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Technology has a habit of gathering pace but I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. The first hybrid car I worked on was in 1998, the Toyota prius, hybrid not EV I grant you.

 We are now 21 years down the track seeing an increase in uptake with infrastructure lagging behind. I think once we have mastered the EV 40 ton truck, and EV large passenger plane they might think about electrifying the canal network. Most people reading this will be worm food long before we need to stress about how many charge points we will need or where they will be sited.

 If you want zero emissions narrowboats hydrogen technology already  exists that would be ideal and have similar refuelling distance to current diesel. This is the most likely fuel for heavy vehicles in the future.

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2 minutes ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

Technology has a habit of gathering pace but I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. The first hybrid car I worked on was in 1998, the Toyota prius, hybrid not EV I grant you.

 We are now 21 years down the track seeing an increase in uptake with infrastructure lagging behind. I think once we have mastered the EV 40 ton truck, and EV large passenger plane they might think about electrifying the canal network. Most people reading this will be worm food long before we need to stress about how many charge points we will need or where they will be sited.

 If you want zero emissions narrowboats hydrogen technology already  exists that would be ideal and have similar refuelling distance to current diesel. This is the most likely fuel for heavy vehicles in the future.

 

My thoughts too. 

 

I think history will show EV to be the most enormous blind alley we ever went up, and making and storing hydrogen will turn out to be easier and cheaper than installing all them big fat wires.

 

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

Technology has a habit of gathering pace but I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. The first hybrid car I worked on was in 1998, the Toyota prius, hybrid not EV I grant you.

 We are now 21 years down the track seeing an increase in uptake with infrastructure lagging behind. I think once we have mastered the EV 40 ton truck, and EV large passenger plane they might think about electrifying the canal network. Most people reading this will be worm food long before we need to stress about how many charge points we will need or where they will be sited.

 If you want zero emissions narrowboats hydrogen technology already  exists that would be ideal and have similar refuelling distance to current diesel. This is the most likely fuel for heavy vehicles in the future.

 

In 15 years (2035) legislations states that no new IC* engine vehicles (or boats**) can be built.

In 30 years time (2050) legislations states that the use of IC* engine vehicles (or boats**) will be banned.

 

I hope to be here for the former, but probably not for the latter.

 

* unless there is some huge development that gives zero emissions IC engines.

** see the Government "Maritime 2050" documents (This includes Sea-Going and all Inland waterways vessels)

 

 

 

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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10 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

In 15 years (2035) legislations states that no new IC* engine vehicles (or boats**) can be built.

In 30 years time (2050) legislations states that the use of IC* engine vehicles (or boats**) will be banned.

 

I hope to be here for the former, but probably not for the latter.

 

* unless there is some huge development that gives zero emissions IC engines.

** see the Government "Maritime 2050" documents (This includes Sea-Going and all Inland waterways vessels)

 

 

 

Hydrogen is zero emissions IC technology, it has existed for years.

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12 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

In 15 years (2035) legislations states that no new IC* engine vehicles (or boats**) can be built.

In 30 years time (2050) legislations states that the use of IC* engine vehicles (or boats**) will be banned.

Things can progress very fast when a lot of money and clever people are thrown at a problem. The big (and small) automotive companies are investing huge amounts in electric vehicles and infrastructure as they now see the legislative writing on the wall for infernal combustion. As @IanD has said, inland boating can just piggy back on car battery and charging tech.

 

2 minutes ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

Hydrogen is zero emissions IC technology, it has existed for years.

And gone almost nowhere. There is one hydrogen fuel cell (not IC) boat I'm aware of, that has been gathering dust moored on the W&B outside Birmingham Uni for years.. Hydrogen IC and fuel cell road vehicles are hugely expensive at the moment and a rounding error in sales figures compared with battery electric. Most hydrogen is currently made from fossil fuels, so the oil companies would love them to be the future. Why isn't it happening?

 

Jen

 

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3 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Things can progress very fast when a lot of money and clever people are thrown at a problem. The big (and small) automotive companies are investing huge amounts in electric vehicles and infrastructure as they now see the legislative writing on the wall for infernal combustion. As @IanD has said, inland boating can just piggy back on car battery and charging tech.

