America's First Big-Rig Hydrogen Fuel Station Opens in California (msn.com) 131
Oakland, California is now home to "the first commercial hydrogen fuel station for big-rig trucks in the United States," according to the Los Angeles Times — serving 30 hydrogen fuel-cell trucks.
The newspaper says the facility "could mark the start of a nationwide network for fuel-cell truck refueling. It could also flop." Hydrogen fuel is expensive — as much as four times more expensive than gasoline or diesel fuel. The fuel cells, which drive electric motors to drive the truck, are enormously expensive as well.... The vehicles themselves are expensive too. Both battery electric and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks can cost three times as much or more than a $120,000 diesel truck. Those buying the trucks can qualify for state and federal subsidies to make up most of the upfront costs.
But government regulations may spark some demand: New diesel truck sales will be outlawed in California by 2036. Only zero-tailpipe-emission new trucks will be allowed. Already, zero-emission requirements are in place for trucks that enter ocean ports. And only two technologies are available to achieve that goal: battery electric trucks and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks. "We believe a good portion of those will be hydrogen vehicles," said Matt Miyasato, chief of public policy for hydrogen fuel distributor FirstElement Fuel. FirstElement, through its True Zero brand fueling stations, is the largest hydrogen vehicle fuel distributor in the U.S...
Battery electric is gaining a strong foothold in the medium-sized delivery truck market, but hydrogen could have a leg up for long-haul trucking. While a fuel cell is comparable in size to a diesel engine, a battery big enough for long-haul trucks adds weight and size and cuts down on the total freight load the truck can deliver. And while an electric truck battery can take hours to recharge, the refill time for hydrogen is more comparable to filling up with diesel fuel.
The newspaper says the facility "could mark the start of a nationwide network for fuel-cell truck refueling. It could also flop." Hydrogen fuel is expensive — as much as four times more expensive than gasoline or diesel fuel. The fuel cells, which drive electric motors to drive the truck, are enormously expensive as well.... The vehicles themselves are expensive too. Both battery electric and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks can cost three times as much or more than a $120,000 diesel truck. Those buying the trucks can qualify for state and federal subsidies to make up most of the upfront costs.
But government regulations may spark some demand: New diesel truck sales will be outlawed in California by 2036. Only zero-tailpipe-emission new trucks will be allowed. Already, zero-emission requirements are in place for trucks that enter ocean ports. And only two technologies are available to achieve that goal: battery electric trucks and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks. "We believe a good portion of those will be hydrogen vehicles," said Matt Miyasato, chief of public policy for hydrogen fuel distributor FirstElement Fuel. FirstElement, through its True Zero brand fueling stations, is the largest hydrogen vehicle fuel distributor in the U.S...
Battery electric is gaining a strong foothold in the medium-sized delivery truck market, but hydrogen could have a leg up for long-haul trucking. While a fuel cell is comparable in size to a diesel engine, a battery big enough for long-haul trucks adds weight and size and cuts down on the total freight load the truck can deliver. And while an electric truck battery can take hours to recharge, the refill time for hydrogen is more comparable to filling up with diesel fuel.
Hydrogen is energy storage... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Making hydrogen itself is now a dirty, greenhouse-gas-generating process, although green hydrogen production is an emerging option, though even more expensive."
So is this just another case of taxpayers subsidising the fossil fuels industries & carrying on polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases?
The only answer (Score:2)
The only answer to this is high temperature steam reformation by a nuclear reactor - none of which exist to produce hydrogen at the moment. The super high temperatures rip water apart into hydrogen and oxygen gas and a reactor of such design could produce gases continuously during one fueling assuming no shutdowns occur.
Marry that with the ever elusive fusion for a true “emissions-free” design. Of course there are always emissions, or end products, but a fusion reactor won’t produce any
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At that point, wouldn't it be more efficient (in "useful motive power per dollar", taking into account both the reactor side and the truck side) to use the nuclear reactor to generate electricity, then use that electricity to charge batteries?
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Hydrogen is very light, even lithium batteries are not. Fuel beats, storage in terms of efficiency unless the conversion of fuel to energy is fairly poor, as does happen to be the case with combustion engines, both internal and external.
The real question we should be asking is does end-use efficiency even matter. Remember "to cheap to meter"? If we really could find a low impact way make all the electricity we could possibly use, then we would be free to be as wasteful with it as we like in terms of doing
Re:The only answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: The only answer (Score:2)
Uh, excuse me, we in the U.S. already enjoy 'too cheap to meter' cell phone minutes...
