Hydrogen vs ethanol vs electric car

[sushi]

what can replace fossil fuel and become fuel of the future.

I heard alot of neg press about hydrogen being crap, only Japan is invested it.

but then ethanol and biodesiel is takes alot of land to grow, and you have to sacrfice food crops to grow fuel crops. and ethanol energy isn't as good as oil.

so what can replace oil and power our carbon free transportation? if you have any other efficient fuel source and elements you want to share, feel free to do it.

 

[Cognisant]

People will go electric before they turn to bio-fuels because that fuel can't get any cheaper but you can always build more nuclear power plants and we're not going to run out of uranium any time soon.

Hydrogen already can't compete with batteries and if energy density is your goal there's better fuels you can synthesize, it's just more energy intensive to do so, which won't matter in a fusion energy economy.

 

[peoplesuck]

how about we all use our lamborfeeties

 

[sushi]

People will go electric before they turn to bio-fuels because that fuel can't get any cheaper but you can always build more nuclear power plants and we're not going to run out of uranium any time soon.

Hydrogen already can't compete with batteries and if energy density is your goal there's better fuels you can synthesize, it's just more energy intensive to do so, which won't matter in a fusion energy economy.

My current hypothesis is that they are not going to use biofuels because its even worse than petro in terms of energy density and efficiency, though i still lack data. Biofuels won't be mass consumed like petroleum and fossil fuels.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and on earth in oceans so obviously its going to go hydrogen or some other kind of synthetic fuel.

 

[sushi]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ir-and-water-could-power-globe-without-carbon

it seems like ammonia is a new contestant to hydrogen.

 

[sushi]

One of the core problems with replacing fossil fuels throughout a modern industrial economy is the difficulty of finding replacement fuels for coal, oil, and natural gas. A new report from researchers at McGill University suggests that powdered metal fuels could be an effective replacement for the fossil fuels we currently rely on, while simultaneously slashing carbon emissions and environmental costs.
According to professor Jeffrey Bergthorson, the rise in renewable power is laudable, but only addresses part of the problem. Neither solar nor wind power provides enough electricity to directly drive a car, much less a freighter. Battery technology can fill this gap to some extent, but historic battery improvements simply aren’t growing quickly enough to meet the gap. As the chart below shows, battery energy density has only improved by roughly 3% per year since 1910.
Battery capacity over time. Don’t let the jumps fool you — the long-term trend is quite low.
Absent a massive and unexpected improvement in Li-ion technology, something else is needed. Enter powdered metal fuels.
Pow(d)ering the modern economy?
First, the good news: Unlike Li-ion batteries, which have absolutely miserable energy density whether you measure by weight or volume, powdered metal’s energy density per liter dwarfs any conventional fuel. The grains of powder in question would be quite fine — roughly equivalent to flour — and the engines themselves would rely on external combustion In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of gases applies force to the engine components directly — an external combustion engine contains a fluid that is heated by an external source. Both Stirling engines and steam engines are external combustion engines, though the former can be far more efficient than the latter.
In theory, powdered metal engines would have significant environmental advantages compared to conventional fossil fuels. The metal itself can potentially be recycled (the image below is from a separate story from 2005, but captures the theoretical recycling process):

The major announcement out of McGill today is that its research team has demonstrated that a stable flame can be sustained in a flow of metal particles suspended in the air. The team writes that “the energy and power densities of the proposed metal-fueled heat engines are predicted to be close to current fossil-fueled internal combustion engines, making them an attractive technology for a future low-carbon society.”
Despite the real potential of powdered metal, there are some substantial barriers to entry that McGill’s PR doesn’t really address. The first problem is that while powdered metals are quite efficient in terms of specific energy per liter, they don’t compare well at all in terms of specific energy per kilogram. This is particularly true of iron, which is often floated as the replacement fuel source thanks to its abundance and low cost. Other metals, like aluminum, are incredibly explosive in powdered form and are a non-option for stable combustion.

