Hydrogen as a simple fuel

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

thanks both for your replies.

As a Greenergy customer (100 per cent wind power) I look forward to a reduction in my electricity bill ... but sadly somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

What I meant about hydrogen not being a proper fuel, is that it takes far more energy to produce than it contains...it's therefore only a means of storing/transporting energy, and a challenging one at that. It's a bit like using charcoal when you could use real coal.

Using biomethane as a fuel (as they are now doing in Iceland) seems like a better idea, especially as it stops it being vented to the atmosphere. Quite a few truck fleets in the UK are now using factory-built biomethane trucks. The Scottish whiskey insdstry is now committed to using its biowastes to produce methane to power its trucks. Scania and Iveco gas trucks use spark ignition and have a low compression ratio, while the Volvo version retains the diesel CR and uses a small injection of diesel to 'spark' combustion just before the gas is injected. I look at all the slurry tanks that the dairy farms have around here, and wonder why no-one's built a digester yet.

[daveuprite]

thanks both for your replies.

As a Greenergy customer (100 per cent wind power) I look forward to a reduction in my electricity bill ... but sadly somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

What I meant about hydrogen not being a proper fuel, is that it takes far more energy to produce than it contains...it's therefore only a means of storing/transporting energy, and a challenging one at that. It's a bit like using charcoal when you could use real coal.

Using biomethane as a fuel (as they are now doing in Iceland) seems like a better idea, especially as it stops it being vented to the atmosphere. Quite a few truck fleets in the UK are now using factory-built biomethane trucks. The Scottish whiskey insdstry is now committed to using its biowastes to produce methane to power its trucks. Scania and Iveco gas trucks use spark ignition and have a low compression ratio, while the Volvo version retains the diesel CR and uses a small injection of diesel to 'spark' combustion just before the gas is injected. I look at all the slurry tanks that the dairy farms have around here, and wonder why no-one's built a digester yet.

Richard, there are hundreds of anaerobic digestion units in use around the UK. I commissioned AD units myself when I was policy manager for Surrey County Council, about 18 years ago, and it wasn't new then. Nice simple technology, scaleable and not too expensive. You get a nice soil improver too as an additional product - especially good from separate domestic kitchen waste collections, now provided by over half of the UK's waste collection authorities. Some schemes power the collection fleet using the methane.

[catcitrus]

I think the upshot of all the previous comments actually shows that there are plenty of alternatives to both fossil fuels and the Musk effect---its just that politicians are both ill informed, ignorant, career minded and swayed by big business so its an uphill battle to get funds deployed to "sensible" alternatives to fossil fuels--and by the way I used to lecture Energy Conversion Engineering at MSc level so have done a lot of research over the years. We need to think about Stirling engines again(developed to go under the bonnet back in the 70s when we had the last real fuel crisis. ) They are closed cycle and just need a hot source---burning anything will do that will maintain a steady 700C .

[daveuprite]

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

thanks both for your replies.

As a Greenergy customer (100 per cent wind power) I look forward to a reduction in my electricity bill ... but sadly somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

What I meant about hydrogen not being a proper fuel, is that it takes far more energy to produce than it contains...it's therefore only a means of storing/transporting energy, and a challenging one at that. It's a bit like using charcoal when you could use real coal.

Using biomethane as a fuel (as they are now doing in Iceland) seems like a better idea, especially as it stops it being vented to the atmosphere. Quite a few truck fleets in the UK are now using factory-built biomethane trucks. The Scottish whiskey insdstry is now committed to using its biowastes to produce methane to power its trucks. Scania and Iveco gas trucks use spark ignition and have a low compression ratio, while the Volvo version retains the diesel CR and uses a small injection of diesel to 'spark' combustion just before the gas is injected. I look at all the slurry tanks that the dairy farms have around here, and wonder why no-one's built a digester yet.

