Comments by "David H" (@DavidHalko) on "Engineering Explained"
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The problem is…
… if we had to stop creating gasoline/diesel ICE today, the copper & rare earths for batteries becomes a bottleneck for any battery cars & H2 fuel cell cars (ignoring issue with electrical generation & transmission)
… if we had to to stop creating gasoline/diesel ICE today, H2 ICE could replace it with relatively little effort (ignoring issue with H2 generation & transmission)
The electrical grid issue for EV’s is a huge nut to crack. The spikes in power usage, around rush hour & when people get home, will be immense. Massive local batteries can be used, to mitigate, but that wipes out carbon footprint benefit EV’s offer. Not enough attention is given to this.
The hydrogen generation problem is significant, but can be addressed in many ways, from natural gas being used with H2 mix & transport over existing natural gas pipelines, replacing natural gas infrastructure with H2 piping as mix levels grow too high, transportation via truck to fill up sites like existing gasoline/diesel, to local H2 generation (using local solar & wind) into local hydrogen storage, slowly over time, for rapid fill ups.
No technology is perfect, but locality & availability & supply chain issues & temporary storage issues must all be considered.
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@beanapprentice1687 - “did you not watch the video?
Yep
“entire video was about how storing enough hydrogen in an H2 car for long range is impossible”
It is being done in California & Japan, so it is not impossible.
The video was about an 8 cylinder vehicle, with space already taken up for gasoline tank and possibly batteries, could not store the H2.
That is very different.
Use a smaller engine, shed the gas tanks, and poof - it works, as it is working in multiple nations.
Small Tuk Tuk’s in the Third World are already running on Natural Gas, can run on H2 mix, and are working towards running on H2.
It is coming, because there is not enough copper mined for electric motors, nor is there enough rare earths mined for batteries.
Even if wealthy nations move to batteries, H2 will drive the Third World
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@YKSGuy - “You can’t ignore H2 generation, transportation, and storage”
Which is why if you read the second half of the message, I addressed it.
“Video… example… H2… would STILL not work well”
But, H2 works well in vehicles today, in the US & Japan & other nations.
The videos uses a vehicle with space taken up by a gasoline tank and an 8 cylinder guzzling engine… what the video shows is if you don’t reuse the space for a gasoline tank and want to run with an inefficient 8 cylinder, there is not a lot of room left.
Sure, I agree with that.
Technically, this is called a “straw man”, which is a logical fallacy.
The reality is, how many companies would sell a car with a gasoline tank that is unused and use the spare interior space in order to use an 8 cylinder engine?
Absolutely none
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@alecstetzer2018 - “why use it [energy] to generate Hydrogen when you could just charge a battery and minimize losses”
1. Energy by itself must be stored for mobile applications
2. Storing energy in H2 is like storing energy in a Battery
3. Batteries [due to rare earths] today are scarce, vehicles require a lot of [scarce] copper for electric (and fuel cell H2 vehicles are also impacted by this problem.)
4. Hydrogen can be easily stored using conventional technologies
5. Hydrogen can be easily created &!stored & combusted in ICE engines using conventional [locally available] technologies
6. When needing to create mobile vehicles around the world, ICE H2 scales best, Fuel Cell H2 will scales ok, battery vehicles scale worst… H2 also solve the problem of how to locally store energy from intermittent energy sources (like sun & wind) for stationary & mobile use [using locally sourced supply chain technology.]
7. Supply chain issues with batteries can easily shift production to H2 Fuel Cell batteries
8. Supply chain issues with copper will stop H2 fuel cell & Battery vehicles
9. Hydrogen is largely immune from supply chain issues, with locality of nearly all components (if people just decide to create & use it.)
Sometimes, efficiency is not required, but availability of useable technology is required… scarcity of copper & batteries [rare earths] will delay world wide implementation, while hydrogen can be made readily available (can be easily generated anywhere brackish water exists.)
That being said, battery recycling is still a huge challenge, while basic components for Hydrogen are easily recycled.
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@RobertHancock1 - “Apparently you didn’t watch the video”
Actually, I watched the whole video!
“using hydrogen in combustion engines is completely impractical?”
