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from their website:
hydrogen fuel cell: 70 kW
volume of the hydrogen tanks: composite tanks 5x312l
So the content of the cylindrical tanks is more than 1.5 m³
The bus is driven by an axle with two integrated electric motors, each with an output of 125 kW. Solaris indicates a range of up to 350 kilometres.
This is exactly (only) as much power as the standard range Tesla model 3 (250 kW), with a range of 409 km. If triple the amount of batteries were included in the bus as in model 3, they would surely provide more than 350km in the bus.
The "old" Tesla batteries are around 260 Wh/kg or 711 Wh/litre. The newer Tesla batteries are even (much) better.
So, a 200 kWh battery would weigh about 770 kg, and have a size of 281 litres. (somewhat more due to the power electronics, packing and cooling system)
Compare this with the huge H2 tanks of 1500 litres internal volume + the fuel cell.
A battery bus would be much, much cheaper, much more reliable, and consume 1/3 the amount of primary electricity than with the wasteful hydrogen. City busses are particularly suitable for batteries as they can be charged intermittently (but even then, with a 200kWh battery, a city bus would probably hardly have to recharge during the day)
Placing a number of chargers is also immensely cheaper in installation and operation than a hydrogen fueling station. From an ecological point of view, it wouldn't waste 2/3 of the electricity through the wasteful H2 cycle.
Even more importantly, it wouldn't provide an excuse to the fossil industry to "green" their image as the H2 provider while still producing H2 from fossil fuels and dumping the CO2 in the atmosphere. This last point is most probably why H2 busses are proudly promoted. I cannot imagine that the politicians are not capable of making this simple calculation and independently come to the obvious conclusion that batteries are much more economical and ecological.
Arriva Netherlands acquires 10 Solaris hydrogen buses
Solaris Bus & Coach and Dutch carrier Arriva Netherlands have signed an agreement for the delivery of 10 Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen buses. The 12-meter hydrogen buses will be delivered to the province of Gelderland in the course of this year. Arriva will start driving them in December 2021 in t...
or a detachable supercapacitor/battery pack to get the plane to an adequate altitude, which subsequently disconnects and glides back to the launch site to recharge .
UK consortium launches InCEPTion project to develop integrated electric aircraft propulsion module
Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) specialist Blue Bear Systems Research, a UK Small to Medium Enterprise, has formed a seven-strong consortium to develop a next-generation, all-electric propulsion module to enhance aircraft performance while reducing operating costs. The propulsion module is a scala...
Mass production of H2 through steam reforming of biomass and waste, combined with CCS, could pull gigatons of CO2 out of the air.
Also cement production emits gigatons of CO2 which must be sequestered.
Even in the complete abcense of fossil fuel use, gigatons of fossil CaCO3 is turned into CaO + CO2.
The CaCO3 are fossil chalk skeletons from ancient micro organisms.
ExxonMobil, UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab develop new MOF for carbon capture and steam regeneration
Scientists from ExxonMobil, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new material that could capture more than 90% of CO2 emitted from industrial sources using low-temperature steam, requiring less energy for the overall carbon capture proces...
If they really succeed to produce 1.5 million tons/year of green ammonia, that would be remarkable, but the world production of all (=fossil) ammonia in 2019 was only 171 million tons.
It would make the most sense to first replace the fossil NH3 with green NH3 before, which would already be great.
It would make much more economic and ecologic sense to first replace all fossil NH3 by green NH3, and only then start "burning" it. Building an industrial-scale production and transportation infrastructure for green NH3 is very sound, but it seems to be way to early to consider 'burning' it as fuel, as when (most optimistically) they will -by 2025- hardly replace 1% of world fossil NH3 production.
electricity --> H2 --> NH3 --> H2 --> electricity (FCEV) is much less efficient than electricity --> battery --> electricity (BEV), so as long as we don't have dirt-cheap excess electricity, it would be more sound to use electricity as efficiently as possible.
Air Products, ACWA Power and NEOM sign agreement for $5B production facility for production and export of green ammonia to global markets for H2 delivery
Air Products, ACWA Power and NEOM signed an agreement for a $5-billion world-scale green-hydrogen-based ammonia production facility powered by renewable energy. The project, which will be equally owned by the three partners, will be sited in NEOM, a new model for sustainable living located in...
This approach Sems to me enormously inefficiënt compared to fuelcells, and certainly compared to batteries
Massive production of green NH3 Will be beneficial through.
Wärtsilä to begin long-term, full-scale testing of ammonia as marine fuel in four-stroke engine
The technology group Wärtsilä, in close customer cooperation with Knutsen OAS Shipping AS and Repsol, as well as with the Sustainable Energy Catapult Centre, will commence the world’s first long-term, full-scale, testing of ammonia as a fuel in a marine four-stroke combustion engine. (Earlier p...
