Submitted by FDuquesne t3_10gquk6 in Futurology
SolarPunkLifestyle t1_j54hrr4 wrote
It is strange that the focus is on making a diesel engine run with some hydrogen when hydrogen fuel cells would be a better fit for this type of truck. A company in Seattle has already demonstrated the effectiveness of this technology. Countries like Australia, which have abundant solar potential and mature mining industries, would be well-suited for this technology. The main issue with fuel cell technology is the high cost of platinum. While this is a significant concern for cars that are sold for a few thousand dollars, it is less of an issue for mining trucks like the electric drive Liebherr t282b, which has a price tag of $5 million and requires a similar amount of platinum. This situation is similar to when the Mythbusters program converted an older diesel car to run on cooking oil without significant modifications. While it is interesting, it begs the question of why we are focusing on preserving diesel engines instead.
stivo t1_j551ejn wrote
You totally over look that in option 1 you're retrofitting to an existing truck and option 2 requires a new truck. Replacing all trucks is not only a huge cost for businesses but also a huge contribution to GHG.
False_Profit_ t1_j554war wrote
So don't do it all at one time? Just replace them as they age out
FenrisL0k1 t1_j557fa0 wrote
Then you keep burning diesel in the old trucks. That's what this solution is meant to resolve.
False_Profit_ t1_j55gj1x wrote
If you replace them, you lower diesel emissions over time. This isn't going to be an overnight thing.
t0getheralone t1_j55n348 wrote
WOAH! Stop having reasonable outlooks and opinions man. Thats not allowed on Reddit. Only instant gratification and change is allowed here /s
False_Profit_ t1_j55ouo8 wrote
Haha, apparently lol. I'm all for more environmentally friendly solutions, but it's also just not financially feasible to do it all at once.
Toketree t1_j567t3r wrote
it may be a lot more financially (and environmentally) feasible to retrofit existing motors and trucks. There may also be an environmental case for using these kind of engines in the future, depending on the ecological and financial cost of manufacture for a fully hydrogen version
Ok-Dust- t1_j557ptt wrote
Or you could do it cheaper by retrofitting trucks you own.
Atworkwasalreadytake t1_j55ogt8 wrote
These trucks can last a very long time. Why not do both?
[deleted] t1_j55qyzu wrote
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Schemen123 t1_j552ggu wrote
Cooking oil and diesel aren't that different. Lots of diesels can run on bio oil. The main issue is seals and hoses and nothing else.
Hydrogen on the other hand most definitely is.
BigPickleKAM t1_j575cp0 wrote
This is my world.
And yes for a traditional diesel engine with a jerk pump you are right. Hydrogen wouldn't work.
However for newer larger diesel engines that operate on a common rail with electronic controlled injection switching to any compressed gas is quite simple.
Some changes to the injectors are about all that is required. Since gas can be injected at a much lower pressure to get a good flame front from the compression.
There are also changes to the fuel mapping for injection duration and timing.
If you're curious and have specific questions fire away.
Schemen123 t1_j591wo7 wrote
Obviously its possible...my grandfather run tests on hydrogen combustion right after the second world war for Mercedes.
The question here is why...this doesn't increase range, makes handling easier, reduces cost or removes the issue with combustion and exhaust management. An ice engine also isn't all that great for a lot of big machinery simply because you need to power so many different things that only badly works with ice.
Plus.. its hilariously inefficiency to burn hydrogen.
You either go fuel cell to work with hydrogen or battery so you can get rid of that high pressure hydrogen or stay with synthetic fuels that will just like that run on any old engine and still are more or less co2 neutral.
BigPickleKAM t1_j5ak26b wrote
The why comes down to inertia both in the flywheel and corporate thinking.
I can show you all sorts of cost benefit analysis done in industry and if you get the tech right you'll come out ahead. But no one wants to guess wrong and be left holding the HD-DVD bag. While high pressure storage and sourcing hydrogen in bulk can be an issue. The simple changes to run a diesel in hydrogen allows a safety blanket for the MBA types making the call. Since they can be reversed easily.
Also the amount of rotational momentum in a ICE is quite useful in starting large hydraulic pumps etc. Totally can be overcome as well but just a point.
Atworkwasalreadytake t1_j55o8vd wrote
> It is strange that the focus is on making a diesel engine run with some hydrogen when hydrogen fuel cells would be a better fit for this type of truck.
Interesting thought, but you answer your own concern right here:
> less of an issue for mining trucks like the electric drive Liebherr t282b, which has a price tag of $5 million
The main point being:
> say they have successfully modified a conventional diesel engine to use a mix of hydrogen and a small amount of diesel,
Meaning you wouldn’t need to replace, just modify existing, expensive, equipment.
It’s a transition technology not an end-state.
Zephyr104 t1_j55u6me wrote
And considering how tumultuous a situation we are in we need as many answers possible to minimize the situation we are headed towards. The technology that comes out of this could also make a huge dent in agriculture and logistics as well. Cutting diesel with green hydrogen from solar and wind would be a boon for all heavy equipment, not just mining.
SolarPunkLifestyle t1_j59kuzj wrote
> minimize the situation we are headed towards
agreed but the roll out of hybrids was the kind of distraction that slows this stuff down more than saves overall. The first hybrid was 1997 and it never took over because it was surpassed by full electric, obviating the technology from an enviromental perspective.
if this tech can be quickly spread and integrated for mining, agriculture and logistics in 2-5 years, great. but if its going to take 15 years to get to first production then it makes sense to hold out for higher standards.
