Britain bans gasoline and diesel cars starting in 2040

[Ace-Garageguy]

You bring up a good point about electrolysis, and I have wondered if instead of trying to figure out how to transport and distribute hydrogen is to use the existing electrical and water networks to make hydrogen on site?  Of course the obvious questions here are what would be the cost of an electrolysis unit that could generate enough hydrogen to service a day's worth of customers,  and how many kilowatt-hours of electricity you wouldd need to do it..  What is the real world efficiency of the process?     As long as the hydrogen is being produced by electricity generated by local solar (free energy, but it takes hardware to use it), efficiency is not of paramount importance. One company has already demonstrated the concept of installing rooftop solar arrays, and charging the clients in the houses under them based on electrical demand, while the excess power is pumped into the grid, also generating income for the company. The large initial capital expenditure for the array is taken off of the consumer, and is placed on the "energy company". Payback is in reasonable time frames, and the energy cost to consumers can actually be LESS than power delivered via the grid from conventional generating sources.

As ou mentioned, we already know how to deal with propane, and while hydrogen is a little trickier to deal with the solutions exst.  However, enclosed parking lots usually don't allow propane vehicles to park there, so if hydrogen fueled vehicles are subject t the same restriction, that could be a problem.    I know there were experiments with metal hydride way back when.  What kept those from being developed any further? While I'm not current on the state of metal-hydrides for hydrogen storage, they remain the most technologically relevant and safest method for achieving same. Part of the issue with propane-powered vehicles is that propane is heavier than air, and leaks tend to "pool" in explosive concentrations. Hydrogen, and natural gas, are both lighter than air, and leaks tend to disperse into the atmosphere harmlessly.

[waynehulsey]

You allude to two very important points.

The first is that human population is increasing at a rate that is unsustainable, and is the real cause of a lot, if not all, of humanity's current problems. Global population has more than doubled in just MY lifetime. And the folks who are breeding the fastest are NOT the ones who are in a position to do anything to solve the problems human numbers are causing.

The second is that there's no global energy initiative, but instead a lot of disparate groups pulling in different directions, and many of them are politicizing issues that need to be addressed by the best technical minds on the planet rather than being used as levers to gain political power.

There's also the problem of rabid mismanagement by the capital sector. One of the companies over here that had developed a brilliant and sustainable growth model for installing local solar generating stations let the wheeler-dealer MBA set get carried away, began playing the fast-and-loose "business" game (rather than focusing on the tech and hardware that need to be fully developed and debugged) trying to gobble up other companies and expand as fast as possible, and in the process burned through $24 BILLION of investment money prior to filing for bankruptcy (leaving NOTHING for the shareholders).

The Idiocracy is here. Welcome to the future.

 

 

And besides human and corporate greed, that hits the 2 taboo topics of politics and religion. I've lost track of the figures, last I remember was an estimate of 8 billion probably closer to 9 now. It seems like around 5 billion is the limit for acceptable  life style and personally would say 3 to 4 billion should be the max. Better go crawl back into my cave, sense the pitchforks being sharpened and symbols fired up.

[Luc Janssens]

By that time, a car will no longer be a private owned vehicle, but a service you pay for, all self-driving electric blobs that will bring you from point A, to B, battery recharge could be a battery swap.....

Think my generation (born in '68) will be the last who enjoyed (*) driving.

(* On holidays, not for work, here in Flanders, congestion is daily routine with increasing crawling miles, year after year)

[Richard Bartrop]

As long as the hydrogen is being produced by electricity generated by local solar (free energy, but it takes hardware to use it), efficiency is not of paramount importance. One company has already demonstrated the concept of installing rooftop solar arrays, and charging the clients in the houses under them based on electrical demand, while the excess power is pumped into the grid, also generating income for the company. The large initial capital expenditure for the array is taken off of the consumer, and is placed on the "energy company". Payback is in reasonable time frames, and the energy cost to consumers can actually be LESS than power delivered via the grid from conventional generating sources.

Good for them, and yes, solar is part of the solution.  However going by this http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l4.html  a square meter of sunlight gives you 184 watts to play with, or a little over 15 watts per square foot.   Over 12 hours, a 1000 square foot roof would receive 660960 Kiiojoules of energy, or about the same number of BTU.  Google gives 115000 BTU in a gallon of gas, so a day of sunshine would give you the energy equivalent of not quite 6 gallons of gas.  And this is assuming perfect efficiency, which we are nowhere near acheiving.  This is just fine for a household, but if you want to generate hydrogen for a filling station, whatever you collect off your roof just isn'[t going to cut it..  So yes, I would still say efficiency is an issue.,  Commercial electrolysis units exist, and hydrogen powered cars are already on the market, so it would be good to know if the numbers actually work.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Good for them, and yes, solar is part of the solution.  However going by this http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l4.html  a square meter of sunlight gives you 184 watts to play with, or a little over 15 watts per square foot.   Over 12 hours, a 1000 square foot roof would receive 660960 Kiiojoules of energy, or about the same number of BTU.  Google gives 115000 BTU in a gallon of gas, so a day of sunshine would give you the energy equivalent of not quite 6 gallons of gas.  And this is assuming perfect efficiency, which we are nowhere near acheiving.  This is just fine for a household, but if you want to generate hydrogen for a filling station, whatever you collect off your roof just isn'[t going to cut it..  So yes, I would still say efficiency is an issue.,  Commercial electrolysis units exist, and hydrogen powered cars are already on the market, so it would be good to know if the numbers actually work.

