand. 

Well that depends on who's grid, here we'd be fine and it would be similar for other countries like Germany too. A lot of countries also have vastly more power production capacity than what is required on average, you have to have peak output, UK is a good example of this.

 

At night usage is much lower, power companies can just not reduce the output generation.

 

Most Nuclear power stations are getting shut down due to not enough demand, bring mass recharging of cars in to the mix and the economics of operating a nuclear power station vastly change.

 

Also as I said home generation is a thing, if I wanted I could put up a 15kW-20kW solar array which many people here are already doing.

 

Hydrogen fuel cell cars aren't close enough in development to be used in mass market and all the problems with the technology haven't been addressed, even the ecological ones. There is little point moving to hydrogen fuel cell cars if the emissions of CO and CO2 doesn't go down because right now to get pure hydrogen to use in fuel cell cars those are byproducts of the process and not in small quantities.

 

Edit:

Also forgot to mention Hydrogen production (Steam Reforming) uses fossil fuel so not exactly freeing us from fossil fuels, just changing how we are using them.

[Macman101]

I think we should tackle this problem... Tesla’s don’t work well when it’s -20 to -50 below for a week (‘96 hit -55 without windchill in WI) and in sure the rest of the upper Midwest and Canada will side with me, and let’s just burn the hydrogen.

It’s One problem I want to see get ironed out, a couple days a week of -20 isn’t out of the ordinary so it should be a consideration/benchmark for ideas that get taken to market (-50 w/o wind is an edge case I’m not crazy)

Edited September 14, 2017 by Macman101
Adding something more to the conversation

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, Macman101 said:

I think we should tackle this problem... Tesla’s don’t work well when it’s -20 to -50 below for a week (‘96 hit -55 without windchill in WI) and in sure the rest of the upper Midwest and Canada will side with me, and let’s just burn the hydrogen.

All I can say is screw that, I'd move lol. Hate the cold.

[Macman101]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

All I can say is screw that, I'd move lol. Hate the cold.

I thoroughly enjoy no consistent natural disasters like fires or hurricanes (protests don’t last long either!)

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, Macman101 said:

protests don’t last long either!

"What do we want?"

"To get inside it's bloody freezing"

"When do we want it!?

"Now!"

[MrDynamicMan]

6 hours ago, TigerHawk said:

Don't forget that the massive collection of batteries in fully electric vehicles is very dirty business as well. The materials are mined in Canada, destroying a lot of land, then shipped to China to be made into batteries, then shipped to wherever you are to be put into a car. The chemicals in those batteries are also some seriously dangerous stuff in an accident. And, lest we forget the reminder Samsung gave us all last year, batteries also explode.

 

imo fuel cells are the future for now. We just need better ways to store the hydrogen. Just a quick 5 min fill up is much less disturbing to our current way of life than the 30 minute to hours long charging cycle of batteries. Less expensive as well in the end, cause batteries ain't cheap.

>dealing with hydrogen

 

yeah lets not use batteries, too explosive.

[Jito463]

8 hours ago, Niksa said:

Talking about renewable energy sources we have the following:

-wind turbines are fine but their power output is quite low

-solar power plants require huge area for collection

-dams are fine as long as you don't mind acres upon acres of destroyed land 

To expand on that:

1) Wind turbines are also a hazard for birds, who routinely fly into them and are shredded.

2) Solar farms are also a hazard for birds, who are literally fried in mid-air by the reflected sunlight.

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

To expand on that:

1) Wind turbines are also a hazard for birds, who routinely fly into them and are shredded.

2) Solar farms are also a hazard for birds, who are literally fried in mid-air by the reflected sunlight.

go nuclear, better for the environment than all other forms of power and by the time thorium is running it can then be used to consume the remainder of the nuclear waste leaving nothing to store.

[Jito463]

Just now, mr moose said:

go nuclear, better for the environment than all other forms of power and by the time thorium is running it can then be used to consume the remainder of the nuclear waste leaving nothing to store.

I'm all for that.  I'm very disappointed that we abandoned nuclear power so readily here in the US.  Yes, there's inherent dangers in the technology, but there's dangers in anything in life.  And there are plenty of ways to mitigate that danger.  If the lieberals really want us to switch to electric cars (personally, I'm not giving up my gas guzzler), then we need nuclear plants to charge them from.  I can't see any other form of electricity generation producing enough of the necessary power required to charge them all.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

I'm all for that.  I'm very disappointed that we abandoned nuclear power so readily here in the US.  Yes, there's inherent dangers in the technology, but there's dangers in anything in life.  And there are plenty of ways to mitigate that danger.  If the lieberals really want us to switch to electric cars (personally, I'm not giving up my gas guzzler), then we need nuclear plants to charge them from.  I can't see any other form of electricity generation producing enough of the necessary power required to charge them all.

