4 days, 150 Kts....on hydrogen.

[Mooneymite]

Truck engines?

http://video.boeing.com/services/player/bcpid1173939806001?bckey=AQ~~%2cAAAAukPAlqE~%2coAVq1qtdRjwBrIkHYj2MSytJiEK9s5fy&bctid=1331877361001

[N201MKTurbo]

Hydrogen is a great energy storage substance, but it isn’t a fuel! There are no hydrogen wells. You have to make it. In most cases, from fossil fuel. 
 

Sure, you can make it from a wind mill or solar panel, but you can make a lot more money just selling the electricity.

[carusoam]

Hydrogen is coming on strong...

As Rich points out above... green hydrogen is the only way to be near cost effective...

Middle of the desert collecting solar energy, and splitting water in half...

There are a few companies working on this commercially...  with trucks and trains in mind...

Currently popular for indoor fork trucks...

https://www.plugpower.com

PP thoughts only, always keeping my eyes open...

Best regards,

 -a-

 

 

[BKlott]

Every time I read of some plan to use hydrogen to power some type of vehicle, I can’t help but think of the Hindenburg.

[carusoam]

I would think....   hydrogen sensors would be important for safety...

With indoor fork trucks... it would be possible to send a bubble of H2 to the ceiling lights, if there was a leak...

 

Oddly, we were cleaning up some helium balloons earlier this week... somebody released the excess helium into the room...

Within seconds the smoke detector / gas detector was alarming... 

 

I didn’t think we had a He detector... and it was near the floor as well...

Best regards,

-a-

[N201MKTurbo]

It is a giant gas tank, no place for people.

Ya,all were teasing me for the LNG plane, but they are flying a plane with a cryo fuel with less volumetric energy density than LNG.

[GeeBee]

My brother when he lived in Munich was given a hydrogen powered BMW for a month. We stopped to fuel it at the factory. We had to get out of the car and go into a "safety building". The car was robotically fueled. There were dozens of flame sensors all over the facility as you cannot see a pure hydrogen flame. It burns clear and all you see is the heat wave. It was enough for me to see it is not workable as an everyday fuel.

 

[aviatoreb]

What an interesting project.

Surely in an extreme niche of niche applications.

[jaylw314]

3 hours ago, GeeBee said:

My brother when he lived in Munich was given a hydrogen powered BMW for a month. We stopped to fuel it at the factory. We had to get out of the car and go into a "safety building". The car was robotically fueled. There were dozens of flame sensors all over the facility as you cannot see a pure hydrogen flame. It burns clear and all you see is the heat wave. It was enough for me to see it is not workable as an everyday fuel.

 

?? I thought hydrogen burns with a visible blue flame?  IIRC it's methanol that burns without a visible flame, and it's still used as racing fuel

[skydvrboy]

57 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

?? I thought hydrogen burns with a visible blue flame?  IIRC it's methanol that burns without a visible flame, and it's still used as racing fuel

Both methanol and hydrogen burn with a very pale blue flame which is nearly invisible in a normally lit environment.  Yes, I was the guy in chemistry class who burned everything I could get my hands on!

[Hank]

1 hour ago, jaylw314 said:

?? I thought hydrogen burns with a visible blue flame?  IIRC it's methanol that burns without a visible flame, and it's still used as racing fuel

Hydrogen flames are what you see coming out of funny car exhaust stacks. They burn enough fuel fast enough and hot enough to disassociate the H₂O in the air and the H₂ then burns. Still, extreme caution around hydrogen refueling when it is exposed to the environment is a reasonable precaution, all it takes is one little spark and BLOOEEY!!

[GeeBee]

Yes, any visibility to a pure hydrogen flame is either by products being consumed, or vapor being exposed. A pure 100% hydrogen flame is colorless. If you take dry hydrogen, in a dry atmosphere and a clean burner and it will be invisible but for the heat wave.

[N201MKTurbo]

We just built a system that fire polishes fused quartz. It uses hydrogen and oxygen. Each burner is about 2” in diameter and has about 64 holes. It looks a bit like the rear end of a Saturn 5. The flame is blue. 

[jaylw314]

So a bit of Google-fu and research.  The blue in alkane (including methane, propane and gasoline) fires is from emissivity from C-C and C-H free radicals during combustion.  From Wikipedia:

Swan bands are a characteristic of the spectra of carbon stars, comets and of burning hydrocarbon fuels.^[1][2] They are named for the Scottish physicist William Swan, who first studied the spectral analysis of radical diatomic carbon (C₂) in 1856.^[3]

And pure hydrogen does indeed have a visible blue flame, though weaker than alkane flames:

https://zenodo.org/record/1258847/files/article.pdf

Edited January 27, 2021 by jaylw314

[GeeBee]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

We just built a system that fire polishes fused quartz. It uses hydrogen and oxygen. Each burner is about 2” in diameter and has about 64 holes. It looks a bit like the rear end of a Saturn 5. The flame is blue. 

It is not a pure hydrogen flame and you are likely in artificial light. Put a pure hydrogen flame in sunlight and it will be invisible.