SolarPunkLifestyle t1_j59kgdp wrote
but diesel work trucks are not free? The point was that a fuel cell was less significnat component of cost in something that costs 5 million vs 50,000
Atworkwasalreadytake t1_j5ahcah wrote
> but diesel work trucks are not free?
But the diesel work truck has already been built and purchased in this instance.
-The_Blazer- t1_j55vtpt wrote
It might be just a cost cutting measure. Same reason why future airliners are projected to use hydrogen or methane jet engines instead of fuel cells, there's just more expertise, know-how and established cheap technology in the existing field.
earthman34 t1_j57om5k wrote
Who's "projecting" this? I don't believe you can pack enough hydrogen into an airliner to equal the range available from jet fuel...not to mention the tanks would be massively heavy.
-The_Blazer- t1_j57p7yi wrote
Well, Airbus has a large hydrogen program going right now. You can pack enough hydrogen or methane if you make the plane physically larger (which is why a lot of concepts are either flying wings or have a "hump"), and unfortunately there isn't really another way to make airliners CO2-neutral until we invent some really good synthetic fuels or improve batteries 10x.
ArchitectofExperienc t1_j56goo8 wrote
The issue with scaling up fuel cells is that they require even more rarified metals, as I understand it, the amount of platinum (and other metals) you need doesn't scale up in a linear fashion. Once you get to heavy machinery, from large trucks to super-panamax ships, you're talking about a significant expense on precious metals alone, not to mention the extra engineering that goes in to storing a useful amount of hydrogen.
Combustion, especially in a medium that allows you to control the burn rate, is a much better option. It gives you more power at higher density without the downsides of hydrogen storage. Mixing hydrogen with diesel is one option, but there are some cool things being done with Ammonia (NH3), including mixing it with diesel, or cracking off some of those Hs in liquid ammonia solution and using that as fuel. The great thing about these fuels is that, much like biodiesel, existing diesel/bunker engines can be adapted to burn these fuels.
earthman34 t1_j57o4c2 wrote
There isn't enough platinum and iridium in the world to make any significant number of fuel cells.
SolarPunkLifestyle t1_j59k88y wrote
Thats an interesting claim. Considering that known reserves are estimated to be in the region of 70,000 metric tons and a fuel cell needs between 30 and 60 grams. that would mean we could produce between 4.167 million and 8.333 million fuel cells using 70,000 tons of platinum. granted this would be all of the platinum on earth but it should be noted that with materials as valuble as platnium we can consider mining asteroids. Davida is estimated to be worth 27 quintillion (26,990,000,000,000,000,000) U.S. dollars a lot of which is likely to be rare earth metals. but even at 4.1 million, these are powerplants that handle thigns like huge work trucks. they could easily handle hydrogen backups used when the wind does not blow and the sun is not shining.
earthman34 t1_j5bpvow wrote
Let me tell you why this doesn't make sense, either economically or environmentally. Nearly all of these "green" ideas are just robbing Pete to pay Paul. Carbon-neutral is a pipe dream. Humans haven't been carbon-neutral since they learned how to use fire. Nearly all of human technological development has been based around one fact: that we live on a planet where there's enough oxygen to support combustion non-explosively, and where there's substantial amounts of heavy metals available on the surface. This has made it possible to develop literally every single technological artifact you take for granted, from the zipper in your pants, to the hinges in your eyeglasses, to the tiny screws that hold your iPhone together, to the massive turbine shafts in the generators that provide your power, to the shiny stainless steel Elon Musk uses on his yet-to-fly-anywhere Starship. And it all requires heat, most of which derives from combusting carbon and oxygen at some stage. This is reality, and ignoring it just ignores the point.
The reality is that there probably isn't enough lithium available to power a fully electrified planet in any realistic near-term scenario, we haven't hit that wall yet, but will soon. This will cause prices to spike and possibly upend a developing market. Hydrogen and fuel cells are even more un-leverageable. Cracking hydrogen either requires vast amounts of electricity, which we don't have available (and most of what is available creates carbon dioxide), or you can crack it from natural gas, which actually creates more carbon dioxide than simply burning the natural gas, and natural gas has a much better energy density to start with.
Fuel cells aren't an answer to any large-scale need, they're extremely expensive, require significant amounts of precious metals that are already in high demand for other industrial processes, and don't work well in cold weather, requiring additional outside energy sources to keep them heated. And here you seem to be suggesting the solution is to build a vast fleet of rockets to haul infrastructure to the asteroid belt looking for more platinum and iridium, when the fact is launching rockets is one of the most polluting and carbon-unfriendly things we do. One launch produces more pollution and carbon dioxide than a thousand jet flights or a million car trips. It's absurd. It reminds me of the articles I used to read in old Popular Science magazines, about how we could have nuclear-powered cars by the 1980's, as the technology was "perfectly feasible". They weren't wrong, the technology was perfectly feasible, just completely impractical. We've had miniature nuclear reactors for 60 years. But they were expensive then and they're more expensive now. And nobody wants a nuclear reactor in their garage. Mining asteroids isn't infeasible, just impractical. Hydrogen fusion isn't infeasible, just impractical. My shitty old Nissan isn't carbon-neutral, but it's way more carbon neutral than building a new EV, or cracking hydrogen which costs six times as much as gasoline, or launching rockets to the asteroid belt looking for platinum, which may or may not be there.
Now, if you'll excuse me, my car is warmed up and I'm going to be driving down to a non-carbon neutral restaurant to have a non-carbon neutral sandwich.
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