Toyota Hydrogen

It did. The amount is small. But enough escapes on large scale installations to be a concern, as outlined in the linked article.

Read the article before you dismiss it out of hand on the basis of one anecdotal example.It does say that in past installations leak testing and monitoring did not go past levels related to immediate safety concerns (ie explosions) and was not relevant to current huge-scale proposals and current knowledge of its other risks to the atmosphere etc. Things have changed since the good old days.

Edited By Hopper on 11/06/2023 17:15:08

Well coal gas leaked a bit, but the point is well made. Beware jumping to conclusions!

Faulty opinions grow because humans can only see the world through the narrow slot of our personal experience. And, oblivious there might be a problem with our view point, we tend to believe that our severely limited personal experience is the be all and end all, even when it's obviously wrong.

Strange that many believe Hydrogen to be technically challenging today when it was commonplace in British homes for well over a century. Whilst domestic gas systems don't use it now, Hydrogen has always been common in industry,who store and use in huge quantities. Hydrogen is far from being a novelty.

When considering futures I strongly recommend asking the right type of engineer. Mechanics know precious little about Chemical Engineering, and Chemists are unlikely to be good at designing electric motors. And choose engineers carefully, preferring those who work from facts and evidence.

Treat old-school doubts with grave suspicion when discussing new technology. Whilst a middle-aged engineer who says existing technology can't solve new problems is probably right, the same chap asserting new technology won't work is usually wrong. History proves it!

Dave

Solar --> Generate Hydrogen --> Combustion Engine --> Generate Electricity --> Motion

Solar --> Battery --> Motion.

Perhaps we should ask our A.I. overlords.

Regards.

Frank C.

I think perhaps he's referring to exchanges such as these:

>>.....They even go on about rubber tyre pollution, the dust from road tyres for goodness sake

>According to several sources tyre wear produces several times (some say up to 1000x) more particulates than tailpipes. I guess the tyre fairy must go about clearing up after your car?

.

… and yet it is claimed [whether truly or falsely], at about 05:10 in the video that I linked, that Toyota’s H2 can travel up to 300miles on 5kg of Hydrogen.

MichaelG.

And at STP H2 is 0.09g/l so 5kg = 55,555 litres A pretty big tank. Even liquid is 0.078 relative density so 64 litres for 5kg, That does not include volume of the cryogenic insulation......

Robert.

Thats 21 MPG for liquid Hydrogen

Hydrogen has nearly 3 times the calorific value of petrol, so this might equate to 100 mpg. I see no reason why it should be more efficient, it's still a combustion engine, so perhaps optimistic

The plot thickens …

.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 11/06/2023 21:45:04

As an aside, in the film they mention that hydrogen has an effect on the exhaust note if I interpreted the transatlantic accent correctly (increasing the frequency ?) Is this related in any way to the squeaky effect on the human voice of inhaling helium (just for fun) ?

Concerns about hydrogen leakage if it becomes as ubiquitous as petrol are not opinion, It's science. **LINK**

Edited By Hopper on 12/06/2023 01:51:02

Concerns about hydrogen leakage

Yes, there does seem to be a potential issue regarding Hydrogen leakage, if it is used on a large scale.

Here's an article on sealing Hydrogen equipment .... https://www.oemoffhighway.com/engines/article/22418740/parker-hannifin-corp-designing-a-leakfree-system-with-hydrogen

Anyway, the publishers of the report, Columbia/SIPA's 'Center on Global Energy Policy' have some interesting 'partners' .... https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/about-us/our-partners/

Ches

[PS: Maybe the gas fed to houses in the 1830s also leaked but the users didn't notice and/or were not informed.]

Lots of town gas pipes had joints sealed with 'tow', which is unravelled old rope. With the low pressure, high water content gas it worked fine. Then we got dry North Sea gas and they upped the pressure, so the joints dried out and leaked. When I'm out walking the dog on a still day I often smell gas. Keeping hydrogen in the pipes will be even more difficult. I've read somewhere that Germany is working on converting hydrogen to methane as there is some limit to how much hydrogen can be mixed in the gas main. It sounds daft to convert gren electricity into gas, but I think it makes sense. You can store gas, burning it for space heating is very efficient, and a lot of hydrogen is used for making fertiliser.

