Electric/Hydrogen

[bavarianbrit]

On 15/03/2021 at 16:17, Demonic69 said:

I reckon the near-future for caravans would be to build a battery pack into the trailer base, that would then extend the range massively.

IMO, the main issue with electric vehicles is the lack of any standardisation, especially (surprisingly) from the EU car manufacturers. They can't agree on anything so will never make any advancements. The major manufacturers also held back, letting Nissan and Tesla do the grunt work, then jumping in late and claiming they'd reinvented the wheel. They're so heavily invested in oil that they were hoping Tesla would fail and electric would die off.

Electric vehicles need a booster, something to quickly extend the range, readily available. If the manufacturers could stop being petty, they could work on a super-capacitor bank, or hot-swappable battery that could be swapped out in minutes, then recharged at the station while you drive another 200 miles.

As for hydrogen, unless they can come up with a really energy-efficient way of splitting hydrogen from water in-vehicle I can't imagine it being very feasible for passenger cars due to storage and transportation issues.

The Chinese have 50,000 cars on the eastern side of the country doing this now. See 7 minutes into the video.

 

[Demonic69]

2 hours ago, bavarianbrit said:

The Chinese have 50,000 cars on the eastern side of the country doing this now. See 7 minutes into the video.

That is pretty amazing!

It's sad that all of our "major brands" aren't even close to a little Chinese startup. BMW, for example, have only just announced a car to compete with the Tesla Model 3. It's, basically, a clone of the Model 3 and innovates in zero ways. They've all had years to play catch-up to Tesla, but they're happy selling the same old tat, churning out poor copies and over-priced versions of their current range. The EU, for all their bureaucracy, can't even manage to push a single beneficial standard when it comes to EVs, currently working on "pre-standards" while the ship is over the horizon. Their goals for EVs seemed lofty at first, but are pretty poor in the light of real progress made elsewhere and lacked any cohesive vision, other than "Make more EVs, at least 20% by 2025". Considering the Tesla Roadster came out in 2008 I'd think 17 years would be enough to increase production and infrastructure.

We're stuck in the same boat as usual now. Going Green isn't affordable to most folk, so we're stuck. I'd have loved an EV to be charging off my solar panels. I'd even signed up for a spot in the queue for the Model 3 when it was going to be £25k. At £43k it's now way over my budget. I'd love to see the Gov't make some kind of progress on making EVs more practical and affordable.

I still think hydrogen has a place for cars, but more for charging them than for running them.

[Walker570]

Hydrogen has always been there in the wings but of course there was a huge amount of oil and natural gas to sell before that.  Still is, but the greeniesare pushing the carbon nneutral thing although the north of Norway is icing over and the lectric car has been pushed to the forefront BUT the big problem comes when you want to drive over 200 miles in one go and do not want to sit for an hour at least whilst you top of the battery.  I know there are agricultural tractors fitted with electric motors but at harvest time when they need to run for up to 24yrs at a stint, what then.    Hydrogen could become as accesible as petrol/diesel BUT it is far more volotile and goes BANG!!! very easily.

With battery power, then non of these greenie types have explained how we dispose of the batteries.

[clangerman]

50 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

 

With battery power, then non of these greenie types have explained how we dispose of the batteries.

or where all of this electric is going to come from it’s not like nuclear is a hard word to say 

[Gu5]

1 hour ago, Walker570 said:

   Hydrogen could become as accesible as petrol/diesel BUT it is far more volotile and goes BANG!!! very easily.

So does petrol, but that doesn’t stop millions of us climbing onto a motorcycle and putting our legs either side of a tank full of the stuff. 

[Walker570]

4 hours ago, Gu5 said:

So does petrol, but that doesn’t stop millions of us climbing onto a motorcycle and putting our legs either side of a tank full of the stuff. 

Exactly, but hydrogen is just a tad more nervous.

[ditchman]

9 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

Exactly, but hydrogen is just a tad more nervous.

no it aint....its just as flammable as butane or whatever you put in your landy..........stuff will only explode if it is contained and has an oxy sorce to feed it...........if it was that dangerous........they would stop kids making it in science lessons

 

christ man where is your sense of adventure

[discobob]

17 minutes ago, ditchman said:

christ man where is your sense of adventure

Famous last words of the captain of the Hindenburg 🤣

[ditchman]

7 minutes ago, discobob said:

Famous last words of the captain of the Hindenburg 🤣

[old man]

Maybe clockwork will be the answer?

[Lord v]

I am expecting to see great strides in hydrogen deployment in the next 3-5 years. However I suspect this will be driven by housing rather than the car industry. 

Traditionally gas heating has always been considered 'clean' (or at least cleaner than electricity). However the more we generate from renewable sources the needle is swinging to electric being cleaner which reverses the trend we have seen over the last 15-20 years. 

