hydrogen boat with UK fuel cell completes testing

[nealeST]

Just for the sake of anyone else like me with zero understanding of gas engineering and complex pipe infrastructure…but what is the reason why hydrogen gas can’t be supplied to boats in cylinders or gas bottles? Narrow boats carry two gas bottles already. I’m wondering why hydrogen can’t be picked up and swapped out in the same way? 
 

 

[MtB]

1 hour ago, nealeST said:

Just for the sake of anyone else like me with zero understanding of gas engineering and complex pipe infrastructure…but what is the reason why hydrogen gas can’t be supplied to boats in cylinders or gas bottles? Narrow boats carry two gas bottles already. I’m wondering why hydrogen can’t be picked up and swapped out in the same way? 
 

 

I tink the first reason is the bottles will need to be MUCH thicker wall thickness so impractically heavy. The second reason is getting the hydrogen in the first place. 

 

If we are making hydrogen there are better uses for it than powering narrow boats, so us boaters will be near the back of the queue for whatever there is. And then there is the argument that making hydrogen uses prodigious amounts of electricity, so perhaps we have better uses for that electricity in the first place than making hydrogen for boats with it.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14 by MtB
Finesse a point.

[Tony Brooks]

9 minutes ago, nealeST said:

Just for the sake of anyone else like me with zero understanding of gas engineering and complex pipe infrastructure…but what is the reason why hydrogen gas can’t be supplied to boats in cylinders or gas bottles? Narrow boats carry two gas bottles already. I’m wondering why hydrogen can’t be picked up and swapped out in the same way? 
 

 

 

I think it is to do with energy density. To get a reasonable range, the bottles would probably have to be both large and heavy if the hydrogen is to be stored as a compressed gas (not sure if it can be liquified economically). It can be stored chemical as hydride, but I understand there are problems with that as well.

[MtB]

5 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I think it is to do with energy density. To get a reasonable range, the bottles would probably have to be both large and heavy if the hydrogen is to be stored as a compressed gas (not sure if it can be liquified economically). It can be stored chemical as hydride, but I understand there are problems with that as well.

 

The video says the JCB fuel tank stores hydrogen at 350 Bar, and at that pressure it is still gas. Compare this to Calor gas bottles at 2 to 6 bar.

 

OTOH the energy density is high. The JCB will work all day on 10kg of hydrogen. 

 

P.S.

For discussion of the interesting stuff i.e. re-fueling and where the hydrogen comes from, start watching at 19 minutes.

 

 

[Marc Hartley]

I read somewhere (at least re cars, but boats would be the same but even more problematical) that...

"Hydrogen is a TERRIBLE solution to climate change - it produces more CO2 emissions per mile driven than either diesel or gasoline vehicles and it’s about four times more expensive.

The cars that run on the stuff are actually hydrogen/electric hybrids - and they cost about twice what a pure electric car costs.

Hydrogen “combustion” (as in “internal combustion”) engines are even worse. Hydrogen embrittles metals - making them crack and shatter. Put into a somewhat conventional piston engine - and the engine wouldn’t last a year. Worse still, the byproduct of combustion is water - which dilutes conventional lubricants.

You really can’t make a viable hydrogen combustion engine on the scale and price range of a car.

Hydrogen is a **dead** technology.

The only companies who are still pushing it are doing so because the coal, oil and gas industries see it as a way to push a “green” technology (which hydrogen could possibly be - if you didn’t mind paying about 10 times the price of gasoline) - while behind the scenes producing that hydrogen using coal and gas.

The only country in the world with significant hydrogen vehicle usage is Japan - and it buys it’s hydrogen from Australia - who make it by burning “brown coal”…coal which pollutes so badly that Australia can’t find any other countries to sell the stuff to."

[MtB]

28 minutes ago, Marc Hartley said:

I read somewhere ... <snip>

 

For such a damning series of condemnations and what I think is misinformation, at least provide a source!

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

The video says the JCB fuel tank stores hydrogen at 350 Bar, and at that pressure it is still gas. Compare this to Calor gas bottles at 2 to 6 bar.

 

At the other end of the scale my diving (SCUBA) cylinders are filled to either 232 bar or 300 bar and we do DIY filling (admittedly not a gas quite as dangerous as Hydrogen) but O2 can go with a 'bang'.