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Just doing some math here, I think the right power source for most big rigs might actually be solar.
A Tesla semi has a theoretical range of 500 miles on a 1000 kWh battery. Assuming an average speed of 50 MPH, that's about 10 kW of average power consumption. A typical semi trailer is 53 feet long by 8.2 feet wide. With solar panels at 20% efficiency, this comes out to 8.7 kW.
Mind you, that means existing panels wouldn't be enough by themselves, even during peak sun hours, but a solar-equipped trailer cou
have you seen H2 tanks? They are not light... (Score:4, Insightful)
H2 is not light - it requires heavy tanks to store... And transmission is much worse than for electricity... and there are much higher losses on conversion...
But the most important point - we do not have any cheap green H2 technology at the moment...
At the moment biofuel is much cheaper than green H2...
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Re: The only answer (Score:2)
Nuclear power was sold with the lie "too cheap to meter" in the first place, that's literally where that saying comes from.
It was a lie then, and it's a lie now.
Re:The only answer (Score:5, Informative)
When I did the analysis, using the electricity with conventional battery powered EVs did make better fiscal sense. It's a back of napkin analysis, of course.
1. You can make electricity from nuclear power, especially if you're using a GenIV reactor, with relatively high efficiency. Current nuclear is around 30% due to Carnot cycle limitations - you can only keep water liquid at limited temperatures, even at extreme pressures. If you switch to molten salt/metal, you can drastically increase temperatures, which increases electricity efficiency - you go from 30% to 50% (roughly). Which means you go from 3GWt producing 1GWe to 2GWt producing 1 GWe, meaning you go from having to dispose of 2GW of heat down to 1GW. You just cut your cooling demands in half.
Anyways, you want the new reactor designs if you're going to be producing hydrogen because the current plants don't get hot enough. But they can produce hydrogen using mostly heat. WNA [world-nuclear.org] predicts "50% or more", up from 25% current, using "direct thermochemical production" - which requires over 1000C. Given that current reactors are limited to around 300C...
Conclusion: Hydrogen and Electrical production efficiency around equal.
2. Compression: This is something that electricity doesn't have, but you're going to use around 8% of the energy potential of the hydrogen just to compress it: ~2.6 kWh/kg. There's 33.33 kWh/kilogram of Hydrogen. So even if you're using direct thermo from nuclear to produce the hydrogen, you're still going to want a turbine to produce electricity just to power pumps to render the hydrogen into a practical form for storage (though I suppose you could also use direct mechanical from steam turbines for that, but electrical is more controllable). That's 1k bar, you'd save some energy, most hydrogen cars are 700 bar, but that raises a question: Do you compress more to make shipping more compact and not need pumps at the station, or do you pressurize to 700 bar, and now need some sort of pumping system at fueling points... I used 1k bar because that's what the internet popped out when I searched.
3. Distribution: With electricity you can use the existing power grid, though at some point you obviously want to beef it up. With hydrogen production from nuclear power, you'd need to ship it everywhere. Shipping hydrogen is a pain because it likes to leak out of everything and anything. This means either hydrogen trucks or piping. While you can apparently retask some natural gas piping with minimal refits at acceptable leak rates*, it still probably means a lot of new piping, as opposed to just upgrading electrical lines more and faster.
4. Use: If you think batteries are expensive, wait until you see fuel cell prices. Sure, you can use an ICE with hydrogen, but then you're down at ICE efficiency levels. Worried about rare earth use in batteries, fuel cells use the really pricy stuff, and they have limited lifespans as well. Overall efficiency with hydrogen is also less than battery. Which, if you want to bring that up, means you still need a traction battery, like with a hybrid car, because otherwise you're not storing braking energy to really boost efficiency.
5. Weight: Sure, the hydrogen is the highest energy density stuff by mass going. It's also one of the least energy dense ones by volume. And getting the volume down enough to be practical requires high pressure - 700 bar for hydrogen cars. A PWR reactor is a bit over 200 Bar. You end up with the same problem as batteries - the storage vessel ends up weighing enough to be a significant factor in mileage, and that weight doesn't really drop as you drive.
*Tiny leaks aren't actually a fire hazard; the hydrogen disperses too fast.
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I was aware that there's pumps in filling stations currently for hydrogen, but I wasn't aware that they had an intermediate tank that could delay the fueling of the next car. That could be solved, of course, by delivering higher pressure hydrogen more often, by including a bladder that you can fill up to keep the larger tank at pressure - but that would increase maintenance costs as well.
