The Hydrogen-Oil Company Connection

Your numbers do not agree with the numbers in your first link. According to the first link, the refueling station cost $3.4 million, not 2.4 million, and the output is 12 kg of H2 per day, not 6. So it cost about 1/3 more, but produces double compared to the figures you are using in your calculation.

Still disgusting. But as your second article says, everybody knows H2 is a dead end, but there's still a lot of momentum due to all the money already wasted on it. After you've dumped a few billion down a rat hole, what's a few million more? :frusty:

 

A combination of oil company strategies and "sunk cost effect".

 

I have been an H2 advocate on this site for a while. Unless someone produces a battery pack that gets 500 miles on a charge and can be recharged in less than 5 minutes, battery tech isn't there.

I want a complete replacement for fossil fuel use, not two dozen half assed technologies.

H2 is an enrgy transportation medium, and n it is not as efficeint as oil production, but that is not my concern. Just as battery tech is improving so will H2 production tech.

Use solar, wind, nucular power to produce H2 from sea water. But if you get battery tech to the level that I specified and would be a useful replacement for oil the I would switch, but it in't happening.

I am looking for a replacment for all oil uses, including airplane travel. So get that battery off the ground!

And to restat, I know H2 production is not as efficent as fossil fuel poduction and use, but it can be all but completely pollution free.

 

Use solar, wind, nucular power to produce H2 from sea water
what does not belong in that sentience

 

If those are Sherry Boschert's numbers (couldn't tell, your links don't mention her.) . . . I'd be suspicious that she actually, secretly, works for the highly discredited CNW Marketing Research group - the folks who said the Hummer is more energy efficient over it's lifetime than a Prius.

If her numbers are true, I too, living in Sacramento, would be sick. out:

ONLY 5 HOURS OF SOLAR OUTPUT PER DAY?????

Um, excuse me . . . Sacramento is in the top ten of most sunny cities in the USA. 78% to be exact.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/pctposrank.txt

You need to drop down into the range of a place like Anchorage, Alaska with 41% to receive so little sunshine to get an average of only 5 hours of solar output per day.

***

If you aren't directly charging a BEV with the power produced by the solar panel - isn't saying, "we charge our batteries at night" kind of like saying, "yeah, I fly in a private jet, but I pay for carbon offsets"???

Aren't you people just using electricity which was produced at a polluting site?

As the linked article says;

The project's purpose . . .
​

"It's a way to take [hydrogen] one step closer to commercialization," said Joshua Cunningham, program manager for the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways Program at UC Davis.​

No, solar-hydrogen is not commercialized yet. It's still a science project with a large learning curve ahead . . . but until you "battery power only" fanboys have a working commercialized BEV which can 100% replace all gasoline powered cars and trucks - and no, not a $100,000 Tesla . . . please just STFU!

 

It's not what you think. Solar panel output is based on "peak hours" of sunlight, in effect, hours with the sun directly overhead. They rate the panel at that solar intensity (ie, a 1KW panel puts out 1 KW at noon on a sunny day), so you have to measure total sunlight the same way. She's saying that you get average sunlight equivalent to 5 hours of noonday sun, per day. That sounds about right to me. For comparison, we get 3.5 peak hours per day on average here in Virginia.

 

Nature doesn't work with only one pattern so maybe we shouldn't either. Maybe a diversity of fuel types is what we need.

 

And, FWIW, I think that a requirement of total replacement of fossil fuels is costly and unnecessary. It's a pure approach but purity has its price. At current levels, we only(!) have to reduce GHG emissions by about half to stabilize existing levels of GHGs. Even then, we obviously can produce liquid fuels of some type (synthetic gasoline, or some better approach to ethanol). I think a PHEV is the short-term and possibly the long-term optimum. Displace most fossil-fuel miles with electricity, that would do from the standpoint of stabilizing atmospheric GHGs and would likely minimize cost.

 

Well, in that case you have a long time to wait, and you'll be paying gasoline prices for a long time ($3.60 per gallon today here in Spokane -- I happened to take note of a gas station sign). Meanwhile, I'm driving electric most days (two cents a mile) and I drive gas when I have to go farther than 35 miles, which is not very often.

Multiple solutions make sense. Demanding that just one solution solve every transportation need is unnecessarily restrictive.

 

I think the reason oil companies like H2 is because it keeps them in the loop. If we go directly to electric, then we can charge up at home or work and don't need filling stations. That would put them out of business.

 

"...I have been an H2 advocate on this site for a while. Unless someone produces a battery pack that gets 500 miles on a charge and can be recharged in less than 5 minutes, battery tech isn't there...."


H2 in an ICE or fuel cell, Bio Diesel, Ethanol, etc are all dead ends. The reason is the cost of adding new infrastructure to support the new fuels.

Most people don't drive 500 miles daily either. For me 500 miles is six to 10 times a year, the other 350 or so days of year is about 50 miles per day. So a PHEV (Future Prius, Volt etc with small generator motor) makes a lot of sense to me, in fact the thing I'd be worried about most with a Volt or plug-in Prius, is having the gas in the tank go stale before I can use it.

