Hydrogen and FCEVs discussion thread

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RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
I expect it will be at least five and maybe ten years before one or the other tech reaches the stage of virtually universal choice which fossil fueled MHE have held for the past century.
Do you have any evidence that Plug Power Fuel Cells are not powered by fossil fuels? My friend told me the hydrogen he provided for that purpose was steam reformed from natural gas.

Of course some of the energy for electric forklifts comes from fossil fuels, as well.
How the H2 is made is up to the supplier, and will of course be driven by price (and regulation). As I've said before, unless we move towards 100% sustainably-produced H2, it makes no sense to use FCEVs.
 
SageBrush said:
WetEV said:
SageBrush said:
In its own way, H2 is no less idiotic than nuclear, and it tends to be hawked politically by the same fools.
I'd be interested in your solution to the last 10% problem.
Ask me when we are at 80%

Sounds like maybe you should think about hydrogen as season shifting storage.
And/or think about nuclear.

Maybe there is an answer. Maybe we will burn all the fossil fuels available, then crash back to the stone age. If we survive that long.

Oh, but you can't. That would make you "idiotic" and one of "the same fools."
 
I recently heard an NPR story on FCEVs in Japan via their app.

I found it via https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/700877189/japan-is-betting-big-on-the-future-of-hydrogen-cars but the text there doesn't match up completely w/what's in the under 4 minute audio clip (e.g. example is a mention of an H2 station that says they get a max of 15 customers a day).
Only about 11,000 fuel cell vehicles are on the road worldwide. Nearly half of them are in California, which has stringent vehicle emission regulations and tax credits that incentivize electric and fuel cell vehicles.
But in countries like Japan, where much of the population lives in dense urban areas, many people live in apartment buildings without a place to easily charge a car. It's here where companies like Toyota are banking on the convenience of the hydrogen fuel cell.

"There's just no behavior change as long as you have [hydrogen] infrastructure in place," says Matthew Klippenstein, co-author of the online publication Fuel Cell Industry Review. "We go to the same gas station and fuel up in the same few minutes and just keep on tootling on."
This might explain why RonDawg and I in late 2015 saw very few EVs (and Leafs) on the road in Japan.

I was there again in late 2017 (for a much shorter length of time) and also hardly saw any EVs on the road.
 
SageBrush said:
It is said by optimists that electrolysis efficiency will reach 80%, and fuel cells will reach 70% efficiency in the future.
With a theoretical efficiency of about 83%, I'll guess that the 70% number is about right. Water electrolysis could top out at or above 100% given that the theoretical efficiency is around 120%.
SageBrush said:
I'll wager good money that cell batteries will drop to $50 a kWh for the manufacturer, energy density will double, and charging speeds average over 200 kW long before the hoped for H2 improvements.
I think you are correct on all counts. But here is the rub: Many of the near-term improvements in batteries will be achieved by moving to a solid electrolyte. That change will increase energy density and safety and reduce cost. Unfortunately, it will also reduce the efficiency.

Instead of the 98+% round-trip energy efficiency which is achieved in the battery in your Tesla Model 3, battery efficiency could drop to somewhere between 60% and 90%.

So we will get back to the thesis that GRA has always held: People will choose convenience over efficiency any day. If we lower the round-trip energy efficiency of batteries to 80% and increase the round-trip energy efficiency of hydrogen to 60% or 70%, what will people choose for their vehicles?

I suspect there will be different preferences for different people:
- For someone like me who produces electricity on my roof and can charge at home, I will continue to prefer a battery-electric vehicle since the fuel is pre-paid and charging at home is more convenient than stopping for fuel. I will also prefer a Li-ion battery over a solid-state battery given the higher efficiency since that means I get more "miles per panel" from the investment on my roof.
- For others living in single-family homes, I suspect they will also prefer BEVs over H2 FCVs based on the convenience factor.
- For people like GRA who rent, I suspect the convenience of H2 FCVs *may* win out.

But even if the efficiency numbers do end up that close, then cost will end up being the deciding factor. Since I don't see the fuel or vehicle cost of H2 FCVs ever getting close to that of BEVs (again, there is NO crossover point), I suspect that even many without their own homes will choose BEVs, pushing for better charging infrastructure to make that option viable.

As always, time will tell.
 
RegGuheert said:
SageBrush said:
It is said by optimists that electrolysis efficiency will reach 80%, and fuel cells will reach 70% efficiency in the future.
With a theoretical efficiency of about 83%, I'll guess that the 70% number is about right. Water electrolysis could top out at or above 100% given that the theoretical efficiency is around 120%.
Is somebody randomly switching numbers for liquid water and water vapor? Shouldn't both theoretical efficiencies be 100%?


