H2 as an energy storage medium and source of power for EVs to has theoretical merit if we ever have truly significant renewable power generation in the US.
In this scenario the inefficiencies are of less consequence because on a very large scale storing H2 is quite cheap particularly in comparison to batteries. You just need big tanks. Comparable battery storage is hard to even conceive. Batteries look OK in EVs assuming we can really make enough of them. There is a choice to be made between EVs getting charged from a grid or mounting a tank and fuel cell or H2 ICE. But smoothing out renewable power into a 24 hour cycle is tricky. We don't have a good, really large scale way to do this, and we need one. Once you have that renewable capacity the economics of H2 looks a lot better. Assuming we need to get out of the fossil fuel business and I accept that, then we need a really simple storage means for generated energy, H2 makes sense. Batteries, pumped hydro, and so on don't scale well to this level. Returning to Toyota and their choice to stick with ICE and fuel cells - for a really long game they may be onto something. I have no idea I'd this is their thinking. On Oct 16, 2015 3:34 PM, "Ben Goren via EV" <[email protected]> wrote: > On Oct 16, 2015, at 9:54 AM, Roland <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Install the hydrogen tank in a ICE vehicle using standard propane > equipment that I was already running the engine on. > > We're obviously veering sharply offtopic, now. Some years back I looked > into doing pretty much that -- running H2 in, in this case, an aircooled > '68 VW Westfalia Campmobile in the stock engine with a modified fuel intake > system, similar to a propane conversion. I seem to remember that there was > somebody in Tucson that had done it with a pickup truck of some sort. I'd > use electricity from rooftop solar panels to analyze water and collect the > hydrogen. > > The numbers just didn't add up. The volumetric density of H2 at sane > pressures is abysmal and the embrittlement of the engine from constant > exposure to H2 was going to shorten the lift of the engine enough that it > didn't make environmental sense. And all that's before getting into the > question of putting in an hydrogen storage tank plus the collection and > compression facilities and how to get from storage tank to the vehicle...in > the middle of suburbia... > > ...compare that with even a lead acid EV conversion and the difference is > quite stark. Comparable driving range, potentially much superior driving > performance, much better inherent safety, and _far_ easier recharging. And > the entire system's energy efficiency is so much better with electric > rather than all the waste of analyzing the hydrogen and compressing it and > so on. > > That was the final piece of the puzzle. Both methods went from solar > panels on the house's roof to propelling the car. One method was very > direct and simple and efficient; the other was an insane and wasteful Rube > Goldberg kludge. > > The fool cell is only marginally better than running H2 in an internal > combustion engine (which most any engine built for gasoline will happily do > with no more than modifications to the intake and operating parameters like > timing). Even still, lead acid would have a fool cell beat...and, with > modern battery chemistries? There's no comparison. > > b& > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: signature.asc > Type: application/pgp-signature > Size: 801 bytes > Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail > URL: < > http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20151016/db7f33e1/attachment.pgp > > > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ > Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20151018/3592ec3a/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
