Hydrogen as a simple fuel

[catcitrus]

This video based on JCB's work on alternatives is well worth a watch--forget all the electric vehicle bullshit --except perhaps for passcars.

[Tonibe63]

I watched that last week and must say I'm pleased that a global manufacturer is getting involved instead of just 'fred in his shed' youtubers. I believe that hydrogen was used before petrol, as was peanut oil before diesel.
The use of hydrogen in a petrol engine is not far away from being a retrofit to existing engines but in a diesel you have to add a method of igniting the hydrogen and is therefore less of a retrofit.
Sadly one major hurdle is safe storage and distribution but they had that problem with fossil fuels and managed to overcome them.

[garyboy]

Very interesting.. I've always thought that the internal combustion engine is not done yet .. just the oil-to-gas fossil fuel . The ice has been developed too far to simply just abandon.. though electric power has its place too.

[Magnusson]

Reykjavik bus company ran Hydrogen buses for few years as experiment. Ironically the biggest issue they had was in making the Hydrogen. Their Hydrogen plant kept breaking down. I know some ocean going vessels are looking into switching to Hydrogen.
It's easily made by electrically splitting water, however there is considerable loss in the conversion and the electricity might be made by fossil fuels. Another large drawback is the volume it requires to store, and its weight. Hydrogen can also alter the chemical structure of the container, making it fragile. Apart from all that it's great.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

The big mistake is to even think of hydrogen as a fuel, in the conventional sense.

Our nearest source of natural hydrogen is the Sun. The prospects of getting it from there to here are slim indeed.

We can make hydrogen, using energy, and use it to store and transfer energy.

There are two ways of doing it. At the moment, we take natural gas (methane) and separate the hydrogen from the carbon. This uses energy and releases carbon into the environment.

Or we can use large quantities of electricity to remove hydrogen from water and release oxygen into the atmosphere. This hydrogen can then be used to generate a small amount of electricity via a fuel cell, or as a fuel which has very low energy density. Electrolising hydrogen from water wastes far more electricity than charging a battery. Either method releases water vapour into the atmosphere...and water vapour is a more powerful 'greenhouse gas' than CO2.

[catcitrus]

The big mistake is to even think of hydrogen as a fuel, in the conventional sense.

Our nearest source of natural hydrogen is the Sun. The prospects of getting it from there to here are slim indeed.

We can make hydrogen, using energy, and use it to store and transfer energy.

There are two ways of doing it. At the moment, we take natural gas (methane) and separate the hydrogen from the carbon. This uses energy and releases carbon into the environment.

Or we can use large quantities of electricity to remove hydrogen from water and release oxygen into the atmosphere. This hydrogen can then be used to generate a small amount of electricity via a fuel cell, or as a fuel which has very low energy density. Electrolising hydrogen from water wastes far more electricity than charging a battery. Either method releases water vapour into the atmosphere...and water vapour is a more powerful 'greenhouse gas' than CO2.

Thats a bit confused--comparisons against the alternatives is the point. What is wrong with using wind power offshore to produce hydrogen from sea water. Burning hydrogen as a fuel using basically simple and existing IC tech has got to be a serious contender and producing water again in the process seems pretty logical to me.

[daveuprite]

What is wrong with using wind power offshore to produce hydrogen from sea water.

Nothing's wrong with it. And funnily enough it's being done already, amongst others by an old friend and colleague of mine who runs ITM Power:

https://www.itm-power.com/

Here's a suggestion: instead of people chipping into these threads with 'ideas', as if nobody has ever thought of them before, try using that mouse clicky thing and do some elementary research first. Non-fossil fuel energy development is far more advanced than many people think, partly because the fossil fuel lobby works hard to make you believe that the alternatives are primitive and embryonic. It's not. There is LOADS going on....

