BUT WHY? Netherlands Based Company Converting Teslas To Be Hydrogen Powered

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Post above was a reply to BobM's post of 11/6/2017 6:53:29 PM

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(My post in error)

It's just a test-bed with no real future.

Anyone who has studied the matter knows it takes about 3 times the amount of electricity to convert ambient hydrogen into hydrogen fuel, only to have a fuel cell convert it back into electricity, compared to the electricity needed to drive a battery-powered EV the same distance.

When the day comes that we have cheap, clean, abundant and readily available electricity to pull this off, the Hydrogen fuel cell will THEN make sense. Until then, it's a pipe dream with no future, and extremely limited use today. Today there are fewer than 50 hydrogen filling station across the US, with most of them in California (https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_stations.html).

By the way, television ads from the mid-20th Century, from the nuclear industry, boasted that we'll soon have "electricity that's too cheap to meter." Yes, that's a quote. It's still nowhere close to a reality, and North America still gets about 2/3 of its electricity from burning stuff.

BobM: Note that your assertion of "You're using old talking points about Fuel Cell costs based on Natural Gas conversion" is something out of your imagination (not from my post). Once again, you wrongly attributed your thoughts to others.



re "...Hydrogen is the future, because it can be made even from sea water..."

While it is true that water can be separated into its component parts -- 2 parts hydrogen gas and 1 part oxygen gas -- using electricity through a process called electrolysis, it takes tremendous amounts of electricity to do this, and still more electricity to convert the output hydrogen gas into liquid hydrogen fuel (or extremely highly compressed hydrogen gas) that is required by a fuel cell.

Those huge quantities of electricity required in the conversion process to make hydrogen fuel pale in comparison to the amount of electricity that is released by the fuel cell when it converts the hydrogen fuel back into electricity. The sums of losses are tremendous. It's just plain physics. No system is 100% efficient, and you can't get more out of a system than you put in (with respect to energy release pertaining to chemical bonds, not nuclear ones).

So while the idea of hydrogen as fuel is great, it is predicated on finding huge sources of clean, accessible, readily available and cheap electricity. We're not there. Not my a long shot. And so far, science doesn't have anything on the horizon that looks like a solution is imminent.

People who get inspired by wonderful ideas can get mightily disappointed when the engineers step in and say "the physics you need to do what you want doesn't exist." Argue all you want with reality, but you'll lose... but only 100% of the time.

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Post above was a reply to BobM's post of 11/6/2017 6:53:29 PM

No - sorry THESteve - but Hydrogen will undoubtedly be one way to overcome the basic flaw of Batteries - limited storage. Both Battery and Hydrogen technology will progress - but the problem with batteries is the lack of infrastructure - especially in rural areas - and that is where other technologies will be needed -even if they are not as efficient as lithium batteries on the surface. WE already lose 6-9% of electricity due to transmission - but the ability to use it overcomes that - it would be more efficient to have generating plants at every home - and use pipelined gas for fuel - but the cost is prohibitive among other problems (Space is one). THe same will happen in transportation - there will be Different solutions for different needs - and Lithium batteries might be good for those who live in a suburban setting and can install a charger on their property - but there are still Millions who live in Apartments - do not have a specified parking place - and would not have access to those solutions.

Among the problems - the TIME needed to fully charge a battery system for full range needs is currently far longer than can replace ICE for rural areas. I live in an area of Southern Central NJ - where it is not unusual for some to travel two hours to work and back - just beyond the range of 200 mile evs. WE cannot assume that there will be enough chargers at the destinations to allow all cars a spot - and who will move these cars to the chargers when the owners are at work? And that assumes an infrastructure of charging station FAR in excess of anything being considered now - we would need WHOLE parking garages in NYC to have service for most cars - and we do not even have the available electricity right now. NYC currently utilizes brown outs in the summer because of lack of supply - add a million evs to that mix and it will need MANY new Generating plants - PLUS maybe a few hundred thousand charging stations - and that is not going to happen ANYTIME soon.

So - there will not be ONE universal replacement for ICE cars (If they ever get fully replaced which I suspect will not happen for decades maybe a century). YOU forget - diesel engines are more fuel efficient than gas engines are currently - but it was Not until the TAX laws on gas in Europe favored diesels that they actually sold in major volumes - because they have other drawbacks. Batteries have other drawbacks to many people - who will chose their solution based on their needs - not based on what is most efficient.

TomM wrote "...Hydrogen will undoubtedly be one way to overcome the basic flaw of Batteries..."

Possibly, assuming that someday we find a cheap, clean, and abundant way to convert ambient hydrogen into hydrogen fuel. So far, we have no science that allows us to do that, and there’s nothing on the horizon that will. Still, that might change… someday, maybe.

That’s why it’s hard to predict the future from where we stand today. So, for the time being, in the now, hydrogen fuel is a pipe dream.

BobM: Note that your assertion of "You're using old talking points about Fuel Cell costs based on Natural Gas conversion" is something out of your imagination (not from my post). Once again, you wrongly attributed your thoughts to others.



re "...Hydrogen is the future, because it can be made even from sea water..."

While it is true that water can be separated into its component parts -- 2 parts hydrogen gas and 1 part oxygen gas -- using electricity through a process called electrolysis, it takes tremendous amounts of electricity to do this, and still more electricity to convert the output hydrogen gas into liquid hydrogen fuel (or extremely highly compressed hydrogen gas) that is required by a fuel cell.

