An Australian Hydrogen Future.

Richie148 · Veteran Member

An Australian Hydrogen Future.

Jaahn · Guru

Hi smile
Well it is the kiss of death if the pollies are pushing any direction for a new technology. They only react to pressure by lobbyists that have a vested interest. Sorry to say that.
Hydrogen has a lot of problems and is yet to show us the road to go down IMHO. hmm It has been in the development phase for 30 years that i know about and still we are not using it. A very difficult gas to work with. Some well respected people suggest it will be twice as expensive to run a car on it than a battery vehicle.

"the world respected CSIRO" would be much better off and have produced many more ideas if the previous liberal governments had not gutted it by various means and thus loosing the expertise it had before. A mere shadow of its previous self and mostly doing industry research to try and support itself. IMHO.
Jaahn

Whenarewethere · Guru

Recently 6 gas wells out of 19,000 in Queensland were tested by CSIRO were "randomly" put forward by the gas industry for testing for benchmarking environmental issues. All was ok!

Others have said this does not pass the pub test.

I tend to believe the latter.

Mamil · Senior Member

Hydrogen has long been touted as the "fuel of the future" but that future never seems to arrive! Fifteen years ago there were hydrogen fuel cell busses on the streets of Perth, but it came to nowt.

https://www.pta.wa.gov.au/news/media-statements/hydrogen-fuel-cell-bus-trial-draws-to-a-close

I hope Hydrogen will still find a place in a cleaner energy future, but I suspect it will be a niche player in a diverse mix of alternative technologies.

-- Edited by Mamil on Thursday 16th of July 2020 08:56:56 PM

Warren-Pat_01 · Guru

And a mechanic I know said of my two Nissan that I put gas injection on "LPG belongs in a baby, no-where else."
Well it worked well in both diesel cars, except on very hot days - trying to fill the tank was difficult! One supplier in western QLD cooled his pump with hessian & water.

I have no idea how hydrogen will work under similar conditions! Politicians don't have a good track record, do they? Are they going to suggest we all live in southern states?

Dick0 · Guru

Yes, Hydrogen is the fuel of the future, the distant future.

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

Well, I am optimistic about the hydrogen future in SA. Very soon, they will be adding hydrogen th the household gas supply in the southern suburbs.
Hydrogen is an easy fuel to make using excess solar and wind power and an easy fuel to compress, store and ship. Its energy density is much higher than petrol and diesel.
Cheers,
Peter

2 olestiffs · Member

hi, the old assembly line at toyota's altona north melbourne's factory . is changing too a hydrogen factory. they probaly started work approx 2 years ago now there. many cars are parked there in the old car park daily.

Jaahn · Guru

Peter_n_Margaret wrote:
Well, I am optimistic about the hydrogen future in SA. Very soon, they will be adding hydrogen th the household gas supply in the southern suburbs.
Hydrogen is an easy fuel to make using excess solar and wind power and an easy fuel to compress, store and ship. Its energy density is much higher than petrol and diesel.
Cheers,
Peter

Hi Peter smile

I respectfully disagree about hydrogen being an "easy fuel to compress, store and ship". That is the crux of the difficulties with hydrogen that everyone is working to overcome. furious We do hope that it will be produced by excess wind and solar power.

Jaahn

-- Edited by Jaahn on Sunday 26th of July 2020 07:16:25 PM

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

The difficulties I understand are in liquification. Many uses will be available for compressed gas.
The SA facility....
www.agig.com.au/pioneering-sa-hydrogen-facility

Calorific comparisons.
www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figures/heat-values-of-various-fuels.aspx
Cheers,
Peter

Jaahn · Guru

Peter

There is plenty of information on Hydrogen but it is swamped by the disinformation by a lot of people who are lobbying or are not practical or have blinkers.

Hydrogen cannot be liquified easily and needs excessive pressures or very low temperatures. Hydrogen is the smallest atom, and that cannot be 'fixed' and if kept as a gas in a steel pressure vessel under normal high pressures it just diffuses out over a period of some days or a month which leads to several serious problems. One you lose it at a serious rate, two it is extremely flamable around the tank area, three the hydrogen causes embrittlement of the metal vessel. Not easy stuff to work with at all.

Cheers Jaahn

-- Edited by Jaahn on Monday 27th of July 2020 08:32:06 AM

-- Edited by Jaahn on Monday 27th of July 2020 01:39:16 PM

Brenda and Alan · Guru

Jaahn your a bit pessimistic about storage life. Many years ago in a lab I worked in we used compressed hydrogen in G sized steel cylinders for chemical analysis. These lasted well over 12 months with daily usage. The proposed transport will not be as compressed hydrogen but as liquid ammonia. The hydrogen will be extracted direct from the ammonia at its usage site then compressed into cylinders fuel tanks etc.

Alan

-- Edited by Brenda and Alan on Monday 27th of July 2020 07:26:12 PM

Jaahn · Guru

Brenda and Alan wrote:
Jaahn your a bit pessimistic about storage life. Many years ago in a lab I worked in we used compressed hydrogen in G sized steel cylinders for chemical analysis. These lasted well over 12 months with daily usage. The proposed transport will not be as compressed hydrogen but as liquid ammonia. The hydrogen will be extracted direct from the ammonia at its usage site then compressed into cylinders fuel tanks etc.
Alan
-- Edited by Brenda and Alan on Monday 27th of July 2020 07:26:12 PM

Hi Alan smile

I probably am pessimistic. I hope you did read the many pages of safety data sheets for bottled hydrogen.

From Wiki; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_tank

I give a small quote : U.S Department of Energy maintains a hydrogen safety best practices site with a lot of information about tanks and piping.^[11] They dryly observe "Hydrogen is a very small molecule with low viscosity, and therefore prone to leakage.".

Note I am not anti hydrogen at all, but my reading over quite a few years leads me to think it will not be common in my life time. Even the Australian Hydrogen Future Plan gives it 30 years. I hope I am wrong and perhaps the breakthrough will be ammonia or metal hydride storage. But what would I know !

Jaahn

Whenarewethere · Guru

Hydrogen will not leak through a tank quick enough to be of any issue for the normal expected storage life of the fuel. There is no point storing hydrogen for extended periods. Too much money is tied up in the infrastructure to have it in effect sitting idle.

Hydrogen is the ideal fuel as back up for wind & solar. Just have plenty of wind & solar & fill in the gaps with hydrogen, water & batteries as well. Tidal energy if we can solve wear & maintenance issues.

Bagmaker · Senior Member

I am pretty sure there remains an embrittlement issue with any metal substances contacting hydrogen.
Whether that can be mitagated within replacements -cost wise- was an issue for its general use.
OK for scientists, not for us phlebs, unfortunately