hydrogen boat with UK fuel cell completes testing

[Paul C]

13 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

I could have told you that without wasting a million pounds on it, it's bleeding obvious... 😉

 

Interesting. Assuming you* are actually qualified and experienced enough, and your research methodology was thorough and robust, I suspect a "desktop research project" wouldn't have been so convincing and there would still have been some decision-makers who think that hydrogen is a good idea. This way, there is no doubt left. That is unless, they didn't actually complete the project to their satisfaction, and instead simply ran out of money.

 

*Its easier to write but of course it could also be interpreted in a depersonalised way - a desktop research project could have been undertaken. Probably was beforehand anyway - with a lot of "not sure" stuff in it.

 

I dare say, there is some value left in the boat, which could be re-engined or scrapped.

[IanD]

19 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

Interesting. Assuming you* are actually qualified and experienced enough, and your research methodology was thorough and robust, I suspect a "desktop research project" wouldn't have been so convincing and there would still have been some decision-makers who think that hydrogen is a good idea. This way, there is no doubt left. That is unless, they didn't actually complete the project to their satisfaction, and instead simply ran out of money.

 

*Its easier to write but of course it could also be interpreted in a depersonalised way - a desktop research project could have been undertaken. Probably was beforehand anyway - with a lot of "not sure" stuff in it.

 

I dare say, there is some value left in the boat, which could be re-engined or scrapped.

 

The issue is not whether fuel cells work and can provide power to drive an electric motor because they obviously can, nobody needed to build a £1M boat to demonstrate that.

 

The issue is the (im-)practicalities of supplying/storing/distributing hydrogen on the canals (and the cost of the fuel and installation!), and nobody needed to build a boat to demonstrate that either.

 

The fuel cells are apparently going to be removed and a diesel generator installed, making it the same as any other series hybrid boat at a fraction of the cost. Someone might get a bargain, still with the build/layout features designed for hydrogen and built-in ugly though... 😞

Edited January 12 by IanD

[Paul C]

To

[Jen-in-Wellies]

19 hours ago, Cheshire cat said:

Wasn't that a hydrogen boat that sat outside the Edgbaston campus for many years? Surely that was the first.

Yes there was.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2007/hydrogen-hybrid-canal-boat-clean-and-silent-propulsion-for-the-inland-waterways?trk=public_post_comment-text

I didn't look the last time I passed the mooring on the adjacent railway, so don't know if it is still there.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

 

 

I could have told you that without wasting a million pounds on it, it's bleeding obvious... 😉

A lot would say the same about electric narrowboats 

[Mike Todd]

14 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Yes there was.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2007/hydrogen-hybrid-canal-boat-clean-and-silent-propulsion-for-the-inland-waterways?trk=public_post_comment-text

I didn't look the last time I passed the mooring on the adjacent railway, so don't know if it is still there.

We could not see it when passing a few weeks ago.

[ditchcrawler]

7 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

We could not see it when passing a few weeks ago.

Long gone

[IanD]

51 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

A lot would say the same about electric narrowboats 

 

If you mean "pure" electric ones without a generator, I agree -- the only thing that will make them practical is a charging network, for which there is no plan.

 

Hybrid boats aren't for everyone but done properly work well and have some real advantages, though cost certainly isn't one of them... 😉

 

57 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Yes there was.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2007/hydrogen-hybrid-canal-boat-clean-and-silent-propulsion-for-the-inland-waterways?trk=public_post_comment-text

I didn't look the last time I passed the mooring on the adjacent railway, so don't know if it is still there.

 

Given that this is pretty similar to the boat under discussion (except for storage as hydride not gas) and showed the uselessness of such a boat 16 years ago, it's difficult to see what the point of the £1M white minnow was... ;-(

Edited January 12 by IanD

[ditchcrawler]

7 minutes ago, IanD said:

Given that this is pretty similar to the boat under discussion (except for storage as hydride not gas) and showed the uselessness of such a boat 16 years ago, it's difficult to see what the point of the £1M white minnow was... ;-(

But do we know what was learnt from that boat. 

[IanD]

14 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

But do we know what was learnt from that boat. 

That it worked -- no surprise, fuel cells and batteries and electric motors have been around for many years -- but was ultra-expensive and completely impractical. Same lesson both in 2007 and 2023.

 

In other words, nothing was learned. You know the definition of stupidity which is doing the same thing again in the vain hope of a different result? 😉

Edited January 12 by IanD

[MtB]

4 hours ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

On this day today, £million Govt funded Hydrogen boat still sat where it was when it arrived Oct/Nov, has never left the mooring for any water trials on the canal. Aptly named container now in place for those that think the boat will save the planet.