Doesn't matter too much where the CO2 comes from at this moment. Fossil fuel will be uneconomical soon anyway, so more ecologically sound sources will eventually be used.
It's good this tech is developped for industrial production of chemicals (and some fuels) from air-captured CO2 in the future.
Also exhaust from waste or biomass incinerators is a flue gas.
Pyrolysis of biomass is great for carbon sequestration but still produces also CO2.
This could also be used.
Cement production, even when using renewable or nuclear heat, produces lots of CO2. this can be turned into plastics via methanol.
Successful demonstration of FlexMethanol conversion of wind power to methanol
In Germany, BSE Engineering and the Institute for Renewable Energy Systems at Stralsund University of Applied Sciences (IRES) have demonstrated the conversion of wind power into renewable methanol. Operation of this technology under dynamic conditions will be confirmed during a year-long test. ...
Nice, but why use it as a fuel.
It remains fossil carbon, that is only used a second time, but eventually is released into the atmosphere.
If used as fuel, it is an extremely inefficient use of electricity and an apology for ice users.
Moreover, the EtOH is probably very pure, which is unnecessary for fuel.
Use it in the chemical industry.
Swedish eMethanol startup launches crowd-funding campaign, developing commercial-scale plant
The Swedish start-up Liquid Wind recently launched a second crowdfunding campaign and has already raised 1,000,000 SEK (US$102,000). Liquid Wind is developing its first commercial-scale eMethanol facility in Sweden and plans to establish 6 facilities by 2030 before expanding internationally. Th...
While not efficient for driving cars compared to batteries, green H2 production using excess renewable electricity would be perfect to absorb immense amounts (and doeing so prevent immense amounts of CO2 emissions). Currently H2 is produced by steam reforming (see wiki): for every ton of H2, 9 tons of CO2 are emitted. The US currently produces about 10 million tons of H2 per year.
If green and cheap, H2 can be used for many other things, preventing CO2 emissions. One major application would be Iron production (currently iron ore is reduced using carbon, releasing CO2. This can perfectly be replaced by H2, releasing water. (Fe2O3 + C --> Fe + CO2 /// Fe2O3 + H2 --> Fe + H2O)
(if an electrolyzer is at the production site, the H2O can be reduced to H2 again and reused ; since the H2O is already extremely hot, this saves on energy)
As states use less coal for electricity, driving electric vehicles becomes even cleaner
by Michael Sivak, Sivak Applied Research. Battery electric vehicles are only as clean as the energy source used to generate the electricity that powers them. The calculated relative amounts of well-to-wheels emissions of greenhouse gases from eight different energy sources are shown in the ta...
Anyone buying such ICE Cars should know the residual value in a few years will be almost Nothing because supply/demand for used ICE cars Will be grossly out of balance. For BEV cars it will be the oppositie. This taken into account, why buy an expensive inferior car if you van buy a cheaper but superior alternative?
Volvo 48V MHEV powertrain now available on all models
In a broad portfolio upgrade, Volvo Cars announced that its 48-volt mild-hybrid powertrain options are now available on every Volvo model, further boosting the company’s electrified offerings. Introduced on the XC90 and XC60 SUVs last year, the mild hybrids are now also available on all othe...
Typo: ... (Slowly) taking off.
Largest pilot plant for CO2-neutral production of hydrogen begins operation at voestalpine site in Linz
What is currently the world’s largest pilot plant for the CO2-neutral production of hydrogen has successfully commenced operation at the voestalpine site in Linz, simultaneously setting an international milestone in the advancement of new energy supply options. As part of the EU-funded H2FUTU...
Great that industrial scale green H2 production is (slowly). Even if H2 is never used as fuel, we will need gigatons per year for industrial applications.
Largest pilot plant for CO2-neutral production of hydrogen begins operation at voestalpine site in Linz
What is currently the world’s largest pilot plant for the CO2-neutral production of hydrogen has successfully commenced operation at the voestalpine site in Linz, simultaneously setting an international milestone in the advancement of new energy supply options. As part of the EU-funded H2FUTU...
Small addition: producing charcoal does not liberate free O2. The oxygen in the biomass is released as H2O. It is plants growing that releases O2. But you must prevent the biomass from decaying into CO2 again to keep the O2 in the air. For this, turning the biomass to charcoal or plastic or furniture will work.
ExxonMobil, FuelCell Energy expand agreement to optimize carbonate fuel cell technology for large-scale carbon capture
ExxonMobil and FuelCell Energy, Inc. signed a new, two-year expanded joint-development agreement to further enhance carbonate fuel cell technology for the purpose of capturing carbon dioxide from industrial facilities. The agreement, worth up to $60 million, will focus efforts on optimizing t...
