Electric cars?

sptrawler said:

Fuel cells are the poor relative of E.V's at the moment, but they aren't going away.

Click to expand...

There's also the lower tech approach - an internal combustion engine most certainly can be run on hydrogen.

Inferior to electric in terms of efficiency but a very proven method of moving a vehicle and one that's relatively cheap to manufacture.

Smurf1976 said:

There's also the lower tech approach - an internal combustion engine most certainly can be run on hydrogen.

Inferior to electric in terms of efficiency but a very proven method of moving a vehicle and one that's relatively cheap to manufacture.

Click to expand...

Smurf you do know that hydrogen fuel cell cars use electric motors as a matter or course? I don't think it makes much economic or mechanical sense to produce a ton of hydrogen and then use a more complex, inefficient ICE motor to move the vehicle.

I think he might have meant as a retrofit type of thing like with LPG etc.

over9k said:

I think he might have meant as a retrofit type of thing like with LPG etc.

Click to expand...

Which in turn would help poor people, until there is an adequate supply of second hand BEV's and or the relative cost of BEV's drops to a point that those less affluent can afford them.

mm poor people can't pony up the cash though.

It'd have to be one of those subsidised things like they've done with solar panels. Problem is that you'd get more spent on the conversion than the whole car would be worth.

You could get it to work, you'd just have to implement it properly. Some kind of subsidised trade-in for a poorer person if they trade their old car in for a hydrogen powered one or something like that.

You'd need to think about it and work out how to do it, but it could be done.

over9k said:

mm poor people can't pony up the cash though.

It'd have to be one of those subsidised things like they've done with solar panels. Problem is that you'd get more spent on the conversion than the whole car would be worth.

You could get it to work, you'd just have to implement it properly. Some kind of subsidised trade-in for a poorer person if they trade their old car in for a hydrogen powered one or something like that.

You'd need to think about it and work out how to do it, but it could be done.

Click to expand...

The conversion is very similar to the LPG conversion all the taxis used. The Government would have to subsidies it for a period of time until the market re adjusted and as I said a large supply of second hand BEV's became available and or the relative price of new ones dropped considerably.
It would still achieve the goal of removing the dependence on fossil fuel, but it would be more driven by a social initiative, than an economic one.
Also one would think a timeline would have to put into effect also, like the Government will subsidies H2 and gas conversion to ICE cars for x amount of years as petrol wont be available, after that time the subsidies stop. They could even have different time lines on the conversions as against the actual H2 fuel.
The other aspect of allowing the conversion of ICE vehicles for a period of time, it would give the auto repair industry time to readjust to the job losses.
All very interesting, but really who knows how it will develop, interesting times.

sptrawler said:

The conversion is very similar to the LPG conversion all the taxis used. The Government would have to subsidies it for a period of time until the market re adjusted and as I said a large supply of second hand BEV's became available and or the relative price of new ones dropped considerably.
It would still achieve the goal of removing the dependence on fossil fuel, but it would be more driven by a social initiative, than an economic one.

Click to expand...

Hence the necessity of subsidies.

I have no idea how difficult building a hydrogen infrastructure would be though. If we could just get rid of LPG and fill all the LPG tanks with hydrogen, then easy. If we have to build hydrogen tanks at every servo in the country though...

over9k said:

Hence the necessity of subsidies.

I have no idea how difficult building a hydrogen infrastructure would be though. If we could just get rid of LPG and fill all the LPG tanks with hydrogen, then easy. If we have to build hydrogen tanks at every servo in the country though...

Click to expand...

The hydrogen filling infrastructure will have to be built anyway, if we are going to adopt fuel cell vehicles in any great number.
The filling equipment would be the same for an ICE powered car fueled by H2 or a fuel cell car, both require an on board fuel tank.
It is just the ICE engine will need a H2 liquid to gas converter, before being fed into the engine.
Whereas the fuel cell runs the h2 through the cell which converts the gas to electricity that drives the car.

Here is an article on the ICE engine running on H2.
Between 2005 - 2007, BMW tested a luxury car named the BMW Hydrogen 7, powered by a hydrogen ICE, which achieved 301 km/h (187 mph) in tests. At least two of these concepts have been manufactured. HICE forklift trucks have been demonstrated based on converted diesel internal combustion engines with direct injection.