Successive governments push for cleaner/ more efficient housing stock has hardly been a secret and recently they have decided that the needle has swung enough to start the change. New Part L (Conservation of Fuel and Power) Building regulations will be released this year after a white paper consultation - the same White paper consulted on the 'Future Homes Standard' which is due for release in 2025. Whilst the 2021 regs still have gas heating as an allowable heating method it gains you far fewer 'SAP points' (which build up your buildings energy efficiency rating) than previously. The Future homes standard effectively removes gas heating as a clean and efficient method.     

(Bare with me - there is a point here)

While these regs predominately apply to new build housing they will eventually filter through to existing stock as upgrades/extensions etc are undertaken. 

The Gas industry is clearly not going to take a massive portion of their revenue starting to be cut off in 4-6 years time lying down. Having discussed this with a few players in the industry the smart money is that they will be investing heavily in Hydrogen and converting their existing network to deliver this. This would be similar in scope to the switch from Town/Coal Gas to North Sea Gas in the late 60's/early 70's (just with a much, much bigger cost). Boiler manufactures are already pushing hydrogen boilers through R+D quite rapidly. 

As part of this there will have to be huge investment in the storage and transportation of hydrogen gas. The additional investment in technology and infrastructure that would accompany this change would rapidly accelerate the adoption of hydrogen in vehicles.   

 

[discobob]

59 minutes ago, Lord v said:

The Gas industry is clearly not going to take a massive portion of their revenue starting to be cut off in 4-6 years time lying down. Having discussed this with a few players in the industry the smart money is that they will be investing heavily in Hydrogen and converting their existing network to deliver this. This would be similar in scope to the switch from Town/Coal Gas to North Sea Gas in the late 60's/early 70's (just with a much, much bigger cost). Boiler manufactures are already pushing hydrogen boilers through R+D quite rapidly. 

As part of this there will have to be huge investment in the storage and transportation of hydrogen gas. The additional investment in technology and infrastructure that would accompany this change would rapidly accelerate the adoption of hydrogen in vehicles.   

 

Skillbuilder on YouTube done an interview with Vailant I think it was - I believe that all their boilers can now run on natural as or hydrogen.

But I can bet that it will be another way that governments can milk us for more "green" taxes.

[Lord v]

12 minutes ago, discobob said:

Skillbuilder on YouTube done an interview with Vailant I think it was - I believe that all their boilers can now run on natural as or hydrogen.

But I can bet that it will be another way that governments can milk us for more "green" taxes.

Probably was - Vailant was one of the companies I have been speaking to. 

Someone will be making money out of this that's for sure. I see this morning that the National Grid is buying WPD and funding the deal by flogging its Gas holdings. 'Electric or bust' for National Grid as it snaps up WPD for £8bn : CityAM. That's some serious cash flying around. 

And as if by magic: National Grid explores plans for UK hydrogen ‘backbone’ | National Grid Group 

 

[ditchman]

bears out what the japs are up to ............

[Lord v]

14 hours ago, ditchman said:

bears out what the japs are up to ............

In short I think  you are right - Hydrogen powered vehicles will quickly become the vehicle of choice when the storage and infrastructure issues are resolved enough for commercial use. If your houses can get a hydrogen supply and use it to top their tank every morning in 5 minutes.... why would I go electric with a battery full of 'dirty' metals that I have to keep plugged in for 7 hours?  

 

[JohnfromUK]

1 minute ago, Lord v said:

when the storage and infrastructure issues are resolved enough for commercial use.

I think there are two 'problem areas' here. 

One is that hydrogen is apparently (as a smaller atom/molecule) much more easily able to leak/escape from imperfect pipes.  Where I live (countryside) the existing gas pipes are about 100 years old and gas leaks are alarmingly common with present gas.  I have had the road dug up three times in the last few years within 100 yards of my house to cure gas leaks.  One of the engineers told me the whole pipe (iron) is corroded way beyond viable.  The iron pipes installed in the early C20 were expected to last 50 years or so ........ and are now about double that.

I'm not sure filling at home would be encouraged/acceptable for both difficulty of compression, and also various issues around (motor) fuel taxation.

[ditchman]

30 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

I think there are two 'problem areas' here. 

One is that hydrogen is apparently (as a smaller atom/molecule) much more easily able to leak/escape from imperfect pipes.  Where I live (countryside) the existing gas pipes are about 100 years old and gas leaks are alarmingly common with present gas.  I have had the road dug up three times in the last few years within 100 yards of my house to cure gas leaks.  One of the engineers told me the whole pipe (iron) is corroded way beyond viable.  The iron pipes installed in the early C20 were expected to last 50 years or so ........ and are now about double that.