Yes that is the point re past and present use of hydrogen. There is leakage, but as the article points out, measurement of it has been limited and action even more so. One study cited found a leakage of hydrogen passing through a simple pipe to be 2 per cent. Other studies cited project that leakage in a complex mass hydrogen production plant full of compressors and pressure vessels etc plus distribution would be about 5.9 per cent. Not a huge problem at current production levels, but could be massive if hydrogen becomes as ubiquitous as petrol is now.

Yes interesting that the centre has such a wide range of sponsors/"partners" including several fossil fuel companies who are among the main proponents of hydrogen because it will give them a ready market for the natural gas that is turned into hydrogen, a more appealing option to them than solar power etc which they would not be able to cash in on.

Plenty of other scientists are concerned about hydrogen's action as an indirect greenhouse gas, EG LINK

The other issue is that it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than the hydrogen then produces in a vehicle, so overall energy consumption will increase with hydrogen.

None of these are necessarily insurmountable problems but do add to the timeframe and the cost of converting to a predominantly hydrogen energy economy, which is often not taken into account by its proponents. There may be a reason that Toyota alone among major car manufacturers is backing hydrogen over EVs while all the others favour EVs.

Edited By Hopper on 12/06/2023 09:31:11

Duncan,

Interesting point about the drier, higher pressure in the pipes.

Whilst on the subject of Germany, they will get hit hard by the move to EVs - https://recruitonomics.com/the-decline-of-car-manufacturing-is-hurting-the-german-economy/ The German car manufacturers are now doing everything they can to delay the inevitable, but I feel they will lose.

I thing the internal combustion engine is a magnificent example of how humans can invent and develop a very useful device over many decades, but it does have it's drawbacks.

Ches

.

It is said that ‘Racing improves the breed’

… Toyota certainly appears to be on that mission: **LINK**

https://www.engadget.com/toyota-unveils-a-hydrogen-race-car-concept-built-for-le-mans-24-hours-182939823.html

MichaelG.

That's another reason manufacturers maybe are keen on EV's: manufacturing costs will eventually be so much lower than ICEs with the lack of moving parts in an electric motor compared with an ICE.

The ICE is a magnificent example of human inventiveness as you say, and I love them dearly - got two sheds full of them - but we have to admit they are now a 100+ year old technology so it may be time for them to go the way of our beloved steam engine, into the history books and the the enthusiast collector societies and museums.

If the German car manufacturers want to survive they will need to do what the horse carriage and buggy makers did circa 1900 and adapt to the new technology. Then the locomotive manufacturers had to do it at the end of the steam era mid-20th century. Nothing stays the same forever.

Yes there is no doubt about the value of racing in the development of street vehicles. Plus the old "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" philosophy is tried and true.

But the big challenges with hydrogen are on the mass supply side rather than the final consumer side.

Toyota is also doing a lot of interesting work with hydrogen fuel cells to power EVs. LINK This combines the "clean" fuel of hydrogen with the mechanical simplicity of an electric motor rather than an ICE, and massively reduces the size of the battery needed to power the electric motor. Bit of a win-win all round.

The linked paper is entitled 'Hydrogen Leakage: A Potential Risk for the Hydrogen Economy'. It discusses the possibility that leaked Hydrogen will extend the lifetime of existing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The risk is that the damage already being caused by greenhouse gases will be extended. It doesn't say Hydrogen is a greenhouse gas. The risk is cleaning up the mess caused by burning fossil fuels will take longer than expected unless leaks are reduced. I think we all agree that stopping leaks is a good thing!

The paper suggests 3 ways of tackling leaks and calls for more research. It's the start of the scientific process, requiring more evidence - work needs to be done. It's not a red-alert call for Hydrogen to be banned, and it definitely doesn't suggest fossil fuels are an alternative.

Some figures are given. Current production of Hydrogen is stated to be 90,000,000 tons per year, of which 90% is Gray (made from fossil fuels). In 2050 production is expected to be about 570,000,000 tons per year, of which 97% will be Green and Blue. (Blue is Gray Hydrogen plus Carbon capture, a process that doesn't just dump effluvia into the air.)

Developing new technology is always hard work, often taking several decades to deliver. Nothing is ever easy, so : when a problem needs to be solved, engineers have to get stuck in. Needs an open mind because old methods rarely fix new problems, especially when the old way is problem!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 12/06/2023 09:58:35