Indeed, every carbon burnt is turned into CO2, even more, hydrocarbons are turned into CO2 and H2O, taking even more O2 out of the air. So for every CH4 burnt, two O2 molecules are lost. Luckyly, there is a lot of O2. 21% O2 = 210000 PPM, while CO2 is at 400 PPM. So even trippling CO2 to 1200PPM would consume about 1500PPM of O2, thus decreasing O2 from 21% to 20,985%. This decreases the partial pressure of O2 only as much as going opstairs about 10metres or so.
Turning biomass to charcoal (= pure carbon) or nanotubes would liberate the O2 again.
Also making aluminum from bauxite liberates a lot of oxygen if done with nonfossil energy.
Interestingly, all the O2 in the air comes from vulcanic CO2, of which the carbon is sequestered by ancient organisms and the O2 was released
ExxonMobil, FuelCell Energy expand agreement to optimize carbonate fuel cell technology for large-scale carbon capture
ExxonMobil and FuelCell Energy, Inc. signed a new, two-year expanded joint-development agreement to further enhance carbonate fuel cell technology for the purpose of capturing carbon dioxide from industrial facilities. The agreement, worth up to $60 million, will focus efforts on optimizing t...
Could anyone explain how you can generate energy by concentrating CO2.?
It violates the second law of thermodynamics.
Chevrolet Menlo EV makes global premiere in China
The Chevrolet Menlo EV made its global premiere in China at 2019 Chevrolet Gala Night. The Chevrolet Blazer seven-seat mid-large SUV also was shown for the first time in China at the event. Chevrolet Menlo The Chevrolet Menlo will be the brand’s first fully electric vehicle available in C...
Keep using fossil fuels (untill truely renewable fuel is available) and planting forrests on the areas now wasted on sugar cane and corn is much more defendable than this destructive dead end.
BP forming 50:50 biofuels JV with Bunge in Brazil; growing existing biofuels business >50%
BP will form a 50:50 biofuels joint venture with Bunge—a leader in agriculture, food and ingredients. BP will combine its Brazilian biofuels and biopower businesses with that of Bunge to create a world-scale, highly-efficient producer of sugarcane ethanol in Brazil: BP Bunge Bioenergia. BP’s in...
Only quantifying the polution on particle size is obviously practical and simplifies comparison and statistics, but it is an oversimplification of health effects.
The effect of a dustgrain depends not only on its size but also largely on its chemical composition.
For instance, a grain of NaCl of 2.5 um is completely harmless, while a grain of asbestos or sooth is not.
Sooth of ICE exhaust is probably much more harmful than the inert particles of tires
UK expert group focuses attention on non-exhaust emissions from road traffic as regulatory concern
A new report released by the Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG) in the UK recommends as an immediate priority that non-exhaust emissions (NEE) are recognized as a source of ambient concentrations of airborne PM, even for vehicles with zero exhaust emissions of particles. Non-exhaust emissions (NEE...
"particularly in cosmetics"
this will replace huge amounts of petroleum.
I hope they have other applications, and that the economics also work for less high-end products.
€2.2M paid to Global Bioenergies after the first term of the OPTISOCHEM European project; bio-isobutene from wheat straw
Global Bioenergies has received a payment of €2.2 million for the OPTISOCHEM project supported by the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI-JU) the public-private sector partnership between the European Union and the Bio-Based Industries Consortium (BIC) under the European Horizon 2020 pro...
coal has no future for many reasons.
These technologies, however, will be useful for many other applications.
Higher efficiency steam turbines will be useful for nuclear and concentrated solar.
materials for ultrasupercritical powerplants is also good for high-temperature nuclear, and high-temperature electrolysis.
subsurface carbon storage will be needed to actively lower atmospheric CO2 using direct air capture or CCS of biomass/waste.
recovery of rare earth elements or toxic heavy metals from coal ash can be done with the megatons of coal ash we already have, or to extract those elements from low-quality ores.
If some politicians like to sell the development of those technologies as "coal promotion" for political reasons, I grant them the pleasure. At least it will be used for entirely different applications, and it is not immediately harmful to the planet.
By the time these technologies are developed, and coal is history, they will be used in advanced nuclear plants, concentrated solar plants, high-temperature electrolysis, wind turbines, electric cars and geoengineering.
Those technologies may even hasten the end of natural gas.
At least coal proponents can do a last useful act before finally admitting it's over.
DOE to award up to $100M for future coal plants in Coal FIRST initiative
The US Department of Energy (DOE) intends to provide up to $100 million in awards (DE-FOA-0002116) for the Coal FIRST (Flexible, Innovative, Resilient, Small, and Transformative) initiative (announced in November 2018), which aims to develop coal plants of the future that will provide secure, s...
Li is great, so hopefully Mg is even better. The more options, the better.
Nevertheless, even if Li is the best option, there will never be real scarcity since it can be extracted from seawater at limiteless volumes.
