UK to end hydrocarbon-fuelled cars in 2040

[henry]

What was reported was that PHEVs were purchased mainly by company fleets, in order to benefit from the subsidy and tax breaks. After purchase the users didn’t bother to plug them in. This was, perhaps, predictable behaviour. If you want to subsidise something you need to arrange that the benefit only accrues to behaviour you want to encourage.

[Andres125sx]

Yesterday it was announced for Spain too, no new cars with ICE or even hybrids in 2040, and completely banned in 2050.

[Greg Locock]

Mercedes have just announced a hydrogen fuel cell PHEV. That's an interesting gambit. If we in the first world really jump into decarbonising then obviously unreliable renewables (today I got 7.5 kWh in total from a 5 kW pV) will have to be more common, in fact so common that we'll have an excess of power in summer. So either the grid gets a whole bunch of really huge batteries, or we start to do something with the excess renewable energy, or we waste it. One obvious thing to do is to electrolyse water and make hydrogen. That acts like a battery, but could also fuel cars.

I, personally, think the so-called hydrogen economy is actually just a ploy to extract money from gullible politicians, but that's who you vote for.

[Just_a_fan]

The problem with hydrogen is storage. You can go all Space Shuttle and have liquid H2 but that requires energy to maintain cryogenic temps and is not really practical for cars. You can just compress it in a tank but that requires pressures of 5000-10000 PSI. That's a bomb waiting to go off, either in a crash or deliberately. Pressure storing also adds to weight, obviously, and the infrastructure to compress it - presumably at least twice in any use cycle: one to store it wherever it's kept before being put in the car, and then again to put it in the car. As for filling the car - not sure Joe Public is a great person to be handling high pressure, highly flammable gas.

Consumer level hydrogen storage for vehicles is a "bad idea" it seems to me.

I could see it being used in homes, however. Use your spare PV volts to produce and store H2 which is then burned to create volts later. Whether that's any better than just having a stack of batteries is another question, however.

The big issue is that oil (and its derivatives) are just about the perfect energy store for lots of uses. It's easy to acquire, easy to handle, has excellent energy density and is easy to store. If any one of those wasn't true, we'd be swapping away from it much more readily.

[Big Tea]

The problem with hydrogen is storage. You can go all Space Shuttle and have liquid H2 but that requires energy to maintain cryogenic temps and is not really practical for cars. You can just compress it in a tank but that requires pressures of 5000-10000 PSI. That's a bomb waiting to go off, either in a crash or deliberately. Pressure storing also adds to weight, obviously, and the infrastructure to compress it - presumably at least twice in any use cycle: one to store it wherever it's kept before being put in the car, and then again to put it in the car. As for filling the car - not sure Joe Public is a great person to be handling high pressure, highly flammable gas.

Consumer level hydrogen storage for vehicles is a "bad idea" it seems to me.

I could see it being used in homes, however. Use your spare PV volts to produce and store H2 which is then burned to create volts later. Whether that's any better than just having a stack of batteries is another question, however.

The big issue is that oil (and its derivatives) are just about the perfect energy store for lots of uses. It's easy to acquire, easy to handle, has excellent energy density and is easy to store. If any one of those wasn't true, we'd be swapping away from it much more readily.

You could even burn it in a small boiler to have 'instant' domestic hot water. Probably more efficient too


Or this if it develops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aHXZEepUfU )

[Just_a_fan]

Yes, a small boiler would be good. One could even have a small CHP unit. Wouldn't be as good at generating volts as a PV/battery but it would be both heat and volts and thus a "good thing" in many locations.

A cheap "nuke in a crate" power pack for a village would be a great idea too. Lots of politics and scare stories around nuclear power, sadly.

[hollus]

Yesterday it was announced for Spain too, no new cars with ICE or even hybrids in 2040, and completely banned in 2050.

That's a "brindis al sol!".
A goverment with a half-life estimated in months (already overdelivering in that front) suggesting such a radical plan 20-something years in the future...
20-something years in the future is the estimated time for a manned Mars landing, and has been since at least 1975. We all know how that turned out so far.

...If we in the first world really jump into decarbonising then obviously unreliable renewables (today I got 7.5 kWh in total from a 5 kW pV) will have to be more common, in fact so common that we'll have an excess of power in summer...

Obvious solution except for the fact that, today, nobody gets rich by doing that. But if prices of solar panels continue to drop like they are now, it then becomes an inevitability.

The problem with hydrogen is storage.

I am not sure how far the idea has progressed or how reliable the figures were, but a couple of years ago, some German companies calculated that Hydrogen could simply be injected into the existent natural gas networks, up to a concentration of 2%, without any changes needed to the infrastructure of at the end user side. They also estimated that, given the amount of natural gas currently "stored in the pipes", as the distribution network is so huge, that 2% would cover at least several hours of natural gas energy usage, nation-wide.
Again, not sure how reliable the numbers were, the companies where certainly not impartial in that issue.

