MossRoad
Super Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
- Messages
- 60,332
- Location
- South Bend, Indiana (near)
- Tractor
- Power Trac PT425 2001 Model Year
Watch on youtube.
No doubt that when a gas engine was first described to people, it sounded just as alarming. "The engine sucks in the air mix it with gas, and ignites it several times / second right in front of that piece of tin we call a firewall that is at your feet".Unfortunate loss of life ^. Hopefully they can isolate the cause, but with an explosion of that scale, it may be difficult. Myself, starting into hydrogen, I'd prefer it inside an IC engine, than a fuel-cell.
An expression I heard (old Nordic attribution IIRC) years ago resonated with me then, but even more so as I got older. "You can get used to anything, even a Hanging".
A Tesla catches fire, and burns for hours - National News. Gasoline fires hardly rate any coverage, unless a whole refinery goes up - and then, you mostly hear about what the expected short-term spike in gasoline prices will be.....
Lighter-than-air: I like that characteristic of hydrogen and natgas, from a safety standpoint, esp. outdoors in open areas.
What I don't like about propane - heavier-than-air. A much bigger safety risk IMO, than the above 2. A propane depot near where I work had an outdoor fire recently - fortunately only the small (retail/industrial) tanks went up, and not their big bulk ones. Still, $1MM in damage, but amazingly no loss of life or even significant injuries that I heard of.
You're not supposed to store propane indoors...... but how many warehouse forklifts on propane get parked outside all the time ? Back to that Used to a Hanging thing again......
We all drive around modern gasoline vehicles with electric motors driving fuel pumps in the tank, and nobody thinks twice (even the few that know).....
Once a specific risk gets mitigated down to a low enough level in production, it hardly rates as background noise in the general population....... it wasn't all that long ago that lithium batteries in cell phones and laptops were going up in flames, and for that matter, in the cargo hold of an aircraft...... now people pay six-figures to get trendy cars packed full of them......
We Do, Live in Interesting Times......
Rgds, D.
You might know something I do not, but to date, I haven't seen the government involved except that developers and manufacturers have to follow existing safety regulations. Consumers are ready and waiting for it. Many have used it in testing.Toyota, in general, is pretty smart as a company. They can see the winds shifting to EV, even though it is an inferior technology on many levels. As consumers, we don't always make great choices. By many (most?) accounts Betamax was a superior platform to VHS. The Amiga was a superior PC to the IBM and Apple offerings of the late 80s. Budweiser is not the best beer, nor the beat value...I'm sure there is a tractor example, the best I can suggest is that many become fanboys of their chosen brand, even if it is inferior. Marketing frequently sways people more than we may realize.
My point here is that for whatever reason, governments, not consumers, seem to be deciding what technology is going to be green enough. I don't think this is political because it is irrespective of country, much less party. In my experience and training, governments do a rather poor job of making market choices...even worse than the average consumer.
"I see the amount of infrastructure required for us to go to all electric vehicles as staggering. You're not talking about a single 30-40 amp charging station per dwelling. The reality is probably the need for 2-3 charging stations per household."It will be interesting to see if hydrogen fueled ICE's get a foot hold. I can see lots of safety issues with compressed gas and suspect it's a large reason why LNG or LPG (and their infrastructure) have never gained a larger popularity in the US.
I've also been hearing about ammonia fuels, specifically green ammonia. Again, I think the hazards might be their downfall.
I can possibly see many of our natural gas power plants swapping to hydrogen or green ammonia.
That being said, electric cars aren't going to work for everything, so there will need to be some type of fuel for mobile applications. Maybe gasoline and diesel won't be going away quite as soon as our politicians think.
I see the amount of infrastructure required for us to go to all electric vehicles as staggering. You're not talking about a single 30-40 amp charging station per dwelling. The reality is probably the need for 2-3 charging stations per household.
Unfortunately, it is just not that simple.We keep hearing short sighted attempts to promote hydrogen as a fuel. There is a very basic and unsolvable problem with this. You can't mine or drill for hydrogen. You have to create hydrogen either by stripping it from a hydrocarbon or using heat/electricity to separate it from water. Either approach requires lots of energy that has to come from a different source. If you use the hydrocarbon approach, you are left with a carbon rich residue that is very tempting to just burn. If you use electricity, why not just use the electricity as the energy source in the first place and avoid the inefficiency.
Found this on motortrend doing their review if the hydrogen equipped Toyota Miria.Unfortunately, it is just not that simple.
Electricity can only be stored in batteries. Those take energy and resources to make them. They are heavy requiring a larger battery to move the weight of it (so it is somewhat self-defeating) and they will only cycle so many times before they will no longer hold a charge. It is also energy loss charging a battery so everything has costs and complications associated with it. As Ozark commented, the range is still a significant challenge. it is why over 50% of current electric cars owners buy a gas-operated car when they trade in their car. That tells us that this isn't yet a clear winner either.
Hydrogen is not created. It is the most common element on our planet. Basically, there is no limit to its availability. The process has been in place for a long time. It is used in other industries. Hospitals all use this ultra-refined grade of hydrogen used today by fuel cells. It is already cost-effective where a company has more than 20 fork trucks and has multiple shifts working in succession.
And to Ozark's point, hydrogen can be pumped just like gas with a nozzle just like we use now and can fill a tank in the same amount of time. Also to Ozark's point, there would be no need to have a fueling station at home.
It isn't a hope that hydrogen is cost-effective. It is cost-effective today if you have a fleet of more than 20 vehicles running continuous shifts. And this is in its infancy.
If someone makes a robust, durable fuel cell, it will almost instantly change the pollution on ports and factories around the world before it even becomes available to cars.
This would become a huge game-changer for the world and why companies have poured billions into it.