hydrogen boat with UK fuel cell completes testing

[Paul C]

5 hours ago, IanD said:

 

So what did the boat research project find out or prove?

 

That's my point, I don't know if its private or public. If its private, it goes some way to explain why two similar projects were done. If its public, it would be obviously found in a literature search and the next research project can build upon its findings or otherwise. Maybe they'll go in a different direction, or the economics shift, or government incentives are brought in, or new materials become economic etc. One would hope a thorough desk-based phase is undertook to save money. 

 

Or maybe they're just getting grant funded because they're successfully competing with other, even worse, ideas. Research scientists have mouths to feed too.

[Ronaldo47]

The Green Marine plan document does mention that money would be spent on researching green energy propulsion.

[ditchcrawler]

4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

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)

I honestly can't remember much about it now with different mixtures. We use to time them out of the water into the chamber. The first time I went off shore I was traveling with a couple of divers, from that day I could never decide if divers were a bit strange or if being a diver made them strange, but I have had some good laughs with them.

[IanD]

14 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

The Green Marine plan document does mention that money would be spent on researching green energy propulsion.

 

The point is that there is no issue with "green energy" propulsion for narrowboats, as demonstrated by both the new and old hydrogen boats and all the electric/series hybrid boats currently on the canals -- the technology to build them works just fine (and has done for many years), and no research is needed to show this.

 

The only problem with the boats themselves -- at least, for inland waterways -- is the cost of that technology, high for hybrid boats (pure electric ones don't really work without charging stations) and extremely high for hydrogen ones, and research doesn't solve this problem either.

 

The real issue with "green energy" for canal boats is how to get said energy to the boats, which for electric boats needs a charging station network and for hydrogen ones needs either pipelines or tankers or local electrolysis. Just like for EVs, of the two alternatives a charging network for electric boats is perfectly achievable and much cheaper (though there is no plan for it) because it's basically a scaled-down version of the EV charging network which is already being built. Solving the distribution/storage problem for hydrogen is much more difficult and expensive and has nothing to piggyback on because it's not being adopted for cars -- and in addition it wastes more "green" energy than is delivered, which makes no sense either from the point of view of efficiency or running costs.

 

So if you want to use "green energy" for boats, all the advantages are with battery/electric power -- cheaper to build the network, cheaper to install in the boat, much cheaper to run, much more efficient, and uses known technology/network already rolled out on a large scale for EVs. Hydrogen loses out in every case -- more expensive to build a distribution/storage network, much more expensive to install in the boat, much more expensive to run, much less efficient, and can't piggyback on a large-scale distribution/storage network already being built for cars.

 

All of which is why EVs are taking over the world and hydrogen cars are not, because all the same factors apply. No research is needed to show all this, a hydrogen boat or car demonstrator is a waste of time, money, and effort -- and no research is needed to show this, or is capable of fixing the fundamental problems with hydrogen,

 

But this isn't the news a lot of people including the fossil fuel industry and their supporters both in funded thinktanks and government want to hear, they keep banging on about "green hydrogen" because it suits their interests -- and researchers (and boatbuilders...) are happy to jump on the bandwagon and build "technology demonstrators" (which don't really demonstrate anything useful) so long as the above parties pay for them.

 

Note that all this applies only to inland and short-reach boats or ones that can be solar powered, long-range shipping is an entirely different problem, and like long-haul flight a much more difficult one to solve... 😞

 

(but even for these hydrogen is unlikely to be the solution because of the volume/weight (including tanks) problem, synthesised "green" liquid fuels are much more likely to be used).

Edited January 15 by IanD

[MtB]

So in summary, perhaps someone could extend the thread title to:

 

"The hydrogen-electric narrow boat has arrived and run out of fuel. Now what?"

[john.k]

Seen claims that Maersk is running its container ships on methanol made from green hydrogen.......but may be like Toyota here that has various operational hydrogen hubs using lignite for fuel........there are plans for solar produced hydrogen,some of the countries nuttiest billionaires are presently fighting over who is the greenest billionaire with failed government projects and grants bulging their coffers.

[Pluto]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

So in summary, perhaps someone could extend the thread title to:

 

"The hydrogen-electric narrow boat has arrived and run out of fuel. Now what?"

Buy a horse?

[john.k]

If Lord Bamford says its a goer,its a goer .........was around the local JCB agents before Christmas ......place is huge ,hundreds of new machines for delivery........very impressive ........I bought myself an excavator ,not green hydrogen ,just diesel .