For those more interested, a more in depth article, that actually states the facts:

sptrawler said:

The conversion is very similar to the LPG conversion all the taxis used. The Government would have to subsidies it for a period of time until the market re adjusted and as I said a large supply of second hand BEV's became available and or the relative price of new ones dropped considerably.
It would still achieve the goal of removing the dependence on fossil fuel, but it would be more driven by a social initiative, than an economic one.
Also one would think a timeline would have to put into effect also, like the Government will subsidies H2 and gas conversion to ICE cars for x amount of years as petrol wont be available, after that time the subsidies stop. They could even have different time lines on the conversions as against the actual H2 fuel.
The other aspect of allowing the conversion of ICE vehicles for a period of time, it would give the auto repair industry time to readjust to the job losses.
All very interesting, but really who knows how it will develop, interesting times.

Click to expand...

Apparently the conversion process is very similar to LPG. Propbably the most critical issue will be a tank or storage solution that will hold sufficient gas to give good mileage and the cost of hydrogen as a fuel. LPG always worked well because it was very cheap. It would be unreasonable of people to change to a hydrogen fuelled car unless there was some economic benefit.

file:///C:/Users/PCUSER~1/AppData/Local/Temp/ASEE_2012_Conference-Hydrogen_Engine_Paper-Revised_Final_Copy_3-12-2012.pdf

basilio said:

Apparently the conversion process is very similar to LPG.

Click to expand...

Which is what @Smurf1976 and I said.

basilio said:

Propbably the most critical issue will be a tank or storage solution that will hold sufficient gas to give good mileage and the cost of hydrogen as a fuel. LPG always worked well because it was very cheap. It would be unreasonable of people to change to a hydrogen fuelled car unless there was some economic benefit.

Click to expand...

Or a Government subsidy, which is what @over9k and I said.

basilio said:

file:///C:/Users/PCUSER~1/AppData/Local/Temp/ASEE_2012_Conference-Hydrogen_Engine_Paper-Revised_Final_Copy_3-12-2012.pdf

Hydrogen engine - Pure Energy Centre

RUN YOUR INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE WITH OUR HYDROGEN ENGINE SOLUTIONS Our Hydrogen Engine offer We convert petrol engines to run on hydrogen. Types: Two types available, a hydrogen engine conversion for stationary and transport applications. Use: Similar to any standard engine, the only...

pureenergycentre.com

Click to expand...

In the meantime, FCEL has run hard, and I need to find some others to buy too.

basilio said:

Smurf you do know that hydrogen fuel cell cars use electric motors as a matter or course?

Click to expand...

Absolutely.

Thing is however, we’ve already got an entire fleet of vehicles almost all of which have internal combustion engines. Cars, trucks, buses etc.

Further, there's an entire manufacturing supply chain globally set up to make them and it's still pumping out thousands of them daily. EV's are a thing, but most new cars which hit the roads today have a combustion engine in them.

Average age of a car in Australia is just on 10 years with some variation between states. That suggests average lifespan of about 20 years but it'll be longer for those which don't succumb to an early fate due to being crashed, stolen, having a tree fall on them or whatever. Perhaps not the case in the wealthier areas of the big cities, but go to the poorer suburbs and seeing a 1990's car that's still in daily use isn't at all unusual.

Buses last 25 years in Australian public transport use (at least that's the figure for some fleets) but then usually either end up on school bus runs or shipped off to the Third World.

Trucks much the same. 25 - 30 years life in Australia but in some places overseas it's considerably longer.

Add all that up and in a "do nothing" scenario the use of petrol and diesel is going to diminish very slowly. It'll be more akin to the slow decline of newspapers or smoking, it won't be anything like the rapid demise of 35mm film or VHS tapes. There's still a point in exploring for more oil, building refineries and tankers and so on in that scenario, the industry's decline will be a very long and drawn out one.

Which leads my thoughts straight down the track of conversion of existing vehicles in use to run on hydrogen either outright or as a mix. That's a workaround to the environmental and possibly physical supply constraints (only needs a war to break out.....) associated with oil. An inefficient workaround yes, but a workaround nonetheless.

It's proven from a technical perspective. 15 years ago in Tasmania the University with practical and financial support from the Hydro converted a Toyota Corolla to hydrogen, using its existing petrol engine, and entered it as a bona fide competitor in Targa (an annual ~2000km staged car race around Tassie on public roads). There was no thought of winning, that wasn't going to happen when you're driving a Corolla in competition with performance cars and professional racing drivers, but it was publicly visible demonstration that the concept works and can be done.

Conversion of a petrol engine to straight hydrogen is doable since there's a lot of similarities there.

