Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
OK testpack3. Sorry I miss understood you. In that case it is a completely new vehicle and £6K seems very cheep. Where did you get that figure from? I repeat, I did see a program where the conversion WAS to run a standard IC engin on H2 . Admittedly that IS very inefficient and I can't remember if any MPG figure was given. I just felt it could be a way of "converting" people to hydrogen and breaking the "chicken and egg" problem , i.e. no point in buying an expensive FCV if no hydrogen stations , no point in providing stations if no FCVs. Remember ,many people did convert their cars to LPG with a cheap kit during the petrol crisis including me. In that case the fuel tank was readily available,
Hi testpack3 . I haven't seen you here before. So many new names all of a sudden! I am particularly interested in your comment about " a modification kit to convert ICC to FCV for about £6K medium size vehicles" . I think by that you mean converting a standard IC engin to run on hydrogen fuel. Do you know of a manufacturer actually supplying these kits? I guess the major part of that conversion would be for the fuel tank. A lot of research has gone in to that as well as the fuel cell for FCVs. I do remember a long time ago seeing a program ,I think on channel 5 called 5th gear that this was shown . I think it was the car company ( BMW?) that had done the conversion. This could be a very lucrative niche for a UK company to kick start the hydrogen vehicle market here. DO let me know if one exists!
Hi MAT
This is nothing to do with your present subjects, but I remember you posted some time ago that you had permission from Howard White to give out his email address. Unfortunately I didn't copy it down at the time. Could you post it again please?
Thanks
This is why the words Gasifier and gasification have been expunged from recent PHE announcements. In spite of PHE's best efforts these words are still associated with incinerators. It is also not a "monster" unit which understandably worries many.
The only other project I recall was the Bilsthorpe plant in Nottinghamshire for a Plasma gasification based on a project in Tees Valley developed by Air Products. this was also a collaboration with Peel. The Air Products project was abandoned due to "
failure to overcome technological difficulties and due to design and operational challenges". As a result The then Sec of State questioned the viability of the Bilsthorp Project. I don't have a date on the print out of the article from "Letsrecycle.com but I think it must have been in late 2017 or early 2018 . The cancelling of the Tees Vally project was 4/04/ 2016 . The last statement from Peel I have on 13/04/16 was that Peel were still committed to the Bilsthorp project. I do remember that W2T still had this project on their web site at least in 2017 but since it is not there any longer , I guess it was cancelled. I think there may have been other projects listed as well but they likewize are not there now. Can anyone add to that?
The AFC order was placed when Kieth Alaun was CEO. DR is not so keen and may be looking at other suppliers if ever used. The schematic for the Protos site does show the hydrogen separation area with the PSA etc but has a blue dotted line around it which does indicate that the intention is to include it at a later date . There is no indication of a Fuel cell in there. The recent pictorial diagram DID show one however. Peel themselves are obviously very keen on the hydrogen side so if they are the "customer" then it will happen quite quickly. I think the only reason for the inclusion of a fuel cell was the close association of AFC, W2T and PHE . It also enhanced the image of the system as a green generator of electricity. The figure of 50% hydrogen was obtained from tests on the G3 Demonstrator using tyre crumb feedstock (very hydrogen rich). This was subsequently claimed for the commercial DMG using computer modeling. The actual percentage depends on the feedstock and the "tuning" of the gasifier ( yes I will use that term even if it is now not in favour). I assumed back then, that somewhere near that percentage ( i.e . 12.5 tonne) could be separated to be used in the Fuel cell. The fact that only 1 tonne has been quoted is ether down to the very poor efficiency of the PSA unit and/or the purity needed. I think the only justification for including a fuel cell is that it could be used to generate electricity if the revenue stream for hydrogen dried up temporarily.
Sorry. That is RE your 13.48 Post Wolves. I actually thought that Alcaline Fuel cells did not need that level of purity of Hydrogen in comparison to the PEM cells used in vehicles. That was why the AFC cells were originaly chosen in the overall design to generate electricity . I understand this is now being reconsidered now although the fuel cell is still shown in the final DMG schematic.
Very good point Wolves. This has been one of my concerns about electrolysis to produce hydrogen from renewable electric. This sounds the best and most environmental way to produce hydrogen if you assume that water is a cheap and plentiful resource but not in desert countries where they want to preserve it. If hydrogen was produced using waste plastics etc and THEN used in fuel cells to produce the electricity and pure water this could be very popular in those countries.
https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers Sorry, don't know why this link has not gone blue
This is the new government line up now. Andrea Leadsom MP is Secretary of state for the department of "Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy " and Kwasi Kwarteng MP is Minister of State for "Business, Energy and clean growth" which seems to be the nearest equivalent to Stephen Speed's role . That is all for 2019. Happy New Year.