What happened to the molten NaCl storage units being tested in Spain for storing solar as heat and latent heat of fusion? Would that be a way to store excess energy? (the image is not a real picture AFAIK)


Drifting off-topic now, I better stop.

[Greg Locock]

Damn that's kind of neat. H2 enrichment of natural gas. But, I hate it. H2 is pretty valuable stuff, because you can use it in fuel cells. However, despite its wastage of what should be a premium product, they have at least identified a use for it that requires no new infrastructure.

And before anybody starts babbling on , natural gas in fuel cells via reformulators is plain ugly.

[Andres125sx]

Yesterday it was announced for Spain too, no new cars with ICE or even hybrids in 2040, and completely banned in 2050.

That's a "brindis al sol!".

Obviously

A goverment with a half-life estimated in months

And that´s the reason, they´re desperate to collect some votes...

[Andres125sx]

About storage.... China is investing in enormous flow batteries




https://electrek.co/2017/12/21/worlds-l ... gke-power/

[Brake Horse Power]

The problem with hydrogen is storage. You can go all Space Shuttle and have liquid H2 but that requires energy to maintain cryogenic temps and is not really practical for cars. You can just compress it in a tank but that requires pressures of 5000-10000 PSI. That's a bomb waiting to go off, either in a crash or deliberately. Pressure storing also adds to weight, obviously, and the infrastructure to compress it - presumably at least twice in any use cycle: one to store it wherever it's kept before being put in the car, and then again to put it in the car. As for filling the car - not sure Joe Public is a great person to be handling high pressure, highly flammable gas.

Consumer level hydrogen storage for vehicles is a "bad idea" it seems to me.

I could see it being used in homes, however. Use your spare PV volts to produce and store H2 which is then burned to create volts later. Whether that's any better than just having a stack of batteries is another question, however.

The big issue is that oil (and its derivatives) are just about the perfect energy store for lots of uses. It's easy to acquire, easy to handle, has excellent energy density and is easy to store. If any one of those wasn't true, we'd be swapping away from it much more readily.

One way to overcome the storage problem is to store the hydrogen in a carrier such as ammonia (NH3) or formic acid (HCOOH). My gut feeling at this moment is that the latter is bottom line the same weight as a diesel driven vehicle, also volume wise it is not a big difference. I am talking about heavy vehicles here. I will set up some calculations soon with comparisons, I might share it here

[Just_a_fan]

I'd be interested to see some figures for such a carrier system if you are able to share them. Presumably a carrier system uses a catalyst or some other device to separate the hydrogen for use. Obviously the benefit of ammonia is that splitting two ammonia molecules gives only hydrogen and nitrogen (2NH3 -> N2 + 3H2) which is effectively pollution free. Ammonia isn't nice stuff, however, if spilled and inhaled in high concentrations. Formic Acid would split to form hydrogen and carbon dioxide so not so good. One could see the Formic Acid formed from atmospheric CO2 so it would approach carbon neutrality.

[Big Tea]

According to Wiki Hydrogen can be 'stored' compressed at 350 or 700 bar for vehicles.
(It does not list the problems of this) That must be close to the equivalent of liquid fuel is it not?

[Just_a_fan]

Yeah, I already mentioned that (but used PSI figures ). I think the only big issue is the tank required to hold that sort of pressure. The weight is likely to be more than a simple plastic tank for petrol.

Hydrogen gives about 9MJ/L when compressed to 700 bar compared to petrol/diesel at about 35MJ/L. So some way behind and a big tank would be needed for comparable range. Although Hydrogen gives 140MJ/kg compared to petrol/diesel at about 47MJ/kg. Not sure which is the better figure to use - by weight or by volume. I guess by volume as it's the volume of the tank that will be the limiting factor.

Edit:
5kg of H2 compressed at 700bar requires 125L of tank and gives 500-600km of driving.
https://energies.airliquide.com/resourc ... gen-stored
So a tank perhaps twice the size of a typical petrol car's requirement for that range.

[Greg Locock]

Re the vanadium flow battery. That's a good find. Why on earth do they need all those carparking spaces?

For domestic use a 10kWh/5 kW flow battery is about A$12600, and is expected to last 20 years. I have 20kWh of lead acids (say 30% of that is usable) and they last 10 years. A$3200, so like for like $9600. Flow batteries are good for capacity, the expensive bit is power. Lead acids are the opposite, I could easily draw 10 kW from mine if I had the right cables and the right load. If you want to get serious the busbars on my very old 2v 600 Ah accumulators are solid lead bars about 40mm by 12mm in cross section.