RegGuheert said:
SageBrush said:
I'll wager good money that cell batteries will drop to $50 a kWh for the manufacturer, energy density will double, and charging speeds average over 200 kW long before the hoped for H2 improvements.
I think you are correct on all counts. But here is the rub: Many of the near-term improvements in batteries will be achieved by moving to a solid electrolyte. That change will increase energy density and safety and reduce cost. Unfortunately, it will also reduce the efficiency.

Instead of the 98+% round-trip energy efficiency which is achieved in the battery in your Tesla Model 3, battery efficiency could drop to somewhere between 60% and 90%.
200 kW charging and 60% round trip efficiency don't work together. Assuming equal losses on charge and discharge, you would be putting 40 kW (20% of 200 kW) into heating the battery. That would require an ICE-scale cooling system to keep the battery pack from melting, in addition to the reduction in range for the same nominal battery size and 50+% increase in energy cost. Definitely not worth saving a few thousand on battery cost.
 
Titanium48 said:
Shouldn't both theoretical efficiencies be 100%?
No. 100% in the fuel cell case would break the second law of thermodynamics. Look up the carnot engine for the paradigm.
As for electrolysis, Reg's post implies (but I have not checked) that the Gibbs free energy of two O-H bonds is higher than H-H
 
A fuel cell is not a heat engine and should not be subject to Carnot efficiency limits. The thermodynamic limit is that the round trip from water to hydrogen + oxygen and back to water cannot be over 100%. Saying the theoretical efficiency of a fuel cell is 83% while electrolysis is 120% is consistent with that, but it suggests some odd accounting somewhere. A theoretically perfect fuel cell should be able to capture all of the 237.1 kJ of free energy change per mole of liquid water formed as electrical energy. A perfect electrolyser would require exactly 237.1 kJ of electrical energy per mole of water reacting.

Looking at it further, I think I may have figured out the odd accounting. Enthalpy of formation for liquid water is 285.8 kJ/mol, 120% of the Gibbs energy of 237.1 kJ/mol. Using that value calculates 20% more energy than is actually available from the fuel cell, and 20% more energy than is actually required for electrolysis.
 
RegGuheert said:
But here is the rub: Many of the near-term improvements in batteries will be achieved by moving to a solid electrolyte. That change will increase energy density and safety and reduce cost. Unfortunately, it will also reduce the efficiency.

Instead of the 98+% round-trip energy efficiency which is achieved in the battery in your Tesla Model 3, battery efficiency could drop to somewhere between 60% and 90%.

I don't think so. Example of solid state batteries with low losses:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201630

Source for your assertion?
 
RegGuheert said:
So we will get back to the thesis that GRA has always held: People will choose convenience over efficiency any day. If we lower the round-trip energy efficiency of batteries to 80% and increase the round-trip energy efficiency of hydrogen to 60% or 70%, what will people choose for their vehicles?

I suspect there will be different preferences for different people:
- For someone like me who produces electricity on my roof and can charge at home, I will continue to prefer a battery-electric vehicle since the fuel is pre-paid and charging at home is more convenient than stopping for fuel. I will also prefer a Li-ion battery over a solid-state battery given the higher efficiency since that means I get more "miles per panel" from the investment on my roof.
- For others living in single-family homes, I suspect they will also prefer BEVs over H2 FCVs based on the convenience factor.
- For people like GRA who rent, I suspect the convenience of H2 FCVs *may* win out.

But even if the efficiency numbers do end up that close, then cost will end up being the deciding factor. Since I don't see the fuel or vehicle cost of H2 FCVs ever getting close to that of BEVs (again, there is NO crossover point), I suspect that even many without their own homes will choose BEVs, pushing for better charging infrastructure to make that option viable.

As always, time will tell.
I had to look at this twice to make sure I didn't write it (I have, or words to the same effect, said the same things many times in the past). It seems that Reg and I are in near 100% agreement. I write this while lying on the floor, where I have fallen after being hit by a feather (but I can get up)! :lol: The major question to me aside from H2 cost, which I've always said is likely to remain higher than electricity for BEVs even if photo- or thermo-chemical production of H2 drops the price considerably (but I've also always said that H2 doesn't have to be AS cheap as electricity, only cheap enough, like gas), is the rate at which central fueling versus home (esp. MUD) charging infrastructure can be built.