 

And gone almost nowhere. There is one hydrogen fuel cell (not IC) boat I'm aware of, that has been gathering dust moored on the W&B outside Birmingham Uni for years.. Hydrogen IC and fuel cell road vehicles are hugely expensive at the moment and a rounding error in sales figures compared with battery electric. Most hydrogen is currently made from fossil fuels, so the oil companies would love them to be the future. Why isn't it happening?

 

Jen

 

It is happening, please check how many manufactures are releasing Hydrogen and Hydrogen hybrid commercial vehicles in 2020. Hydrogen generation will be powered by the same methods used to charge your EV be that fossil fuels or renewables. You get nothing for nothing in this life. The difference is EV infastructure needs to run down thousands of miles of non existant cables and gives vehicles a limited range. Where will we dig all the copper up for that?Hydrogen is like filling up with diesel.

  Just because they are happy to sell you EV now does not mean it is the best technology for the future.

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The proponents of hydrogen always ignore the elephant in the room, which is that the end-to-end efficiency is about half that of BEV, and always will be due to basic thermodynamics.

 

This is true whether the energy to make the hydrogen comes from fossil fuels (double the CO2 emissions) or renewables (double the resources needed, which are hard enough to provide anyway).

 

Given the drive to reduce emissions and energy consumption, no government is ever going to back hydrogen in high volume use for this simple reason. It might be convenient and allow quick refuelling (like diesel or petrol) but it's basically a hideously inefficient chemical battery.

 

All the hydrogen vehicles proposed are basically technology demonstrators; there's nothing wrong with the technology, it's just that the numbers don't add up -- unless and until we have unlimited cheap renewable energy from fusion and don't care that we're wasting half of it any more, which has been ten years away for the last fifty years...

 

All the objections about safely and storage and tank cost/size are insignificant compared to this fundamental fact. If you don't believe me, ask one of the supporters of hydrogen to provide actual figures which prove me (and many others) wrong ?

Edited by IanD
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30 minutes ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

It is happening, please check how many manufactures are releasing Hydrogen and Hydrogen hybrid commercial vehicles in 2020.

Can you help me out here. I can't find any that are actually available, or any prices. Only future products with glossy web sites, short of detail, or limited trials being run in various parts of the world.How deep a google dive do I need to take to find them?

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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Other than the UK government in 2019 that has pledged £390 million to hydrogen technology. This is not a one horse race. EV now is great for passenger vehicle technology people travel short distances and go home most nights but commercial vehicles have a different requirement and boats would be better aligned with this.

4 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Can you help me out here. I can't find any that are actually available, or any prices. Only future products with glossy web sites, short of detail, or limited trials being run in various parts of the world.How deep a google dive do I need to take to find them?

Take your blinkers off.

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11 minutes ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

Other than the UK government in 2019 that has pledged £390 million to hydrogen technology. This is not a one horse race. EV now is great for passenger vehicle technology people travel short distances and go home most nights but commercial vehicles have a different requirement and boats would be better aligned with this.

Take your blinkers off.

I agree that something like Hydrogen would work well for long distant travel in a way that battery electric does not. A few years back everyone thought it would be "the future". Since then, EV has overtaken it in cost and actual vehicles on the road. I'm not convinced it can catch up if the EV infrastructure is built before Hydrogen is cost compatible. It may never catch on after that and become the BetaMax of vehicle technology, vs the EV VHS. Superior, but unable to compete against the higher customer base and infrastructure availability of their rival.

No blinkers here.

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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17 minutes ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

Other than the UK government in 2019 that has pledged £390 million to hydrogen technology. This is not a one horse race. EV now is great for passenger vehicle technology people travel short distances and go home most nights but commercial vehicles have a different requirement and boats would be better aligned with this.

Take your blinkers off.

Take yours off first. Point us to verifiable factual numbers which show that hydrogen is an economically (not technically) feasible solution, give that it doubles energy consumption compared to BEV.

 

Governments pledging money proves nothing, they're usually scientifically illiterate and are easily convinced by snake oil salesmen where "new technology" is concerned.