Actually, very practical… one just has to make a decision not to use an 8 cylinder in a small car! ROTFL!
An 8 cylinder may be great in a larger truck!
Try a rotary engine… tiny, can burn hydrogen, adds lots of space for more fuel.
Once rare earths & copper become available, transition to H2 fuel cell.
“low level engineering scale for hydrogen production”
As of March 2020, Japan opened 10 MegaWatt H2 Production Plant
I guess you missed that ;-)
“low level engineering scale for hydrogen… distribution”
In January 2020, natural gas supply at UK’s Keele University was successfully blended with 20% Hydrogen. The 20% proportion was chosen because the blend won’t affect gas pipes & appliances. Natural gas heating generates about a third of the UK emissions driving global warming. 20% blend in Britain would reduce emissions of CO2 by six million tonnes - equivalent to taking 2.5 million cars off the road.
As of June 2021, ~160 hydrogen fuel stations in Japan, 1000 projected by 2030
As of Oct 2021, Japan has 4,000 hydrogen cars on the road, meeting 10% of government targets. It takes just three minutes to fill the tank with 5.6 kilograms of pressurized gas.
As of Oct 2021, Californians own more more than 11,000 hydrogen fuel cars… and there are places to fill them up!
In Jan 2022, the first Liquified Hydrogen carrier from port of Victoria, Australia arrives in Kobe, Japan
“Infrastructure for mass fueling of hydrogen vehicles does not exist”
I this we discussed some of those, above, already. Can be done in existing gas stations, with additions not much different from today’s processes… as that is what is happening today.
Infrastructure for EV charging does not exist, and it is a HUGE problem!
An EV takes like 2.5x an average house’s daily power consumption to fill up an EV car battery, and must be done in minutes??? That is CRAZY!
The problem with EV charging stations is HUGE, trying to be able to supply fast chargers to multiple cars at the same time??? That is a HUGE problem, with those power draw spikes!!!
A local H2 cracker & compressor can be installed anywhere there is water & electricity, with a constant load on the electrical system, or using renewables… storing Hydrogen in tanks, constantly being produced, for the next random fast fill up.
Also, wind turbines can create a steady stream of hydrogen, for sending to anywhere, especially off-shore, where water pressure can push hydrogen from below the surface, where it would be cracked.
For today, start with natural gas, like much of the Third World, mix H2 to 20%, then problematic infrastructure can be replaced as you go higher in percentages. They already do NG public transportation by me, H2 is coming!
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@lukerediger8431 - “no one in their house has a 600v DC fast charger”
I never claimed anyone did or did not.
Whether they do or do not is irrelevant.
“If you’re home”
This is a great place to charge a car, if you charge off peak hours.
This is great, until California or Texas tells you you can’t charge your EV, due to threatening the health of the electrical grid during a heat wave.
The problem is with high density living areas, with large quantities of apartments, where fast chargers will be required.
People will not be able to easily charge at cheap times, because those chargers will be shared, when people can get access to them.
“no clue”
Perhaps you are just out of touch with normal Americans, who live out of apartments.
65% of Americans under 35 rent.
They are not the rich people, who can afford Tesla’s, where they can charge their car at home over night, at a good rate.
64% of millennials regret owning a home.
These people will find it expensive, after abandoning home ownership, to own an electric car.
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@greglockyer4335 - “petrol is not a dangerous combustible fuel”
Petrol, by itself, is fine. It must evaporate & have an external ignition source.
If a petrol storage container is pierced, then it evaporates, vapor hovers near the ground, but still needs an external ignition source.
H2, in some ways, is much safer… a piercing of a container will see the h2 float into the air away from the container & dissipate very quickly, likely avoiding external ignition sources close to the ground.
Lithium Lion batteries can be more dangerous than petrol, with battery piercing causing thermal runaway, even without without an external ignition source.
All energy is dangerous & dirty.
Energy must be respected.
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@jasonjaafar - “the battery will be recycled”
Not really happening yet. Maybe someday, hopefully someday. These are not lead acid batteries.
“Once gasoline is burned”
Once the electricity is used, you have to generate more.
The battery is equivalent to a gas tank on an ICE car. A battery is just a big expensive gas tank that is not as easily recycled as a steel gas tank in an ice car.
