Member Info for julianb1234

@Tagware You clearly didn't read everything I wrote "What are we trying to do? Use less oil. Why would shipping Ammonia using Oil to move the ship be a good answer?" Where did I say the ship would be powered by Oil, I clearly stated on a number of ocassions that shipping companies were looking at Ammonia as a fuel source... So the green product they transport is also the same fuel they use... No CO2 issues at all.

As for my mobile phone, it gets charged using an old fashioned slow charger, and only contains a couple of cells, not thousands to individually manage like a car one does.

I think the point Tagware was trying to argue (and I disagree with) was that Hydrogen based transport will never take off because of the poor efficiency and therefore high cost of it's production. The presumable result of this (I assume his less than clear argument was) would be 0 demand for hydrogen, and thus it would be pointless for PHE to produce it.

I do not believe that will be the case, there are enough arguments for hydrogen powered vehicles for them to become a viable alternative to battery powered ones, at least in certain circumstances. In reality it doesn't matter if that only ends up a minority percentage, it will still be more than enough to utilise all the hydrogen that you can get from waste and more. I am also in agreement with others views that getting rid of waste is in itself an argument for PHE's process, although I don't actually support the view that the energy you can produce from it is truly 'green' as generating energy from the syngas will produce CO2 (that's what happens when you burn methane and carbon monoxide). So although no CO2 is generated in the process of producing the syngas, using that gas to generate power does create it. But in this case I think it is justifiable and easily offset by other green energy producers.

Oh, and in regards to my point about having enough renewables to mitigate the efficiency issue of hydrogen cars, yet again that links back to my point about how ammonia should be part of the cycle. You can produce it in desert locations near the sea where sunlight and water abound and because it is a highly dense form of energy storage it can be easily and cheaply transported by ships to where it is needed, much as oil is currently, with the fuel for shipping being the same fuel it is transporting, a completely CO2 free product. And guess what, Saudi Arabia is already partnering with various companies to develop exactly that sort of infrastructure.

@tagware

You keep wittering on about high mileage not being an issue and offer 100 miles a day as being proof. Get a grip, that is easily within a batteries capability for one charge and therefore does not require regular high charge rates. My point was that if you are regularly charging at high charge rates as necessitated by really high mileages such as those done by trucking or salesmen (to whom 100 miles is a walk in the park) or other long distance transport vehicles such as trains, then batteries will not last long. There is therefore a valid need for alternative forms of energy storage such as hydrogen or ammonia to hydrogen. You are merely stuck on the battery philosophy as being the only solution the same way you argue O&G is stuck on petrol or diesel.

You quote Amazon and UPS as examples of high mileage vehicles to prove that batteries are capable of it. These companies chose EV's deliberately because the daily use for an URBAN delivery driver is well within the capability of a battery, so they do NOT need fast charged and can be charged overnight, thus the batteries will last a long period as intended.

You have clearly not looked into my comment about ammonia being a valid form of energy storage. If you did you would find that there are a number of major companies looking into it at the moment particularly for shipping use, and once ammonia becomes a viable and recognised alternative EV and CE fuel source people will realise it is also a major link to the hydrogen economy, which you are naysaying on the basis that batteries are the be all and end all for EV's. I have never said that batteries don't have their place, they do, but they are not the answer to everything. Although personally I do not fancy being in an accident with an EV being involved as there is no safe way to discharge the huge amounts of energy the battery contains. Oddly enough I would have no such problem in a hydrogen fuelled vehicle because it dissipates so quickly and becomes harmless extremely rapidly unlike a battery which remains dangerous for days.

So that feeds onto my final point, as I have repeated above, I do not say batteries don't have their place, but they do have significant downsides in producing them from an environmental point of view, and your argument that they can be recycled is irrelevant if there aren't enough old ones around to recycle, so until then there is a simply enormous environmental issue in producing billions of them for the first time use in the billions of vehicles that are not currently EV's. The hydrogen economy issue is as you yourself have pointed out an issue of efficiency not environmental other than where that energy comes from. As I pointed out if the energy that is used to produce the hydrogen is from renewable sources the efficiency issue is not really a problem as long as you have enough of it.

In any case if you are such a naysayer of the hydrogen economy, why are you here?

As for being recyclable, I would agree with you, if we actually had enough of them in service already to be a significant input, however with just a tiny few percent of current vehicles being EV, there is a HUGE amount of first time production to get through before recycling is even a viable alternative.