 

Narrowboats are nothing like commercial vehicles; they have 10x the energy needs of cars, NB are 10x lower than cars.

 

Commercial vehicles do represent the biggest challenge for BEV but it's one that will be overcome, see what Tesla is doing. They won't adopt hydrogen in the general case because 2x the energy consumption means 2x the running costs.

Edited by IanD
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4 hours ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

Technology has a habit of gathering pace but I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. The first hybrid car I worked on was in 1998, the Toyota prius, hybrid not EV I grant you.

 We are now 21 years down the track seeing an increase in uptake with infrastructure lagging behind. I think once we have mastered the EV 40 ton truck, and EV large passenger plane they might think about electrifying the canal network. Most people reading this will be worm food long before we need to stress about how many charge points we will need or where they will be sited.

 If you want zero emissions narrowboats hydrogen technology already  exists that would be ideal and have similar refuelling distance to current diesel. This is the most likely fuel for heavy vehicles in the future.

 

4 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

My thoughts too. 

 

I think history will show EV to be the most enormous blind alley we ever went up, and making and storing hydrogen will turn out to be easier and cheaper than installing all them big fat wires.

 

 

 

 

The hydrogen is the blind alley, it's dangerous it eats metals is mostly made from natural gas, is energy heavy to produce and currently I believe only available from 9 places in the UK! I think that sums up the supply issues now if its slightly cold or damp don't expect to fill up your tank quickly because it freezes and that is in warm USA climates, it is a total waste of time and energy 

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3 hours ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

It is happening, please check how many manufactures are releasing Hydrogen and Hydrogen hybrid commercial vehicles in 2020. Hydrogen generation will be powered by the same methods used to charge your EV be that fossil fuels or renewables. You get nothing for nothing in this life. The difference is EV infastructure needs to run down thousands of miles of non existant cables and gives vehicles a limited range. Where will we dig all the copper up for that?Hydrogen is like filling up with diesel.

  Just because they are happy to sell you EV now does not mean it is the best technology for the future.

You really don't know what you are talking about have a look at speak EV forum they have a hydrogen sub section and you will discover why it's not happening 

3 hours ago, IanD said:

Take yours off first. Point us to verifiable factual numbers which show that hydrogen is an economically (not technically) feasible solution, give that it doubles energy consumption compared to BEV.

 

Governments pledging money proves nothing, they're usually scientifically illiterate and are easily convinced by snake oil salesmen where "new technology" is concerned.

 

Narrowboats are nothing like commercial vehicles; they have 10x the energy needs of cars, NB are 10x lower than cars.

 

Commercial vehicles do represent the biggest challenge for BEV but it's one that will be overcome, see what Tesla is doing. They won't adopt hydrogen in the general case because 2x the energy consumption means 2x the running costs.

Virtual greenie Ian 

3 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

I agree that something like Hydrogen would work well for long distant travel in a way that battery electric does not. A few years back everyone thought it would be "the future". Since then, EV has overtaken it in cost and actual vehicles on the road. I'm not convinced it can catch up if the EV infrastructure is built before Hydrogen is cost compatible. It may never catch on after that and become the BetaMax of vehicle technology, vs the EV VHS. Superior, but unable to compete against the higher customer base and infrastructure availability of their rival.

No blinkers here.

Virtual greenie Jen 

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3 hours ago, Narrowboat Nimrod said:

Other than the UK government in 2019 that has pledged £390 million to hydrogen technology. This is not a one horse race. EV now is great for passenger vehicle technology people travel short distances and go home most nights but commercial vehicles have a different requirement and boats would be better aligned with this.

Take your blinkers off.

My daughter is happily spending that money at Leeds university at the moment they are showing that it's a waste of time but don't stop giving us the money 

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5 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

I agree that something like Hydrogen would work well for long distant travel in a way that battery electric does not. A few years back everyone thought it would be "the future". Since then, EV has overtaken it in cost and actual vehicles on the road. I'm not convinced it can catch up if the EV infrastructure is built before Hydrogen is cost compatible. It may never catch on after that and become the BetaMax of vehicle technology, vs the EV VHS. Superior, but unable to compete against the higher customer base and infrastructure availability of their rival.