 

[dominikos]

23 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Hydrogen is a great energy storage substance, but it isn’t a fuel! There are no hydrogen wells. You have to make it. In most cases, from fossil fuel. 
 

Sure, you can make it from a wind mill or solar panel, but you can make a lot more money just selling the electricity.

with renewable generation, you get oversupply of electricity and hydrogen allows you to level peaks and valleys... depending on the location, green hydrogen can be cost competitive with natural gas based hydrogen. I believe they come at the same price point right now in Australia...

[carusoam]

MS makes you smarter by the day...

Kind of like reading Scientific American, but much more fun... and usable...

Go MS!

Best regards,

-a-

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, dominikos said:

with renewable generation, you get oversupply of electricity and hydrogen allows you to level peaks and valleys... depending on the location, green hydrogen can be cost competitive with natural gas based hydrogen. I believe they come at the same price point right now in Australia...

Good luck with that...

[dominikos]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Good luck with that...

Hmm, I didn’t include sources, I guessed I deserved that 

Here is an article to support my statement, https://reneweconomy.com.au/rapid-fall-to-parity-predicted-for-australian-renewable-hydrogen-costs-11266/. With increase in renewables, Australia has challenge with negative electricity prices during overproduction and this is a valid usage of excess electricity.

Please note that this does not account for electrolysis technology improvements which will happen as we see more investments in H2. I’m not a proponent of hydrogen but it is going to become increasingly relevant with policies and investments to support it.

[Hank]

6 hours ago, dominikos said:

Please note that this does not account for electrolysis technology improvements which will happen as we see more investments in H2. I’m not a proponent of hydrogen but it is going to become increasingly relevant with policies and investments to support it.

So what's the preferred location for the bomb ( = tank of compressed hydrogen)? Under your seat, under your wife's seat, or under the baby in the back seat???

[dominikos]

Looks like Toyota decided that three tanks are the best way to take care of all passengers... so there is one between you and your wife, one under your baby and one under your shoppings...

https://www.thedrive.com/news/37872/now-with-three-hydrogen-tanks-the-2021-toyota-mirai-gets-a-400-mile-range

I’m not sold on hydrogen, it is expensive energy source, unless you factor in electricity at negative prices. I personally drive EV and love it. For longer trips, there is mooney 

[steingar]

Seems like a good energy source for HALO, since there's no one on board.  Solar would be better, and I thought there was an extant solar HALO platform.

[jaylw314]

9 hours ago, Freemasm said:

The Majority of Economics of Renewable Energy is a lie. The costs associated with back-up power and "spinning reserve" are not included. Renewables also aren't nearly as green as they portray themselves. Gas turbines cycling load, making pollution while operating under no load conditions, giving up 50% of their relative efficiencies operating in simple cycle mode, all to prop up wind and solar generation's unpredictable output. There are a lot of hidden costs and environmental impacts. Add on the fact that their levelized costs are very high compared to other forms of generation (Hydro is the exception), it makes even less sense. 

You are absolutely correct.  Attempts to justify research and policy on the economics of sustainable energy are (almost) always based on fallacy and wishful thinking.

However, that does not change the fact that there will come a day where the cost of using fossil fuels rises above the cost of other energies.  I'd prefer to be prepared for that day than wake up to it.   

[Hank]

27 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

You are absolutely correct.  Attempts to justify research and policy on the economics of sustainable energy are (almost) always based on fallacy and wishful thinking.

However, that does not change the fact that there will come a day where the cost of using fossil fuels rises above the cost of other energies.  I'd prefer to be prepared for that day than wake up to it.   

Farming and harvesting corn to make ethanol uses more fuel than the corn produces. So don't look to increasing ethanol content in your fuel to reduce your carbon footprint. In fact, as the ethanol content in fuel increases, your engine produces less power and fuel mileage also decreases. The program is simply a way to give "free" government money to farmers, today mostly large corporations farming thousands of acres.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Hank

[0TreeLemur]

Studies conclusively show that H2 cannot compete with electric (ground) vehicles independent from the source of charging power (fossil, wind, solar) there are instances where it can provide significant benefits.   Small H2 generators installed on diesel powered vehicles that inject H2 into the intake air produces significant gains (3-8%) in fuel efficiency and reduction of particulate emissions by enhancing the combustion process. 

Batteries offer a much more efficient way to store electricity, and we are seeing continuous improvements in the technology.  They just weigh too damn much for economical use in airplanes at present compared to liquid hydrocarbon fuels.

LH2 is likened by rocket engine designers to a dragon.  I recall reading that when the Apollo program decided to use LH2 for the second stage fuel, a sense of dread fell on the engine design team at Rocketdyne.  LH2 is diabolically dangerous requiring special seals, gaskets, lubricants, etc.  When a problem appears, it is usually too late to do anything about it.  It also has the nasty tendency to infiltrate defects in metals and cause fracture propagation/embrittlement.   Following the KISS principle, SpaceX chose RP-1 for their second stage fuel.

What I want is a Diesel replacement for my O-360 in three years.