“Petroleum is a finite source”
Not really. You can make it from CO2. Natural gas and hydrogen can also be used instead of gasoline. Petroleum is just easy to get, since crude has seeped out of the ground for thousands of years.
“Petroleum… mining is also destructive to the environment”
Oil spoils the environment, by just existing. It is better to clean up the tar sands by removing it & using it, rather than just letting it spoil the land.
It will eventually bubble up out of the earth & spew into the oceans with a small earthquake, so we might as well not let it go to waste, and just use it.
Harvesting petroleum will not stop with the advent of electric vehicles… it is used for water bottles, cups, disposable silverware, disposable plates,clothing, carpets, house siding, roofing, flooring, paint, electric motor windings, electric wire insulation, plastic car parts, battery separators, etc.
Moving to electric cars will do little about harvesting oil. The amount of copper mines opened for all the wire needed for EV’s & charging stations is outrageous. And petroleum is used for all that mining & transport & refining of copper.
None of this is to say that EV or plug in hybrids are bad things, the better we can conserve petroleum, the better for humanity. There are just better ways to conserve it.
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@lukerediger8431 - “hydrogen burns so hot…”
Which is why it is burned lean
“Only specialized engines…”
Existing engines & burners can take a 20% mix of Hydrogen with Natural Gas today… which is actually GREAT since we can start the transition now by mixing H2 with existing Natural Gas. Mix of 20% H2 with NG is being done in UK homes today as well as in states like Georgia US for power turbines.
Existing diesel engines can burn more efficiently & reduce emissions by injecting Hydrogen, and this is being done in Europe today.
“Cannot feasibly over come thos issues by a ‘tweaking’ “
Mazda demonstrated their rotary engine can run on Gasoline or Hydrogen in 2003. Same engines, with a tweek.
Cummins announced redesigns of existing popular B, L, and X series diesel engines to become fuel-agnostic, to run on hydrogen or diesel or natural gas, from 6.7 Liter to 15 Liter displacements. This was announced February 2022. Same engines, with a tweek.
Transport Enterprise Leasing (TEL) signed letter of intent to purchase the Cummins X15H hydrogen engines to integrate into their heavy-duty truck fleet. This was announced September 2022.
The first v12 dual fuel Diesel / Hydrogen tug boat built in Spain, delivered to Belgium, hydrogen system installation at the Port of Ostend, and tug trials by the end of this year. Hydrotug 1 to be fully operational at the Port of Antwerp during the first quarter of 2023.
Clearly, the industry had dive so, and they are doing it now.
“If you are going to replace all existing anyway…”
We don’t need to replace it all, except for EV fast charging stations.
A single fast charge will take the 3 days of a typical home’s energy in 30 minutes??? ROTFL! How many fast charging stations in a gas station??? THAT is going to require A LOT of new electrical lines!!! That is going to be EXPENSIVE electricity to buy, NOT residential rates!!!
Fuel cells have the same copper shortage problem that EV’s have. To replace the cars in the UK with EV’s - it would take 1 year’s worth of worldwide copper production.
Natural Gas refueling infrastructure already exists: all of the mass transportation by me runs on natural fast today; we had EV charging stations near me for the past 20 years, they have been getting closed up, and only a single charging station exists near me at a Walgreens.
Hydrogen can be delivered to the same service station locations, without the the service station needing to be close to a substation which received massive power upgrades.
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@lukerediger8431 - “energy… H2… compare to an EV”
I have 4 EV modules at the house… where a typical EV would have 10. My house can run for 24 hours, including my HVAC system… so charging an EV requires about 2.5x the amount of energy that my house takes… and that needs to be delivered in 20-30 minutes in a fast charger?
It costs a lot of money for that kind of draw, over a short period of time.
Generating H2 and compressing can be done, any time, and added to a tank through compression. The power consumption to do this is gradual, can be spread out, at a reduced charge from the power company, or H2 generation can be done when energy is cheap.
If done with solar or wind, the energy from intermittent sources can effectively be stored by converting to H2 & stored in a tank. The tank is cheap and lasts the lifetime of the car, not being a consumable.