I was NOT figuring on the hydrogen fuel tank having a seriously limited life necessitating regular replacement. Replaci
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Fuel cell vehicles typically do include a battery. This is necessary because the peak current from the fuel cell stack isn't enough by itself to, e.g., get started going up a hill, or just from a dead stop on flat ground with a heavy load, or accelerating down the on-ramp of a freeway. This does mean they can take advantage of regenerative braking, too. But, that also mean
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Yes it is a thing, but not used for nuclear production of hydrogen. Steam reformation uses 700C–1,000C steam to get hydrogen from a methane source like natural gas.
Nuclear uses electrolysis to produce Hydrogen.
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Steam reformation of methane is the primary method of producing hydrogen for things like rockets today. And all the other industrial uses of hydrogen.
So "steam reformation" very much exists.
Now, steam reformation to convert H2O into H2 and O2? As Londo Mollari says, that basically doesn't exist today, at least not outside of laboratories. It's a relatively simple process if you can get the temperature high enough.
This process would normally use some electrolysis, which generally would give you the H2 and
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Steam reformation of hydrogen uses methane. Nuclear reactors would produce hydrogen via electrolysis.
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1) If nothing else, hydrogen vehicles (like BEVs) relocate the pollution from many mobile sources - often making their way through historically disadvantaged communities - to several large-scale stationary locations. Those large locations already have pollution controls for substantially reducing or eliminating things that diesel trucks produce in spades: soot (PM2.5), NOx, ozone. And any upgrades
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Internalizing the costs isn't just making the capitalists pay for the investment, it's also about making them pay for the externalities. Pollute the air and cause sickness? Tax that. Or set up a carbon credit marketplace, that's much more effective than straight taxation; that encourages new technologies instead of j
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The energy density by volume is bad, but the energy density by weight is not bad at all. That makes it possibly reasonable for aircraft but not for vehicles. My guess is that it's a loser, to be replaced with synthetic hydrocarbons and batteries anyway. That doesn't mean people shouldn't try. It does mean that it should not alter policy at all until it has really visible results. We still need more renewable, more storage, more battery charging points and better transport options like trains.
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The energy density by volume is bad, but the energy density by weight is not bad at all.
Until you take into account the weight of the storage tanks.
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Airbus has some interesting research on improving that [airbus.com]. I personally think that we'll solve efficient hydrocarbon from water and captured CO2 production before we solve hydrogen fully but I think we might end up with both in specialist uses.
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Are you talking about energy density at their respective storage densities? Or at atmospheric pressure? Because you can pack hydrogen really close together under pressure.
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Hydrogen won't be a good option for trucks anyway. Batteries are getting cheaper very quickly, and it's easy to make electricity yourself with solar panels. Electricity is everywhere already, and electric trucks already on the market work really well.
There will be some adjustment for long distance deliveries, that's all. Adjustment for the better, to help slow the race to the bottom for driver's conditions.
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People seem to forget that a lot of green energy is wasted because the grid is saturated. So wind parks are shut down, and solar panels do nothing.
Even if making hydrogen is terribly inefficient, 20% efficiency is better than zero.
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So is this just another case of taxpayers subsidising the fossil fuels industries & carrying on polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases?
No. Precisely zero hydrogen refueling stations are being run from traditional SMRs which generate the majority of hydrogen in the world today. That would be absurdly unviable given the risk of onsight storage and the cost of transportation. Refueling stations for trucks are the one thing that are pretty much universally green hydrogen due to the low volume production required making it simple enough to run local electrolysers.
And this station is no different, go look at pictures of it, you can see the elect
Re:Hydrogen is energy storage... (Score:4, Interesting)
1. there is almost no green H2 on the market and only green one should allowed.
2. H2 tanks are massive as well - this is an explosive gas under pressure - you need heavy tanks for it.
3. It is expensive. The cheap one is the dirty one from methane - worst possible option....
4. you lose a lot on conversion from electricity into H2 and then H2 into electricity/power again - batteries are much more efficient
The only case where H2 wins are long-range large-mass cases - and there I believe artificial fuel/biofuel should be much better approach than H2
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The notable thing is is that they shut down the car stations, stranding everyone with an H2 car. Now they're targeting big trucks??
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No it hasn't. The Tesla Semi has proven you can build some kit, and even then it has a range of 500 miles and takes forever to charge which is is a major step down compared to current long haul transport.
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But how do you make it?
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Yeah, but when the concentration gets too high it condenses and falls out of the atmosphere. You may have observed this yourself.
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No, it changes the weather. It's a short-term effect.