 

 

 

It looks to be heeling over due to that thin black mooring string being over-tight. 

 

Curious mooring rings too. Hilti-gun fixed, perhaps. 

 

And what's with the bow fender??!!!

[Jen-in-Wellies]

6 minutes ago, MtB said:

It looks to be heeling over due to that thin black mooring string being over-tight. 

Nah, it's due to a Hydrogen leak collecting in the starboard side ceiling lifting that side up. 😀

[David Mack]

11 minutes ago, MtB said:

And what's with the bow fender??!!!

One where the weak link has functioned as intended. Which suggests the boat has at least moved far enough to get the fender hooked under a lock gate.

[MtB]

Just now, David Mack said:

One where the weak link has functioned as intended. Which suggests the boat has at least moved far enough to get the fender hooked under a lock gate.

 

I was more concerned that is is about the size and shape of a small weasel.

 

 

 

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

16 minutes ago, David Mack said:

One where the weak link has functioned as intended. Which suggests the boat has at least moved far enough to get the fender hooked under a lock gate.

Yes under electric power to get to the yard where the Hydrogen plant was to be fitted.  

[Paul C]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

That it worked -- no surprise, fuel cells and batteries and electric motors have been around for many years -- but was ultra-expensive and completely impractical. Same lesson both in 2007 and 2023.

 

In other words, nothing was learned. You know the definition of stupidity which is doing the same thing again in the vain hope of a different result? 😉

 

Yet they didn't hire you as a consultant/researcher. Strange huh.

[IanD]

1 hour ago, Paul C said:

 

Yet they didn't hire you as a consultant/researcher. Strange huh.

 

I have acted as exactly that for another commercial electric boat installation 🙂

 

If they'd asked me about this one, I'd have told them not to bother, it's obvious that it would work as a technology demonstrator but be impractical and effectively useless for propelling a narrowboat around the canals -- the fault not lying with the technology, but the real world application of it.

 

Unfortunately many projects like this are driven and promoted by people who are so focused on the wonderful sexy new technology -- assuming they understand it, which governments rarely do! -- that they fail to ask the basic and obvious questions about whether it could ever be useful in real life -- a common fault of some university researchers (and professors), particularly at the levels of PhD and above. This doesn't matter if the subject is something abstruse and theoretical, but trying to apply things to the real world is often where they come unstuck.

 

There's a reason I swore years ago never again to be the external examiner for another PhD thesis... 😞

[Mike Todd]

4 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Long gone

I actually thought it was some years ago but could not remember other than from this year!

 

The launch of the boat is reported here Hydrogen Boat. As this was one project from a number in The Birmingham Centre for Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Research at Birmingham University, there will no doubt be a number of papers and PhD theses on the outcomes. However I have not found any reference to any follow on the specific project.

 

 

It is oft forgotten that a valid and valuable PhD project may well conclude that the specific investigation showed that it was not a way forward. (DAMHIK!) Knowing this is important if it leads to helping others to look elsewhere and not waste time going over old ground. (This is one of the purposes of the important first step in a PhD - the literature survey).

 

It is also interesting to note that in 2007 the lead professor said that we had no more than 20 years to find an alternative to fossil fuels - not long to go now to find out if his warning was justified!

 

[IanD]

5 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

I actually thought it was some years ago but could not remember other than from this year!

 

The launch of the boat is reported here Hydrogen Boat. As this was one project from a number in The Birmingham Centre for Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Research at Birmingham University, there will no doubt be a number of papers and PhD theses on the outcomes. However I have not found any reference to any follow on the specific project.

 

 

It is oft forgotten that a valid and valuable PhD project may well conclude that the specific investigation showed that it was not a way forward. (DAMHIK!) Knowing this is important if it leads to helping others to look elsewhere and not waste time going over old ground. (This is one of the purposes of the important first step in a PhD - the literature survey).

 

It is also interesting to note that in 2007 the lead professor said that we had no more than 20 years to find an alternative to fossil fuels - not long to go now to find out if his warning was justified!

 

 

Indeed, as I'm also well aware... 😉

 

It's a bit like the proposals many years ago for nuclear-powered ships, a couple of which were actually built by the US and USSR. Yes they worked (because nuclear subs did, duh...) but they cost an absolute fortune -- for refuelling and maintenance among other reasons! -- and had other major risks in civilian applications. Then there were gas turbine cars (which worked because helicopters did, but drank fuel like a drain) and various other ideas where the problem was not "does it work?" but "is it actually usable?".

[ditchcrawler]

3 hours ago, IanD said:

That it worked -- no surprise, fuel cells and batteries and electric motors have been around for many years -- but was ultra-expensive and completely impractical. Same lesson both in 2007 and 2023.

