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Re battery degradation. That Harry's Garage video I mentioned earlier talks about this. See approx 15 mins onwards. Tesla appears to be amongst the best.
Posted : 14/02/2024 8:44 pm
And yes, TJ 100% renewable, mostly hydro topped up by wind.
Do you have your own hydro station then?
I would like to to explain this because its completely impossible. How are you charging when renewables are maxed out a fossil fuels arew being used in the grid?
If you are charging off the grid you are using fossil fuels
Posted : 15/02/2024 7:47 am
Assumed grid renewables 75%.
Big assumption and yo are forgetting again ( because its convenient to do so ) that this is additional demand. Much of the time additional demand is 100% fossil as renewables are maxed iout
When renewables are maxed out then all additional electricity comes from fossil fuels there is no other source ( nuclear is on all the time)
Posted : 15/02/2024 7:53 am
I forget which tangent this had gone down to be talking about EVs and additional demand.
One of them main points of batteries is that you can charge them whenever it suits, not at time of use. Variable pricing of electricity means that users are incentivised to charge when excess power is available, e.g. overnight (due to low demand and non variable base load generation) or when the wind is blowing strongly. Most EV charging is done in this manner - the more visible fast chargers are generally a low portion of or total charging due to the high cost.
There’s a load of stuff on this thread where the author needs to consider the difference between extra energy requirement and extra power requirement.
EVs are relatively unusual in that they are a large load that takes no grid power when it is being used. And given they are not in use for 90+% of the time, there’s a lot of choice about when to charge them.
They are one of the things that is going to make intermittent renewable economically and technically viable.
That and you lot charging Makita impact drivers and e-MTBs.
Posted : 15/02/2024 8:22 am
How are you charging when renewables are maxed out
Maybe he doesn't? As said - you don't need to charge all the time...
Posted : 15/02/2024 8:31 am
How are you charging when renewables are maxed out
Maybe he doesn’t? As said – you don’t need to charge all the time…
Agree. In fact he’s highly likely to specifically NOT be charging at those times due to variable pricing encouraging him not to.
As the thread has gone on somewhat I suppose someone has pointed out already that:
hydrogen is a ridiculous idea for fuelling cars
hydrogen is a ridiculous idea for heating houses
hydrogen is being promoted as a ‘solution’ by the same fossil fuel companies that brought you the current climate crisis
Hydrogen is currently harvested from fossil fuels e.g. methane. Like ‘cracking’ any fossil fuel source into usable products this takes energy. ‘Green’ hydrogen is not really a thing.
It’s time to stop burning stuff.
https://theecologist.org/2020/dec/18/hydrogen-hoax
https://protonsforbreakfast.wordpress.com/2023/04/20/hydrogen-for-home-heating-is-a-scam/
Plus , how many people are buying big lithium batteries for their PV array. To charge either on octopus flex or from sunshine. They then move this electricity to the car overnight.
Hence doubling the amount of lithium required.
These will also have a shelf life before capacity drops away
Posted : 15/02/2024 8:47 am
|I am not anti EV or Hydrogen vehicles and do not subscribe to some of the nonsense the antis put out. they have their place
I just want folk to realise that EVs and hydrogen vehicles are greenwash, that their usage means increased fossil fuel usage ( compared to reducing the use of private cars) and that while they are zero tailpipe emissions and do reduce greenhouse gases overall they are still hugely wasteful way of moving people about and that this fiddling around the edges makes little practical difference to global warming
We need lifestyle change not this greenwash that allows folk to pretend that they are doing something big when they are not
Maybe he doesn’t? As said – you don’t need to charge all the time…
So he is going for weeks without charging the vehicle? Because we go weeks at a time when renewables are maxed out. That pesky high pressure winter event
Posted : 15/02/2024 8:51 am
Sometimes, TJ, it would be nice if there was just a hint you were reading and understanding other members posts and assimilating them into your knowledge. As it is we get the same message reworded from you every other page which in no way reflects how the EV owning STW members are charging their cars and from which energy suppliers.