You could argue that building a civilization that depends on emitting a lot of water vapour makes a lot term change, i.e. changes the climate, but your post was about water vapour being a greenhouse gas, not changing the climate.
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...You could argue that building a civilization that depends on emitting a lot of water vapour makes a lot term change, i.e. changes the climate....
This is what I was arguing, poorly, as I left out a lot of stuff. If we moved to a hydrogen economy, we'd be dumping massive amounts of water vapor into the air over a long period of time, changing the weather over the long term, thus changing the climate.
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Burning gasoline also releases large amounts of water vapor.
2 C8H18 + 25 O2 -> 16 CO2 + 18 H2O
Meanwhile in British Columbia (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a small startup in British Columbia that seems to have a much better solution. They replace the engine in a heavy duty truck with a packaged generator, sling batteries under the cab and replace the existing heavy duty axles with powered units. Their background is logging so serious heavy duty stuff. Marketing a conversion kit for regular pickups as well. The space under the hood can be occupied by any sort of power generation, Have watched a few of their videos on Youtube -- I think they may have the right idea for trucking, especially when the going gets tough. I wouldn't want to have a fuel cell unit parked overnight in the Siera Nevadas.. The firm is called 'Edison Motors'.
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It would be ironic if "Edison Motors" ate "Tesla Motors'" lunch on big rigs.
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Why? Edison and Tesla never had beef with each other. Tesla had revered Edison and Edison, in like the one or two times he ever put Tesla's name in writing, seemed to have nothing but good things to say as well.
(Edison and Westinghouse, however...)
=Smidge=
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I know, actually. But given the legend, it would still be ironic.
So... (Score:2)
... nstead of using diesel power to drive the wheels directly it drives a generator to create electricity to power the wheels.
And thats more effiicient how exactly?
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, much more efficient.
Because engines are terrible - the reason we have gearboxes is because you cannot run an engine at multiple speeds efficiently. That's why you have 6, 8, 10, 12, 18 gears - you need to keep the engine in a VERY small power band otherwise it's running at speeds that just are not conducive to efficient operation.
Of course, you're driving down roads going at whatever speed you like - and electric motors have a very wide power band, which is why basically any EV has a single speed transmission (or direct drive). It's also why EVs have very good low speed torque.
So you can hook the engine up to a generator, run the engine at its optimal speed, and generate a fixed amount of power. That power can be supplemented by batteries if you need more than what the engine and generator can provide, and it can be diverted to charge the batteries when you need less.
This also means you don't need a 2500 HP engine in a semi - you can run a much smaller, more efficient 1200HP engine - because if you need peak loads, you run engine plus battery for the litlte time you need it. You're not buying a larger engine than you need for the few times you need it. This makes the whole thing even more efficient.
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Just like a train....
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Their configuration of generator==> batteries==>electric motors makes use of the locked rotor torque of electric motors to avoid the oversizing of the power plant (ICEs need to rev to generate power, hence multigear transmissions.) Its a hybrid configuration. So the generator power source can be optimized to spin the generator, which will be much smaller than the power plant of an over the road truck. Or that space could be another battery pack... depends on the workload. If one takes out the battery
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And thats more effiicient how exactly?
Gearing. A generator can run continuously at a specific RPM that is optimal. You can very easily vary the power given in an electrical motor because we're pretty darn good at moving electrons. This is the thing about all motors, not just car motors. In an ideal situation you run at a fixed RPM for as long as possible at a specific gear ratio that maximizes the power delivered versus the torque delivered based on application. If you're looking for maximum power, you minimize torque as much as possible.
E
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I know it seems like it wouldn't be, but we already learned this with the Prius; electric motors are in fact so much more efficient that you can literally attach a small gas engine to a electric motor and get the equivalent power of a much larger gas engine.
When hybrids were still on the drawing board, that's what I expected. The ICE would only charge the battery with no mechanical connection to the wheels. The theory was it could be tuned to the specific load required to charge a battery and thus could run very efficiently. From what I understand, however, every hybrid today connects the ICE to the wheels. I'd be happy to hear of counterexamples.
On the other hand, that's how I thought diesel-electric train engines work. The diesel engine generates electricity
Re: So... (Score:2)
Trains historically used a diesel-electric powertrain only because you can't make a transmission strong enough to do the job, and if you could, it would probably be even more lossy.
Modern trains can be hybrids, they use inverter drive systems.
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The Volt had an electric drive train and a mechanical one that took over at speed.
One motor. One engine. Two drive trains.