Rework to install charging at millions of individual existing locations takes a lot more time than building central fueling facilities, and (at least in the U.S.) you also have to cater for on-street parking. Around the corner from me is a short residential block with a mass of detached single-family homes (and one small apartment building with off-street parking), but every night, despite the profusion of garages the street is lined with parked cars. While I figure a lot of those garages are being used to store people's stuff instead of their cars, that does show the relative value they place on each, as well as the convenience/time savings of not having to open/close garage doors and drive in/out. Only if we can radically reduce the total number of cars (through AV car-sharing/MaaS) can we avoid the expensive and time-consuming need to provide charging in both off-street lots AND curbside.
 
Titanium48 said:
A fuel cell is not a heat engine and should not be subject to Carnot efficiency limits. The thermodynamic limit is that the round trip from water to hydrogen + oxygen and back to water cannot be over 100%.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1243/095765005X28571?journalCode=piac

I didn't read the article and I doubt I would understand it anyway.
 
The petrochemical industry would love to have a source of almost free hydrogen to make ammonia with.
They will be the first to roll out wide scale implementation.
The petrochemical industry may not invent it but they have the bank accounts and the demand to make it happen.
 
WetEV said:
SageBrush said:
WetEV said:
I'd be interested in your solution to the last 10% problem.
Ask me when we are at 80%

Sounds like maybe you should think about hydrogen as season shifting storage.
Not at all. I think about a diversity of natural resources, a much more robust grid, demand solutions and regional sharing. While you are pussy footing around and agonizing over the last 10%, carbon emissions are going UP.
 
GCC:
UNSW, H2Store to develop hydrogen storage for renewables; residential and commercial P2G
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/03/20190320-unsw.html

Researchers at UNSW Sydney (Australia), with partner H2Store, an Australian start-up, have received a $3.5-million investment from Providence Asset Group to develop a hydrogen hydride storage system that could mean cheaper, safer storage for renewable energy for a range of applications, including residential.

Professor Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou and his team at UNSW’s School of Chemical Engineering have developed a system that provides cheap storage and transportation of hydrogen which they expect will provide a new alternative for energy storage within two years.

Professor Aguey-Zinsou’s research group’s expertise is in the synthesis, characterization and application of nanosized hydride materials—i.e. materials such as magnesium hydride (MgH2) and lithium borohydride (LiBH4) capable of storing hydrogen. Their research focuses on the fundamental understanding of the behavior of hydride materials at the nanoscale (i.e. with a particle size below 10 nm).

The funding will help them deliver phase one of a four-stage project that includes the creation of prototypes of their hydrogen energy storage solution for residential and commercial use; demonstration units; and testing and optimization that will enable full commercialization of the product.

Professor Aguey-Zinsou believes that his invention would offer significant advantages over current power storage solutions for home solar systems, such as the Tesla Powerwall battery.

  • We will be able to take energy generated through solar panels and store it as hydrogen in a very dense form, so one major advantage of our hydrogen batteries is that they take up less space and are safer than the lithium-ion batteries used in many homes today. We can actually store about seven times more energy than the current systems.

    This means that in a residential scenario, people will be able to store a lot more energy using the same footprint as Tesla batteries, to potentially power their home, charge their cars and still have excess to sell back to the grid.

    —Professor Aguey-Zinsou

Professor Aguey-Zinsou is one of the co-founders of H2Store.

UNSW and H2Store expect their solution to offer other advantages over current energy storage systems, including a lifespan of about 30 years compared with less than 10 for other systems.

  • As the hydrogen technology develops, we will see a new cost-effective alternative to chemical batteries, remote electricity generation, household heating and increased range of hydrogen vehicles. Over the next two years we will develop a range of storage options for individuals, households and energy providers, including a solar farm ‘battery’ system to provide grid stability across Australia.

    —Llewellyn Owens, H2Store CEO and Co-founder

The team hopes to have a 5 kW home storage system prototype ready by the end of 2019 and a product on the market late in 2020.

The researchers are also working on a large-scale storage system for solar and wind farms that will include the design of storage vessels suitable for hydrogen export. These vessels have potential to replace diesel in remote generation and large transport applications.

Dedicated to the “green city life” concept, the Providence Asset Group invest in and develop clean and cost-effective renewable technologies.
As with all such claims, whether H2, batteries or what have you, they remain unsupported until the product is commercialized and the performance can be verified by independent testing.
 
It's also somewhat disheartening that the storage medium remains hydrides. Sure, they want to see if nano-pellets (?) work better than larger pellets, but it isn't a huge leap forward.
 
