Battle lines: the oil companies vs. the utilities

I can see one day most of the new vehicles are EVs.

 

And Hydrogen

 

Until they generate hydrogen from non polluting sources (currently natural gas), I say not and hydrogen is presently a boondoggle.

 

Why not pass the cost of infrastructure of electric companies along to the shareholders, they will be benefiting form the extra income $'s. It used to be the more of something you sold the cheaper it got, what happened with that?

 

Electricity is made from natural gas too...so we could use the same argument to say EV is unacceptable. I must concede fuel cell seems less practical for pass cars at the moment.

 

Fuel cell is liked by different regions around the world, USA is the exception at this time.

 

What do they do with what's left of the natural gas after they strip hydrogen from it? Vent it to atmosphere? Natural gas is a powerful greenhouse gas so what about the waste gas from this process? How energy efficient is this process (including the cost of compression and transportation of hydrogen to the fueling station) vs burning natural gas to generate electricity? Lots of questions...

Wikipedia says on steam reforming to produce hydrogen: "The downside to this process is that its major byproducts are CO, CO2 and other greenhouse gases.[5] Depending on the quality of the feedstock (natural gas, rich gases, naphtha, etc.), one ton of hydrogen produced will also produce 9 to 12 tons of CO2.[9]"

 

Sounds like some anti-H2 fuel cell person wrote that though. I never heard that as a downside. I bet that is a recent change some EV advocate put it there and I better check it.

I don't think there is any eco-downside of making H2 from natural gas compared to making electricity from natural gas. I think the USA environmentalists fundamental argument is EV is better than H2 fuel cell because *in theory* 100% solar/wind can be used for EV. I see no huge eco-downside to making H2 from nat gas aside from the stigma U.S. EV advocates would like assign to it for political reasons.

Another thing I don't think outside of USA you'd hear that the H2 was so bad. That's just part of the U.S. divisiveness argument, sort of like the ethanol lobby fights like a pitbull to kill alternatives to ethanol.

 

...just to say what's wrong with Wiki post above, the only product in making H2 from nat gas is H2, and there is food-grade CO2 that can be optionally recovered or released as an emission. CO and other greenhouse gases are false, indicating whoever made that edit wanted to spread negativity and hatred about making H2, which I would consider a relatively clean technology.

 

It is better than ordinary gas or diesel powered cars but then so too are hybrids. Just the economics are not there. Worse, if one uses electrolysis generated hydrogen, we would get ~200-300 miles charging a BEV over 100 miles of H{2}. I'm not going to 'set my hair on fire' as the enduring economic effects have a cumulative effect.

Bob Wilson

 

Why can't they just get hydrogen from separating the molecules in water? Hydrogen gets burned, oxygen gets vented into the atmostphere. I mean it isn't hard, we did this in middle school when I was a kid to inflate some balloons. (I did have to look it up to make sure that is what we did) It's been awhile. lol

 

There are several ways but they all cost energy. But even with free hydrogen, it still has to be bottled, distributed, and retailed. These have both a labor and capital cost. Even if someone gets the capital 'for free', the labor still increases the cost.

In contrast, the wall plug is the cheapest energy and dang near universal. Charge the car battery and the problem is solved.

Bob Wilson

 

As someone who worked for a company that sold hydrogen and oxygen, while the raw material was readily available, to get it from raw material to end user was not without cost and challenges.

Then picture hydrogen trucks driving down the road and what situations they can encounter.

One time we had a truck in Oklahoma that was struck by lightning .

While nothing bad happened to the load, the driver needed a new pair of britches.

 

Obviously electrolysis is one classic way to make H2 from electricity, and in theory that could be done with solar. There are situations that could make sense, but economics would be stinky for large scale up.

 

Actually you've proposed two excellent thermodynamics questions:

1. How tall must a water feed pipe be so gravity driving a 99% efficient generator can electrolyze all the water at the discharge pipe?
2. How tall must a water feed pipe be so water exiting a labyrinth emerges as steam?
3. Extra credit: Define the universe and give three examples.

Bob Wilson

 

Now we are getting deep...but anytime we have spare power, we can charge a battery for storgae, or optionally as we do in Virginia, we pump water back uphill up the mountain, or alternaetly we could make H2 as energy storage.