Nuclear has the lowest death toll of all the power technologies even with the current and historical safety standards.   

 

 

[paddy-stone]

It'll be better when/if they can scale up hydrogen production to happen in the car itself, then you'd only have to fill a tank with water to produce the hydrogen. Also a small-ish tank for the hydrogen, then the hydrogen gets burned to produce the electricity IIRC.

IF they can get that working hydrogen cars will be a BIG selling point, yes they will need regular maintenance, but the cost of saving for fuel will be huge to compensate for that.

[kasugatei]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

Hydrogen fuel cell cars aren't close enough in development to be used in mass market and all the problems with the technology haven't been addressed, even the ecological ones

I will just comment that I have just passed next to the hydrogen cell powered car while writing this message. Fully production series car. Toyota Mirai

[bimmerman]

Fuel cell (or hydrogen combustion) cars are still going to be viable until the issue of truly fast charging all (not just Tesla) electric vehicles is possible. I'm talking 5-10 minute charging.

 

The issue with any of the current EVs is that while the infrastructure is growing every year, there are many competing standards and plugs. This sucks, and will be painful and expensive to solve. Assuming that does get solved though, there are other issues.

 

The biggest single issue with EVs is that people living in cities by and large do not have garages or a way to charge their vehicle at home (renters unable to install EV chargers, apartments/condos, etc). That's a non-starter for many, as a lot of businesses don't have EV chargers on-site so you can't charge at work either. If they do, they only have a handful, and they charge way above market rate (we charge ~$0.35/kWhr vs the utility rate of $0.08). That makes the economics work out to be around the same cost per mile efficiency as a 35mpg car. Not bad, but not stellar. Owning an EV would make the most sense for city dwellers, but if they can't charge at home, there needs to be an infrastructure to where you can charge FAST. The Tesla Superchargers are a step in the right direction, but adding 1-2hrs to get to your destination (vs a gas or diesel) due to the 30-40 minute per 250 mile range recharge time is dreadful. Most friends I know who have Teslas take a gas powered vehicle if they want to go anywhere over 80mi for this exact reason. Can you road trip an EV? Yes. Is it pleasant or convenient? Not even a little bit.

 

Until fast charging takes approximately the same time (or close) as filling a gas tank, there is a strong case for fuel cell vehicles. However, there is no infrastructure to speak of, and no real investment in that space. Once truly fast charging is available the number of people who will be able to make a case to buy an EV will dramatically increase-- you no longer need a garage to own one, nor pray you have EV chargers at work or shopping malls. You just go to the EV "gas" station like an actual car.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, bimmerman said:

The biggest single issue with EVs is that people living in cities by and large do not have garages or a way to charge their vehicle at home (renters unable to install EV chargers, apartments/condos, etc).

That too can depend on the country but yes that is a big problem. Here our total population is only 4.7 million and the most common housing is 500m2-1000m2 land with front and back yard with a large garage. For us Auckland and Wellington would have the most issues that you describe but even in those cities most have a garage.

 

Renting would be our single biggest issue since home ownership is becoming very hard for most people now.

 

6 hours ago, Niksa said:

I will just comment that I have just passed next to the hydrogen cell powered car while writing this message. Fully production series car. Toyota Mirai

Yes but that doesn't mean that the industry is ready for a wide shift to it, we do need engineering feats but because something exists doesn't mean it's ready or really that close. Think the original GM EV or the Tesla Roadster, or even still to an extent even now all the current Teslas. Japan is extremely advanced in it's commitment to try and make hydrogen fuel cell cars work, you'll be extremely hard pressed to go and find one outside of Japan.

 

I'm not saying they are a bad idea but it's less ready than full electric is by a long way, the good thing about both however is they use electric motors so there is at least some common development that will benefit both.

 

P.S. I'd rather hit my hand with a hammer than own a car that looks like the Toyota Mirai, yet another bunch of car designers trying to make a statement "Hey look I'm driving a [X]" rather than making a car most people would actually like. The 2008-2014 Honda Clarity at least isn't awful, not great but not stupid but the new one suffered the same fate.

[BlazingBlob]

17 hours ago, Niksa said:

Well Toyota has Mirai for quite some time, hydrogen stations are available (at least in Tokyo) and I don't see why it should be a problem. Also refueling them takes almost the same amount of time as regular gasoline car.

 

Speaking about ecology. Thanks to Tesla and their great PR team everyone thinks that electric cars are completely eco-friendly but they are NOT. Well cars themselves are until we start to speak what to do with the old batteries. The main problem is that you are moving pollution from city streets somewhere else. Electricity needed to charge them does not come from the thin air. Talking about renewable energy sources we have the following:

-wind turbines are fine but their power output is quite low

-solar power plants require huge area for collection

-dams are fine as long as you don't mind acres upon acres of destroyed land 

 

Talking about other power plants we are basically left with coal/fossil ones which are extreme pollutants and nuclear ones. Although nuclear ones produce quite clean energy, there is a possibility of nuclear hazard and super long construction period (~ 20 years minimum).  

