Hesla anyone (hydrogen Tesla)

[renewablejohn]

And just what is green hydrogen?

Hydrogen produced from excess renewable electric (Solar, Wind,Hydro) as an alternative to other forms of electric storage.

[renewablejohn]

Cracking good idea if you already have a hydrogen generation plant on your farm. Just need to fetch the price down. JCB already have tractors powered by a hydrogen engine so hydrogen on farms is a reality.

Hiya John. Just had a re-read of my comment in response to you a week ago, and wanted to apologise. I went off on a rant about H2 in general, but now I look back at it, it reads as a right bitchy go at you personally. So sorry about that.

I find a lot of the promotion of H2 for vehicles very misleading, and suspect it's an industry issue, possibly deliberate misleading promo from the FF industry to delay the transition to BEV's.

Also, we need every drop (is it drop?) of green H2 to help decarbonize industries like fertilizer, where H2 is essential, so moving to green H2, from steam reformed H2 from FF gas is really important.

All the best mate.

No problem. Did think of responding in a similar manner but thought better of it. Problem is farmers are very traditional at times but quite often are early adopters of new technology. So getting them to put solar panels on a shed roof is an easy sell as is converting any excess electric to hydrogen to form an on site fuel supply. Due to the nature of farming where weight of the tractor is the enemy of soil structure, heavy battery tractors will never work but hydrogen derived from excess solar on the farm is a cracking good fuel. New Holland brought out a Hydrogen fuel cell tractor and it broke the traditional mould. Being over 50% efficient you would think farmers would have jumped at the opportunity but they rejected it. So although JCB is only an ICE with 30% efficiency being traditional and nearly identical to the existing version it looks like it will be widely adopted by the farming community.

[Mart]

Thanks John, really interesting. I suspect for farming, in this example, I've done the classic, and let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

@Dan, further to your comment about space heating, this diagram helps to put the energy demand in context. It uses wind generation just for comparison purposes:

[dan_b]

Thanks John, really interesting. I suspect for farming, in this example, I've done the classic, and let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

@Dan, further to your comment about space heating, this diagram helps to put the energy demand in context. It uses wind generation just for comparison purposes:

That's an incredibly good diagram.
Is there an equivalent for "renewable H2 in a HFC vs battery electric vehicles - pretty sure there will be?!

[Mart]

Here's the common diagram I've seen many times, but I've just grabbed it, not checked the site itself.

[Mart]

Another image that may be a real eye-opener is that of a H2 tube trailer. But first, so as not to insult John anymore, he specifically said H2 produced on the farm. That's really important, as H2 is an absolute pig to move. Something like 90%+ is produced on site where it's needed.

For space heating we'd need to pop it down the gas mains, but H2 is so small and sneaky it wants to escape. Plus it has a lower energy density than FF gas, so to make up for the lower calorific value, it would have to be pumped at a higher pressure ..... a gas that loves to escape, pumped at higher pressure, you can see the problem.

But back to HFCV (hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) for road use, they will need to use fuel stations. Maybe some H2 can be produced on site, in some cases, but most will need to be tankered, just like petrol/diesel. The same would apply for heavy plant operating on a building site.

So H2 is moved in tube trailers. These can carry about 400kg of H2, (the latest designs, using carbon fibre, can carry upto 1,000kg), which is enough for ~40cars. So a full size HGV is needed for every ~40cars. For the Hyundai HFCV rigid van (so smaller than a HGV) it has 7 H2 fuel tanks, whereas the Toyota Mirai has 3, so in that example, you needed a semi delivery for every ~17 van fulls. It quickly becomes unviable to transport the H2, with an ever larger fleet of trucks (hopefully BEV or HFC) just to move the H2.

Here's a pic, but there are various designs, but along a common theme, and just to repeat, these max weight trucks are only 0.5tn to 1tn lighter when empty, than when full:

[renewablejohn]

Have a look at Harry's farm he did a special recently on what JCB is upto with Hydrogen.