Of the EV owners among my friends and aquaintances all of them have a set of solar panels that more than covers their electiricty use. We have cut off the gas and insulated our homes, two of us are a bit naughty and use wood burners at times we'd be drawing fossil energy from the grid. We've stopped or drasticaly reduced flying and are prepared to cross the continent on public transport. Local produce is bought in preference but sometimes we sin and buy things like a guitar made in Mexico or Brompton derailleur made in China.
The EV is part of a philosophy - making the most of life with a much reduced carbon footprint.
You have decided not to own a car, fine, your life is organised such that you don't need one, good. However in other ways your life is carbon intensive but none of us is reproaching you not moving to Africa (on foot) and living in an off-grid community eating only locally produced and unpackage produce and living in a hemp loin skin.
Your simplistic crap on this thread is irritating many including me. I like your posts and Internet persona a lot but sometimes you're really irritating.
🙂
Posted : 15/02/2024 8:55 am
We need lifestyle change not this greenwash that allows folk to pretend that they are doing something big when they are not
Yes TJ we understand that, but that is not what this thread is about.
In a future scenario we may be able to reduce / abandon cars completely but right here right now it’s not feasible so the next best alternative is to make the cars that are used greener and be part of an overall energy transition.
Maybe start a separate thread about deleting / reducing car use completely in favour of other forms (which is a perfectly valid discussion).
Continually derailing this thread which was meant to be about Hydrogen though is just frustrating - your argument is about a different topic.
Posted : 15/02/2024 8:57 am
The EV is part of a philosophy – making the most of life with a much reduced carbon footprint.
Yes indeed - it can be and I know you do this
for many folk tho its a way of pretending they are doing something without those lifestyle changes and unless you are charging off grid completely then in the UK your vehicle charging will be partly fossil fuel
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:00 am
😉 or live somewhere where there are only renewables in the grid
Seriously , the big problem with hydrogen is the infrastructure, and well, making it in massive quantities as well. So too big, big problems. So you need a really compelling reason to do this and an acceptance that it's not going to be cheap. Hydrogen requires even better quality of infra than natural gas as it CANNOT leak for safety reasons - you can't even smell if it's leaking , so it just can't be allowed to happen unless you want to cover places it's used with detectors, and it likes to leak. So add that price into the cost to consumer and how does it look? For me it looks like a dead end, and if any of the miracle batteries ever actually make it then it will be very redundant from a family car perspective (all in my opinion)
Electricity is a lot, lot easier on both counts.Almost all houses are capable of dealing with any extra load (except Trailrat's)
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:01 am
whatgoesup - folk are making claims for their EVs and for any future hydrogen vehicles that simply are not true such as charging off 100% renewables which is simply not possible
OK - I'll drop it now
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:02 am
Because we go weeks at a time when renewables are maxed out. That pesky high pressure winter event
In the middle of the night there is always a generation / use imbalance. Renewables aren’t really the source at these times - it’s the non variable base load generation that is a neccesary fact of our approach to generation.
You seem to be thinking in an incredibly nieve, simplistic manner and only considering what a complete utopia might look like.
By these standards you should not posting on this forum, as power is used (to keep your computer / phone running, to power the internet connections, to power the datacentre that’s at the back of this somewhere), eating any food apart from what you’ve grown in your own back garden as that uses energy to grow and transport, wearing any clothes other than those you’ve woven yourself from sheep in that back garden etc etc.
Please try and work within the constraints of reality - that’s the only way we make progress.
Also - as Edukator says please try and listen to others arguments not just keep repeating the same idealistic argument.
Have you read the book I reccomended yet? From your discussions it sounds like you havnt but I honestly think you’ll find it both fascinating and also enlightening. Armed with that knowledge you could really make some interesting, more nuanced and realistic proposals and contribute to these discussions which I would welcome.
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:06 am
theotherjonv and theotherjonv reacted
charging off 100% renewables which is simply not possible
<jumps up and down in frustration>
PLEASE GO READ THE (free pdf) BOOK IVE RECCOMENDED SEVERAL TIMES - it will be a game changer in understanding of the realities and options.