 

In other words, nothing was learned. You know the definition of stupidity which is doing the same thing again in the vain hope of a different result? 😉

I take you have seen the results of any work carried out then, I havent 

[Paul C]

2 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

..................... many years ago.............................Then there were............................

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[IanD]

38 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I take you have seen the results of any work carried out then, I havent 

No I haven't seen the results in terms of the boat working and the performance, but I've no reason to suspect that these won't show it works as predicted in terms of power, efficiency, fuel consumption and so on.

 

None of which are the slightest use as far as applying this to actual narrowboats is concerned, without a hydrogen refuelling network -- oh yes, and a boat that doesn't cost £1M to build (fuel cells and hydrogen storage/distribution/refuelling hardware are *expensive*).

 

Same issue as pure electric (no generator!) narrowboats -- yes they work, the technology is fine, but without a charging network they'll never be practical for widespread use.

 

38 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

You mean looking at the reasons the other hydrogen fuel cell boat built in 2007 never went anywhere?

 

That information was available to the proposers and backers of the new boat, and none of the practical problems had gone away, or are likely to in future.

 

Those who fail to take note of the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes -- and that looks exactly like what happened here... 😉

Edited January 12 by IanD

[MtB]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

You mean looking at the reasons the other hydrogen fuel cell boat built in 2007 never went anywhere?

 

That information was available to the proposers and backers of the new boat, and none of the practical problems had gone away, or are likely to in future.

 

Those who fail to take note of the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes -- and that looks exactly like what happened here... 😉

 

 

I wouldn't mind betting they were so caught up in the idea of a hydrogen boat they didn't even realise it has been done before. 

[Ronaldo47]

The Government's "Maritime 2050" and  "Clean Marine Plan" documents make reference to hydrogen-powered vessels, including one that was being developed for use in car ferrys for the Scottish islands, using locally-generated hydrogen made by utilising surplus wind power electricity. The project  seems to have had problems, as no purely hydrogen-powered vessels are currently in service.

 

https://transform.scot/2023/07/11/fossil-free-ferries-cpg-inquiry/

 

Norway has however  recently introduced a Hydrogen-powered car ferry, said to be the world's first.

 

 https://www.google.com/amp/s/theorkneynews.scot/2023/09/09/a-new-day-for-the-ferryman-oisf/amp/

 

But as other posters  have said, practical considerations  mean that hydrogen propulsion for a UK canal boat does seem to be a no-no. 

 

 I note that  the linked  Press Release in post #1 of this thread refers to

 

" To address this, the Clean Maritime Plan mandates new vessels to possess zero-emission capabilities starting in 2025. " 

 

However, my understanding is that the Clean Maritime Plan (or at least the version I downloaded dated July 2019)  merely sets out ambitions and specifically does not envisage mandating targets. 

 

For example, page 6 paragraph 8: 

"These zero emissions shipping targets are intended to provide aspirational goals for the sector, not mandatory targets. They can only be achieved through collaboration between government and industry, promoting the zero emission pathways that maximise the economic opportunities for the UK economy while also minimising costs for UK Shipping " 

 

paragraph 10

 

"In order to reach this vision [ In 2050, zero emission ships are commonplace globally] by 2025 we expect that :

   i.  All vessels operating in UK waters are maximising the use of energy efficient options. All new vessels being ordered for use in UK waters are being designed with zero emission propulsion capability. Zero emission commercial vessels are in operation in UK waters. "

 

Perhaps some legislation has been, or will be,  enacted to give legal force to these ambitions and aspirations,  but I haven't seen or heard of any such legislation. In their absence, the 2025 date would appear to be merely one of the  "zero emission shipping aspirational goals" of paragraph 8. 

 

On the face of it, the document does not apply to canal boats anyway. Section 8  of the "Maritime 2050" document on which the Green Marine document is based, says it covers the following three sources of shipping: 

 

* Domestic shipping - ships which have come from a UK port and are making a call at a different UK port.

*International shipping - ships calling at UK port (sic) which have come from or are going to an international destination.

* Shipping in transit - ships which are not calling at a UK port but which are passing through UK waters. 

 

Canal boats do not normally travel between ports, so don't appear to be included  

 

Of course, these documents have no statutory effect themselves, legally-enforceable provisions must be set out in Acts of Parliament and/or Statutory Instruments enacted by Parliament.  I suspect that the Government have been occupied with other more pressing matters over the past few years to get round to shipping, but I am happy to be corrected. 

Edited January 12 by Ronaldo47
typos

[cuthound]

21 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

We could not see it when passing a few weeks ago.

 

It not been there for several years now.

Edited January 13 by cuthound
To remove a full stop masquerading as a space.