EV’s require fossil fuels to mine, ship elements, manufacture batteries, ship batteries. The batteries are a consumable in an EV, where EV’s replace batteries occasionally. (My friends have needed to, including my next door neighbor.)
After the EV is running, it will take somewhere between 41k-93k before the CO2 deficit for the battery is recovers, and that CO2 deficit is an analogue for energy used to ship, manufacture, and install. The battery will need to be replaced at least once, in the average life expectancy of a car.
Better to go with H2, where the CO2 deficit is tiny for the H2 tank, which is an analogue for energy spent to ship & manufacture & install, and spend a more on fill ups, but at least it can be clean energy.
“adding thousands of dollars to… ICE”
With EV’s, tens of thousands of dollars are being added to a chassis… and the electrical infrastructure to do fast charging is far more ridiculous.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about”
Having friends & neighbors with EV’s and using EV batteries… I have a clue.
I also use quite a bit of natural gas, as well as the mass transportation in my area. Moving to a higher percentage of hydrogen is something I am looking forward to!
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@lukerediger8431 - “apartment complexes… the grid in those areas have no issues with rapid chargers”
In my area, every former bank & restaurant & laundromat has been getting purchased by… big oil gas stations!
Is the gas needed?
No.
There has been enough gasoline stations for decades, with the high density apartment complexes.
The real estate is needed for electric cars that are coming, because they can’t plug in their cars to charge at their townhouses.
The plug ins are a problem… these will all become fast chargers.
“The grid in those areas have no issue with rapid chargers”
When an EV battery requires 2.5x days of the power an entire house uses, in 20-30 minutes… then repeatedly over & over again, by people coming home from work… the power spikes will be incredibly high during rush hour & immediately afterwards, until dinner time, or early in the morning, before the sun comes up, before going to work.
For normal rich people, electric car can charge at home, it does not really matter when they suck the power from the grid, it can happen when power is cheap.
For the poor, their charge time will be rush hour. For the poor, it will be around the time school busses are running, because they work when the kids are in school and they are taking care of kids at home.
How does the grid handle this?
This new unusual power usage amplifies spot power demand, which will be delivered by fossil fuels. Solar is at it’s peak during lunch time, so it is useless for charging the EV’s. These fossil fuel spot generators have a much higher cost than efficient base power.
Charging an EV on a long road trip, dominated by fast chargers, costs about the same amount of money per gallon of gasoline in my car, at pre-Putin invasion gas prices of 2019.
Once the poor in apartments start getting EV’s, the spot energy will rise. Around rush hour.
“Generating hydrogen on the spot costs more…”
But H2 can be created all day long, at the cheapest electricity rates, where storage tanks can be filled and emptied as people come in. Savings & Profit incentivizes the use of storage tanks, the same way existing gasoline & diesel & e95 & propane tanks re filled up off hours to make energy available during peak times.
Contrast this to electricity, which must be generated on demand, as people are needing it, as hundreds & thousands of cars need fast chargers… each EV 2.5x the power of an entire house, in minutes. Then, as soon as people start dinner with their kids, those generators must be turned off. If there is not enough supply or too much supply, the grid collapses.
That is expensive & complex & dangerous.
But H2 can come through an additional pipe, the same way natural gas comes through an additional pipe, and not through the bottleneck of the grid.
But H2 can come through a truck, the same way propane & gasoline & diesel & e95 comes through trucks, and not through the bottleneck of the grid.
“Another level of complexity”
The grid was never designed for mobility.
The additional level of complexity of H2 solves a problem that the electrical grid has… satisfying the needs for spikes in demand by spreading the load across a 24 hour interval.
EV charging is basically the same problem with of Wind and Solar intermittent power, but in reverse… EV charging is intermittent discharging when there is no sunlight.
H2 complexity solves the power charging & discharging intermittency.
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Hey @theJerkson - I never claimed primarily home 🏡 based charging, by the rich, will cause an issue with massive spikes, but rather urban areas will incur the problem… where the least amount of Far Eastern sourced renewable energy will be available, during the narrow time slots (when people are getting to their flats, before dinner 🍲 with their families) when charging power will be needed.
Watching the “investments” by Big Oil in charging stations is incredible. This will be the cheapest return on their investment that they ever did, with the least amount of risk.