Until then it’s like arguing with an idealistic child who refuses to acknowledge facts that they don’t like but still insists on things being the way they want (which are impossible due to the facts that they have refused to acknowledge).
Arghhhh……….
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:09 am
One of those friends has an interesting EV. He bought an old Citroën Saxo EV with a dead Battery. He bought some old industrial Lithium battery packs that were being replaced in routine maintenance but still with years of potential life left. He sourced suitable BMSes (battery management systems) and wrote a load of software (his speciality) for the charging system. The result is a 23kWh car with a 150km Summer range that is 99% upcycled. He's a member of an association which finds sites suitable for solar panel instalations and has installed lots of capacity. I got dragged in recently using my climbing skills and head for heights to prepare a roof for panel installation on an off-grid eco-house with straw-insulated walls.
Whatgoesup - its a philosophical difference - read up on dark V light green to understand my viewpoint. Its not I am ill informed - its a different philosophical approach and one you might find interesting to look into
also 100% renewables charging is not possible in the UK at all unless yo0 are totally off grid. That is a simple fact. The claim you can is the greenwash
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:11 am
What do we do now ? It's down to:
"No it isn't", "yes it is"
"No it isn't", "yes it is"
"No it isn't", "yes it is"
"No it isn't", "yes it is"
One side is providing evidence and one is saying "100% not possible"
For those living in NW Scotland it's imossible to charge using fossil fuels most of the time. I'd have to make an effort to badly time my charges to create demand that would be for extra fossil.
It would also be nice if there were a bit more disclosure about other aspects of your carbon footprint, TJ. Nearly all the regulars on STW have contributed to the various energy threads disclosing their gas and electricty bills. Many have contributed to Gas/induction hob threads. You haven't.
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:22 am
Does the sun come out during a long term high pressure weather event or not?
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:23 am
Whatgoesup – its a philosophical difference – read up on dark V light green to understand my viewpoint. Its not I am ill informed – its a different philosophical approach and one you might find interesting to look into
also 100% renewables charging is not possible in the UK at all unless yo0 are totally off grid. That is a simple fact. The claim you can is the greenwash
I understand all of that. That is a separate discussion to the one that the rest of us are (trying) to have.
I'm not claiming you can currently charge the overall EV fleet 100% renewably (some individuals might be able to, but not most of us). Any thought that this is possible right now, or actually a realistic target is overly simplistic - the real world situation is far more nuanced.
Meanwhile in order to not just turn the lights off and send us all back to the stone age overnight, and actually make the world work, improve things and develop to a better place where we COULD have 100% renewables there is a LOT of thought and planning going into developing future solutions - this is a journey that the world is on right now - we're relatively close to the start, not the end of the journey now. You don't seem willing to accept any discussion that is not about the end state.
That however is NOT what this thread is about. If you want to talk about this please set up another thread, as you are ruining this one which is meant to be about Hydrogen use in cars (or rather it's non-use in cars as it's not a good solution for reasons that were being discussed until you derailed the thread).
Now - PLEASE READ THE BLEEDING BOOK
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:26 am
TJ. You’re the only one on this thread talking about zero emissions. All the rest of us are talking about substantial reductions in emissions.
Time and again, I’ve done the ****ing numbers for you and you’re either too stupid or too pig headed to actually read them. FFS, it’s shown in the bloody graphs.
I genuinely do this for a living and am bloody good at it. Right now, you sound like a Trump supporter howling at the moon because a 90% reduction in personal vehicle emissions isn’t good enough.
as for 75% being a big IF. Don’t be dumb. I showed you the numbers. 100 Halide Turbines would support a 100% EV shift. There are 277 at Dogger Bank and another 600 planned for P2 and P3. Currently ~100 are online, another 100 later in the year and the final almost 80 in 2026. Te rest are in planning for 2027-2031. That’s over 11GW of generating capacity at average load. Hinkley Point will go online in 2029-2030 with another 3.2GW of STABLE power. That’s 14GW of extra GREEN capacity already built, being built or planned for the next 7 years.
Now consider all the personal and commercial solar, batteries, etc. this country is well on its way to 90% green power and personal transportation.