For a diesel engine it's more complex, since the compression ignition used in a diesel doesn't work with hydrogen (also doesn't work with any other gas). There's a workaround however and that's to use diesel pilot ignition. In short, that involves the engine running almost entirely on gas (eg hydrogen or some other gas) but with a tiny amount of diesel injected to ignite the gas. The concept's well proven - for example the 12 x 17.5 MW internal combustion engines at Barker Inlet power station (owned by AGL) use that principle with natural gas as the fuel, a tiny amount of diesel ignites the gas for the power stroke (and they can run on up to 100% diesel as a backup if the gas supply is disrupted etc).

Overall - I'm not suggesting that the world sticks with ICE forever and just changes the fuel, but the concept could have some value depending on how urgent a move away from petroleum is considered to be. If hydrogen is going to have a role anyway, then infrastructure to supply it will need to be built and that opens up the possibility of using it for other purposes such as conversion of existing engines.

Also not related to vehicles so off topic but there's at least one large factory I'm aware of that's investigating the idea of using hydrogen to fuel existing furnaces. They were originally built to burn heavy fuel oil, later converted to natural gas, they're now investigating hydrogen as a partial or total replacement. If it went ahead then they'd likely produce the hydrogen on site themselves. Note in this context that using electricity as the heat source is technically problematic, hence the investigation of hydrogen despite the loss of efficiency. I don't think they've said anything publicly so I won't either but it's a large operation in the metals industry.

Smurf1976 said:

. The concept's well proven - for example the 12 x 17.5 MW internal combustion engines at Barker Inlet power station (owned by AGL) use that principle with natural gas as the fuel, a tiny amount of diesel ignites the gas for the power stroke (and they can run on up to 100% diesel as a backup if the gas supply is disrupted etc).

Click to expand...

Carnarvon power station in W.A, was converted to run the same way, in the mid 1980's.

To clarify the thinking I have regarding converting things, take a bus manufactured this year, 2021.

Like most, it'll have a diesel engine in it.

It'll be on route service in an Australian capital city through to 2046. After that it'll be sold off for use as a school bus, in private use or shipped to whatever Third World country. All up, it'll be on the roads through to 2060.

If a hydrogen conversion was retrofitted a decade from now then that gets 15 years' use as a public transport vehicle out of it whilst retaining the ability to run on diesel.

That approach could well be a practical one to the extent there's a desire to phase out the use of petrol, diesel etc sooner than would naturally occur or if the economics were to simply stack up of their own accord.

For cars it probably won't make sense but for things like buses it may well do so. A vehicle that does high mileage, is physically large and which returns to a depot at least once a day every night is the perfect candidate for any sort of fuel conversion.

Smurf1976 said:

To clarify the thinking I have regarding converting things, take a bus manufactured this year, 2021.

Like most, it'll have a diesel engine in it.

It'll be on route service in an Australian capital city through to 2046. After that it'll be sold off for use as a school bus, in private use or shipped to whatever Third World country. All up, it'll be on the roads through to 2060.

If a hydrogen conversion was retrofitted a decade from now then that gets 15 years' use as a public transport vehicle out of it whilst retaining the ability to run on diesel.

That approach could well be a practical one to the extent there's a desire to phase out the use of petrol, diesel etc sooner than would naturally occur or if the economics were to simply stack up of their own accord.

For cars it probably won't make sense but for things like buses it may well do so. A vehicle that does high mileage, is physically large and which returns to a depot at least once a day every night is the perfect candidate for any sort of fuel conversion.

Click to expand...

Absolutely makes sense for buses and heavy transport. The tricky part will be providing Hydrogen at a cost effective price relative to diesel/petrol.

Perhaps another alternative from an engineering POV could be replacing the diesel motor with an electric motor and having a moderate sized battery bank for city trips ? Or a capacity to fast charge the batteries at say mid shift ? Certainly the overall investment in the truck body should be kept if possible

basilio said:

Perhaps another alternative from an engineering POV could be replacing the diesel motor with an electric motor and having a moderate sized battery bank for city trips ? Or a capacity to fast charge the batteries at say mid shift ? Certainly the overall investment in the truck body should be kept if possible

Click to expand...

It's one of those things where I expect we'll see multiple approaches. Eg:

New bus being built = electric.

Near new = might be viable to convert to electric.

Mid-life = financially probably stacks up better to just convert the existing engine to hydrogen and leave the rest as is. That's assuming hydrogen infrastructure is going to be built anyway and thus has long term value.

20+ years old = don't worry about it, just stick with diesel and focus on the new ones.

Etc.

Slightly off topic, but shows that H2 isn't being completely overlooked as a fuel for buses.
From the article:
“The State Government and Renewable Hydrogen Council are keen to see Western Australia accelerate our hydrogen industry through these nine initiatives and the new 2030 target,” Western Australian premier Mark McGowan said in a statement.