No blinkers here.

Superior in the sense of quick and easy refuelling with a fuel distribution system not so different to diesel and petrol.

 

But massively inferior in that it more than doubles energy consumption compared to BEV, which in the end means more than double the running cost.

 

No sensible commercial organisation is going to adopt a solution at large scale that costs twice as much to run, no matter how convenient it is.

 

No amount of "technical breakthroughs" are going to repeal the laws of thermodynamics which explain why this is so, even if some politicians are gullible enough to be taken in by such promises.

 

Here are some numbers, from an unbiased (not paid-for) academic source (which shows hydrogen has 3x the energy consumption of BEV today...)

 

http://theconversation.com/why-battery-powered-vehicles-stack-up-better-than-hydrogen-106844

Edited by IanD
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1 minute ago, IanD said:

Superior in the sense of quick and easy refuelling with a fuel distribution system not so different to diesel and petrol.

 

But massively inferior in that it doubles energy consumption compared to BEV, which in the end means double the running cost.

 

No sensible commercial organisation is going to adopt a solution at large scale that costs twice as much to run, no matter how convenient it is.

 

No amount of "technical breakthroughs" are going to repeal the laws of thermodynamics which explain why this is so, even if some politicians are gullible enough to be taken in by such promises.

Ian they dont fill fast like petrol and diesel cold and damp stop them working they freeze up solid and thats in Califonia in some cases!

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3 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Ian they dont fill fast like petrol and diesel cold and damp stop them working they freeze up solid and thats in Califonia in some cases!

Those problems can be solved with technical changes to the filling systems. The terrible efficiency can't be -- I've added a link above with some numbers. There's no need to find other reasons why hydrogen is a bad solution, this one trumps all the rest.

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2 minutes ago, IanD said:

Those problems can be solved with technical changes to the filling systems. The terrible efficiency can't be -- I've added a link above with some numbers. There's no need to find other reasons why hydrogen is a bad solution, this one trumps all the rest.

I aint disagreeing with you Ian I am just pointing out that the people complaining that electric is slow to charge dont know the issues with filling with Hydrogen, and they have had filling stations for a few years but as yet havent sorted out the freezing up issue as yet

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I found this an interesting read and shows why Hydrogen isnt really viable


EDIT: I did however find this: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/pump-it-up-we-refuel-a-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle-the-half-hour-fill-up-page-2
EDIT 2: This is also useful Filling the Tank with Hydrogen | ITS.Berkeley.edu

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As I understand it, far from being an easy, clean process to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, then use the hydrogen as fuel creating only water vapour at the exhaust, Hydrogen in bulk is chiefly produced from natural gas. A quick wiki throws up the following:

 

Steam-methane reforming is a mature production process in which high-temperature steam (700 °C–1,000 °C) is used to produce hydrogen from natural gas. Methane reacts with steam under 3–25 bar pressure in the presence of a catalyst to produce hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. For steam reforming to proceed, heat must be supplied to the process. In a separate reactor vessel, the carbon monoxide and steam are reacted using a catalyst to produce carbon dioxide and more hydrogen. In a final process step called "pressure-swing adsorption," carbon dioxide and other impurities are removed from the gas stream, leaving essentially pure hydrogen. Steam reforming can also be used to produce hydrogen from other fuels, such as coal and oil products.

 

That process doesn't sound so efficient or clean to me, plus it still uses fossil fuel and it seems to produce Carbon Dioxide in abundance.

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2 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

As I understand it, far from being an easy, clean process to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, then use the hydrogen as fuel creating only water vapour at the exhaust, Hydrogen in bulk is chiefly produced from natural gas. A quick wiki throws up the following:

 

Steam-methane reforming is a mature production process in which high-temperature steam (700 °C–1,000 °C) is used to produce hydrogen from natural gas. Methane reacts with steam under 3–25 bar pressure in the presence of a catalyst to produce hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. For steam reforming to proceed, heat must be supplied to the process. In a separate reactor vessel, the carbon monoxide and steam are reacted using a catalyst to produce carbon dioxide and more hydrogen. In a final process step called "pressure-swing adsorption," carbon dioxide and other impurities are removed from the gas stream, leaving essentially pure hydrogen. Steam reforming can also be used to produce hydrogen from other fuels, such as coal and oil products.