[ditchcrawler]

7 minutes ago, Pluto said:

Buy a horse?

I bet they said diesel engines will never work, as for building ships from steel in place of wood

 

[IanD]

16 minutes ago, john.k said:

If Lord Bamford says its a goer,its a goer .........was around the local JCB agents before Christmas ......place is huge ,hundreds of new machines for delivery........very impressive ........I bought myself an excavator ,not green hydrogen ,just diesel .

Where are Lord Bamford's HJCB drivers out on site going to get their hydrogen from? How much extra do the HJCBs cost to build and run?

 

At least there's some chance of refuelling them at a central depot, but where this gets its green hydrogen from remains the big question -- and it means HJCBs have to return to base for refuelling, or JCB have to send out compressed-hydrogen tankers or trucks full of cylinders/replaceable fuel tanks.

 

Swappable/rechargeable batteries in EJCBs would seem to be a much more sensible and cheaper solution... 😉

 

P.S. Of course the HJCBs themselves work, so long as somebody pays for them and refuels them. The construction industry is famously not bothered about costs... 🙂

Edited January 15 by IanD

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, IanD said:

Where are Lord Bamford's JCB drivers out on site going to get their hydrogen from?

 

Out of the mobile hydrogen bowser, obviously! 

 

All explained in full detail in the JCB video posted earlier in the thread, coverage starting at 19 minutes in.

 

 

Now where's that tongue-in-cheek smiley? We still don't seem to have one! 

 

 

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Out of the mobile hydrogen bowser, obviously! 

 

All explained in full detail in the JCB video posted earlier in the thread, coverage starting at 19 minutes in.

 

Now where's that tongue-in-cheek smiley? We still don't seem to have one! 

 

 

Yes, it would come in very useful... 😉 (the closest smiley to it)

[Heartland]

At the heart of this discussion is the viability of Hydrogen as a means to reduce the carbon contribution to transport. Birmingham University was quite active in developing the technology and I recall a trade show at the NEC when the fuel cell was being developed and also the lack of noise when a vehicle using a fuel cell was brought into a hall.

 

It would seem that the fuel cell technology is still developing and the boat in Yorkshire is a representation of the advances. But in the search for a carbon neutral transport network the advances still have limitations. The increased use of batteries of the Lithium-ion type has the unfortunate incidence of combustion associated with it as the recent fire on a bus in London demonstrated. There are now experiments with a battery using Sodium instead of Lithium  which are being trialled.

 

So there is still the reliance on the fossil fuels that have been the means of supplying petrol and diesel even though there have been pledges for eradication in the future.

 

As to the carbonization process that made town gas, that was done in retorts and may be there might be a modern innovation where hydrogen can be extracted from the products of carbonization, as coal is still available, and done in such a way that all useful by-products can be separated and used accordingly. 

 

Transporting hydrogen gas can be an issue, as noted, and it is rate limiting step in the wider use of hydrogen, so are there other means of propulsion that can be harnessed in the future?  

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, Heartland said:

At the heart of this discussion is the viability of Hydrogen as a means to reduce the carbon contribution to transport. Birmingham University was quite active in developing the technology and I recall a trade show at the NEC when the fuel cell was being developed and also the lack of noise when a vehicle using a fuel cell was brought into a hall.

 

It would seem that the fuel cell technology is still developing and the boat in Yorkshire is a representation of the advances. But in the search for a carbon neutral transport network the advances still have limitations. The increased use of batteries of the Lithium-ion type has the unfortunate incidence of combustion associated with it as the recent fire on a bus in London demonstrated. There are now experiments with a battery using Sodium instead of Lithium  which are being trialled.

 

So there is still the reliance on the fossil fuels that have been the means of supplying petrol and diesel even though there have been pledges for eradication in the future.

 

As to the carbonization process that made town gas, that was done in retorts and may be there might be a modern innovation where hydrogen can be extracted from the products of carbonization, as coal is still available, and done in such a way that all useful by-products can be separated and used accordingly. 

 

Transporting hydrogen gas can be an issue, as noted, and it is rate limiting step in the wider use of hydrogen, so are there other means of propulsion that can be harnessed in the future?  

 

LFP batteries as used on boats don't have the fire risk, they're probably safer overall than LA batteries (no acid or risk of explosive gases). When sodium-ion batteries are developed and productionised for EVs, they'll also be available for boats.

