RE: Ocelot11 Oct 2023 10:17
Vernonya,
The World market for EV's powered by Hydrogen fuel cells will dwarf that of battery powered EV's. It's the way we should be going in the UK, using Hydrogen generated by excess wind power (we paid over £1 Billion in capacity constraint payments to wind farms last year).
The long distance trucks that Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australia rely on will never be powered by a conventional EV's - these are places where they cannot keep the lights on 24/7, never mind put in place generation and distribution capacity for vehicles.
Look at the number of trucks on the road in the UK - same thing.
I know Tesla did a big splash about having an EV truck that did 500 miles recently, but what they didn't say was that they needed special permission from the US Govt to run it over the 84klbs kerb weight allowed (apparently it was just over 100klbs) and the actual freight weight was just 1 ton.
They also claimed a 30 min recharge time. What they didn't say was that the recharge system was 4,000 Amps.
Let me say that again - FOUR THOUSAND Amps.
Never mind the sheer impossibility of any grid handling that load, if you have a pacemaker or a hip implant or carrying anything metallic while standing next to it - well, that's a big problem.
The Hydrogen for the fuel celled EV's in those places will be spot generated by a system that was developed several years ago by Shell, HM Govt and Toyota. It fits in a shipping container and just needs water and electricity (which can be grid, PV or Wind, or a combination).
Refuelling times are the same as for an ICE - and that's the huge advantage. These long distance lorries have two drivers - they pull into a small village, one driver starts refuelling while the other goes to eat, they swap places until the tanks are full and then they carry on going.
The scenario you paint in your last paragraph simply cannot happen - any leaking Hydrogen will dissipate far too quickly.
Besides, the automatic safety systems wouldn't allow a slow leak - as soon as they detect any leak at all, they are designed to automatically vent the entire tank to atmosphere - typical discharge time is just one second. If it did so while parked in a closed garage, by the time the owner heard the alarm, got to the garage and switched the light on, the H2 will have gone - it dissipates that fast.
Everyone points to the Hindenburg - apart from the fact that the paint they used on the skin was very combustible, people forget that the majority of people who died were killed by the fire caused by the diesel tanks rupturing when it hit the ground. The Hydrogen had already been burned off (it's going upwards in the first few seconds of the film of the crash).
Presumably you are not aware that Hydrogen powered cars, buses and Lorries have been used in the UK for several years? Experimental Hydrogen powered trains are even being used by ScotRail.