The other problem with the proposed use of powdered metal as a primary fuel source is that it would require a huge infrastructure investment in heavy mining equipment — investments that would not, themselves, be carbon neutral. Granted, this is true no matter what approach we take, since lithium mining isn’t exactly carbon neutral, either — but the processes required to turn iron ore into the fine-grained particulate required to use it as a fuel would require additional energy over and above simple smelting. The research team doesn’t address this at all, beyond noting that “some novel techniques can avoid the carbon dioxide emissions associated with traditional iron production using coal.”
Loosely translated, that means: “Nobody has figured out how to do this in a cost-competitive manner.” We’ve seen similar problems with hydrogen fuel cells. While hydrogen can theoretically be produced via the electrolysis of water using energy provided by renewable resources, it’s not remotely cost-competitive to do so. The hydrogen used in fuel cell vehicles today, what little there is of it, is typically produced by natural gas reformation — a decidedly non carbon-neutral process.
One of the intrinsic difficulties of trying to find better alternatives to existing infrastructure is that many improvements only address one aspect of the total ecosystem. Ideally, even these modest advances can be used to lower the environmental impact of the entire system — but all too often, costs and difficulty are offloaded into other areas.
Powdered metal has some interesting upsides, and it could provide an alternative in certain use cases — but it’s hard to imagine the technology emerging as a serious contender at this point. After all, GM once demonstrated (and confidently predicted) that vehicles would run on coal dust the consistency of flour, or even liquified coal by the turn the century.
The future is now! Unless it isn’t.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme...ssil-fuels-eliminate-greenhouse-gas-emissions

 

[lightfire]

horse.

 

[Cognisant]

 

[lightfire]

 

[Cognisant]

I can't tell if that's a "thanks for the backup" smile or "fucker stole my point" death stare.

Spoiler

 

[lightfire]

Oh sorry. It's a thanks thingy. Also smiled because that's like hilarious.

 

[sushi]

horse.

horse is not a fuel.

 

[travelnjones]

Give it time

 

[sushi]

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, 'Success is simply not possible.'
• A 2017 survey of 1,000 global auto executives concluded hydrogen fuel cell technology will ultimately outperform battery-powered electric vehicles.

A customer fills a car with hydrogen at a TrueZero fueling station in Mill Valley, California. The state is spending more than $2.5 billion in clean energy funds to accelerate sales of hydrogen and battery vehicles. That includes $900 million earmarked to complete 200 hydrogen stations and 250,000 charging stations by 2025.
Tesla and its competitors in the battery-powered electric vehicle market dominate debate over who will control the future of cars, but there's another kind of green transportation technology making inroads in the United States, and it is based on the planet's most abundant resource.
Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) combine hydrogen stored in a tank with oxygen from the air to produce electricity, with water vapor as the by-product. Unlike more common battery-powered electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles don't need to be plugged in, and current models all exceed 300 miles of range on a full tank. They're filled up with a nozzle almost as quickly as traditional gas and diesel vehicles. While fuel cell vehicles themselves only emit water vapor from their tailpipes, the Union of Concerned Scientists notes that producing hydrogen can lead to pollution. Though renewable sources of hydrogen, such as agricultural and waste sites, are increasing, the majority of the hydrogen sourced for fuel comes from traditional natural gas extraction. Still, the impact is still less thangasoline-powered counterparts.
Hydrogen power has been on the market for years but in an extremely limited capacity. There are currently 39 public hydrogen fueling stations in California (with another 25 in development), along with a couple in Hawaii. Now the East Coast is getting its own infrastructure. A handful of stations are up and running, and more are in the works in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Commercial success, consumer challenges
Hydrogen is more established in the commercial market. There are more than 23,000 fuel cell-powered forklifts in operation at warehouses and distribution centers across the U.S. in more than 40 states, including at Amazon and Walmart facilities. There are dozens of fuel cell buses in use or planned in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts, as well as California.
Consumer hydrogen refueling stations are increasing throughout the world. Toyota and Honda are teaming up with the government in Quebec to build hydrogen infrastructure in Montreal this year, and even oil-rich Saudi Arabia is getting its first station.
Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, is the largest player in the U.S. consumer market for hydrogen fuel cell cars. Its Mirai – a hydrogen fuel cell family car – has found 5,000 buyers since it was introduced in the fall of 2015. Russ Koble, a spokesman in Toyota's environmental and advanced technology group, said the company expects sales to increase as more fueling stations open.
"Toyota has long maintained that hydrogen fuel cell technology could be a zero-emission solution across a broad spectrum of vehicle types," he said.
Toyota says the scalability of hydrogen fuel cell technology also has led to two applications for California feasibility studies in another area of interest to Tesla: semi-trailer trucks.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Toyota Motor's hydrogen fuel cell powered semi-truck is displayed at AutoMobility LA ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show
Honda also has made a big commitment to hydrogen. There are currently nearly 1,100 Honda Clarity Fuel Cell vehicles on the road in the U.S., said Natalie Kumaratne, a Honda spokeswoman. Honda only offers the Clarity Fuel Cell in California for lease — it offers battery electric power and hybrid versions of the car for lease or sale. Out of the 20,174 total Claritys sold or leased in 2018, 624 were fuel cell variants, 948 were battery-electrics, and 18,602 were the plug-in hybrid.
Honda and Toyota have teamed up with a subsidiary of Shell Oil to build new hydrogen fueling stations in California. Two have been built thus far, and five are in the works, Kumaratne said. The company is advocating for stations in the Northeastern United States, with several in development. "Partnering with other hydrogen fuel cell manufacturers and industry influencers makes sense. We all have skin in the game," she said.
Hyundai, which currently has 220 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road in the U.S., also sees sales increasing. "We expect the Northeast to be the next big region of hydrogen infrastructure growth," said Derek Joyce, spokesman for the Korean manufacturer's product and advanced powertrain group. The company just introduced the Nexo to the U.S. The EPA rates the midsize crossover's range up to 380 miles, longer than any battery-powered EV on the market.
As of Feb.1, just over 6,000 fuel cell electric vehicles had been sold and leased in the U.S., double Japan, the next biggest market.
Musk on hydrogen 'fool cells'
Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk has dismissed hydrogen fuel cells as "mind-bogglingly stupid," and that is not the only negative thing he has had to say about the technology. He has called them "fool cells," a "load of rubbish," and told Tesla shareholders at an annual meeting years ago that "success is simply not possible."
Musk found a surprising source of support in 2017, when Yoshikazu Tanaka, chief engineer in charge of the Mirai, told Reuters, "Elon Musk is right — it's better to charge the electric car directly by plugging in." But the Toyota executive added that hydrogen is a viable alternative to gasoline. Toyota chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada told Reuters at the same Tokyo auto show in 2017, "We don't really see an adversary 'zero-sum' relationship between the EV (battery powered electric vehicle) and the hydrogen car. We're not about to give up on hydrogen electric fuel-cell technology at all."
The auto industry as a whole has not embraced Musk's battery-or-bust vision of the future. A 2017 survey of 1,000 senior auto executives conducted by KPMG found they believe hydrogen fuel cells have a better long-term future than electric cars and will represent "the real breakthrough" (78 percent), with the auto executives citing the short refueling time of just a few minutes as a major advantage. Sixty-two percent told KPMG that infrastructure challenges will result in the battery-powered electric vehicle market's undoing.
In California, debate continues over whether the subsidies offered by the state to jump-start the fuel cell market have paid back the investment as judged by the limited use of refueling stations and lack of profits. California is committed to the effort begun under former Gov. Jerry Brown to fund renewable energy initiatives, which included a $900 million zero-emissions vehicles plan and funding for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, including 200 hydrogen stations by 2025.