 

"Blue" hydrogen -- made starting with fossil fuels -- is an even dumber solution than "green" hydrogen as far as emissions are concerned.

 

The answer to your last question is -- yes there is, battery electric power, just like for EVs. But just like EVs this needs the charging infrastructure to be put in place, and unlike for roads there is no plan to do this on the canals... 😞

Edited January 15 by IanD

[Heartland]

"Blue" hydrogen -- made starting with fossil fuels -- is an even dumber solution than "green" hydrogen as far as emissions are concerned.

 

Using a system where  the separation of constituents of coal does not need to be of the blue type, but then would it be cost effective?

 

The carbon argument is one that needs perspective. Those who follow the Carbon Neutral view point talk about green steel where electricity is used. However steel is alloy of iron and carbon. To remove the carbon means that steel cannot exist in the future. 

[IanD]

1 hour ago, Heartland said:

"Blue" hydrogen -- made starting with fossil fuels -- is an even dumber solution than "green" hydrogen as far as emissions are concerned.

 

Using a system where  the separation of constituents of coal does not need to be of the blue type, but then would it be cost effective?

 

The carbon argument is one that needs perspective. Those who follow the Carbon Neutral view point talk about green steel where electricity is used. However steel is alloy of iron and carbon. To remove the carbon means that steel cannot exist in the future. 

 

Please don't bring in arguments about steel and concrete and agriculture and home heating and say that because these emit lots of CO2 there's no point reducing emissions from transport. All sectors of the economy need to reduce emissions by either removing fossil fuels or other means, and what happens in one sector is no excuse for another one to do nothing...

 

 

[Captain Pegg]

1 hour ago, Heartland said:

The carbon argument is one that needs perspective. Those who follow the Carbon Neutral view point talk about green steel where electricity is used. However steel is alloy of iron and carbon. To remove the carbon means that steel cannot exist in the future. 

 

This is a confused statement.

 

Steel made by the electric arc furnace method uses scrap as it's feed stock and hence is recycling carbon that is already locked into the alloy. That carbon has to exist in some form somewhere. It's doing no harm while chemically locked into a piece of metal. 

 

Steel made by the traditional method of converting pig iron made in a blast furnace introduces huge volumes of carbon into the atmosphere from the coke used to smelt the iron ore. Only a small proportion of the carbon gets locked into the pig iron and most of that is removed in the steel conversion process.

 

Hence adopting new materials to limit the overall global requirement for steel while promoting the use of the electric arc process to recycle waste ferrous material into steel is a more environmentally friendly approach than just continuing to produce new metal from the smelting of ores.

 

 

 

Edited January 15 by Captain Pegg

[Mike Todd]

7 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I bet they said diesel engines will never work, as for building ships from steel in place of wood

 

Obvious - steel sinks and wood floats (!)

[Ronaldo47]

My understanding is also that it is misleading to say that steel can be made in an arc furnace. All the arc furnace can do is melt existing steel scrap and put it into a more suitable form for re-use. Unless the scrap is of high quality, specifically that it does not contain non-ferrous metals, it will be more prone to rusting than steel made from iron ore, as the non-ferrous metal content will be liable to form centres for electrolytic corrosion. The use of recycled steel was I think the cause for the poor body life of certain japanese cars in the 1960's, as well as the Vauxhall Velox's reputation as a rust-bucket. 

 

There are steels and there are steels, in that the quality of the iron ore can have a significant effect on the quality if the steel. Swedish steel is generally of high quality because the ore from which it is made has beneficial properties and can be used to make steel with a consistent performance. Recycled steel which in practice will almost inevitably have been made from scrap from different sources, will be unlikely to exhibit such a consistent quality.    

 

It's different for Aluminium, where melting aluminium ore in an arc furnace is the well-established method of manufacture. However, it does require a lot of electric power, and so tends to be made where cheap hydroelectric power is available. 

 

 

Edited January 15 by Ronaldo47
typos

[agg221]

On 14/01/2024 at 10:33, 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? 
 

 

This is a good question, which has been partially answered with good answers but there is a bit more to add, because the answer is you could do this, but there are techno-economic challenges to address alongside a practical issue.