 

That process doesn't sound so efficient or clean to me, plus it still uses fossil fuel and it seems to produce Carbon Dioxide in abundance.

Clearly people don't really understand how much energy is required to make hydrogen do they? ?

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4 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Clearly people don't really understand how much energy is required to make hydrogen do they? ?

No. Frankly, I think we're stuffed without hydrocarbons for the considerable future. In the meantime, the trick lies not in the futile pursuit of stopping their use entirely, but in being smarter about how and where we use them, being more efficient and economical in their use and by minimising the environmental impact of what we do have to use.

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11 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

As I understand it, far from being an easy, clean process to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, then use the hydrogen as fuel creating only water vapour at the exhaust, Hydrogen in bulk is chiefly produced from natural gas. A quick wiki throws up the following:

 

Steam-methane reforming is a mature production process in which high-temperature steam (700 °C–1,000 °C) is used to produce hydrogen from natural gas. Methane reacts with steam under 3–25 bar pressure in the presence of a catalyst to produce hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. For steam reforming to proceed, heat must be supplied to the process. In a separate reactor vessel, the carbon monoxide and steam are reacted using a catalyst to produce carbon dioxide and more hydrogen. In a final process step called "pressure-swing adsorption," carbon dioxide and other impurities are removed from the gas stream, leaving essentially pure hydrogen. Steam reforming can also be used to produce hydrogen from other fuels, such as coal and oil products.

 

That process doesn't sound so efficient or clean to me, plus it still uses fossil fuel and it seems to produce Carbon Dioxide in abundance.

It is actually a clean process. The energy for the reaction comes from burning methane which is the cleanest fuel source (lots of hydrogen in it - twice as much as burning oil). The syn gas can be made into Hydrogen but the best way to do it is to convert the syngas to methanol on site on top of  the gas field....ie the huge natural gas fields in Trinidad etc. You then ship methanol to the populated world as they do now with liquified natural gas. Methanol can be used in a fuel cell to produce hydrogen. It could be as cheap or cheaper than petrol and diesel and creates far less polution ie NOx than 'normal' fossil fuels. No need for big refineries.

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5 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

It is actually a clean process. The energy for the reaction comes from burning methane which is the cleanest fuel source (lots of hydrogen in it - twice as much as burning oil). The syn gas can be made into Hydrogen but the best way to do it is to convert the syngas to methanol on site on top of  the gas field....ie the huge natural gas fields in Trinidad etc. You then ship methanol to the populated world as they do now with liquified natural gas. Methanol can be used in a fuel cell to produce hydrogen. It could be as cheap or cheaper than petrol and diesel and creates far less polution ie NOx than 'normal' fossil fuels. No need for big refineries.

And the CO2?

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2 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

No. Frankly, I think we're stuffed without hydrocarbons for the considerable future. In the meantime, the trick lies not in the futile pursuit of stopping their use entirely, but in being smarter about how and where we use them, being more efficient and economical in their use and by minimising the environmental impact of what we do have to use.

....and one way to do that is to focus on C1 chemistry (ie natural gas - methane/methanol) rather than oil based solutions (ie crude oil). BP spent a lot of money developing their C1 chemistry. Not sure where they have got to though in the last 10 years. They had huge sites producing LNG in Trinidad and the China Sea (and also methanol).

The reason for going for C1 chemistry is that for the last 50 years, the oil companies have gone round the world looking for oil. In all cases wherever they looked, gas was present but if no oil was found they just capped the well and moved on. There are thousands of this 'ignored' fields which have lots of valuable natural gas. BP's strategy in 2005 was to change their portfolio from 90% oil and 10% gas to 50/50 by 2020. Fuels from natural gas will be the future whilst we still depend on fossil fuels.

Just now, Sea Dog said:

And the CO2?

Yes you still make CO2 but you will get more energy out of burning methane (CH4) per te of CO2 made as you react twice as much hydrogen so burning a tonne of methane will release more energy than burning a tonne of diesel. Too late this evening to work out how much though!

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