Posted : 15/02/2024 9:54 am
Dunno if it's been talked about in the several pages since I last pointed it out but the new reactor project for Hartlepool is supposed to generate hydrogen as well as Sizewell C. Blue hydrogen I think the French call it. Sizewell C has an initial shelf life of 50 years I think and will almost certainly run longer (B is already going for an extension to 50 years and after that probably go for another 20). That's the thing about PWR's, take care of the vessel, containment and turbine and they can run as long as you need them to. A few big prime movers for synchronising plus whatever renewable you have deployed in various places and there is plenty of scope for production.
Hydrogen requires even better quality of infra than natural gas as it CANNOT leak for safety reasons – you can’t even smell if it’s leaking
Hate to tell you but you can't smell natural gas either, the smell is an additive.
I worked with hydrogen infra that would probably give you a heart attack if you saw it. Of course it was safe because it dissipates really quickly and was well ventilated.
I do find it ironic that so many people put so much faith in improvements to battery tech yet find it utterly inconceivable that any novel hydrogen storage concepts could ever work.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is not sustainable, there is no one size fits all solution. You're act like one if those managers that has a Mac and thinks it's the dogs bollocks and wants everyone to use one despite the company infra being built around Microsoft services and none of your proprietary software working on MacOS. There's nothing wrong with either, it's just a case of using the right tool for the job.
Posted : 16/02/2024 1:29 pm
theotherjonv and theotherjonv reacted
I am looking forward to good hydrogen bulk storage becoming reality. to me its ideal for smoothing fluctuations in renewables output that is the main limitation with renewables
No idea how much you would need tho but I guess even in liquid form an awful lot to provide say 24 hours worth of power for the UK ( to cover several days shortfall)
Unst project does this on a small scale
I visited an eco-house in freiburg with hydrogen storage for its PV production about 20 years ago. It wasn't working. 🙂
Posted : 16/02/2024 2:07 pm
The one on Unst has been fir many years. Small island with a few dozen residents. Its total energy is a wind turbine to electricity with a hydrogen cracker and fuel cell to give pwer when the wind drops..
Posted : 16/02/2024 2:13 pm
It would also be nice if there were a bit more disclosure about other aspects of your carbon footprint, TJ. Nearly all the regulars on STW have contributed to the various energy threads disclosing their gas and electricty bills.
Just spotted this. I do not have a car, kids or pets Those are the 3 big ones. energy bills are high - a result of living in an old building that I have spent many tens of thousands on insulating. My environmental footprint is very low compared to most westeners but still unsustainable
Posted : 16/02/2024 2:19 pm
Thanks, TJ. A sustainable number of kids, 1 or 2, I don't see as a problem. The UK average is 1.7, I don't see that as a problem.
Posted : 16/02/2024 2:38 pm
I do - dark green philosophy. Far too many folk on the planet 🙂
Posted : 16/02/2024 2:49 pm
compared to reducing the use of private cars
We've been here before, TJ is a single bloke living in the centre of a city and can't imagine why any of us need private transport. End.
Posted : 16/02/2024 4:13 pm
I didnt say eliminate i said reduce. We need massive reductions in consumption to even have a chance of staying under 2 degrees .
Posted : 16/02/2024 4:21 pm
I visited an eco-house in freiburg with hydrogen storage for its PV production about 20 years ago. It wasn’t working.
To be fair that's at an entirely different scale.
Posted : 16/02/2024 5:03 pm
Far too many folk on the planet 🙂
Says a person living on the planet.
Anyway - this topic has only just got back on to the topic of Hydrogen - let’s not let it descend back down the dark green rabbit hole.
The “dark green” topic really deserves its own thread, otherwise no other thread on any topic relating to reducing emissions / consumption will be able to proceed without being derailed.
Posted : 16/02/2024 6:07 pm
Ammonia energy storage? Does anyone know if this is going anywhere? Seems like it may be a way round storing H2.
https://www.power-technology.com/features/ammonia-next-key-player-energy-storage/
I read a while ago that Australia were pushing for an ammonia economy to be set up around the pacific rim, the ammonia to be supplied by them from all the renewables they were going to build.