Nobody is talking about a "filling station". The scenario I referred to is for a home installation. Obviously I didn't make that clear. Said installation produces sufficient fuel for the "average" commute in a reasonably fuel efficient car. Honda, as I said earlier, has already demonstrated a workable pilot program.

Most of the time, I drive a gas hog pickup, but my commute is only 4 miles each way. One gallon equivalent of fuel per day would fulfill my commuting needs nicely. If I drove a vehicle that got only 25 MPG, just TWO gallons would be sufficient for a 50-mile round trip. The numbers work.

And for those who probably don't know this...when I was a member of the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition (paying $1500 dues per year for the privilege)...there was on the market a home-installed device called FuelMaker. It was a compressor that hooked into a residential natural gas line, and would safely and efficiently refuel a NAT GAS vehicle overnight. At the time, before the electric utilities began stupidly burning NAT GAS to alleviate peak demand requirements, the price of the energy-equivalent of a gallon of gasoline was about 64 CENTS per gallon. Gasoline was hovering around $1.85 then, if I recall correctly.  The mission of the NGVC was to make the world aware of the whole natural gas vehicle fuel thing, but they mostly had conventions for industry insiders, not really very much else (though the honchos paid themselves VERY well and traveled the world in first-class style) and the public and government remained blissfully unaware you could even RUN a car on NAT GAS.

The infrastructure was already in place to refuel a large number of vehicles daily with NAT GAS, it was cheaper and WAY cleaner than gasoline, engines last a LOT longer burning the stuff, the vehicle conversions were relatively inexpensive and the payback time was relatively short due to NAT GAS's low price.

But what happened? Not a damm thing. Politics, slow moving minds and greed dammned the whole movement before it really got started.

Hydrogen made-on-the-roof-at-home is only a short hop from where we'd be if we'd phased in NAT GAS in large numbers, instead of the quantum leap necessary to go from liquid-petro-fueled vehicles to total electric.

I've been watching and dealing with stupidity, foot-dragging and know-nothing naysayers for decades, which fully explains my lack of patience with the way things are, and the way they're headed.

Idiots are driving the bus, and I want off.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2017 by Ace-Garageguy

[Atmobil]

 

And for those who probably don't know this...when I was a member of the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition (paying $1500 dues per year for the privilege)...there was on the market a home-installed device called FuelMaker. It was a compressor that hooked into a residential natural gas line, and would safely and efficiently refuel a NAT GAS vehicle overnight. At the time, before the electric utilities began stupidly burning NAT GAS to alleviate peak demand requirements, the price of the energy-equivalent of a gallon of gasoline was about 64 CENTS per gallon. Gasoline was hovering around $1.85 then, if I recall correctly.  The mission of the NGVC was to make the world aware of the whole natural gas vehicle fuel thing, but they mostly had conventions for industry insiders, not really very much else (though the honchos paid themselves VERY well and traveled the world in first-class style) and the public and government remained blissfully unaware you could even RUN a car on NAT GAS.

 

Idiots are driving the bus, and I want off.

 

 

The Nat Gas you are talking about, is that the same stuff they write about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas ?
And is that the same as LPG?
I know there has been many cars converted to run on LPG but for some reason it has never gotten very common to do so.

[Xingu]

Just a reminder - Keep politics out of the discussion. We are a model forum.

[Ace-Garageguy]

The Nat Gas you are talking about, is that the same stuff they write about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas ?
And is that the same as LPG?
I know there has been many cars converted to run on LPG but for some reason it has never gotten very common to do so.

Yes, same stuff.

Though the terms often get used interchangeably and sometimes misused, LNG refers to "liquefied natural gas", whereas LPG is "liquefied petroleum gas", and over here, LPG often refers to propane specifically (and also butane and isobutane, or mixtures of these). LPG is most easily described as a purified form of natural gas (which can be a mixture of a lot of different hydrocarbons including methane, propane, butane, pentane and ethane) or as a byproduct of oil refining.

Propane dual-fuel conversions were popular in Europe (and to a lesser degree in the USA) for some time after WW II due to the high cost of gasoline. An old client of mine way back (in the 1970s) brought in a number of gasoline fuel-injected Mercedes that had been setup to run dual-fuel in Europe...which is how I became interested in the technology. Interestingly, the buses at Yellowstone National Park are said to have been powered by propane in the 1930s, and have been restored and upgraded to true contemporary dual-fuel specifications.

LPG isn't often encountered on private road vehicles over here, but it's very popular for vehicles that operate indoors (warehouses, large aircraft hangars, etc.) because the exhaust is much less noxious than what gasoline and diesel fueled engines produce.

Both LNG and LPG have seen significant road use by fleet operators (taxis, police departments, school systems etc.) because of its low relative price and its kindness to engines. 

Gasoline engines converted to run on gaseous fuels show a loss of power due to the fuel's lower specific energy content, but engines optimized to run on gaseous fuels can utilize the higher effective "octane" rating and run higher compression ratios or supercharging, along with more ignition advance, to regain any lost power.

Some European-designed diesels designed specifically to run on gaseous petroleum fuels and hydrogen actually make MORE power than their oil-fired counterparts, while producing much cleaner exhaust gasses.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Just a reminder - Keep politics out of the discussion. We are a model forum.

Sorry. It was my perhaps misunderstanding of the ban on "politics" as referring to debates between Democrats and Republicans, or conservatives and liberals, etc. 

Mentioning generic "politics", as well as greed and short-sightedness as the real reasons that our (global) energy policy isn't a policy at all, but a mess of fools all running in different directions, was intended to shed some light on a subject that many people take for granted (while assuming that there's somebody smart doing something about it) or simply don't know anything about.

I am suitably chastised.