The irony is the shift from dependence of oil ⛽️ in the Mid East to batteries 🔋 in the Far East , with Big Oil being paid by government “infrastructure” laws so there is no risk.
It is no wonder 💭 why popular politicians get so rich 💰 from their buy-offs while citizens just get poorer through inflation.
People get poorer when energy is not harvested domestically, because the government borrows money 💴 and just pays foreign nations, who basically buy everything up with cash 💰 when interest rates are too high for domestic guests & citizens to get a loan. The guests & citizens just become slaves on plantations owned by foreigners who bought off the politicians. The new imperialism, through corruption.
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“randomly falling corn” was the worst part of the video, where Jason could have applied his time speaking about pragmatic concerns like farm equipment reuse, land reuse for different types of corn, expertise gained to make the land appropriate to switch in a single season between human food, animal food, machine fuel… as well as the added benefits of long term storage for each in food jars, food cans, animal barns, as well as storage tanks.
He looked like he was mocking something he did not understand, while concentrating on a few finer points solely related to engines.
During a time of crisis, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, planting some more fuel grade corn may be the ticket to helping in the current energy crunch we are in, since solar & wind do not power our existing portable infrastructure today.
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@Meatball2022 - “most of the world is having a water crisis”
Which is exactly why we should be cracking salt water, turning it into hydrogen, so when it is oxidized we will have water vapor, which will turn to rain & replenish the reservoirs & aqueducts.
“why do you not consider the ‘bottleneck’ problem of where this hydrogen all comes from?”
Because h2 has the potential to fix the problem.
“The electrical grid is not a problem at all”
When charging EV consumes more power in a short period of time than a house consumes for days, the electrical grid is a huge problem.
“It’s not an issue here”
It is an issue, everywhere, since liquid fuel holds far more energy than people understand.
“Most EV charging happens in off peak time”
This is the case for the filthy rich and well off, who are the people who can afford to buy EV’s & charge them.
Some 36% of American citizens rent, and a large number of them will not be able to charge overnight, in their apartments & condos.
Ironically, the excessive overproduction of power produced by solar happens during the day, and unfortunately the wealthy with their panels will be largely be topping off their EV’s using fossil fuels during off peak hours, when solar is not producing… or massive batteries with huge carbon footprints & produced through child & slave labor, will be temporarily used until they need to be thrown away to repeat all over again some years later.
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@javadog6288 - “water and electricity for your H2 cracker ? Hydroelectric dams”
Yep!
They are being built, all over the place, right now. NY had a hydro cracker started, a PA canceled hydro cracker occurred due to some odd endangered species magically being uncovered, etc.
The same crowd opposing Hydrocarbons are opposing Hydrogen. They traditionally got their marching orders from Soviet Russia, now getting their marching orders from Putin, because any dearth of energy now can be filled by Russia later [once political climate is ok… Russia became the US’s the #2 foreign supplier of energy, just before Ukraine invasion.
“How do I charge my car?”
Without a close charge point, it will be a fast charger, at a gas station.
A lot of apartments where I live, and every piece of real estate on the main drag is being purchased by gas stations… not because people need gas, but because they will need charging stations in the future. 🤦♂️
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@GibbyBlatongs - “conveniently leave out… more people using solar and storage the less the grid has to support”
I did not leave it out, conveniently. It is relatively irrelevant. Charging a car takes multiple house-days worth of electricity.
Best case scenario: all people using 100% storage for their homes, living off-grid, with a single car needed 4 house days worth of electricity, will still require the electrical grid capacity to increase 800%, with 2 cars per household. What makes it worse, is that with large percentages of people renting, that power will be needed right before & right after rush hour, which means fossil fields during winter seasons since solar will be unavailable.
“Too much power and power companies have to start ‘shedding’”
Because the power is at the wrong time of the day.
“Limitless electricity”
Problem is, energy at the wrong time is energy wasted. It would be better to create & store H2 and feed the grid from stored electricity, where it can be managed, instead of being driven by the sun. It would be better for cars to be driven from stored electricity like H2, where tanks of H2 can just be replenished continually, and cars can be filled from these local storage locations.
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