"We could see hydrogen fuel cell systems that cost four times less than lithium-ion batteries, as well as providing a much longer range."-David Antonelli, chair of physical chemistry at Lancaster University

GM has not released a fuel cell vehicle for the consumer market, but it has a joint venture with Honda to produce fuel cell stacks at a Michigan plant, a deal that started in 2013 and expanded in 2017, when both companies said the Michigan plant where the fuel stacks are being made could produce vehicles starting in 2020.
Ford has experimented with fuel cell variants of its Focus and Fusion cars, as well as the Edge crossover, but does not offer any such vehicles for sale.
"With a steadily growing share of renewable energies, hydrogen fuel cells could play a role in the future," said a Ford spokesman. "In terms of a widespread market launch, however, the battery is currently in a superior position to the fuel cell – not least because of the cost situation and the available infrastructure. Our work will continue to focus on electrification as we monitor hydrogen's progress. We have no current plans to offer hydrogen fuel cell vehicles."
Fiat Chrysler does not have a fuel cell vehicle on sale in the U.S., but for 15 years it has supported research led by Professor David Antonelli, the chair of physical chemistry at Lancaster University in the U.K., that could bring costs down for the technology. His team is working with a material that enables fuel tanks to be smaller, cheaper and more energy-dense than existing hydrogen fuel technologies as well as battery-powered vehicles.
"The cost of manufacturing our material is so low, and the energy density it can store is so much higher than a lithium-ion battery, that we could see hydrogen fuel cell systems that cost four times less than lithium-ion batteries, as well as providing a much longer range," said Antonelli. The technology has been licensed to a for-profit company called Kubagen, set up by Antonelli.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/mus...ay-threaten-tesla.html?recirc=taboolainternal