The Future ?

[powerdesal]

Interesting  ...here.

[trees 2]

Very interesting. I can, however, see two drawbacks:

1. People who push hydrogen as a clean fuel are forgetting that it produces water vapour, lots of it. And those self same scientists who insist that "global warming/climate change" is down to us, also insist that water vapour is as bad as carbon dioxide.[:(]

2. It'll be cheap to start with, a bit like LPG was. Just wait until Gordon and his Darling get the idea that people are using it.....tax, tax, tax, tax escalators and more tax.[:@] And I wouldn't put it past them to start talking about a "hydrogen footprint" and how we all need taxing so as to get our own down.

And all that if the oil companies don't kill it.[6]

[woolybananasbrother]

They will want to control it by using their pertrol stations as the basis for a hydrogen network. What has happened in california?

But you are right about tax.

[Gluestick]

Hold up!

The "Climatologists", you know these guys who fly in the face of empirical evidence and provide governments another jolly good wheeze for yet another new tax, inform us that the planet is facing a global shortage of water!

This is normally just immediately after another serious flood somewhere...................

[6]

Those who remember their science will recall that combining Oxygen with Hydrogen 1:2 creates just water.

The problems with Hydrogen Fuel Cells is currently their low efficiency, their capital cost and their pollution footprint.

Also without abundant windpower -which thus far has not proven very successful and in any case to produce the whole wind turbine and generators is itself environmentally negative - the cost of producing electricity to power the process of hydrolysis is far too costly: and a mix of conventional methods of producing electricity by burning fossil fuels or nuclear energy is apparently environmentally destructive too.

 

[krusty]

2 years on , I  wonder how the Shetlands are doing with hydrogen ?

Black cabs on hydrogen ....Lotus involved ?

And Germany have a hydrogen powered uboat the U31 ..... now what are they up to ? [;-)]

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="trees 2"]Very interesting. I can, however, see two drawbacks:

1. People who push hydrogen as a clean fuel are forgetting that it produces water vapour, lots of it. And those self same scientists who insist that "global warming/climate change" is down to us, also insist that water vapour is as bad as carbon dioxide.[:(]

2. It'll be cheap to start with, a bit like LPG was. Just wait until Gordon and his Darling get the idea that people are using it.....tax, tax, tax, tax escalators and more tax.[:@] And I wouldn't put it past them to start talking about a "hydrogen footprint" and how we all need taxing so as to get our own down.

And all that if the oil companies don't kill it.[6]

[/quote]

Who cares what Brown does with the taxes over there? We live over here and as long as Sarko doesn't get the same idea... oh wait... he will....

[Gluestick]

I still pose the question, how will copious volumes of Hydrogen be generated, however?

Core problem remains, that simply seeking alternative energy sources to replicate the same flawed mass transport systems creates identical sico-economic and environmental problems.

As Bio-Fuels have already illustrated: grow feeder plants for processing into Bio-Fuel and more people starve: and the ecology suffers huge impact from the results of such intensive agronomic activity.

 

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

I remember seeing a feature on Top Gear about this a year or so ago. The sensible James May did the feature.

It looked quite an interesting idea. Sure it's not without flaws, but it has to be a lot better than what's being used now?

And anyway, once oil does run out, no machinery will work will it even if we find alternative power. I mean, machinery requires oil to lubricate it, or will they have discovered other means by then?

[Gluestick]

Remember, Mr C de L, that Germany fought most of World War Two on synthetic lube oil, petrol and heavy oil.

That was the main reason behind Hitler's dash into Russia's Caucasus.

http://www.secondworldwarhistory.com/operation-blue-the-race-for-oil.asp

Most lubricating oil today is synthetic in any case. Particularly high performance "oils".

25 years ago, I was approached to raise venture funding for an academic project which turned farmer's unwanted straw into oil.

Proven in a scientific and technological direction: unproven in terms of mass application.

The core problem, for me, is that whilst journalists and commentators go "Ooh! Ah!", when such as Hydrogen Cars are unveiled, if they were to be rolled out in mass production and mass sale then all that has happened is the feedstock problem has been shifted to another environmental impact point.

 

[Théière]

Its easy to get the hydrogen, just pass an electric current through water, where you get the electricity from, that's the problem [:)]

[Quillan]

I think you will find that the majority of lubricating oil for cars these days is synthetic because it lasts longer and does not degrade like mineral oil. Trouble is its so expensive. I remember the oil change on my diesel Discovery was about £90 just for the oil but then it lasted 20,000 miles. In the old days with diesel cars you used to have to change the oil about every 5,000 miles so I guess at the end of the day it worked out the same amout of money.