I'm not sure filling at home would be encouraged/acceptable for both difficulty of compression, and also various issues around (motor) fuel taxation.

as technology moves on ........it would seem sensible that the production plants are more localised  (sort of like your local tip)....as you correctly say due to the size of the Hydrogen molocule escapeage can be a problem useing the wrong materials......

it is not impossible that small "as you need it" H2 plants will replace home boilers..........the trick is to be able to "crack" water into H2 & O effiently...and im sure that will come

i have seen a cracking plant that works for home use...."they" used a step down transformer down from 240v to 12v and produced enough H2 to run a small burner to cook on....and that was 20 years ago

[discobob]

On 19/03/2021 at 10:38, ditchman said:

as technology moves on ........it would seem sensible that the production plants are more localised  (sort of like your local tip)....as you correctly say due to the size of the Hydrogen molocule escapeage can be a problem useing the wrong materials......

Do you mean like "Town Gas" was - nothing new ever is there really 😁

[ditchman]

11 minutes ago, discobob said:

Do you mean like "Town Gas" was - nothing new ever is there really 😁

excactley..............small localised plants................sounds like re-inventing the wheel dont it ?

[discobob]

@ditchman it does indeed. There was a youtube video that showed a "petrol station" where they generated the hydrogren on site - as has previously been said, the amount of energy needed to generate the hydrogen is at the moment quite excessive which is what is holding it up tbh.

I am holding onto my car for another few years. The trouble is that I feel come post 2025 that the road taxes are going to start shooting up for non-electric cars to force people into electric whereas a large number won't be able to afford to go electric (or the facilities aren't available to feasibly charge one) at the prices - and buying second hand will come with the risk of having to replace the packs at an exorbitant cost - So I see that there will be a push towards cars that have a limited range - say 50 to 100 miles and then having to hire vehicles when a longer range is required - eg Holidays etc.... Perhaps this is moving us more towards "You will own nothing and you will be happy" mantra of the WEF - where only the Rich will own anything and you have to pay them for the pleasure.

Candy are now doing a washing machine that you "rent" - there is an option to buy at a point.

[243deer]

On 15/03/2021 at 10:44, ditchman said:

there will always be a niche market for short range electric cars/vans.

I always think back to how many milk carts I used to see being towed home when it comes to electric only cars. Folk being normal and imperfect plus battery voltage drop not being entirely predictable I can see history repeating itself.

When I was quite young there was a report on tomorrows world about boilers capable of running 12 or so homes on 1 bale of straw a day in the summer and 2 in the winter. A few farmers took this up but for some reason the idea of pooling houses together for efficient boiler use has never taken off. Millions of potential bales of straw are chopped up at the back of combines every year.

My late father, a civil engineer, never understood why we continue to use land fill when we could simply burn our waste to generate electricity.

[Lord v]

On 22/03/2021 at 11:25, ditchman said:

excactley..............small localised plants................sounds like re-inventing the wheel dont it ?

I am quite a strong believer in the micro scale (every 100 houses or less) of energy production being the future. If I wanted a single house off grid that's pretty easy. 2000 or so is a different story and not all the technologies scale very well. We will see ground source and air source heat pumps really pick up in the next few years with the changes to Part L. PV and Wind power is also quite efficient and attainable at the single dwelling level. With the advances in battery/capacitor and heat battery tech the ability for a single dwelling to operate off grid is not longer the fevered dream of a madman but pretty attainable with off the shelf (albeit expensive) kit.  

I think it was Honda that were peddling a 'personal hydrogen bank' system about 15 years ago as a kind of blue sky thinking approach - basically everyone would have brief case sized 'hydrogen bank' that would plug either into the house or into a vehicle (car or bike) and that would provide your power. Very sci-fi, but I can see the attraction.      

On 22/03/2021 at 12:58, 243deer said:

I always think back to how many milk carts I used to see being towed home when it comes to electric only cars. Folk being normal and imperfect plus battery voltage drop not being entirely predictable I can see history repeating itself.

When I was quite young there was a report on tomorrows world about boilers capable of running 12 or so homes on 1 bale of straw a day in the summer and 2 in the winter. A few farmers took this up but for some reason the idea of pooling houses together for efficient boiler use has never taken off. Millions of potential bales of straw are chopped up at the back of combines every year.

My late father, a civil engineer, never understood why we continue to use land fill when we could simply burn our waste to generate electricity.

Similar systems to the boilers you mention are in use in the real world and aren't that rare on new builds - they are referred to as 'District heating' but generally serve 200 houses or more. I think peoples expectation levels on heating and comfort might have gone up a bit since tomorrows world so I'm not convinced the calorific energy in a straw bale will be sufficient anymore. Most of them currently run on gas heating but also designed to run on 'energy from waste'. 