“Major export markets are seeking hydrogen much sooner than expected, and we are in a prime position to join the supply chain. Investing in our clean energy future will not only create jobs and training opportunities for Western Australians, but will further diversify our economy.”

Successful grant recipients include gas company ATCO, which will receive $1 million to add a green hydrogen refuelling station to its hydrogen production facility in Jandakot.
Fortescue Metals will receive $2 million in funding, contributing to a $32 million total investment, in hydrogen transport at Fortescue’s Christmas Creek iron ore mine.

Fortescue plans to purchase ten hydrogen fuel cell buses, replacing a fleet of diesel uses, at the iron ore mine, and will establish a solar powered plant for hydrogen production at the site. It will form part of the company’s efforts to achieve a target of net zero emissions by 2040, announced in June. A 60MW solar farm is being built nearby.
The New York based heavy hydrogen vehicle manufacturer HYZON Motors has been selected as the supplier of the fuel cell powered buses, with the company announcing that the buses will be equipped with its higher powered fuel cells, generally used in trucks, to allow for like-for-like performance replacement for the previous diesel fleet

Smurf1976 said:

To clarify the thinking I have regarding converting things, take a bus manufactured this year, 2021.

Like most, it'll have a diesel engine in it.

It'll be on route service in an Australian capital city through to 2046. After that it'll be sold off for use as a school bus, in private use or shipped to whatever Third World country. All up, it'll be on the roads through to 2060.

If a hydrogen conversion was retrofitted a decade from now then that gets 15 years' use as a public transport vehicle out of it whilst retaining the ability to run on diesel.

That approach could well be a practical one to the extent there's a desire to phase out the use of petrol, diesel etc sooner than would naturally occur or if the economics were to simply stack up of their own accord.

For cars it probably won't make sense but for things like buses it may well do so. A vehicle that does high mileage, is physically large and which returns to a depot at least once a day every night is the perfect candidate for any sort of fuel conversion.

Click to expand...

Unless diesel becomes prohibitively expensive either due to actual scarcity or taxes, while batteries become cheaper and it becomes cheaper to just replace the old smokers with battery electric.

This article brings up the pivotal issue, that will ramp up the uptake of BEV's.
Once the vehicle to grid architecture is standard issue with the BEV's, the consumer demand will be exponential IMO.
To me it is a no brainer, once the generation companies, have a way of being able to use the BEV's batteries as a backup storage I'm sure the subsidies will come. It will save the companies a fortune, not having to install as many stationary batteries.
This all comes back to waiting until the technology is fully developed and tested, before throwing billions of dollars at BEV's and charging networks, trails are being done and a standard will be adopted IMO. Time will tell.
From the article:
A major new report has called on Australia’s energy market regulators and distribution network companies to fast-track reforms to grid connection standards and constraints, to pave the way for electric vehicle to grid (V2G) technology that will be crucial for managing a future with millions of batteries on wheels.
V2G, broadly speaking, is the concept of discharging an EV battery in order to serve a secondary purpose – which puts V2G in the same sort of basket as distributed storage, solar, and other forms of demand response.
But the ANU report argues that even at this nascent stage – and even despite Australia’s laggard status – it is vital to “right size” electricity market rules and technology standards help deliver the value and minimise the risks associated with mass EV uptake.

Locally, the ANU has been working with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency on a REVS trial, that will install 51 bi-directional chargers for a fleet of 51 V2G capable vehicles in the ACT.
On the technical side, Sturmberg says the “crux for V2G” – and where he sees the greatest opportunities for ongoing improvements for all DER – is with bi-directional chargers, which are also a major part of the conversation around distributed solar and storage.

“These are still in an earlier phase of the technology development curve than many of the other power electronic converters used to connect generation and storage to the power system and as such lag behind in their functionalities and cost,” he said.

“In particular, there is more work to be done to enable a greater range of grid support functionalities, such as reactive power support, and building backup power functionalities, such as grid forming and UPS.”

“The relatively high power requirements of EV charging will change societal electricity consumption patterns and if not managed well will place significant strain on the grid,” the report says.

“However, the large storage capacity of EV batteries presents an opportunity for better grid management, especially considering the long periods of time that most vehicles spend parked. Vehicle to grid (V2G) is a new technology that promises to connect these dots.”

sptrawler said:

it is vital to “right size” electricity market rules and technology standards help deliver the value and minimise the risks associated with mass EV uptake.

Click to expand...

What really wouldn't be good is to put a substantial number of vehicles and chargers out there and then find out there's a problem with them requiring some sort of crude, messy and expensive workaround as has ended up being the case with solar at least in one state.

So yes, get it right as early on as possible definitely.