Posted : 16/02/2024 6:37 pm
Yes, Ammonia is a thing and has some advantages - easier storage being one.
Some info below on a few different options. One thing to note - no individual solution is "best". Some simple facts on Ammonia and some other options for fuels / storage in this blog from my work here. The key word here is "journey" - as a planet we can't switch immediately even if everyone wanted to, so it's a pragmatic set of changes.
https://www.cummins.com/news/2022/09/26/z-fuel-types-your-decarbonization-journey
"
You may have been reading about alternative fuels on this blog—or elsewhere. We know it can be confusing. So here is a handy glossary to help you remember the difference between diesel, renewable diesel, biodiesel, and other fuels.
AMMONIA IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Ammonia is a chemical used industrially on a large scale as a precursor to a variety of nitrogen-containing substances, such as fertilizers and explosives. It also has many other applications, ranging from being used as a glass cleaner, to a reagent used in flue gas scrubbing systems, to being used as a rocket fuel (the X-15, an experimental rocket-power aircraft, which still holds the speed record for a manned aircraft, ran on ammonia).
Ammonia has also seen some historical use as a motor fuel. During World War II, for example, the Belgian regional bus company converted some of its buses to run on ammonia due to the shortage of diesel fuel.
GREEN AMMONIA IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Almost all ammonia being manufactured today is obtained via a chemical reaction between hydrogen and nitrogen. Since most hydrogen used for this purpose is made from natural gas using a process that releases significant amounts of CO2, manufacturing of ammonia is CO2-intensive. If green hydrogen is used, however, ammonia can be made with no or minimal CO2 emissions. In other words, green ammonia can be made.
This is of interest for industries that are heavy users of ammonia. Fertilizer companies such as Spain’s Fertiberia, for example, are actively pursuing this strategy.
In the transportation sector, green ammonia is seen as an energy carrier that is easier to handle and store than green hydrogen. The shipping industry, in particular, has shown substantial interest in powering large ship engines with ammonia. A recent survey by Lloyd’s register indicates industry participants expect ammonia use in the shipping industry will significantly increase in the next 10 years.
In Japan, where utilities are looking for ways to keep their coal-power plants open, green ammonia is used as a partial substitute for coal in pilot projects. In the long term, supporters see green ammonia as a way to turn existing power plants into zero-emissions facilities by 2050.
BIODIESEL IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Biodiesel is a renewable low-carbon intensity or carbon-neutral fuel made from fats such as vegetable oil, animal fats or used cooking oil through a chemical process known as transesterification. The oils can also be blended with diesel to reduce well-to-wheels CO2 and other polluting emissions. Blends with varying proportions of biodiesel are available. B20, containing 20% biodiesel, is a common blend which advantageously balances cost and emissions. It can be used in most engines with no modifications. Many Cummins Inc. diesel engines can run on B20, and the company plans to make its new engines compatible with an increasing range of biodiesel blends. Besides motor vehicles, biodiesels are used across a range of industries, from data centers to ships.
DIESEL IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Diesel is a fossil fuel obtained from oil. It is relatively cheap, widely available and performs well. Diesel engines are durable, reliable, and can provide all the torque needed for heavy-duty applications. The infrastructure needed to produce, transport and distribute diesel is universally available. Diesel, however, is not without drawbacks. Besides causing greenhouse gas emissions, diesel vehicles release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, soot, and other pollutants. All of these cause air pollution and can be harmful to human health. Regulations on the use of diesel are therefore tightening in countries around the world. Diesel may lose some ground to alternative fuels, but it is not about to go away. Diesel engines have come a long way towards cleaning up their emissions. And while no aftertreatment system can truly scrub CO2 emissions from diesel engines, there are applications where it will make more sense to offset CO2 emissions somewhere else than to seek to directly decarbonize the application. The emission reductions capability of alternative fuels should be evaluated when making a selection.
RENEWABLE DIESEL IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) or renewable diesel is made from vegetable fats and oils. It can be used in most diesel engines without modification, across all Cummins standby generator sets and many Cummins engines used for on-highway applications. Used as a drop-in replacement for diesel, it performs equally well. After factoring in the emissions associated with the processing, transportation and distribution, HVO well-to-wheels emissions are about 70% lower than those of diesel.