Is Zuriel correct that the electric motor is also used as the generator? I know you can use an electric motor as a generator but how efficient is it, compared to a dedicated generator? That's perhaps an interesting tradeoff: does any improved efficiency of a generator outweigh the cost and weight of a dedicated device?
For that matter, how do other hybrids do this? Do they also double-purpose the electric motors? I have no reason for knowing, I'm just curious.
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One small detail that should not be ignored as we rush to embrace yet another idea before its time is that hydrogen does have a few minor drawbacks that will need to be addressed before mobile Hindenburgs become practical.
- storage is a problem, why rockets use liquid hydrogen and other applications use very high pressure tanks
- the tiny hydrogen molecule can slip through a lot of substances
- hydrogen embrittlement is a problem with metals and other materials
- it takes a long time to fuel up (ask the former
EV will never overtatake hydrogen (Score:2)
hydrogen has no chance with EVs (Score:3)
You are totally wrong.
H2 has no chance with EVs.
The cases you mentioned are like 5% of the market and there artificial fuel/biofuel would be much better option than H2.
Currently H2 is even more dirty than gasoline - there is virtually no green H2 on the market and only such should be allowed.
Search net what Mirai owners write - they will never buy H2 car again...
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How about once nuclear power plants can start collecting hydrogen? Someone above mentioned something like that. Would it become green and viable, then?
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The things you're talking about don't exist yet. There is theory, a few pilot programs using electrolysis powered by nuclear reactors, but the number of nuclear reactors generating hydrogen through thermochemical processes is currently zero. Even if the tech is proven, it takes decades to build a nuclear plant so we're at least 30-40 years out before this becomes a thing.
We simply can't wait that long. By the time any of that technology actually exists, the entire market will have transitioned to BEV out of
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"once", EVs are "now" (Score:2)
BEVs are now and improving every year....
H2 is nowhere near and Toyota Mirai owners turned from H2 fans into haters - just search the web on the topic...
H2 is a distraction pushed by Big Oil/Gas allowing them to pump natural gas and slow down BEVs.
IMHO PHEVs are the dark horse... you use battery for daily commute and gas for occasional long-range drives...
Also IMO transition should be regulated by taxation - slowly growing taxes on gas and diesel while increasing subsidies for electric cards and home bat
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Re:EV will never overtatake hydrogen (Score:4, Interesting)
Trucking is a super low margin business and fuel is the biggest cost, much more than labor. The trucking companies that force their truckers to waste 10% of their time charging their trucks with cheap electricity will survive, and the companies that use more expensive fuel (aka hydrogen) will go bankrupt.
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Who is paying for the grid expansion and battery banks at all the charging stations so the trucks can charge at multi-MW?
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The same people who paid for all the infrastructure you use and benefit from today, but the cost of which is not fully accounted for in your utility bills:
"Everyone."
(...and I am okay with that because I enjoy living in a technologically advanced civilization.)
=Smidge=
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The same people paying for the gas/diesel transportation, storage, and distribution stations?
Do you think pioneers just find giant underground fuel tanks and wild-grown gas pumps naturally sprouting along highways?
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Nope. Fleet operators can safely maintain a bank of charged batteries and swap them. Five minute operation or less with a properly designed truck. That's based on commonly used technology that exists, with peak storage batteries on the grid already. You can find plenty of qualified technicians to deal with all that. It fits in neatly with various industrial operations that might have other reasons to maintain a bank of batteries in order to smooth out their power consumption and get better electric rat
The Mystery of the Soggy Shipment (Score:4, Funny)
Zero tailpipe emissions?
What about water vapor?
Dear God, what's happening to the water vapor?
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H2O vapour is a greenhouse gas... (Score:2)
Check wikipedia... water vapour makes most of the greenhouse effect...
Though it stays in the air for much shorter time than CO2/CH4
Hydrogen from underground will make this work. (Score:2)
"White Hydrogen" is the hydrogen that's present in underground deposits. Geologists say that there are enormous amounts waiting to be extracted. If they fix that, then this will all be viable, and competitive even with diesel. The white hydrogen business is just in its early stages though. It's even found underground in France!
https://www.euronews.com/next/... [euronews.com]
The reality of Hydrogen on the ground.. (Score:3)
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Yep. Welcome to the examples of early adoption problems. In the meantime the ISO standards for refueling stations have been updated to address the nozzle freezing issue, and more and more companies are actually buying hydrogen refueling stations which can run with volume. You can build what you want, it's just a question of specifying it. Both the rate of filling for a vehicle as well as the number of vehicles per hour are just items you specify on the PO. Lots of early hydrogen stations were built under th
So when diesel trucks are banned in california... (Score:2)
... and the price of everyday goods sky rockets or they fail to get delivered at all, how do the eco virtue signallers plan on selling that to the general public:?