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

If we are making large volumes of hydrogen off-shore using wind power and hydrolysis, then there are considerable challenges in storing and transportation to address...many times more complex than getting north sea gas (methane) ashore.
The wind turbine on my neighbour's farm defies all attempts at repair, and they've now given up and taken the blades off. It's less than 10 years old. I'd contend that wind power is not cheap or reliable...it's not even predictable.
Some people I know had a small wind turbine installed at their off-grid property. The collection of little corpses (bats and birds) around it every day was heartbreaking for them...they replaced it with a diesel generator. God knows what the 'ring of blades' around the UK coast is going to do to sea and migratory birds.

[Magnusson]

The big mistake is to even think of hydrogen as a fuel, in the conventional sense.

Our nearest source of natural hydrogen is the Sun. The prospects of getting it from there to here are slim indeed.

We can make hydrogen, using energy, and use it to store and transfer energy.

There are two ways of doing it. At the moment, we take natural gas (methane) and separate the hydrogen from the carbon. This uses energy and releases carbon into the environment.

Or we can use large quantities of electricity to remove hydrogen from water and release oxygen into the atmosphere. This hydrogen can then be used to generate a small amount of electricity via a fuel cell, or as a fuel which has very low energy density. Electrolising hydrogen from water wastes far more electricity than charging a battery. Either method releases water vapour into the atmosphere...and water vapour is a more powerful 'greenhouse gas' than CO2.

Hydrogen is a fuel. I'm not sure what you mean by "conventional sense".
Update on the Icelanding Bus company. I just saw they are making another run on Hydrogen buses, this time partly sponsored by the EU. They also runs some buses on Methane. That Methane comes from Reykjavík city dumps as the trash there decomposes. So there is no need to create Hydrogen from Methane. You can use Methane directly, if you have it. By using the Methane you are preventing a powerful greenhouse gas from being released.
Making Hydrogen always uses energy. But by using the Hydrogen as fuel instead of petrol you can save fossil fuels. By using electricity from "natural sources", solar cells, windmills, hydropower plants to make Hydrogen at off peak hours you are utilising them better and getting more out of your investment in them while also protecting the environment.
Why would you release Oxygen into the environment? Why not put it in the same container as the Hydrogen? When I was doing Hydrogen experiments in primary school we got more powerful bang by mixing the gases (that we created with a 9V battery and glass of salty water) before igniting. Even if the Oxygen was released into the atmosphere, what would be the harm? It is the opposite of greenhouse gas.
Water vapour (steam) is just water. It's not a greenhouse gas.

If we are making large volumes of hydrogen off-shore using wind power and hydrolysis, then there are considerable challenges in storing and transportation to address...many times more complex than getting north sea gas (methane) ashore.
The wind turbine on my neighbour's farm defies all attempts at repair, and they've now given up and taken the blades off. It's less than 10 years old. I'd contend that wind power is not cheap or reliable...it's not even predictable.
Some people I know had a small wind turbine installed at their off-grid property. The collection of little corpses (bats and birds) around it every day was heartbreaking for them...they replaced it with a diesel generator. God knows what the 'ring of blades' around the UK coast is going to do to sea and migratory birds.

You don't need off-shore wind turbines to make Hydrogen. It can be made by a windmill (or solar cells) in your back garden.
If your neighbour's 10 year old car defied all attempts at repair, would you contend that cars are not reliable?
One of the (many) reasons energy suppliers prefer to put "the 'ring of blades' around the UK coast" into the sea is to prevent the little birds and bats from hitting them. Bats and small birds generally don't fly miles offshore to feed. If you really want a windmill in your garden you could choose the Savonius type wind turbine, as it has much smaller effect on bird fatality rates.

[daveuprite]

The big mistake is to even think of hydrogen as a fuel, in the conventional sense.

Our nearest source of natural hydrogen is the Sun. The prospects of getting it from there to here are slim indeed.

We can make hydrogen, using energy, and use it to store and transfer energy.

There are two ways of doing it. At the moment, we take natural gas (methane) and separate the hydrogen from the carbon. This uses energy and releases carbon into the environment.