[Francis Herne]

23 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I went passed when they were taking it away 23 Sep 2021 with the aid of a petrol generator

It sprang a leak and was taken to Redhill Marina where the hull (ex- knackered BW workboat) was examined and condemned. I believe Peter Fisher salvaged the hydrogen bits and has them squirrelled away somewhere...

[IanD]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

The video says the JCB fuel tank stores hydrogen at 350 Bar, and at that pressure it is still gas. Compare this to Calor gas bottles at 2 to 6 bar.

 

OTOH the energy density is high. The JCB will work all day on 10kg of hydrogen. 

 

P.S.

For discussion of the interesting stuff i.e. re-fueling and where the hydrogen comes from, start watching at 19 minutes.

 

 

The energy density of hydrogen per kg is high, about 3x that of diesel. However the density by volume is not, especially if stored as a gas instead of liquified -- which is done for rockets but still needs massive hyper-insulated fuel tanks compared to fuels like methane and kerosene, see the Spce Shuttle and SLS compared to Saturn V or Space X. For pressurised gas the cost and weight of the cylinders/tanks is *way* higher than the hydrogen inside...

 

To store 10kg of hydrogen the tank volume at 350bar is 420l (147m3 of hydrogen at 1 bar); a tank (or cylinders) this big to store gas at 350bar is big, heavy and expensive. For example, a "lightweight" (non-steel) 300bar cylinder from BOC weighs 22.4kg, costs about £130 and holds 5m3 of gas, so you'd need 30 of these which would cost £4000 new and weigh 670kg. This is to store the same energy as 35l of diesel -- though given the efficiency of fuel cells compared to a diesel engine you'd need about 50l of diesel. Still, *way* smaller and cheaper and lighter than hydrogen, now and in any concievable future.

 

https://www.boconline.co.uk/shop/en/uk/gas-a-z/hydrogen/genie-cylinder-hydrogen

 

Of course fewer bigger tanks/cylinders like JCB use would be smaller and cheaper and lighter, but the fact remains that storing compressed hydrogen is expensive and needs a lot of space compared to liquid fuels -- the high energy density per kg doesn't matter one tiny bit. Of course batteries have even higher cost and weight, but they don't suffer the massive efficiency penalty of hydrogen.

 

But the real killer is that if you have a solar or wind farm to provide energy for transport, it needs to be 3x as big today (maybe 2x in future) if you use the energy to make hydrogen instead of sending it down power cables to charge batteries, and the added cost of this dwarfs the cost of the cables. For domestic heating (using heat pumps) the penalty is smaller, only about 2x -- but burning the hydrogen in a boiler is an utter disaster, the penalty goes up to about 5x.

 

Neither is remotely acceptable for large-scale use -- and for small-scale use hydrogen is even more pointless and expensive.

 

Which is why there are no hydrogen cars (or boats/ships, except for technology demonstrators) out there to speak of (or used for domestic heating), and millions of EVs and heat pumps... 😉

Edited January 14 by IanD

[Tony Brooks]

1 hour ago, Marc Hartley said:

I read somewhere (at least re cars, but boats would be the same but even more problematical) that...

"Hydrogen is a TERRIBLE solution to climate change - it produces more CO2 emissions per mile driven than either diesel or gasoline vehicles and it’s about four times more expensive.

The cars that run on the stuff are actually hydrogen/electric hybrids - and they cost about twice what a pure electric car costs.

Hydrogen “combustion” (as in “internal combustion”) engines are even worse. Hydrogen embrittles metals - making them crack and shatter. Put into a somewhat conventional piston engine - and the engine wouldn’t last a year. Worse still, the byproduct of combustion is water - which dilutes conventional lubricants.

You really can’t make a viable hydrogen combustion engine on the scale and price range of a car.

Hydrogen is a **dead** technology.

The only companies who are still pushing it are doing so because the coal, oil and gas industries see it as a way to push a “green” technology (which hydrogen could possibly be - if you didn’t mind paying about 10 times the price of gasoline) - while behind the scenes producing that hydrogen using coal and gas.

The only country in the world with significant hydrogen vehicle usage is Japan - and it buys it’s hydrogen from Australia - who make it by burning “brown coal”…coal which pollutes so badly that Australia can’t find any other countries to sell the stuff to."

 

Please tell how burning hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) can produce CO anything. Where does the carbon (C) come from? My guess is that your source is including the production of hydrogen by other than electrolysis of water.

[IanD]

11 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Please tell how burning hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) can produce CO anything. Where does the carbon (C) come from? My guess is that your source is including the production of hydrogen by other than electrolysis of water.