A bit of fucking realism is desperately required right now. Electric cars are just about viable as a means of transport, Electric heavy duty trucks are not whether battery or H2 powered and I don't see the laws of physics altering in 12 years time in order to facilitate this situation changing.
It's more long haul than heavy duty (Score:2)
Actually, I'd argue that "electric heavy duty trucks" range between "drastically more economical than diesel" all the way to "yeah, no."
When you move to heavy duty equipment, it generally tends to be for very specific tasks, and designed for that exact purpose.
So, on the "drastically more economical" end, you have that gigantic electric dump truck that never needs charging - it picks up a load up a mountain, regenerative brakes on the way down, and has picked up enough energy from that to go back up afterwa
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"So, on the "drastically more economical" end, you have that gigantic electric dump truck that never needs charging - it picks up a load up a mountain, regenerative brakes on the way down, and has picked up enough energy from that to go back up afterwards"
Yes that would work except its usually the other way around - dump truck picks up huge load from bottom of open cast mine and takes it up.
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Perhaps so, but it's not "that would work", it's "it does work", as in it is operational today.
Like I said - "designed for that exact purpose".
And if you're taking huge loads up from an open cast mine, well, I've seen giant conveyors used to do that instead, and you can relatively easily run those off the grid. Avoid having to constantly haul the mass of a truck up out of the pit, just the relatively light conveyor belt - and you even much of the conveyor belt energy back when that portion heads down again
Re: It's more long haul than heavy duty (Score:2)
Conveyer belts cant handle large boulders so some prior processing is required plus theres a limit on the angle they can work at and they don't like corners.
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... and the price of everyday goods sky rockets or they fail to get delivered at all, how do the eco virtue signallers plan on selling that to the general public:?
Didn't stop us when making gasoline policy. I just got back from Louisiana and gas there is literally half the price ($3.15 versus $6.50).
The connection between setting policy and rising prices is laggy enough that voters don't notice. California is now a nice simmering batch of economic frog stew.
Somebody is force-fitting their preferred solution (Score:5, Interesting)
If this made sense, why hasn't this been done on trains? There you have fixed routes and fueling stations, well known fuel requirements, and a vehicle structure that would have little problem adapting to fuel cells over diesel engines.
I would bet that someone -- probably many someones -- looked at it and realized they would have to buy more diesel fuel than they were currently using.
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Diesel is cheaper until net zero.
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If you have fixed routes you'd be mad to use hydrogen instead of just running overhead power.
Ultimate Hydrogen storage system (Score:2)
Trolleytruck? (Score:2)
They should use smaller batteries and put a pantograph on the truck so it can recharge on the go.
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convenient (Score:2)
Fuel up while your load is looted.
one thing people never mention (Score:2)
Bio-diesel -- ? (Score:2)
America's First Big-Rig Hydrogen Fuel Station (Score:2)
And quite possibly the last...
Not cheaper, just shifting cost... (Score:2)
Both battery electric and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks can cost three times as much or more than a $120,000 diesel truck. Those buying the trucks can qualify for state and federal subsidies to make up most of the upfront costs.
The trucks still cost 3x as much as an ICE truck ($360K v $120K), but 2/3rds of the cost is shifted to the taxpayer (you and me, fellow Americans).
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"hydrocarbon fuel cells could be better."
Not chemically possible.
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Tell that to my mitochondria.
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Looks more like a mobile cracking tower than a fuel cell but I guess calling it a fuel cell gets more VC funding. First proposed at least 15 years ago so obviously not practical yet, if ever.
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1) Battery materials only have to be mined once for the lifetime of the battery
2) H2 needs to be generated constantly
Also
3) Fuel cell lifetime is less than that of Lithium batteries
HTH
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Arguably, due to recycling (which is coming online), battery materials only have to be mined sort of once for the total capacity of batteries produced - IE you can recycle and get close to 100% of the materials back.
So, in a theoretical future where we've reached a stable state of total EV capacity, we'd only need to mine enough to replace materials lost during recycling, accidents like fires where the elements end up re-oxidized and released, etc... Maybe 2-5% of each battery.
Don't forget that fuel cells
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Hindenburg had more survivors than more aerial airliner crashes.
What really killed airships was that reporter mindlessly freaking out.