[Krill]

Question for others (I have no idea about the practicalities of this) but what sort of space is needed for the electrolysis system, the storage area and the access for HGV to remove any excess production? Would storage vessels need more security than, say, a large propane tank already has? I imagine that electrolysis systems themselves would also be able to be run from the grid which essentially puts fuel production onto a local level and would be designed for several sizes/outputs, but I wonder what the sort of market would be, and if this would theoretically also apply to other settings beyond farms (like distribution centres etc where HGVs would congrgate and also have large roof spaces). I also wonder who this would match up to the idea of adding H2/using H2 solely through the gas network.

I can understand if in the future farmers have multiple wind turbines (but I suspect these are hooked up the grid and kept separate) but as stated earlier just shoving solar panels on shed roofs, then covering the base load and using the excess to generate hydrogen does not seem unwise for the reasons stated: fertiliser, steel production don't have much choice but to use hydrogen

[Mr Gus]

Beautifully descriptive thread, I sincerely thank you all for the easily absorbed eye opener context.

I don't see farmers wanting to set up hydrogen farming cooperatives with members only fuel ups in centralised locations to the farming industry, that is nigh on impossible by current design, so how do we move forward? what has JCB proposed to fuel on the multitude of sites its machinery runs at? (which may be around for as little as 6 months or up to 3 years per site realistically)

I'm perplexed.

[Mart]

Beautifully descriptive thread, I sincerely thank you all for the easily absorbed eye opener context.

I don't see farmers wanting to set up hydrogen farming cooperatives with members only fuel ups in centralised locations to the farming industry, that is nigh on impossible by current design, so how do we move forward? what has JCB proposed to fuel on the multitude of sites its machinery runs at? (which may be around for as little as 6 months or up to 3 years per site realistically)

I'm perplexed.

You're not the only one a bit perplexed.

If you watched the end of the Harry's Farm vid, you will see he did the same again, as he (and Lord Bamford) did in the vid looking at their HICE (Hydrogen internal combustion engine), and starts spreading FUD about BEV's.

For instance he asked how vehicles on site for HS2 could be recharged if BEV's. But he's just covered the need to truck in H2 for the HICE vehicles. So why no mention of the huge containerised batteries that are now available to do exactly this job, and already provide power for large events, such as music festivals?

And a point I made many months ago about this, where is the H2 coming from? In all but a tiny number of cases, you can bet that there will be a power source to recharge a portable battery, closer to site than a H2 provider.

Regarding portable batteries, and just to show that it's not only possible, but already exists for 'small' heavy plant, we only have to look to JCB themselves for the range of vehicles and batteries:

JCB E-TECH POWERPACK GENERATORS

Given that BEV trucks, heavy plant, tractors, dump trucks etc already exist, I think Harry is being extremely disingenuous when he leans in a bit further than just suggesting HICE for an extreme edge case, and instead starts to spread general FUD about the practicalities of BEV's doing on-site work.

Just a thought regarding HICE v's HFCV and BEV's - When investing in these hugely expensive pieces of kit, isn't it better to avoid the HICE on the grounds of noise pollution. Many work sites close to homes, shops etc, will have noise restrictions both on the max level, and also start and finish times. Of course for many sites it won't matter, but having a vehicle that may not be suitable for all sites, seems a limiting factor.

Lastly, I have to say I keep hearing about this future price of £1/kilo for H2. I'm highly doubtful to be honest, especially given the transportation costs involved. But it's really important to remember that if you're comparing a BEV to a HFCV, then the HFCV will effectively require 3x as much leccy input for the same leccy output. A HICE will require 4x as much leccy. So even if the electrolysis equipment was free to buy (spoiler, they are very expensive), and incurred zero maintenace costs, then the H2 fuelling price will still be 3 to 4 times as much as running a BEV equivalent.


Quick question / ponder, if anyone knows - Do HICE vehicles have to idle (like a diesel) when stationary, in order to operate the equipment / hydraulics?

[Edit, changed ideal to idle in last paragraph.]