[Gluestick]

Indeed, Q.

It's all about Long Chain Polymers: way back in the early 70s' we still used Castrol R for many racing engines, because the film surface didn't break up on highly stressed bearing surfaces, such as big ends and main bearings, under the extreme heat and frictional pressures.

Then totally synthetic lube oil for racing came along: and this was always used when we were dyno-testing and setting up racing engines at Titan Engineering's Dyno House. Mainly since it would withstand higher stress and it was also miscible with both mineral Oil, other Synthetics and Castrol R: where as Castrol R inserted into an engine usually run on mineral oil (or visa versa) would instantly create a highly glutinous jelly and block up all the oil galleries! Meaning the engine would then need complete disassembly and de-greasing, even to the point of removing every Welch Plug in every gallery and pressure blasting 'em through!

What most motorists don't realise is that crank bearings and piston big ends run solely on an oil film cushion: and it is when this breaks down that excessive wear and failure occur.

There were loads of competitive developments between oil giants in the 60s to create Long Chain Polymers in mineral oils: as well as self-cleaning through detergents and various other additives to change the viscosity: that's when we started having such as SAE 20-50 et al.

However, wholly synthetic oils have always been superior: but bloody expensive as you say!

Modern high speed, high output Lean Burn engines develop far more grunt, at far higher operating temps, and mineral oil, even with rafts of additives is simply not resistant enough to degradation.

Of course, now the problem is that synthetic oils require a range of petro-chem products as their feedstock................................

 

[krusty]

[quote user="Théière"]Its easy to get the hydrogen, just pass an electric current through water, where you get the electricity from, that's the problem [:)][/quote]

More and more it is not going to be a problem ....wind farms and any of the other sources that do not involve burning fossil fuels.

There has to be a future without oil as we are using it now . I can not see it ending as a "Mad Max" world. 

Electricity is not storeable , use the excess to make hydrogen ?

[Gluestick]

Well, sorry to rain on your parade, krusty, but a couple of years ago for a number of reasons I carried out an in-depth analysis of wind turbines used to generate electricity; one of my datums was a seminal research project and report completed by the top scientists and engineers in the USA, using various Wind Farms in Texas and Arizona as their case study.

They reached a number of clear conclusions: now one of the most critical was the spacing between wind turbines: if they are too near, then various vortex effects kick in and rapidly reduce efficiency.

Using state-of-the-art baselines for the latest turbine blade design, generating output and tower size, it was pretty quickly apparent that there was insufficient land in UK to populate the country with enough turbines to generate 40% of total load requirement!

And 40% seems to be the much quoted objective Rubicon by both environmental campaigners (Such as Greens, Greenpeace, F of  t E etc) and Government.

OK, I hear the cry, use the sea!

Fine: in theory: problem then is transmission losses and maintenance.

In all power grids, the supply is "Stepped Up" to the 110kV level, to minimise power loss over distance: and then "Stepped Down" again at local distribution levels.

All of which increases power loss, since there is nothing for nothing in engineering and physics and the old boring law of Entropy kicks in.

 

[Quillan]

Technology as we all know is for ever marching forward and where it will eventually lead us nobody knows.

The most obvious way forward with cars in my mind is electricity. Battery technology advances daily, we have sports cars like the Tesla Roadster which has a truly amazing performance for those 'petrol' or should be say 'electric' heads and car manufacturers in general are producing and will be producing electric family cars in the near future.

That's all well and good but in the UK the argument at present is "OK fair enough but all you are doing is moving the source of pollution elsewhere" i.e. you still have to produce electricity somehow and with not many Nuclear power stations or wind farms we have to burn fossil fuels and gas which are polluting and both of which have a limited lifespan.

The other form of electricity generation is via photovoltaic panels and systems. Trying to be simplistic I notice by reading the information, claims by the manufacturers and installers that you can get your back by selling your over capacity which indicates that there is some over capacity from these systems.

So getting to my real point is why does the government make it mandatory that all new houses be built with these systems incorporated withing them (and water recycling as well but that's a different matter). Not only is it pollution free but also the excess power generated can be used to power electric cars. This would mean that we could get rid of fossil fuel power stations and replace some, but not all, with nuclear or alternatively wind power but you wouldn't need so much. Technology has moved on with these panels making them more efficient per m2 and cheaper and I am sure they will become even more smaller and cheaper in the future.

I think more financial incentive should be given to people in retro fitting such systems to existing houses as well. At the moment it will take a very long time for people to get their money back from installing such a system which is their main concern. I mean I would like to fit such a system but I will probably be dead by the time I get any payback and I know I am not alone in my thinking. OK we are doing our 'bit' to save the planet but humans being what they are the cost is the thing they look at which is why I think its a good idea to force builders to include them in new builds where people won't notice the cost so much, I think it would be a step in the right direction.