Richard, there are hundreds of anaerobic digestion units in use around the UK. I commissioned AD units myself when I was policy manager for Surrey County Council, about 18 years ago, and it wasn't new then. Nice simple technology, scaleable and not too expensive. You get a nice soil improver too as an additional product - especially good from separate domestic kitchen waste collections, now provided by over half of the UK's waste collection authorities. Some schemes power the collection fleet using the methane.

Hi Dave,

Yes indeed. My question was more that in an area with loads of dairy farms (the massive Davidstow creamery is very close) I'm just amazed that no one is collecting and dealing with the cow slurry by sticking it in a digester. It's just spread in its raw state on the fields at the moment, which isn't ideal.
You'd have thought that, if the Government is serious enough about this issue to legislate us all out of internal combustion engined vehicles, ban our gas boilers etc etc, then they could quite simply facilitate the construction of a network of methane digesters.

[daveuprite]

thanks both for your replies.

As a Greenergy customer (100 per cent wind power) I look forward to a reduction in my electricity bill ... but sadly somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

What I meant about hydrogen not being a proper fuel, is that it takes far more energy to produce than it contains...it's therefore only a means of storing/transporting energy, and a challenging one at that. It's a bit like using charcoal when you could use real coal.

Using biomethane as a fuel (as they are now doing in Iceland) seems like a better idea, especially as it stops it being vented to the atmosphere. Quite a few truck fleets in the UK are now using factory-built biomethane trucks. The Scottish whiskey insdstry is now committed to using its biowastes to produce methane to power its trucks. Scania and Iveco gas trucks use spark ignition and have a low compression ratio, while the Volvo version retains the diesel CR and uses a small injection of diesel to 'spark' combustion just before the gas is injected. I look at all the slurry tanks that the dairy farms have around here, and wonder why no-one's built a digester yet.

Richard, there are hundreds of anaerobic digestion units in use around the UK. I commissioned AD units myself when I was policy manager for Surrey County Council, about 18 years ago, and it wasn't new then. Nice simple technology, scaleable and not too expensive. You get a nice soil improver too as an additional product - especially good from separate domestic kitchen waste collections, now provided by over half of the UK's waste collection authorities. Some schemes power the collection fleet using the methane.

Hi Dave,

Yes indeed. My question was more that in an area with loads of dairy farms (the massive Davidstow creamery is very close) I'm just amazed that no one is collecting and dealing with the cow slurry by sticking it in a digester. It's just spread in its raw state on the fields at the moment, which isn't ideal.
You'd have thought that, if the Government is serious enough about this issue to legislate us all out of internal combustion engined vehicles, ban our gas boilers etc etc, then they could quite simply facilitate the construction of a network of methane digesters.

Yeah well it's too late for a lot of the methane - that's already been burped or farted out by the time you get to collecting slurry! And it's a major cause of anthropogenic GHGs.

[catcitrus]

please don't be too clever!--I know that you are correct, but why not simply say "Greenhouse gases caused by human activity".

[daveuprite]

please don't be too clever!--I know that you are correct, but why not simply say "Greenhouse gases caused by human activity".

What? Nothing at all to do with being 'clever'. Because it's a universally accepted scientific phrase that has been used for ages, often abbreviated to AGW. If you regularly read the literature around climate change you'd be very familiar with it and accept it as the standard language used all over the place.

Besides, why use four words when you can use one?

[bill_qaz]

Screenshot_20210802-181810_Office.jpg (82.71 KiB) Viewed 1337 times

Hyundai marketing them already

[Magnusson]

please don't be too clever!--I know that you are correct, but why not simply say "Greenhouse gases caused by human activity".

What? Nothing at all to do with being 'clever'. Because it's a universally accepted scientific phrase that has been used for ages, often abbreviated to AGW. If you regularly read the literature around climate change you'd be very familiar with it and accept it as the standard language used all over the place.

Besides, why use four words when you can use one?

It's actually not a word. It's an acronym. It's generally accepted rule of good writing that when you use an acronym in an article, you also explain what it means. Never assume your readers know it. When the article is very short, or you only use the acronym once, you should avoid using the acronym altogether. End Of Rant (EOR).