GCC, Lab results:
Stanford researchers develop new electrolysis system to split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/03/20190319-dai.html

. . . Existing water-splitting methods rely on highly purified water—a precious resource and costly to produce.

  • Electrolysis of water to generate hydrogen fuel is an attractive renewable energy storage technology. However, grid-scale freshwater electrolysis would put a heavy strain on vital water resources. Developing cheap electrocatalysts and electrodes that can sustain seawater splitting without chloride corrosion could address the water scarcity issue. . . .

    —Kuang et al.

Theoretically, to power cities and cars, you need so much hydrogen it is not conceivable to use purified water, said Hongjie Dai, J.G. Jackson and C.J. Wood professor in chemistry in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences and co-senior author on the paper.

Dai said his lab showed proof-of-concept with a demo, but the researchers will leave it up to manufacturers to scale and mass produce the design. . . .

The researchers discovered that if they coated the anode with layers that were rich in negative charges, the layers repelled chloride and slowed down the decay of the underlying metal.

They layered nickel-iron hydroxide on top of nickel sulfide, which covers a nickel foam core. The nickel foam acts as a conductor—transporting electricity from the power source—and the nickel-iron hydroxide sparks the electrolysis, separating water into oxygen and hydrogen. . . .

]Without the negatively charged coating, the anode only works for around 12 hours in seawater, according to Michael Kenney, a graduate student in the Dai lab and co-lead author on the paper.

  • The whole electrode falls apart into a crumble. But with this layer, it is able to go more than a thousand hours.

    —Michael Kenney

Previous studies attempting to split seawater for hydrogen fuel had run low amounts of electric current, because corrosion occurs at higher currents. But Dai, Kenney and their colleagues were able to conduct up to 10 times more electricity through their multi-layer device, which helps it generate hydrogen from seawater at a faster rate.

  • I think we set a record on the current to split seawater.

    —Hongjie Dai

The team members conducted most of their tests in controlled laboratory conditions, where they could regulate the amount of electricity entering the system. But they also designed a solar-powered demonstration machine that produced hydrogen and oxygen gas from seawater collected from San Francisco Bay. . . .

The technology could be used for purposes beyond generating energy. Since the process also produces breathable oxygen, divers or submarines could bring devices into the ocean and generate oxygen down below without having to surface for air.

  • One could just use these elements in existing electrolyzer systems and that could be pretty quick. It’s not like starting from zero—it’s more like starting from 80 or 90 percent.

    —Hongjie Dai. . . .

This work was funded by the US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, National Science Foundation of China and the National Key Research and Development Project of China.
Direct link to article:
Solar-driven, highly sustained splitting of seawater into hydrogen and oxygen fuels
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/12/1900556116
 
WetEV said:
RegGuheert said:
But here is the rub: Many of the near-term improvements in batteries will be achieved by moving to a solid electrolyte. That change will increase energy density and safety and reduce cost. Unfortunately, it will also reduce the efficiency.

Instead of the 98+% round-trip energy efficiency which is achieved in the battery in your Tesla Model 3, battery efficiency could drop to somewhere between 60% and 90%.

I don't think so. Example of solid state batteries with low losses:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201630
Thanks for the link. Having low resistance does not mean the cell has high energy efficiency. The reason is that unless there is NO chemical reaction at the anode (as is the case with Li-ion batteries), then there can be a step difference in voltage between the charge and discharge reactions. For instance, plating Lithium onto the anode during charging happens at a higher voltage than stripping that Li off the anode during discharge. The ratio of the stripping voltage divided by the plating voltage is the maximum efficiency which can be achieved in such a battery.
WetEV said:
Source for your assertion?
Sure. Here it is: Braga, et. al.: Non-Traditional, Safe, High-Voltage Rechargeable Cells of Long Cycle Life:
Braga said:
The energy efficiency was 86% for cycle 329, while for the first cycle it was 30%.
This battery plates and strips Li metal from the anode. It is the one which famously gains capacity as it is cycled, assumedly due to the creation and enhancement of a high-value capacitor within the cell.
 
GRA said:
I had to look at this twice to make sure I didn't write it (I have, or words to the same effect, said the same things many times in the past). It seems that Reg and I are in near 100% agreement. I write this while lying on the floor, where I have fallen after being hit by a feather (but I can get up)! :lol:
:D
O.K. I thought you might like that one!