The use of HVO is limited by the amount that can be made using existing production plants—about 550 million gallons per year in the United States. Multiple new plants are under construction, which should significantly expand the amount of HVO available and may lead to an increase in adoption.
There are a range of examples of companies that are successfully using alternative fuels. Companies such as Microsoft, for example, have switched to HVO fuel for their Cummins-supplied generators that provide backup power to its data centers in Des Moines, Iowa (U.S.) and Phoenix, Arizona (U.S.).
GREEN HYDROGEN IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Green hydrogen, or hydrogen made using renewable energy, may very well be the green energy carrier of the future. Green hydrogen can fuel both fuel cell electric vehicles and vehicles equipped with an internal combustion engine specially modified for hydrogen. Hydrogen will make a lot of sense for heavy-duty commercial applications, which is why Cummins is currently developing a 15-liter and a 6.7-liter hydrogen engine. Cummins’ hydrogen fuel cells are already powering vehicles around the world—from buses and trucks to trains. Besides being manufactured using renewable energy, part of hydrogen’s appeal is that the main waste product of hydrogen combustion or fuel-cells is water, and although hydrogen fueled internal combustion engines will have NOx emissions, they can be reduced to very low levels.
NATURAL GAS IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Natural gas has been used as a fuel in vehicles for decades and is the most widely used alternative fuel. It performs as well as diesel in vehicles, and in some cases lowers emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants such as NOx and particulate matter. Natural gas is therefore a popular choice for heavy vehicles that operate in urban environments, such as garbage trucks, buses and delivery trucks.
Natural gas is also widely used in stationary applications. Natural gas, for example, can be used in highly efficient cogeneration systems providing electricity, heat, and, in some cases, cooling. Cummins has supplied equipment for numerous cogeneration systems, such as the system at Clark University, in Massachusetts (U.S.), where Cummins supplied a 2 MW QSV91G gas generator.
RENEWABLE NATURAL GAS IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Renewable natural gas is obtained from biogas, a methane-rich gas resulting from the fermentation of organic waste such as cow manure, sewage sludge or landfill organics. Adequately processed, renewable natural gas is nearly indistinguishable from natural gas. It can be used in any natural gas engine and in many industrial applications, such as power generation, giving up to a 97% reduction in CO₂, compared with diesel. Renewable natural gas is already emerging as a fuel for prime power generation in niche applications near to sources of renewable natural gas. Cummins carried out one such project in Delaware (U.S.) where landfill gas is used to power a combined heat and power (CHP) system to provide industrial customers with clean energy.
NATURAL GAS AND HYDROGEN BLENDS IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Green hydrogen can be blended with natural gas and injected into existing natural gas distribution systems. This automatically reduces the carbon intensity of all natural gas uses served by the pipeline. Using pipeline systems to distribute fuel blends that include hydrogen is not new and, for example, has been practiced for years on the island of Oahu in Hawaii (U.S.). Various pilot schemes plan to replace up to 20% of natural gas by volume content in distribution systems and blending will be widespread in Europe over the next 10 years, with the U.S. not far behind.
METHANOL IN YOUR DECARBONIZATION JOURNEY
Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, is a promising energy carrier derived from hydrogen or from biomass. Unlike hydrogen, methanol is a liquid at ambient temperature, making it easier to store and handle. It can be readily synthetized from hydrogen using well-known industrial processes. Methanol is a versatile fuel that is being used in a variety of applications today including Indy cars and monster trucks.
Several pilot projects designed to produce methanol from captured CO₂ and green hydrogen are up and running with more to come on-line in the next five years. The development of the process will be linked to the expansion of green hydrogen and CO₂ capture technologies.
When choosing an alternative fuel, it is important to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative fuel and its state of adoption.
"
Posted : 16/02/2024 6:44 pm
Thanks WGU very interesting.
Posted : 16/02/2024 6:50 pm
Some good insights into Hydrogen here, from the company I used to work for, Ricardo.