Those huge quantities of electricity required in the conversion process to make hydrogen fuel pale in comparison to the amount of electricity that is released by the fuel cell when it converts the hydrogen fuel back into electricity. The sums of losses are tremendous. It's just plain physics. No system is 100% efficient, and you can't get more out of a system than you put in (with respect to energy release pertaining to chemical bonds, not nuclear ones).

So while the idea of hydrogen as fuel is great, it is predicated on finding huge sources of clean, accessible, readily available and cheap electricity. We're not there. Not my a long shot. And so far, science doesn't have anything on the horizon that looks like a solution is imminent.

People who get inspired by wonderful ideas can get mightily disappointed when the engineers step in and say "the physics you need to do what you want doesn't exist." Argue all you want with reality, but you'll lose... but only 100% of the time.


(Appended to add): Don't invest in HHO generators to get more "free" horsepower out of your ICE car, eother. They're a scam too. Once again, it's just Physics 101.

BobM writes “…your insistence on being the dumbest shit in class, is so sad…”

Being Alt-Right does not make you right! No matter how hateful, angry, raging, and derisive you are, it doesn’t change facts to agree with your opinions.

Do try to follow allow. I’ll try to make it easy for you to understand.

1) A manufacturing facility uses ELECTRICITY to convert ambient hydrogen into hydrogen fuel. This is the hydrogen fuel needed to power a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (AKA “fuel cell vehicle”).

2) The manufacturing facility mentioned in Step 1 uses “X” units of electricity (X is measured in kilowatt-hours) to create enough hydrogen fuel to propel a fuel cell vehicle 100 miles. The precise value of “X” is not important in this exercise, as it will be used only in a *relative* comparison (i.e., 2 times “X” means twice the electricity).

3) The fuel cell vehicle uses hydrogen fuel (created in Step 1) in a chemical process that converts hydrogen fuel back into electricity (in the fuel cell). The car then uses that electricity to move 100 miles, by using its on-board electric drive motors.

4) If we take a pure, battery-powered EV, and we ask it to move the same distance (100 miles), it needs about 1/3 (one third of “X”) of an electrical charge to get there. The EV gets its electrical charge (to recharge its batteries) by plugging into an electrical recharging “station” or an AC wall outlet.

5) IMPORTANT FACT: Both the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and the EV got their energy from ELECTRICITY. See Step 1 to understand how electricity is essential to create hydrogen fuel. The hydrogen fuel is a storage medium for the energy that was original in electrical form (Step 1), and is now in hydrogen fuel form. (Note: Lots of losses from electricity to hydrogen fuel result in lower energy conversion efficiencies, so you DON’T get “100% in, 100% out”).

6) IMPORTANT FACT: When you note the amount of electricity (see Step 1) needed to move a fuel cell vehicle 100 miles, and you compare that to the amount of electricity needed to move a battery-powered EV the same distance (see Step 4), we note that we need 3 times (!) more electricity (see Step 1) to move the fuel cell vehicle the same distance.

7) IMPORTANT FACT: About 2/3 of the electricity generated in North America comes from burning stuff. So, burning 3 times more stuff to move a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle the same distance as a battery-powered EV does not make environmental sense. This makes moving a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle about 3 times more dirty (think electrical generating stations) than a battery-powered EV.

8) IMPORTANT FACT: Hydrogen fuel is understandably a lot more expensive than the equivalent electrical energy. This makes operating a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle a lot more expensive per mile than an EV. Today’s hydrogen prices are even more expensive that premium gasoline, and the fuel does not get you nearly as far.

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This explains the situation today. To make hyd

(continued from above post)

This explains the situation today. To make hydrogen fuel cell vehicles viable as a mode of mass personal transportation in the future, we need to overcome all of these hurdles:

1) Find a new, clean, cheap, sustainable way to create hydrogen fuel (not just hydrogen gas) in abundance.

2) Create a nation-wide hydrogen fuel transportation, storage, and distribution network. Today, there are fewer than 50 hydrogen filling station across America. Most are in California.

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BobM: If you cannot understand this, or accept these facts, then I don’t know what else I can do to help with your comprehension, or your acceptance of facts.

BobM: Once again, you exhibit your well-established pattern of imagining something, attributing it to another, and then arguing against it. In this specific case, you introduce the following *new* topics to this thread, and then you argue against them:
- Current lithium-based battery technology is a good thing (or not)
- Battery-powered EVs are a good thing (or not)

Your “argument with yourself” is a truly strange characteristic. It’s a pattern you exhibit repeatedly. It’s quite a curious pathology.

For the record, I encourage (interested) readers to read the written record here, and come to your own conclusions. You will notice that I only speak to the point of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are not being practical today and in the foreseeable future, primarily because they consume tremendous amounts of electricity to produce the hydrogen fuel that is used to power fuel cell cars. See my previous post (11/7/2017 3:09:23 PM, EST) for more details, if you’re still unclear about this.

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On the secondary topic of you, BobM, being an angry, hateful, toxic Alt.Right-er… well… your posts certainly do speak for themselves! I recommend that (interested) readers review your posting history, and note your pattern of personal attacks and derision, as we see clearly in *this* forum. Alt.Right-ers, such as yourself, don’t hide their hate, anger, rage, and contempt for others. They see these characteristics as “features” of their character and convictions (beliefs), so they take every opportunity to showcase them, without shame, remorse, or regret. It’s what they are :-( Alt.Right-ers, Neo Nazis, Nazis, White Supremacists (AKA White Nationalists) all share these common unsavory character traits.

As I’ve said to you in the past, BobM: Being Alt.Right does not make you right!

This remains true, no matter how often you attack, or try to put someone down. Hate and derision is ALWAYS ugly. Always!

(I’m checking out of this forum now.)

The popcorn was delicious.