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Sustainable Fuels

Rolfe said:
I entirely agree. It's very similar to what we've seen surrounding hydrogen,
which always was a batcrap crazy idea but has been hyped and marketed to the skies as the answer to everything - all because it will prolong the use of petroleum products as fuel, and in one version of the tale it also perpetuates the ICE itself. The people whose business models rely on ICE technology and burning petroleum products will not let these go without a fight, and damn the planet. Consumers must be steered/frightened away from these cars which don't use the ICE and don't burn stuff. Regardless of the amount of money said consumers would save.

The fact is that the ICE is no longer needed as a mass power generation device. We can see that it was always a stop-gap while battery technology was developed to allow the electric motor to drive vehicles at desirable speeds for a desirable distance before needing to refuel. The ICE is becoming the God of the Gaps, and the gaps are getting smaller every year.
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I don't know if I agree entirely about it being a bat crap crazy idea. Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel. It is insanely abundant.

But the rest of this is entirely true. The oil companies probably sincerely hoped that selling hydrogen would allow a slower transition away from people buying the oil they sell. That it would protect their industry for a decade. Of course it won't work without solving a ridiculous number of inherent technical problems.
 
acbytesla said:
I don't know if I agree entirely about it being a bat crap crazy idea. Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel. It is insanely abundant.

But the rest of this is entirely true. The oil companies probably sincerely hoped that selling hydrogen would allow a slower transition away from people buying the oil they sell. That it would protect their industry for a decade. Of course it won't work without solving a ridiculous number of inherent technical problems.
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It may be abundant but AFAIK, it's not readily available.

If you're going to generate through electrolysis then you may as well use the electricity directly in EVs. There may be some use cases for hydrogen (planes and HGVs) but changes to behaviour could largely remove these.
 
acbytesla said:
I don't know if I agree entirely about it being a bat crap crazy idea. Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel. It is insanely abundant.

But the rest of this is entirely true. The oil companies probably sincerely hoped that selling hydrogen would allow a slower transition away from people buying the oil they sell. That it would protect their industry for a decade. Of course it won't work without solving a ridiculous number of inherent technical problems.
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Hydrogen leaks out of everything and has the problem of causing embrittlement. As a general purpose fuel for transport and heating it's a terrible idea and that's before you get to making the stuff.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Hydrogen leaks out of everything and has the problem of causing embrittlement. As a general purpose fuel for transport and heating it's a terrible idea and that's before you get to making the stuff.
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Yeah, that's a weird fact I learned a while back in a discussion like this. Stick it in a steel tank? I leaks through the steel!
 
The Don said:
It may be abundant but AFAIK, it's not readily available.

If you're going to generate through electrolysis then you may as well use the electricity directly in EVs. There may be some use cases for hydrogen (planes and HGVs) but changes to behaviour could largely remove these.
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Hydrogen in it's pure form on earth is not readily available. It bonds with almost everything with the conditions on this planet. So to access that hydrogen, you have to break those bonds which we don't know how to do without using energy. It also is the lightest element which makes it problematic to store and transport. I'm very much interested in continuing research in solving the many problems with using it. But not holding our breath.
 
Another problem with hydrogen is it's flammable even in small quantities mixed with air. Coupled with its propensity to damage materials and the difficulty in containing it, that would make turning the light on in the boiler room or filling up the car exciting!

If I was you I wouldn't start from here.
 
Since we're sadly obliged to start from here, what are the most promising solutions for air travel and heavy goods vehicles?

Short haul air is just within the grasp of battery electric planes, but longer flights need something else. What are the realistic candidates for the proportion that doesn't go away when you tell everyone to fly less?
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Since we're sadly obliged to start from here, what are the most promising solutions for air travel and heavy goods vehicles?

Short haul air is just within the grasp of battery electric planes, but longer flights need something else. What are the realistic candidates for the proportion that doesn't go away when you tell everyone to fly less?
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If we mostly stopped eating meat then some of the land currently used for grazing cattle growing the food to feed cattle could be used to grow crops for biofuels. Human waste is also another relatively untapped source.
 
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acbytesla said:
Hydrogen in it's pure form on earth is not readily available. It bonds with almost everything with the conditions on this planet. So to access that hydrogen, you have to break those bonds which we don't know how to do without using energy. It also is the lightest element which makes it problematic to store and transport. I'm very much interested in continuing research in solving the many problems with using it. But not holding our breath.
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Yes, that's why it was always a batcrap crazy idea. Virtually all the hydrogen atoms on this planet are chemically bonded to other elements in the form of stable compounds. It's axiomatic that breaking these bonds is going to require more energy than you get from reforming them. Something about the first law of thermodynamics and perpetual motion machines. It not only leaks through any container you devise to contain it, it actually causes the containers to become brittle and even more leaky. The energy density in volumetric terms is ridiculously low and even to get off the starting blocks you have to cool it down way below freezing. It's self-evidently, obviously insane. Not to mention scary dangerous.

These things are going to prevent its use for either aviation or shipping too. I read some calculations about the volume of hydrogen you'd need to ship in order to make that work in either situation and it was quite clearly prohibitive. Never mind that it's always trying to escape (and succeeding).