They talk a bit about the various applications and uses for it.
https://www.ricardo.com/en/innovation/technology-innovation/hydrogen
If you click through on some of the links there is some more info, including a free technical update PDF download on this page https://www.ricardo.com/en/news-and-insights/insights/free-download-hydrogen-technical-update
Posted : 16/02/2024 6:51 pm
I think ammonia got covered a few pages back.
It's not "a way round storing hydrogen" as such, it's a fuel you can sort-of use instead of other fuels but the byproduct is NOx rather than CO2.
Ammonia NH3
Methane CH4
NOx is not good for environment.
It's produced from oil and gas (or coal). The upside is you can then capture and store the carbon part of it at the refinery rather than trying to do it on the ship or wherever. It's already widely produced as an industrial product as it's the main component in fertilizer, the "new" bit is trying to create a market for it as a fuel.
On a small-ish scale you can also thermally/catalytically crack the NH3 back to N2 and H2 and put the H2 through a fuel cell, but you're trading easier storage for another expensive step in the system that adds inefficiency.
Posted : 16/02/2024 6:55 pm
Ammonia is produced from hydrogen so every problem with potentially manufacturing green hydrogen in the future is also a problem with manufacturing green ammonia. In addition ammonia must be produce by reacting it with nitrogen from the atmosphere at high temperatures and pressures, so it is even more expensive than hydrogen. And if you burn it as a fuel in an ICE vehicle it is way less efficient than H2 in a fuel cell so you need to produce even more which makes it more expensive again - and of course by burning it as an ICE fuel you make NOx which is a major pollutant that an H2 fuel cell avoids.
As a liquid it is generally much easier to store and handle than hydrogen, which is helpful. But it is toxic so any leaks from the storage, especially such as if a tank was broken in a road accident, would mean a large cloud of toxic gas wafting around potentially killing more people than the original impact. So it is not all roses.
Overall compared to hydrogen, ammonia trades higher cost and a toxic risk for easier handling. But like "green hydrogen" it is a long way away from being produced at the industrial quantities we would need for our transport system because you need so much green electricity that is not available today - but for ammonia even more again than for hydrogen. So for the foreseeable future it is at best a possible alternative to H2 for large HGVs, ships, etc, not a credible alternative to EVs for cars.
In the long term, supporters see green ammonia as a way to turn existing power plants into zero-emissions facilities by 2050.
So you get green electricity to inefficiently make green hydrogen to inefficiently make green ammonia to burn and inefficiently make . . . . . green electricity? What is that all about, other than keeping Japanese coal fired power stations open?
In the long term, supporters see green ammonia as a way to turn existing power plants into zero-emissions facilities by 2050.
Burning ammonia also creates a massive amount of NOx (lots more than burning gas), so there's no way at all that you can call it zero emissions. Ammonia as an LH2 carrier is another tough sell, but a direct ammonia fuel cell is a subject of interest, especially for heavier industries.
Posted : 16/02/2024 8:18 pm
So you get green electricity to inefficiently make green hydrogen to inefficiently make green ammonia to burn and inefficiently make . . . . . green electricity? What is that all about, other than keeping Japanese coal fired power stations open?
I presume the plan was more like
Australian coal -> Ammonia + CCS -> no carbon emission power stations -> ecological devastation of Korea due to acid rain.
Posted : 16/02/2024 9:28 pm
I presume the plan was more like Australian coal -> Ammonia + CCS -> no carbon emission power stations
Maybe, but still makes no sense compared to: Australian coal -> electricity & CCS in a power station. No need to make ammonia to then burn it in a Japanese power station?
Posted : 16/02/2024 10:01 pm
As per the info I posted above - as well as the other (non green) approaches ammonia can be produced from H2 which can be produced from electricity (from solar / wind etc as well as from non-green sources) but it's use is an an additional step from using H2 then it's another step less efficient than H2. So it's use would realistically be for applications where the storage benefits of ammonia outweigh the loss of efficiency compared to H2.
It's all a series of compromises which mean that different solutions best fit different applications - but that's engineering for you.
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