What if Toyota’s Hydrogen engine succeeds?

Ammonia is extremely dangerous. This happened right around the corner from my plant. 2 workers were killed when they were hit with the ammonia gas. This was just from a leaking connection on the refrigeration unit. Two workers went up on the roof to investigate the loss of refrigeration and never came back.

https://wgno.com/news/local/ammonia-leak-at-diversified-foods-plant-closes-part-of-i-12/

The last thing we need to do is use Ammonia in a non controlled situation. It kills extremely fast.

 

Indeed. Ammonia is a major inhalation hazard...T

 

I'm more interested in the various schemes to generate a petrol substitute using plant/algae sources. They're powered by the sun and directly take CO2 from the air and make fuel that's usable in unmodified cars and airplanes. Like hydrogen, it's not terribly new, just won't be financially viable unless crude oil stock is taxed heavily and/or no longer subsidized.

 

This is getting close to P&R, but are you saying to make things financially viable, such as some alternative, we have to heavily tax the current supply of whatever material? Ok, I am not going down this path.

Algae is way too expensive. I was looking at those types of technologies over 20 years ago. Bags have to be ultra sterilized, it takes a long time to grow the algae, removing plant material from the bags is ridiculously time consuming and that is before I even start processing the biomaterial. It has been beat to death, it was a great university and grant project, but it is a non starter. Also, I am not gong to pay $10.00 a gallon or more for a wet dream when I have many other alternatives for much less.

 

Dunno what tech they are using, but United has been demonstrating biofuel flight testing. If EVs do take over in a big way, I'd be happy to be able to only pay $10/gal to keep driving my unmodified classics if regular petrol gets hard to find. Probably it's more of a problem for the next generation since cars live a long time these days.

 

This is off-topic, and I like Elon, but I am pretty sure he is not among the 10 or so richest men in history in terms of today's dollars. Some of the older guys are pretty fascinating to read about.

 

One of the plants by me is a mass producer of biofuel diesel. They patented and perfected a continuous operation and it is a fraction of the cost to fractionate oil. Of course they fractionate oil also at their other plants, but they have been making strides in this area and the bad part is they sell almost all of the biofuel they produce to europe. I am not sure if the biofuel has the same power as JP4 fuel for the planes and the supply of input material may be the kink in the chain. But, there are big strides in this area, so much that they are doing a massive expansion to their plant to increase capacity which means they must have figured out the input material issue. I am all for biofuels if they DO NOT affect the food supply chain and hope we see more investment in it.

 

Go back in time far enough, sure pound per pound, somebody probably beat Elon. They also could die from being bitten by the wrong mosquito.

Three hundred billion vs. 400 billion?

I'm happy to errata. Musk is the richest man in the last millennia or so.

 

Read this article; it says servicing a hydrogen tank in a car has different rules and procedures. So?
Folks who work with gasoline tanks also have to be careful.

Never claimed hydrogen, electric, hell - even steam is carefree.

Folks are lauding jet engines rebutted by folks that are propeller enthusiasts, saying, "Well, jet engines have more dangers in maitenance"

Come on now.

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The article also makes no statement that hydrogen cars will blow up on the road.

That's the claim I'm debating: That hydrogen cars are more likely to blow up vs gasoline cars in an accident.

Am I intellectually disingenuous simply requesting some evidence?

Or has the world become fully a 'feelings-based' paradigm?

 

that was in response to what you replied to me with ...specifically this:

"I read the only they could do to pierce it was a armor busting sniper round"

And I gave you other ways it can be just as dangerous...that is documented by a manufacturer of such vehicles, giving absolute credibility to the situation, not heresy or speculation.

and, working with gasoline tanks requires none of the preparations that working on Hydrogen tanks is required, not even close...because they are obviously more dangerous to be around.

 

I think you have to be aggressively stupid to blow up a gasoline tank. Hydrogen less so. In every day use, properly installed, I don't think they're going to be an issue, but I also don't think hydrogen is any more useful than battery electric given that there is even less infrastructure for fueling hydrogen vehicles than EVs or even propane vehicles.

 

Toyota GR Yaris H2 is hydrogen-fuelled hot hatchback | Autocar

 

7000 what? There are only 48 Hydrogen fueling sites in USA:
https://afdc.energy.gov/stations/states

 

I think it may come down to the 10,000 psi bomb in your car during an accident or a fitting fracturing. Metals do fatigue, especially in high pressure situations. And, in my opinion, the safety protocols at refueling stations would require "intelligent" people to fuel your vehicle up and we know what the intelligence level is dropping to in this country, and it just puts a lot of questions around whether it is economically smart for investment to take place to build 7000 stations when looking at ALL the Hydrogen challenges (manufacturing, transport, vehicle safety, refueling safety). The other alternatives to gasoline/diesel just seem like a safer investment long term. This is just my 2c.

 

Or 10X as many EV charging stations. Have the automakers doing hydrogen (either fuel cell or combustion) agreed on standard fittings and procedures for refueling?
40 years ago I expected hydrogen would take off but I've been disappointed for a long time.

 

Interesting article. I can see the carbon fiber since it takes a lot of steel (weight) to hold 10,000 psi. I would like to see 45 mph crashes, that’s my opinion though. The article writer even said that the window is closing due to EV taking strides. I would personally feel safer in an EV than those hydrogen tanks. I still think the safety portion and the perception of safety by the consumer will continually hold back the investment.

 

With some experience in this area... And a lot of thought and study in this topic for the last 23 years or so...


Batteries are a stepping stone.


It is not the end all be all. It is not efficient enough and demands too many resources... Too much to deal with dead battery packs etc...

There will be a better solution... Is it hydrogen? Maybe... Is it something else? Probably. Will we have battery cars for the next 30 years. Probably not. There will be something else.

 

Fusion reactors? Hydrogen fuels cells are the only new tech I can think of since the internal combustion engine. Batteries predate that. Steam was in the middle IIRC. Closed cycle turbines are pretty efficient and are interesting because they'll run on almost anything that burns.