 

Composite tanks which are reasonably lightweight can handle 350bar. This is the approach being used for vehicle tanks. There are other options, including high strength steel wall cylinders which can handle up to 700bar. The pressure is not an issue (quite common in some industries) but they are rather heavy to move about and there would be safety concerns in a consumer setting. Metal hydride storage is a reasonable option as it allows a low operating pressure within the tank (50psi, so not much more than a car tyre) so the cylinder is intrinsically fairly safe and perhaps surprisingly the weight is not increased when you factor in the cylinder plus contents. However, there are some significant engineering challenges to manage discharge effectively.

 

The fundamental problem becomes apparent when you consider weight vs. range. The figures are not quite correct, but roughly you would need the same weight per range as if it was diesel, so if you have a 100l tank (like we do) then you would need to lug 10 10kg cylinders on board to get the same sort of range, which would be somewhat of a pain, as well as a bit of a storage challenge.

 

Alec

[nealeST]

21 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

Swedish steel is generally of high quality

Certainly, Mr Hitler had his beady eye on that. I have a house in mid Sweden that affords a grand view of the mainline running to Stockholm from the far north. I have seen the trains both ends of the line that trundle past my house. Yes passengers share the same line but my goodness you should see just how much steel is transported down and just how long those trains are…huge…almost USA in length. Impressive really the whole thing.

[agg221]

@Tony Brooks I didn't overlook your question regarding the issues experienced in Germany. I am aware of some of them but this is a live trial so I wanted to update myself before replying.

 

As identified, the issue is that filling slows right down at very low temperatures (below -10degC). However, this is not an inherent problem with hydrogen transfer - it is actually beneficial to fill with the hydrogen at -40degC (something which came out of the Birmingham trial) as the fuel transfer rate is significantly increased. The issue is that the filling equipment itself was not designed to cope with the temperature, which was not very clever.

 

What this illustrates quite nicely is why it is often better to run small demonstrator trial projects where you invest a million to learn, before you invest tens of millions in a fleet of trains and then have to spend further time and money fixing the problem. Imagine for example you were considering a hydrogen powered local ferry, as a commercial vessel. It might be quite a good idea to try out various of the technologies needed in a small boat, e.g. a canal boat, to see what happens before spending the whole lot. This is actually what a lot of these demonstrator projects are about - filling in the knowledge gaps in a scaled down fashion at reduced cost.

 

Research projects come in two basic types. Academic projects are about establishing fundamental principles. The way academics have their performance measured is a combination of funding grants won and work published, so they are actively encouraged to publish what they learn from their work but they score more points for publications the higher the quality of the journal. That means they are unlikely to publish 'know how' as it doesn't help their ranking, so this gets retained within research groups and is not easy to access unless you bring someone on board to support your own project, for which you need to give them funding. The other type is pre-competitive industrial funding. This is designed to offset the costs of a development project, typically around half the cost. The second boat would have been build under this type of project. That means the companies involved put in half the money and the other half would have been a grant, so they had to put their money where their mouth was to get the funding. Bear in mind that writing the bids for these grants is also a major exercise (ie expensive) and you don't waste your time on vanity projects - you do them because there is something you want to learn so that you can commercially exploit the knowledge. However, because it is commercial, it is also confidential between you and the funding body what you are trying to establish and what the outcomes are. As such, what the aims of the project were and whether they were met is a matter of pure speculation for anyone not involved.

 

Alec

Edited January 15 by agg221

[nealeST]

13 minutes ago, agg221 said:

would be somewhat of a pain, as well as a bit of a storage challenge.

Ha! Just have to revert to proper trad boats…72 ft long…squeeze everyone into the boatman’s cabin and freight 10x10 kg cylinders in the hold. Nice tarpaulin and rope on top…

 

Really interesting to read about the pros and cons of this. Learn a lot here…

[agg221]

Just now, nealeST said:

Ha! Just have to revert to proper trad boats…72 ft long…squeeze everyone into the boatman’s cabin and freight 10x10 kg cylinders in the hold. Nice tarpaulin and rope on top…

 

Really interesting to read about the pros and cons of this. Learn a lot here…

What you really need is a converted TCO tar boat with hydrogen in the tanks...

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

>sigh< why don’t yous all just go and ask E.P Barrus the results? instead of trying to guess it all without spending a million ££££.
 Here’s their link to contact them, please let us know their response 😉l😂

https://www.barrus.co.uk/contact-us/

Edited January 16 by BoatinglifeupNorth