And they get to charge them overnight on a low charge.

A delivery driver doing the rounds isn't exactly a high mileage person. Their round is calculated to be the shortest possible route. The average commute is probably more.

If you spend your life charging at low rates of charge on a home charger, the battery guarantees will undoubtedly be achieved, but for the high mileage user such as the haulage industry, or even a salesman in a car, who need to charge at high speeds frequently the battery life will be significantly reduced. In any case, I suspect you haven't even looked into my point about ammonia and are merely arguing the case for batteries in the same way as you accuse the O&G industry argues the case for it's products. Batteries are not the greenest thing to produce, they have significant downsides which as long as hydrogen is produced using renewables doesn't have.

@ tagware I remain to be convinced on the charging rates issue, there is a secondary problem with charging at high rates, you reduce the battery lifespan, and already I am seeing people being quoted over ten grand for replacing batteries on cars that are only 5 or so years old, not a cost nor environmentally effective solution.

Thanks, I know the technology, it is the actual energy usage and outputs I am interested in to determine if it is genuinely cost effective. I forgot to include the boiler efficiency allowance in my last comment, assuming a condensing boiler that is >80% so the CoP of a heat pump needs to only be 3 rather than 3.8 to work out more cost effective.

The average cost of electricity per kWh is 14.37p, and the average gas cost per kWh is 3.80p, so you need a CoP of greater than 3.8 (14.3/3.8) to just break even with heat pump technology at present. If you have a genuine CoP of 5 you are reducing your energy BILL by 30% only.

@tagware Yes it has an efficiency problem, but efficiency isn't the only issue, batteries have three big downsides, they take time to recharge, have low power to weight rations, and can burst into flames unexpectedly. It will be decades before they may become suitable for freight transport on either roads, rail or shipping. In any case there are more efficient ways to generate and distribute hydrogen that are being developed, ammonia being one. There is a lot of research into direct production of ammonia from water and air using solar power, ammonia has a high power density, is readily transported .g. from areas with plenty of sunlight to areas without, and is readily dissociated to hydrogen to use in fuel cells, assuming the fuel cell isn't run directly off ammonia which in some instances it might be e.g. shipping. So hydrogen is still a fuel of the future in my opinion, and this process can add to the production rate and get rid of something we need to get rid of.

I am interested in some genuine user feedback on air to air heat pumps. At what outside temp do you get the 5x CoP? and using what water temp? The CoP tends to drop if the air temp drops and the water temp rises, so warmer climes with low required heat output are the most efficient use, but real life figures are hard to come by, only advertised ones.

I was quoted 7.0 to buy and 5.82 to sell, I think we have been pumped and dumped and it will take a while for normality to return. Don't think a return to a rise will be happening soon, too many people trying to cash their profits. But if you are an LTH it is merely a blip in the course of things.

The process produces Eco Synthesis Gas, which is used as a replacement for traditional Hydrocarbon gas, so yes, it does in effect produce CO2 because that does when it is burnt, although if it is used to produce more plastics then it doesn't, yet.

I agree with Wabu's chemistry/engineering, however this isn't just about creating hydrogen, it is about getting rid of waste and getting energy out also, admittedly that part is greenhouse gas emitting (the large portion of carbons Wabu mentions), but isn't that better than polluting the environment in other ways?. We are in the process of switching to green sources of energy in this country in a big way, so using some of that 'credit' up by getting rid of plastic and other waste in a partially clean way and getting something for it is still in my view a bonus.

The pump n dump brigade were behind this, hence all the recent posting about it by the twitter punters, but hopefully the kingpins of that were the cause of this mornings drop and have now departed. Might settle into a more valid trend.

Long may he stay away... I have another blue share today, BMN, another future energy stock, masquerading as a mining stock so it is under the radar, but has been on a slow climb the past month or so. Worth a look for those who want to spread their risk a bit.

Dropped 100p?????????? or is Google giving me false info?

Castlepaul, I don't think your sums are quite right, a simple calculation equating tonnes to litres of fuel would give at 100% efficiency of conversion around 1180L of diesel, which is around 450Gal, so at 50mpg that would only equate to 23,000 miles, and you will not get anything like a 100% conversion efficiency. I am not sure of the process efficiency but a more realistic figure might be 10,000 miles off a tonne of plastic.