EV or H2 Farm Tractor

[knightmb]

My cousin runs an organic farm, and I would like to find a way for him to do that without diesel fuel.

His immediate need would be a for a farm tractor power plant to deliver 260hp at the drawbar, or about 300hp at the "crankshaft".... continuously.

The tractor weighs 30,000 pounds.

Please don't sidetrack the conversation with other methods outside of using this tractor. No, he's not going to use a smaller tractor, or a horse team, etc. Even "no till" requires the seeds to get in the ground.

He has access to almost unlimited electrical power.

Discuss.

1) My first suggestion is two sets of 300kWh of batteries, that are swapped every hour in the field, then recharged at 1C.

Too little information to really give any advice on. So is the tractor running at max RPM to produce this large amount of continuous HP? Seems like it would be drinking thousands of gallons of fuel at this rate like a jet liner.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Daveinoly not sure what you mean by babies I think these things are enormous

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Spade

but I know it's getting OT.

So why not overhead wires over the field? Or for that matter if it's farmed in a circle could the tractor be attached by a cable to a pole in the center of the field. That would minimize the slack payout/take-up since most of the tractor's movement would be at a fixed distance from the center. (You can applaud now )

for a single scooper, its not bad. i am gonna try to get some pix of the setup my friend operates. it is a sight to behold...

 

[smkettner]

Can he farm in circles? Use a power cord on a pivot similar to an irrigation pivot.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

What about compressed air storage?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Tony , How much diesel fuel does the tractor burn an hour now? 300 HP is a lot of power. I am sure you have looked at the drive train that Wright speed makes for a place to start. The PTO is easy and can be bought off the self now. what to put as the motor with like a 1000 pound feet of torque?

Too little information to really give any advice on. So is the tractor running at max RPM to produce this large amount of continuous HP? Seems like it would be drinking thousands of gallons of fuel at this rate like a jet liner.

The Wright hybrid uses fossil fuels.

Electric industrial motors are a commodity. Weight isn't a big concern... trouble free continuous power is. I suspect the rear motor out of a Tesla would meet the power requirement easily, although I'd be concerned with durability.

The John Deere 8640 tractor will consume:

203 drawbar horsepower at 2100 engine RPM = 14.5 gallons per hour while pulling 13,600 pounds

 

[TonyWilliams]

What about compressed air storage?

I don't know the energy density of compressed air, but I suspect it's a non-starter. Plus, there is a LOT of wasted energy compressing this stuff (just like hydrogen). To transfer air on a large scale would require a cooling system (just like hydrogen).

I honestly don't think the energy density is there (can at least one hour of 300hp be stored?)

I also consider anything that requires 10,000 psi (like hydrogen) to be very, very dangerous.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Can he farm in circles? Use a power cord on a pivot similar to an irrigation pivot.

Yes, in some areas. But the tractor has to work everywhere, not just where there is a center pivot.

 

[RegGuheert]

I will point out that H2 FCVs are currently replacing quick-charge lead-acid batteries in round-the-clock forklift applications. While the fuel cell costs more than the batteries, the cost of lost operations due to charging/swapping outweighs the cost of the fuel cell and associated hydrogen. This might imply that H2 FCVs might end up being a better fit for farming applications.

But in the indoor forklift application, zero emissions are a hard requirement. But that is not true for farming and operation of a farm tractor is not a "low-hanging fruit" for either BEV technology nor H2 FCV technology. As such, perhaps it is better to apply BEVs and H2 FCVs to other applications first and then target something like farming once the technology matures further.

Regarding the idea of using biodiesel: I will suggest that you would then need ANOTHER farm running on petroleum diesel fuel to produce the biodiesel to run this farm.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I will point out that H2 FCVs are currently replacing quick-charge lead-acid batteries in round-the-clock forklift applications...

Regarding the idea of using biodiesel: I will suggest that you would then need ANOTHER farm running on petroleum diesel fuel to produce the biodiesel to run this farm.

The specific need is clean farming while producing high quality organic produce. The irrigation is all pumped with electric motors (typically 25-100hp). There are no petrochemical farm products used (fertilizers) except diesel fuel for the tractors and harvesting equipment.

I think that using the plentiful and low cost electricity that is already at the farm makes the most sense.

Whether that electricity is powering batteries, connected via a tether or overhead lines, or producing H2 from water (also plentiful on site), I think that is the end game.

The local dam that has been in use since 1929 may finally get hydroelectric added to it.