 

To conclude, electric cars are not as good for the environment as their manufacturers are trying to persuade us. Hydrogen fuel cells are much better in the long run.

Yup I agree

The energy is not at all clean

However

Tesla has now placed the focous on the renewable energy area (the source energy like the gas stations or the coal fired power stations)

They had said so themselves, most peole won't know because tesla have not made a point of it 

But Elon has said it a couple of times

Personally thats why I like tesla 

Because they have moved the focous on the energy source

[Curufinwe_wins]

Nuclear is the only realistic long term solution that doesn't require a massive over-haul to our energy infrastructure, and it's safer and cleaner than wind and solar (check out radiation release per MWh produced and deaths per MWh produced.)

 

Unfortunately with a hydrogen economy... it can be shown (the IAEA has a very rigourous, very accurate tool for predicting and messing around with the economics of hydrogen called the Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Program) that natural gas (unless a heavy carbon tax is put in place) is basically always going to be the best and cheapest way to make hydrogen for use. Pure electrolysis is much less efficient, and even heat-assisted hydrolysis is much more expensive than straight pyrolysis of natural gas (which is easy, cheap, and relatively efficient. Unfortunately it is very poluting).

 

Gas-reformation accounts for 95% of the current world production of hydrogen. Not exactly a clean energy source then. 

 

 

https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/NEA_Hydrogen/index.html

 

 

EDIT: For anyone interested, there is a big push in the concentrated solar and nuclear fields to look at waste heat hydrolysis for excess hydrogen generation. Right now however the capital cost (and reduced efficiency compared to high temperature hydrolysis) of such equipment means adding to even brand new plants is less cost efficient than completely making the plant ONLY generate hydrogen, which is STILL less efficient cost-wise than generating hydrogen from natural gas.

[Brooksie359]

On 9/14/2017 at 7:27 AM, mr moose said:

Nuclear has the lowest death toll of all the power technologies even with the current and historical safety standards.   

 

 

Yeah there is more radiation released as a result of coal plant than nuclear.

[Bensemus]

On 2017-09-13 at 10:39 PM, TigerHawk said:

Snip

This was said about the batteries used in the first Prius. Those were nickel based batteries. Lithium is mostly a salt in nature so "mining" it is actually just massive salt ponds evaporating and the largest supplier is China right now. Tesla then takes all the raw materials and makes a finished battery. There is no shipping the battery all over the works while it gets made. Tesla also has a recycling program for their batteries to reclaim most of it.

[Brooksie359]

On 9/14/2017 at 4:53 PM, Curufinwe_wins said:

Nuclear is the only realistic long term solution that doesn't require a massive over-haul to our energy infrastructure, and it's safer and cleaner than wind and solar (check out radiation release per MWh produced and deaths per MWh produced.)

 

Unfortunately with a hydrogen economy... it can be shown (the IAEA has a very rigourous, very accurate tool for predicting and messing around with the economics of hydrogen called the Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Program) that natural gas (unless a heavy carbon tax is put in place) is basically always going to be the best and cheapest way to make hydrogen for use. Pure electrolysis is much less efficient, and even heat-assisted hydrolysis is much more expensive than straight pyrolysis of natural gas (which is easy, cheap, and relatively efficient. Unfortunately it is very poluting).

 

Gas-reformation accounts for 95% of the current world production of hydrogen. Not exactly a clean energy source then. 

 

 

https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/NEA_Hydrogen/index.html

 

 

EDIT: For anyone interested, there is a big push in the concentrated solar and nuclear fields to look at waste heat hydrolysis for excess hydrogen generation. Right now however the capital cost (and reduced efficiency compared to high temperature hydrolysis) of such equipment means adding to even brand new plants is less cost efficient than completely making the plant ONLY generate hydrogen, which is STILL less efficient cost-wise than generating hydrogen from natural gas.

Actually had a professor at my college who worked on research in the field of solar reactors that take natural gas and split it up into hydrogen carbon and other byproducts. The method is apparently a lot more efficient with solar energy than solar panels.

[Curufinwe_wins]

10 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Actually had a professor at my college who worked on research in the field of solar reactors that take natural gas and split it up into hydrogen carbon and other byproducts. The method is apparently a lot more efficient with solar energy than solar panels.

My statement was about "concentrated solar power" (or CSP as it's called in the field) heh. And it is indeed more efficient than solar panels.

 

Unfortunately gas powered steam reformation is still by far the most cost efficient way to produce hydrogen.