There are several practical issues with them though. Primarily its the 'single point of failure' - if it goes wrong (and it will) then over 200 houses lose hot water and heating. Of course it will probably get fixed faster than your average boiler but depending on the failure it could be days. Another primary issue is that you are tied into a single energy provider pretty much indefinitely. Yet another issue is not only the size of the piped infrastructure required its the offset from everything else we bury under a road that creates a problem trying to extend the networks through existing towns and cities. Not saying these are insurmountable, but they are significant challenges and as a result of the first two points have a significant PR problem at the moment. Of course these issues are greatly reduced the smaller they are and the fewer units they serve. (see my points on micro generation above).  

Energy from Waste is very much a thing - plants are operational across the country and in 2018 London burnt half its waste for energy. The largest issue is frankly a PR/NIMBY one - the technology is there, it works and produces power in the amount we need but people just don't like them. This is particularly true where energy from waste is associated with a district heat network. 

The next largest one is pollution and the amount of carbon they pump into the atmosphere... all very much a hot topic at the moment. I was peripherally involved in the Corey Riverside project which extends an existing plant and we put a hell of a lot of work into addressing this. Environmental reports and red tape galore....            

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by Lord v

[JohnfromUK]

11 minutes ago, Lord v said:

We will see ground source and air source heat pumps really pick up in the next few years with the changes to Part L.

I have had some (limited) experience with heat pumps - and it has not been very good.  The office I worked in had air sourced pumps installed with 'false ceiling' cassette interface with the actual office space.  Despite claims to being reliable and low maintenance costs - in reality they were far from that - the most common problem being fluid/gas loss.  Electricity usage was much higher than predicted - and I never got a clear answer on 'why', but I suspect poor controls and system level design in that installation were to blame - with units fighting each other.  The biggest problem was that the office occupants - virtually unanimously found the building much less comfortable than the previous (gas fire water) radiator system - in particular feeling stuffy and unventilated.

I'm not blaming the technology, but as a retrofit in an existing building, it was not a success.  The system was relegated to use to cool in summer (which it did at the price of making it very dry and static prone inside) - and reverting to the old water filled radiators in winter (which had not been removed and were far cheaper to run).

I looked at ground sourced for home at one stage, but it wasn't practical or economic for me.

[Lord v]

2 hours ago, JohnfromUK said:

I have had some (limited) experience with heat pumps - and it has not been very good.  The office I worked in had air sourced pumps installed with 'false ceiling' cassette interface with the actual office space.  Despite claims to being reliable and low maintenance costs - in reality they were far from that - the most common problem being fluid/gas loss.  Electricity usage was much higher than predicted - and I never got a clear answer on 'why', but I suspect poor controls and system level design in that installation were to blame - with units fighting each other.  The biggest problem was that the office occupants - virtually unanimously found the building much less comfortable than the previous (gas fire water) radiator system - in particular feeling stuffy and unventilated.

I'm not blaming the technology, but as a retrofit in an existing building, it was not a success.  The system was relegated to use to cool in summer (which it did at the price of making it very dry and static prone inside) - and reverting to the old water filled radiators in winter (which had not been removed and were far cheaper to run).

I looked at ground sourced for home at one stage, but it wasn't practical or economic for me.

To be honest my experience hasn't been great with them either. As they rely on lower operating temps the heating systems act differently to a gas powered system and there is significant consumer 'training' and expectation management along side them. If you try and run them like a gas system they will be horribly inefficient. The other common issue with retro fit is radiator size - as they operate at lower temp you need larger emitters and sometimes these just don't fit and have to be compromised. Also from a Planning perspective locating the external units is a ***** nightmare.

 I am having endless difficulties with an integrated air source/underfloor heating system at the moment with both designers/suppliers/fitters all pointing the finger at each other. Fundamentally the problem is that the home owner doesn't like the underfloor heating and although the system is definitely not operating quite right its not as far off as the owner thinks. 

Ultimately though the tech has improved and as low temperature systems become more common the user education will catch up. With 'smart' thermostats (not smart meters) they are starting to deliver on the original energy efficiency claims. With gas on the way out these companies have a golden opportunity to make bank if their kit is any good.  

Although more expensive the Ground source would be the way I would go personally - especially if I had circa 50 houses to build. There are some interesting under water systems around as well that I need to investigate further.    

[Vince Green]

Look at all the blocks of flats, the Victorian terraced housing, how are the people who live in them going to charge their cars?

I know a London Taxi driver who now has an electric cab. With his lights on at night he only gets about 60 miles out of a charge. Thats not enough to earn a living so he has to re-charge again during the evening. Dead time costs money

He has to turn down any decent long runs and he is sweating on the needle many nights to get home  He says all the time he is driving it all he does is watch the needle. They have a name for it, its something like needle stress

Plus it cost him about £70,000. 

Edited March 24, 2021 by Vince Green