Really, think about it, we have two common energy distribution systems now, the electric grid, and gas/diesel stations. Why start turning corn into fuel, or cooking grease, or converting water to H2. Just use the established gas/dieselfuel system as a back-up energy source for those few times we go out of town. I am all over this as soon aas it becomes available.

Also, the internal combustion engine used as it is now is a dinosaur, with efficentcies in the 30-40% range it about half as efficent as electric motor technology.

 

Ahhh! Mis-fire. I couldn't get edits to post, so it is posted BELOW F8L's post below here. He's replying to the post below his now. Sorry!

 

Of course I do but I like to throw in maybes every once in while so I don't seem like such a zealot. You know I agree with you on the rest as well.

 

No need to apologize. Lots of people get confused about this.

Huh? You've decided that 500 miles of range determines what is useful and what isn't? There are millions of vehicles in use today that have never driven over 100 miles in a day. Should we waste the money and resources to be sure that they can all be capable of 500 miles? What the hell for?

I want to be handsome and loved by all. I'm afraid that neither of our dreams is going to come true. As others have pointed out - there is never one single best answer for all situations. And waiting for one to happen just means we dig ourselves deeper into the hole. If you are going to haul a boat, do you use your sports car? If commute many miles a day and park in a tiny city garage, do you want to drive a full-size pickup truck? No, you use the best tool for the job - and it is good we have a variety of vehicle types available. Similarly, there are fuel types that are best suited for different uses. Batteries belong in just about every commute vehicle. Cross-country trucks will need liquid fuel far into the future. We need to use everything that's available to us for the best purpose. Wasting gasoline in a 500-mile car to drive your kid across town to soccer practice is damn near criminal.

You seem to imply here that fossil fuels use whole-assed?

And then do what with it?

So if we were making battery cars with 400 miles of range for say 1/10th the cost of a fuel cell vehicle - that would be "not there" and you'd happily continue burning gasoline?

It has already been done. But as I said before, we need to use the best technology for each application. We'll need liquid fuel for air travel long after we realize that we don't need it for all of our land travel.

As others have pointed out, this 5 hours is of PERFECT sunshine. And the number is likely closer to six where we are, but 5 is a good conservative number. The person who wrote THOSE numbers was not Sherry. It was the owner of a PV installation business. He happens to be my boss.

No, it isn't like saying that at all.

Here's the deal. During the day when my PV system is generating electricity and feeding the grid, my neighbors are using that power in place of the "polluting" electricity that you speak of. At night, when we are not using peaker plants to keep up with demand, and when the base loads are handled by sites that cannot be shut down anyway - I'm charging my car. Doing this results in far less pollution than if I directly charged my car with the solar energy that I produced in the middle of the day. If I do that, then my neighbor is using more peak power from the dirty plants that need to be ramped up to meet demand. Offering up clean power during peak times, and only using energy during the off-peak times is a huge benefit that EVs can offer the utilities. This makes power cheaper, more efficient and cleaner for everybody. And that doesn't even count the gasoline that I'm not burning when I drive the EV!

So you want us to just quiety work away with our own money to satisfy your every whim... and when we have it perfected, then AND ONLY THEN, we should let you know that it is ready for your approval? Crap! we're gonna have to figure out how to add oil changes, and weekly visits to the gas station for this to work out. OK. Sorry to have bothered you in the meantime. Until it is perfect, we should just keep on with the whole gasoline thing. Got it! Please let me know how that works out for you in the coming years.

Maybe doesn't even come close! (but you knew that!) We NEED to be diverse for several reasons. Having all our eggs in the oil basket today sure isn't working out too well!

 

Man, this is ticking me off. I can't edit!

 

You are far too generous. There hasn't been an ICE in automotive use that comes anywhere near 40%. And only gasoline hybrids get into the high 20's on the good days. Typical gas cars are at about 12-15%.

Typical for an EV is ~90%. Way more than twice as efficient! My barn-door shaped Rav4 gets the equivalent of about 150 mpg (of gas equivalent).

 

I do. I just like to toss in some maybes every once in awhile so I appear less of a know-it-all zealot. I know it doesn't really work but I try. lol

Resilient systems are always based on diversity and or redundancy so that when one part of the system fails or lags, another is available to take up the slack. There are far too many of us using far too much energy to rely on just one form of energy. Diversification and a reduction in consumption is the next logical step IMO.

 

I agree, it just makes logical sense to diversify and conserve.

Unfortunately, many of the talk shows I often listen to talk about how there is no replacement technology for oil, so why even try? I have seen it on other boards too that people rail against alternative energy because it isn't as efficient or as cheap as oil. Wind, solar, etc, is just a waste of time, because one of them can't replace our oil use. And there is no reason to conserve, because there is plenty of oil left. (Thankfully this doesn't up too often, it gets me pretty annoyed).

I have talked with my brother in law (who indirectly works in the oil industry--carbon black plant manager) about this. He agreed it only makes sense to try and get most of our auto transportation on some alternative other than gas (and/or use as little as possible) and save the bulk of it for the other things that require oil at present (air travel, tires, rubber, plastics, etc).


Ironically enough, with as fast as the price of oil goes up, the biggest chunk of money the plant makes is from their cogen plant, which sells a lot of electricity back to the grid.