Admitted, there is even much, much more Mg in seawater. But still, the amount of Li available is vertually infinite.
DOE launches its first Li-ion battery recycling R&D center: ReCell; driving toward closed-loop recycling
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has launched its first lithium-ion battery recycling center, called the ReCell Center. Recycled materials from lithium-ion batteries can be reused in new batteries, reducing production costs by 10 to 30 percent, which could help lower the overall cost of electr...
Interesting and useful concern.
However, such kinds of algorithms can be monitored and legally regulated.
Moreover, once fully autonomous driving electric cars are available, taxies will be so cheap and convenient that they will most probably take over private driving.
A taxi ride will probably be much cheaper than the parking charges today.
An electric car that can drive 1,000,000 miles before it needs to be replaced, and costing $50,000, costs about 5c/mile capital investment cost.
The "fuel" cost is less than 2c/mile.
Let's say a "total overhead cost" of 5c/mile.
Total : 12c/mile .
Free competition will ensure reasonable profit margins, so this will be much cheaper and more convenient than driving your own car.
UC Santa Cruz prof suggests self-driving cars will torpedo parking pricing as effective congestion management policy; “incentive to create havoc”
With no need to park, autonomous vehicles (AVs) will clog city streets and slow traffic to a crawl, according to a new paper by University of Santa Cruz transportation planner Adam Millard-Ball, an associate professor of environmental studies. However, a policy fix could address these problems ...
1 ppm of co2 equals about 7.81 gigatons of CO2.
decreasing the atmospheric CO2 from 410 ppm to 250 ppm level of two centuries ago would cost about $37,000 billion.
Not too much to save the planet, if we need a plan B
GTI and Carbon Clean Solutions receive $2.9M DOE funding for development of advanced carbon capture technology
The DOE Office of Fossil Energy has awarded $2.9 million to GTI and CCS-US, the US subsidiary of Carbon Clean Solutions Limited (CCSL), to develop and to test a potentially transformational carbon capture technology. GTI and CCS-US will design, build, and test a prototype demonstration unit a...
@Roger: they do direct air capture (climeworks).
Even if no liquid organic fuel is needed in the future, we will still need gigatons of plastics.
Wheen cheap green energy will be abundant, it will be obvious to make them locally from air. Certainly for countries with no domestic crude production, and with a correct carbon price.
Power-To-X: Sunfire reports successful test run of co-electrolysis system of >500 hours; e-Crude demo targeted
Sunfire GmbH reports the successful start-up and test run (> 500 hours) of a high-temperature co-electrolysis system at its Dresden site, beginning in November 2018. SUNFIRE-SYNLINK—a co-electrolyzer based on solid oxide cell (SOC) technology—enables the highly efficient production (a projected...
I doubt many people will be willing to damage the batteries of their cars to stabelize the grid. EV-batteries are too expensive for this application. And people prefer having their car battery fully charged whenever the want to start driving.
Mass-produced dedicated battery packs (which are cheap because often second-hand cells) would be preferable I foresee.
The technical requirements for a stationary battery pack is also very different from a driving and crashable car.
Waste heat from charging/decharging can also be used more cleverly with dedicated stationary systems.
Volkswagen previewing mobile quick charging station; trials in 2019, production in 2020
Volkswagen is previewing the company’s future mobile quick charging station. The first mobile quick charging stations will be set up as early as the first half of 2019 in Wolfsburg as part of a pilot project, and will support the expansion of a charging infrastructure in the urban area. The...
I fully agree with PE.
The greatest advantage is that it will permit high-power delivery at locations where the grid wouldn't permit it through smoothening of the load, and to optimize the use of renewables and nuclear.
Mass production of such units will permit higher penetration of renewables and better utilisation of nuclear. Great evolution.
Volkswagen previewing mobile quick charging station; trials in 2019, production in 2020
Volkswagen is previewing the company’s future mobile quick charging station. The first mobile quick charging stations will be set up as early as the first half of 2019 in Wolfsburg as part of a pilot project, and will support the expansion of a charging infrastructure in the urban area. The...
I love the idea that there seems to be no other metal used than magnesium. The organics can be made from carbon and at end-of-life be completely destroyed to CO2. The Magnesium can be extracted from seawater, and at the end-of-life recycled or returned to seawater. This is the ultimate circular economy, very environmentally sound, and endlessly scalable (which is not the case for cobalt).
Even if power density and capacity is not optimal, this is a great chemistry for stationary batteries.
Toyota, UH researchers improve performance of high-energy magnesium-ion batteries
Researchers from the University of Houston and the Toyota Research Institute of America have discovered a promising new version of high-energy magnesium batteries, with potential applications ranging from electric vehicles to battery storage for renewable energy systems. The battery, reported...
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