Or we can use large quantities of electricity to remove hydrogen from water and release oxygen into the atmosphere. This hydrogen can then be used to generate a small amount of electricity via a fuel cell, or as a fuel which has very low energy density. Electrolising hydrogen from water wastes far more electricity than charging a battery. Either method releases water vapour into the atmosphere...and water vapour is a more powerful 'greenhouse gas' than CO2.

Hydrogen is a fuel. I'm not sure what you mean by "conventional sense".
Update on the Icelanding Bus company. I just saw they are making another run on Hydrogen buses, this time partly sponsored by the EU. They also runs some buses on Methane. That Methane comes from Reykjavík city dumps as the trash there decomposes. So there is no need to create Hydrogen from Methane. You can use Methane directly, if you have it. By using the Methane you are preventing a powerful greenhouse gas from being released.
Making Hydrogen always uses energy. But by using the Hydrogen as fuel instead of petrol you can save fossil fuels. By using electricity from "natural sources", solar cells, windmills, hydropower plants to make Hydrogen at off peak hours you are utilising them better and getting more out of your investment in them while also protecting the environment.
Why would you release Oxygen into the environment? Why not put it in the same container as the Hydrogen? When I was doing Hydrogen experiments in primary school we got more powerful bang by mixing the gases (that we created with a 9V battery and glass of salty water) before igniting. Even if the Oxygen was released into the atmosphere, what would be the harm? It is the opposite of greenhouse gas.
Water vapour is just water. It's not a greenhouse gas.

If we are making large volumes of hydrogen off-shore using wind power and hydrolysis, then there are considerable challenges in storing and transportation to address...many times more complex than getting north sea gas (methane) ashore.
The wind turbine on my neighbour's farm defies all attempts at repair, and they've now given up and taken the blades off. It's less than 10 years old. I'd contend that wind power is not cheap or reliable...it's not even predictable.
Some people I know had a small wind turbine installed at their off-grid property. The collection of little corpses (bats and birds) around it every day was heartbreaking for them...they replaced it with a diesel generator. God knows what the 'ring of blades' around the UK coast is going to do to sea and migratory birds.

You don't need off-shore wind turbines to make Hydrogen. It can be made by a windmill (or solar cells) in your back garden.
If your neighbour's 10 year old car defied all attempts at repair, would you contend that cars are not reliable?
One of the (many) reasons energy suppliers prefer to put "the 'ring of blades' around the UK coast" into the sea is to prevent the little birds and bats from hitting them. Bats and small birds generally don't fly miles offshore to feed. If you really want a windmill in your garden you could choose the Savonius type wind turbine, as it has much smaller effect on bird fatality rates.

Lots of very valid points there, Mag, but not your point about water vapour, which is incorrect. The main greenhouse gases are:
Water vapour, Carbon Dioxide, Methane - and to a lesser extent Ozone, Nitrous Oxide and Chlorofluorocarbons.

Climate change deniers have quite successfully tried to discredit and cast doubt on the warming effects of CO2 and CH4 by shouting about water vapour - as if this somehow shows that science is exaggerating the environmental forcing of CO2. The denial tactic is to use an innocuous sounding compound (water) to downgrade the effects of all GHGs. The effects of all GHGs are very well-researched, well-documented and readily available to anyone who wants to find out about their relative effects.

Your point about small-scale local wind power is a good one. Backyard turbines have always been less reliable and more intermittent than grid-servicing large-scale turbines (whether off-shore or not). It's obviously easy to cite examples of equipment failure, in just the same way as I have a friend with a terribly unreliable and dangerous boiler!

Apart from an MSc and some years working in environmental consultancy, I have personal experience of nearby wind power. I have a 6-turbine farm next to my house, the nearest of which is 900m away. They are the highest megawattage installations (per turbine) in France at present and at the nacelle they are 180 metres tall. They are virtually silent, they are generating power at least 90% of the year and due to their height birdstrike is almost zero. Done properly, which it usually is, wind power is efficient, effective and now cheaper than fossil fuel electricity generation. Costs are falling by 9% per annum at present. All checkable figures and I can supply links to academic sources if required.