Harry Metcalfe is a British motoring journalist who set up EVO Magazine. He is also a farmer. He goes to JCB to look at their combustion engines which can run on hydrogen.
Interesting discussion as the head of JCB points out that electric battery costs will rise due to the shortage of rare earth materials. The head of the Peugeot group fears electric cars will be too expensive for ordinary people.
Hydrogen could be the way forward for heavy-duty machinery, trucks, and so forth. Interesting video.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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It looks like people have been exploring these options
Renewable natural gas - Wikipedia
AFAIK battery-cars have issues:
I had 2 LPG-converted cars, they worked fine, it's a fast way to change most petrol cars to carbon-neutral if you can generate the methane. Surely better than scrapping all ICE cars or waiting until they stop working?
At the heart of net zero is a significant lowering of electricity usage and demand. The whole built environment question for net zero isn’t just converting all power to electricity, but significantly reducing its usage. I’m currently working on the first new build net zero schools in the U.K., and the reality is that not only are they converting to 100% electric, but their annual consumption is planned to drop by 55% overall. If it doesn’t, then they aren’t net zero.
The inefficiency of hydrogen is the most cited problem - figures like 75% of the energy being lost prior to actually moving a vehicle forward do make it less than ideal. Part of the issue (for me) is that any comparisons between electric and hydrogen vehicles always start off with the water required to obtain the hydrogen and work from there, but take the electricity needed for the electric vehicle as a the starting point, without taking into account the generation of that electricity, or the manufacture of the batteries required, and so don't give a true reflection of what's involved. Yes, an electric vehicle can use 75% of the initial electricity to power the vehicle, but that electricity isn't sucked out of the air, there's an enormous amount involved in the generation, storage and distribution of it.
It looks as though investment in, and public interest in, hydrogen is waning, but I suspect this is due to the incredibly successful marketing of electric vehicles rather than an indication that the technology is simply not viable. Electric vehicles can only be a stop gap (admittedly a long term stop gap, perhaps) due to the fact that it relies on finite resources, and processes that are incredibly polluting - it may be that EVs save the world from climate change, only for an entirely new, and currently unknown, issue to result from all those batteries being made (the hole in the ozone layer, for example, was an issue that nobody knew was happening until it was already an enormous problem). Disposal of old batteries is an issue - recycling them is more expensive, and far less efficient, than mining new materials and making new batteries. Lots of them will end up in landfill, and even the recycled ones are only 50% reclaimed, which leaves a lot of scrap being buried, and leaching toxic chemicals into the environment.
A large part of the issue with EV cells is that they aren't made to be recycled - lots of different types of cell, assembled in different ways, all with different requirements for recycling. Tesla cells are uniquely cylindrical, and also held together by polyurethane cement which is incredibly difficult to break apart. If EV manufacturers change the design, it will make them easier to recycle - but potentially cause more issues with maintenance (batteries getting shaken to pieces under normal use, leading to increased breakdowns, more maintenance, and therefore more hassle and cost to owners) and so on.
Electric vehicles are being made more efficient, more reliable, and more cost effective, but will the charge time ever get as quick as filling up with fuel? If hydrogen cars can be made more efficient, from the initial capture of the hydrogen to the efficiency of the vehicles, they could be a real alternative - in theory, if the ability to obtain hydrogen from water is made efficient enough, you could simply fill your tank with water, and everything could be done on board, with the resulting exhaust being oxygen - maybe some of that could even be used to sweeten the air inside the car?
Electric vehicles are here to stay for a while, but I think a different solution is needed to be truly sustainable in the future.
F1 is going down the biofuels route and if Porsche joins (they have been doing research on combustion engines powered by biofuels for years) and it is seen to work that could create some impetus to look at other solutions.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
I haven't watched this vid yet but Harry's stuff is good so will over the weekend. It essentially will come down to who can get the most efficiency from the end-to-end process, as well as the most convenience for the end user.
Key challenges:
- batteries are very heavy per-unit-capacity, which becomes a vicious cycle when you try and increase vehicle range
- batteries are slow to charge
- batteries don't last forever - go about 3 years and your phone battery is half as good as it was when new. That's not sustainable.
- batteries need raw materials which are messy and expensive to extract
- hydrogen is currently inefficient and expensive to produce
- hydrogen engine tech is still very new and will take time to develop into commercial products.But hydrogen theoretically has a very high energy density (approx 120 MJ/kg compared with 45 MJ/kg) so it's too obvious not to pursue.
I see a mix of things happening - the likes of KSA (and anywhere else with empty land and heavy sunshine) are likely to move towards using solar generation to crack hydrogen for export in the same way we currently see oil & gas shipped around the world. Depending on how well battery tech develops I could see them moving towards exporting charged batteries and importing discharged ones, though the current cost/benefit equation for batteries certainly doesn't work for that model yet.I'm also firmly in favour of Tesla's "solar roof plus home battery" model. Again, the tech isn't really there yet but in another 10 years I can see this being an obvious part of every new build and refurb that happens to a building.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201112-the-green-hydrogen-revolution-in-renewable-energy
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*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
I agree. I think in another video Harry Metcalf said farmers could produce their own hydrogen to drive their plant and machinery and run generators to grow crops in greenhouses 24/7. They have land, water and could install solar panels and wind turbines to generate electricity.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Trucking is a hard one as not only do we want to reduce carbon but other particulates as well, may well have to be hydrogen but it is hard to handle and store.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Exactly those.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Solid state batteries look promising, they have a higher energy density than Lipo and are safer. Toyota announced they hope to have a car with SS battery in production by 2030
What would suit most people is a light small EV with 2 battery packs, each capable of 30 miles and each one removable and carry-able indoors to charge. There are people who drive all day and some people drive 70 miles to work but I would guess most people do only a 40 mile round to work and back and these people don't need a huge battery that can't be removed. At the moment even a 30 mile range battery pack made from current 18650 type cells would be too heavy for some people to carry but a solid state battery is much lighter due not needing the fire protection. All these removable battery packs could be made to a common physical dimension spec with a common connector so changing a depleted battery would be simple and cost effective. Plus recycling would be simpler due to the common construction standard.
It will never happen though, every manufacturer thinks their own standard is superior