 

If the energy comes from the grid then more than half the energy comes from burning fossil fuels, and this is where the CO2 emissions come from.

 

Saying "but what if it all comes from renewables?" is also deceptive, it's like the current government reason for drilling for more gas which turns out not to do anything to reduce costs or improve energy security because it's sold on the open market. In reality the same happens with renewable energy, it all goes into the grid and any shortfall compared to demand is made up from fossil fuel sources -- so a more wasteful energy transport system (hydrogen instead of grid/batteries) increases fossil fuel burning and CO2 emissions, at least until we have 100% renewable power -- which is many *many* years away.

 

The only exception which hydrogen fans keep bringing up is if there isn't enough demand and the renewable energy can't be used -- but the energy storage problem has to be dealt with anyway as the percentage of renewable power goes up to stop fossil fuels being burned when there's no wind or sun.

 

Hydrogen is indeed a terrible solution in almost all cases, certainly for transport and domestic use, no matter what the fossil-fuel-backed people promoting it keep suggesting. And even in cases like shipping and aviation it's not a good solution, other liquid fuels (ammonia? methane from captured CO2?) are a far better bet due to the large size and weight of hydrogen tanks.

Edited January 14 by IanD

[Mike Todd]

18 hours ago, MtB said:

I listened all the way to the end and they said nothing at all about hydrogen electrolysis...!

But it does have something to say about those who think that a process can be 100% efficient . . . 

[MtB]

18 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

If the energy comes from the grid then more than half the energy comes from burning fossil fuels, and this is where the CO2 emissions come from.

 

Saying "but what if it all comes from renewables?" is also deceptive, it's like the current government reason for drilling for more gas which turns out not to do anything to reduce costs or improve energy security because it's sold on the open market. In reality the same happens with renewable energy, it all goes into the grid and any shortfall compared to demand is made up from fossil fuel sources -- so a more wasteful energy transport system (hydrogen instead of grid/batteries) increases fossil fuel burning and CO2 emissions, at least until we have 100% renewable power -- which is many *many* years away.

 

The only exception which hydrogen fans keep bringing up is if there isn't enough demand and the renewable energy can't be used -- but the energy storage problem has to be dealt with anyway as the percentage of renewable power goes up to stop fossil fuels being burned when there's no wind or sun.

 

Hydrogen is indeed a terrible solution in almost all cases, certainly for transport and domestic use, no matter what the fossil-fuel-backed people promoting it keep suggesting. And even in cases like shipping and aviation it's not a good solution, other liquid fuels (ammonia? methane from captured CO2?) are a far better bet due to the large size and weight of hydrogen tanks.

 

 

Never mind all the technical reasons, public resistance to have hydrogen anywhere nearby would probably scupper any serious development of a national hydrogen fuel system. As discussed upthread, people will forever associate it with the hydrogen bomb, and with the Hindenberg distaster so it would like pushing water uphill.

 

 

 

 

 

[Paul C]

I don't think quite forwards looking research projects need to concern themselves too much with the economics of a later commercialised infrastucture/system. Of course, there may be further research to "cost engineer" the solution (or to rule it out). I don't seem to remember reading above whether this particular boat and its project were a private thing, or whether they were going to make public their findings etc. 

[IanD]

30 minutes ago, Paul C said:

I don't think quite forwards looking research projects need to concern themselves too much with the economics of a later commercialised infrastucture/system. Of course, there may be further research to "cost engineer" the solution (or to rule it out). I don't seem to remember reading above whether this particular boat and its project were a private thing, or whether they were going to make public their findings etc. 

 

So what did the boat research project find out or prove? As far as I'm aware there's no radical new technology in it, the hydrogen/fuel cell/propulsion systems uses standard components -- and it's not even as if nobody's put this into a boat before, apart from newer electronics/batteries and using compressed gas hydrogen storage instead of hydride it's pretty similar to the boat built 15 years ago at Birmingham Uni -- and similarly pointless... 😞

 

No amount of cost engineering is going to make a solution like this economically viable even just for the boat, though I'm sure the cost could be brought down to less than £1M it's inherently a high-cost technology. And without a means to provide the fuel, it's pretty much useless -- as was the older boat...

 

And please don't try and claim that I'm against new technology when exactly the opposite is the case, see my boat -- and the ICs I design at work with development costs of ~£100M made in fabs that cost >£10B are about as advanced as you can get.