 

[RegGuheert]

The specific need is clean farming while producing high quality organic produce. The irrigation is all pumped with electric motors (typically 25-100hp). There are no petrochemical farm products used (fertilizers) except diesel fuel for the tractors and harvesting equipment.

My wife is an incredible gardener and we have rather large vegetable gardens. We have BOTH raised-bed gardens and traditional tilled gardens. We, also, use no petroleum-based fertilizers or other petrochemical products. The raised beds also do not require any petroleum fuels for their upkeep. OTOH, I have been unable to find a petroleum-free solution for two functions in the traditional garden: plowing and tilling. I plow using our diesel-fueled tractor and I till with a gasoline-fueled roto-tiller. I have searched for battery-based solutions for these functions, but I continue to use ICEs for both.

Whether that electricity is powering batteries, connected via a tether or overhead lines, or producing H2 from water (also plentiful on site), I think that is the end game.

Agreed. And this is true for the vast majority of applications one can imagine.

 

[GRA]

<snip>
See suggestion above about contacting the companies making battery packs or fuel cell stacks for buses. 225 kW is probably about the right range for them, not that I'm suggesting either for the reasons already given. As to bio-diesel, net-zero carbon bio-diesel should be findable, but emissions-free, no, although most emissions other than NOx will decrease - see http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/diesels_emissions.html. However, ii should be a drop-in for the tractor, if they're using diesel now.

I'm not doing a hybrid or other compromise for expediency.

There are lots of places to make battery packs... that's really easy.

There aren't many H2 stacks that are both compact and capable of 225kW. Without a doubt, the hydrogen method might be orders of magnitude more expensive with one gain: fast refueling.

Main drawbacks of a H2 -vs- EV farm tractor:

1) no available infrastructure -vs- "ubiquitous" electricity right on the farm

2) hardware cost

3) "rare" H2 equipment -vs- somewhat easy to get EV stuff

4) while an H2 setup is likely significantly lighter, the tractor can easily handle the weight (farmers typically add "ballast" in the tires and on the tractor)... weight helps traction.

Could you give us some more info on

1. What your cousin (or you) is trying to accomplish here, i.e. what are the reasons for doing this? I assume that this farm is for-profit rather than a hobby, so whichever method is used will need to be economically viable. In other words, is it electric or nothing, or is it lowest impact that makes economic sense?

2. What crop(s) is/are grown on the farm, is any of their waste suitable for turning into ethanol, and is it available in sufficient quantity without causing problems (e.g. by removing ground cover)? After all, the Model T was designed to run on either gas or ethanol, because Henry Ford felt that many farmers would make their own fuel rather than being dependent on what was then a very limited gasoline fueling infrastructure. Prohibition pretty much killed that. I also assume that this isn't a dairy farm, so methane isn't available in quantity.

3. is this going to be a complete DIY project, or are you looking for something more or less off-the-shelf?

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Re compressed air, there is precedent in mine locomotives and few other things
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed-air_vehicle

Seems unlikely it could be workable though.

I suspect fossil fuels will be indispensable in farming for many years to come.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Could you give us some more info on

1. What your cousin (or you) is trying to accomplish here, i.e. what are the reasons for doing this? I assume that this farm is for-profit rather than a hobby, so whichever method is used will need to be economically viable. In other words, is it electric or nothing, or is it lowest impact that makes economic sense?

2. What crop(s) is/are grown on the farm, is any of their waste suitable for turning into ethanol, and is it available in sufficient quantity without causing problems (e.g. by removing ground cover)? After all, the Model T was designed to run on either gas or ethanol, because Henry Ford felt that many farmers would make their own fuel rather than being dependent on what was then a very limited gasoline fueling infrastructure. Prohibition pretty much killed that. I also assume that this isn't a dairy farm, so methane isn't available in quantity.

3. is this going to be a complete DIY project, or are you looking for something more or less off-the-shelf?

1. Professional for-profit farm with 800 irrigated acres, specializing in organic crops. Supplier to Dave's Killer Bread and Anheuser Busch.

http://www.daveskillerbread.com

Organic crops don't work on "most cost effective", since the highest yields and lowest weeds are done with petrochemicals. It doesn't become organic with less petrochemicals... it has to be zero.


2. Not a dairy farm. There are several thousand head of sheep, but I can't imagine enough organic a to power a tractor. Other uses, sure.


3. DIY with off-the-shelf components