Now pick yourself up off the floor while I point out a couple of things to everyone:
- Li-ion batteries TODAY have round-trip energy efficiencies of 98+%. That technology exists and will NOT go away. I don't know if anyone can/will develop Li-ION batteries with a solid-state electrolyte. (As always, with batteries, it is what is NOT said that you need to be weary of when you read papers or press releases.) The point here is that BEVs will ALWAYS have the option to have batteries with extremely high energy efficiency, but it *might* involve a trade-off against capacity. But I certainly don't know.
- Also, my post was about where I *think* actual efficiencies could end up LONG TERM. When that is, I don't know. It could be many decades before electrolysis and/or fuel cell efficiencies get to these levels, if ever.
 
GCC:
MAN Energy Solutions acquires 40% of electrolysis company H-TEC Systems; strategic investment in hydrogen
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/03/20190328-man.html

. . . The contract also makes provisions for a majority or complete takeover of H-TEC Systems at a later date. . . .

H-TEC Systems has more than 20 years’ experience in the research and development of hydrogen technology. Across sites in Lübeck, Braak and Augsburg, a team of 20 employees develops and produces stacks and electrolyzers for manufacturing hydrogen with electricity. . . .

This acquisition marks another step in the strategic direction MAN Energy Solutions had already decided upon back in 2017—the realignment of the business to focus on sustainable future markets. At that time, the company announced that its business activities concerning sustainable technologies and solutions would be expanded to become the main source of revenue by 2030.

Strategic acquisitions and partnerships would also play an integral role in expanding the company’s own range of products and touching on the global trends of decarbonization and digitalization. In 2017, MAN Energy Solutions acquired a 40 percent stake in Aspin Kemp Associates, a Canadian company specializing in battery technology. Two years prior to this, it had additionally acquired the maritime division of Cryo AB, a Swedish company manufacturing cryogenic equipment for the storage, distribution and handling of liquid natural gas.

Last year, in collaboration with ABB, MAN also introduced the trigeneration storage solution ETES (Electro-Thermal Energy Storage system) to the market. ETES stores electricity and thermal energy (for both heating and cooling) in significant quantities and distributes these to consumers.
 
GCC:
ArcelorMittal investigates hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron ore for steel production; CDA
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/03/20190331-arcelor.html

To permanently reduce CO2 emissions, steelmaker ArcelorMittal has developed a low-emissions technology strategy, which targets not only the use of alternative feedstocks and the conversion of CO2 emissions, but also the direct avoidance of carbon (Carbon Direct Avoidance, CDA).

This year, the Group intends to launch a new project in the ArcelorMittal plant in Hamburg to use hydrogen on an industrial scale for the direct reduction of iron ore (H-DR) in the steel production process for the first time. (DRI is iron ore that has been reduced to iron with without melting.) A pilot plant is to be built in the coming years.

The Hamburg plant already has one of the most efficient production processes of the ArcelorMittal Group due to the use of natural gas in a direct reduction plant (DRI, direct reduced iron). The aim of the new hydrogen-based process is to be able to produce steel with the lowest CO2 emissions.

The project costs amount to around €65 million (US$73 million). In addition, a cooperation agreement with the University of Freiberg is planned to test the procedure in the coming years at the Hamburg plant premises. The hydrogen-based reduction of iron ore will initially take place on a demonstration scale with an annual production of 100,000 tonnes.

  • Our Hamburg site offers optimum conditions for this innovative project: an electric arc furnace with DRI system and iron ore pellets stockyard as well as decades of know-how in this area. The use of hydrogen as a reducing agent shall now be tested in a new shaft furnace.

    —Frank Schulz, CEO of ArcelorMittal Germany

In the process, the separation of H2 with a purity of more than 95% from the top gas of the existing plant should be achieved by pressure swing adsorption. The process is first tested with grey hydrogen (generated at gas separation) to allow for economical operation. In the future, the plant should also be able to run on green hydrogen (generated from renewable sources) when it is available in sufficient quantities. . . .

Likewise, methods are tested in which biocoal from waste wood is used instead of coking coal as a reducing agent in the blast furnace. . . .
I recently finished reading Vaclav Smil's 2016 book "Still the Iron Age: Iron and Steel in the Modern World", which details the various methods by which Iron and Steel have been and are currently made, and also describes what's necessary to go fossil-fuel free. DRI methods will be necessary for iron, replacing Blast Furnaces. It's currently used on a fairly small-scale mostly using NG. Electric Arc Furnaces are used for steel production using recycled steel (70% of U.S. steel production is recycled steel, but the rest of the world's % is much less), and Basic (ph) Oxygen Furnaces are used for virgin steel. None of this will be quick or cheap, and using biofuels for charcoal instead of coal for coke in BFs on a large scale would denude most of the world's forests.
 
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