 

But to be adopted any new technology has to both work and deliver something positive and useful in real life -- these hydrogen narrowboats might do the first but certainly not the second... 😞

Edited January 14 by IanD

[MtB]

Maybe the benefit derived from this new £1m hydrogen boat is that it demonstrates that building demonstration hydrogen boats is pointless as the problem is getting the fuel, not whether the tech works.

 

After doing the first one we didn't learn the lesson, so it took a second attempt.

 

I predict this one too will stay unused on its mooring until it sinks from rust. An excellent demonstration boat for all to see as they cruise past in their diesels! 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

I suppose the boat could be converted to ethanol fuel cell technology, which is already in small scale use across leisure boating. However, I am not sure how well it would scale to boat propulsion size and we are back to how the ethanol is produced to result in close to net zero CO2.

[IanD]

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

Maybe the benefit derived from this new £1m hydrogen boat is that it demonstrates that building demonstration hydrogen boats is pointless as the problem is getting the fuel, not whether the tech works.

 

After doing the first one we didn't learn the lesson, so it took a second attempt.

 

I predict this one too will stay unused on its mooring until it sinks from rust. An excellent demonstration boat for all to see as they cruise past in their diesels! 

 

Or their series hybrids... 😉

[MtB]

Just now, IanD said:

Or their series hybrids... 😉

 

I very much doubt one of those would work... 😉

 

 

 

 

[IanD]

16 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

I suppose the boat could be converted to ethanol fuel cell technology, which is already in small scale use across leisure boating. However, I am not sure how well it would scale to boat propulsion size and we are back to how the ethanol is produced to result in close to net zero CO2.

Indeed, and even if it could be made from renewable sources the problem is still cost if the power is bought on the open market which is likely -- the low efficiency means the fuel would inevitably cost something like 3x the cost of charging batteries from the grid, so something like 50p/kWh of delivered power.

 

Which if you're using this for propulsion and heating works out pretty damn expensive... 😞

 

17 minutes ago, MtB said:

Maybe the benefit derived from this new £1m hydrogen boat is that it demonstrates that building demonstration hydrogen boats is pointless as the problem is getting the fuel, not whether the tech works.

 

After doing the first one we didn't learn the lesson, so it took a second attempt.

 

I predict this one too will stay unused on its mooring until it sinks from rust. An excellent demonstration boat for all to see as they cruise past in their diesels! 

 

 

That was pretty much Ricky's opinion too, but so long as somebody was willing to pay the cost of the boat he was happy to build it... 😉

Edited January 14 by IanD

[Ronaldo47]

6 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

I also note that you have not mentioned the refuelling problems that seem to have been found in, I think, experimental German trains. This may make things very difficult to use hydrogen for transport purposes. 

This was reported in "Modern Railways" last year. One of the german regional railways had invested in a fleet of green hydrogen-powered trains, but found they couldn't be reliably refuelled at temperatures lower than minus 20°C, a common winter temperature  in that part of Germany, so the original fleet of diesels had to be brought back into service. Apparently a german bus company had exactly the same experience. They  replaced their new hydrogen-powered buses by new diesel-powered ones.

 

I guess it's not the sort of problem we would have in the UK, where it is rare to get temperatures that low. 

Edited January 14 by Ronaldo47

[ditchcrawler]

3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

At the other end of the scale my diving (SCUBA) cylinders are filled to either 232 bar or 300 bar and we do DIY filling (admittedly not a gas quite as dangerous as Hydrogen) but O2 can go with a 'bang'.

I hope you don't pump them up with Oxygen 

[TheBiscuits]

2 hours ago, MtB said:

it would like pushing water uphill.

 

Hydrogen hydroxide you mean?  Just rebrand it ...

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I hope you don't pump them up with Oxygen 

 

Indeed I do - various cylinders have differing amounts of O2 depending on depth - O2 can kill you !

I have a stage cylinder with 50% O2 with has a safe MOD (Maximum Operating Depth) of 18 metres

Nitrox 32 and Nitrox 36 are commonly used deeper.

 

My 100% O2 cylinder is used for emergencies where there is DCI (Decompression Illness) amongst others (a few breaths give an instant cure for headaches)

[MtB]

2 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Hydrogen hydroxide you mean?  Just rebrand it ...

 

 

Is that anything like di-hydrogen monoxide?

 

Can be fatal to humans if immersed in it. Should probably be banned IMO.