[krusty]

[quote user="Gluestick"]

Well, sorry to rain on your parade, krusty, but a couple of years ago for a number of reasons I carried out an in-depth analysis of wind turbines used to generate electricity; one of my datums was a seminal research project and report completed by the top scientists and engineers in the USA, using various Wind Farms in Texas and Arizona as their case study.

[/quote]

I was not suggesting wind farms would be the be all and end all , I thought the topic was hydrogen and its use in the future ?

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Another way of reducing the usage of fuels like this might be to enforce people to actually work near where they live? Probably impossible to enforce now, but it seems totally stupid to me that some people spend up to 3 hours a day travelling to and from work? How dumb is that? Colossal waste of life for a start.

[Will]

I agree commuting is apparently stupid, but how do you get round it? Most of the places in England where the work is to be found are over-populated so people have to live some distance away. Not everybody wants to live in the cities anyway, which is one of the reasons often cited for moving to France.

This picture which I took last December in Copenhagen (during COP15) might be of interest. It's a Tesla car, as described by Quillan, and a fuel-cell equipped ship. Many people don't realise that fuel cells can operate on fuels other than hydrogen. This one (it's experimental, so is only used for supplying the ship's electrical systems, but a bigger one is due to be installed) operates on LPG (liquid petroleum gas), which is also used to power the ship's main engines. Many see LPG as a fuel of the future in applications like coastal shipping and ferries where the infrastructure can be put in place; it's infinitely cleaner than the heavy fuels normally used by ships.

[IMG]http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j205/vienormande/vl_shipcar.jpg[/IMG]

[Gluestick]

[quote user="krusty"][quote user="Gluestick"]

Well, sorry to rain on your parade, krusty, but a couple of years ago for a number of reasons I carried out an in-depth analysis of wind turbines used to generate electricity; one of my datums was a seminal research project and report completed by the top scientists and engineers in the USA, using various Wind Farms in Texas and Arizona as their case study.

[/quote]

I was not suggesting wind farms would be the be all and end all , I thought the topic was hydrogen and its use in the future ?

[/quote]

Yes, krusty, I was responding to your earlier comment, thus:

[quote]

More and more it is not going to be a problem ....wind farms and any of the other sources that do not involve burning fossil fuels.[/quote]

Interesting that the OP (And engineer) and I discussed on these boards quite some time ago, our disbelieve concerning the vaunted claims for wind turbine efficiency.

In our bit of rural France, they have sprung up as if dragon's teeth had been scattered all over the horizon!

On investigation, the Mairie, the Canton, the farmers on whose land they are sited and the departement have all been benefiting rather nicely: as have the installing and operating company. But it is all EU grants!

Take away the grants and then the viability is hugely questionable.

Which is all rather like claiming one's car achieves twice the MPG as another guy: when the reality is 50% of the fuel going into the tank is free under some grant!

 

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="Will"]I agree commuting is apparently stupid, but how do you get round it? Most of the places in England where the work is to be found are over-populated so people have to live some distance away. Not everybody wants to live in the cities anyway, which is one of the reasons often cited for moving to France.[/quote] Simple. Don't want to live in the city? Then don't work there either. If the planet is in such dire straits as governments seem to imply, then surely it's a small price to pay?

[Swissie]

Picard and colleagues are about to test the first solar powered plane is Switzerland.

[cooperlola]

[quote user="Gluestick"]

we still used Castrol R for many racing engines, because the film surface didn't break up on highly stressed bearing

[/quote]And I just thought people liked it for the smell.... (none better on the planet.)

JE

[Gluestick]

Then let's hope a big dark cloud doesn't mask the sun when they are committed to take off and have rotated at V1.................

[Gluestick]

[quote user="cooperlola"][quote user="Gluestick"]

we still used Castrol R for many racing engines, because the film surface didn't break up on highly stressed bearing

[/quote]And I just thought people liked it for the smell.... (none better on the planet.)

JE

[/quote]

Oh yes indeed, JE!  [:D]

I still have in my memory banks, historic races supporting other events and listening to such as ERAs, Amilcars, and Bugs, booming exhausts and pouring out nice R smells: as well as burning tyre smells and wonderful cornering squeals.

Thems were the days............

[:(]

[Quillan]

[quote user="Swissie"]Picard and colleagues are about to test the first solar powered plane is Switzerland.
[/quote]

Not the first I am afraid.

What is unique about Solar Impulse is that hopefully it will be the first ever round the world manned flight, none stop, powered by the sun.