I am aware of small setups were surplus solar generation is used to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen which is then stored for use during sunless periods, and they seem to work, but I'd prefer not to live that close to a tank of hydrogen to be honest, and it sounds like an application that will be overtaken in future by improving battery technology. It's a pipe dream perpetuated by people who want to sell all these other colours of hydrogen that come from petrochemicals, and people who fondly imagine it's a way to cling to their beloved internal combustion engines.

Biofuels are at least a better idea than hydrogen, but like hydrogen they're mainly being hyped by ICE enthusiasts. And beef isn't really the problem. You have to do something with the hill land that isn't any use for crops. It's dairy cattle that feed on the land that might grow other crops, and good luck persuading people to give up milk, butter, cream and so on.
 
Rolfe said:
Biofuels are at least a better idea than hydrogen, but like hydrogen they're mainly being hyped by ICE enthusiasts. And beef isn't really the problem. You have to do something with the hill land that isn't any use for crops. It's dairy cattle that feed on the land that might grow other crops, and good luck persuading people to give up milk, butter, cream and so on.
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ourworldindata.org

Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture

More than three-quarters of global agricultural land is used for livestock, despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world's protein and calories.
ourworldindata.org ourworldindata.org

There's 6 million sq.km used to grow crops to feed animals and 8 million sq.km for growing crops to feed humans. 2 million sq.km are used for textiles and biofuels. So there's scope for ~2x increase in biofuels if meat and dairy were considerably scaled down.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
ourworldindata.org

Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture

More than three-quarters of global agricultural land is used for livestock, despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world's protein and calories.
ourworldindata.org ourworldindata.org

There's 6 million sq.km used to grow crops to feed animals and 8 million sq.km for growing crops to feed humans. 2 million sq.km are used for textiles and biofuels. So there's scope for ~2x increase in biofuels if meat and dairy were considerably scaled down.
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I'm not a fan of using habitable lands to produce biofuels. Ethanol is a US farm State disaster in the making. 30 to 40 percent of the corn grown in the US is used to create ethanol. Farmers have invested huge amounts for grain bins, combines, etc to grow corn to produce ethanol. The day is certainly approaching when ethanol mandates will end and half the country will be driving EVs. That means bankruptcy for many farms.
 
Rolfe said:
Yes, that's why it was always a batcrap crazy idea. Virtually all the hydrogen atoms on this planet are chemically bonded to other elements in the form of stable compounds. It's axiomatic that breaking these bonds is going to require more energy than you get from reforming them. Something about the first law of thermodynamics and perpetual motion machines. It not only leaks through any container you devise to contain it, it actually causes the containers to become brittle and even more leaky. The energy density in volumetric terms is ridiculously low and even to get off the starting blocks you have to cool it down way below freezing. It's self-evidently, obviously insane. Not to mention scary dangerous.
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I see the possibility of storing hydrogen in graphite or other CNT like sponges and releasing it from the sponges.when the hydrogen is needed. It's very possible but still with huge technological hurdles. And I'm not a fan of using the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine. I am more interested in fuel cells to create electricity..

That said, as batteries get better, this idea too will very likely fizzle out.
 
Ideas have to be given a chance, but I think this one used up its last chance quite some time ago.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Since we're sadly obliged to start from here, what are the most promising solutions for air travel and heavy goods vehicles?

Short haul air is just within the grasp of battery electric planes, but longer flights need something else. What are the realistic candidates for the proportion that doesn't go away when you tell everyone to fly less?
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The simplest solution is just let airlines use whatever fuel they want. However the cost of cleaning up the mess should be incorporated into the price. This will reduce demand for airline travel because tickets will cost a lot more, like they used to. As theprestige says, people will have to sacrifice.

Now might also be a good time to praise Trump for his contribution to the cause. By making the US an unpopular tourist destination he is not only reducing nasty stratospheric pollution but also getting people used to the idea of not making those trips. And that's not all. We should also thank Trump for applying tariffs which are dramatically reducing cargo shipping to the US. Hopefully his plan to crash the US economy will cause a severe depression with high unemployment. History has shown that this is the most effective way to cut back on fossil fuel usage.

And a big shout-out to all those Americans who will be making these sacrifices to save the planet - especially Trump supporters who voted for it.
 
A very substantial proportion of shipping, and a not insignificant proportion of heavy road traffic, is devoted to moving hydrocarbon fuels around the globe. Cut the use of hydrocarbon fuels right down and it's a double win.
 
acbytesla said:
They have super chargers that charge a vehicle far quicker than you can at home.
At home if you use a standard 110V household outlet (Level 1 charging) it will add only a few miles of range per hour, potentially taking several days to fully charge a depleted battery.
At home using a 240V Outlet (Level 2):
This is the most common home charging method. (like those used for a dryer) It will chage much faster, typically adding 20-40 miles of range per hour. This can fully charge a Model 3 overnight (8-12 hours).
Superchargers: These are DC fast-charging stations. They are much faster than home charging. They can add 150-200 miles of range in less than 30 minutes
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240V is the standard across Europe for household electricity.
 
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