What will the future automobile be powered by?

[TORQDSS]

@JayS

Well “disposal” is an ugly term. The components in that battery are hard enough to come by that the majority of it will almost certainly get recycled. For the current and near future demand where electrics and hybrids will make up a small percentage it’s probably not an issue. There were horror stories of a few battery component mines being ecologic disasters but the need for electric cars to be marketed as green made car manufactures force these plants to clean up or the manufactures would go elsewhere.

I think where people are being naive is when they don’t consider the scale of the issue. The amount of energy we use every day powering motor vehicles in industrial nations is astonishing. In the US alone we use almost 7 BILLION barrels of oil a year, and almost half of that is used to make gasoline. It’s why I laugh when I see suggestions like, “Oh we’ll just stock lots of batteries at fueling stations and swap them out like the batteries in your TV remote”. Ok, but there are 240 million vehicles on the road in the US. The typical gas station will carry between 6k to 10k gallons of fuel to keep those cars zipping along. All that storage space though is underground, and 100% of it is used to store the actual energy source. Change that source to batteries and now each battery has to be accessible, and each pack is a huge waste of space by comparison because the battery is mostly packaging with only part of it’s overall volume being the actual energy source. Think giant warehouse at every gas station, except gas stations don’t have room for giant warehouses. Then there’s charging them.

“We’ll just have 100’s of them charging at once on fast chargers at every gas station so we can just swap them out faster than a gas fillup”. Really? Telsa’s fast home charger is a 70 amp beast that requires a 90 amp breaker and still takes 4 hours to charge. No gas station has the option of upgrading to 7000 amp service. You’re talking about more power consumption than most factories, except now that power is at every big gas station? Hello rolling blackouts.

I think the problem is that people have no idea that the problem is that big.

[JayS]

I certainly don’t buy the argument that hydrogen is too dangerous. Gasoline vapors are about as unstable as anything yet we all drive around with 15+ gallons of it every day. Sure the high pressure of hydrogen tanks is an engineering challenge but it’s one that I think is relatively easy to overcome.

[brilliantyellowg60]

@JayS

I certainly don’t buy the argument that hydrogen is too dangerous. Gasoline vapors are about as unstable as anything yet we all drive around with 15+ gallons of it every day. Sure the high pressure of hydrogen tanks is an engineering challenge but it’s one that I think is relatively easy to overcome.

car bombers will love it

[drvnkd]

High pressure H2 tanks is easy. When you can use H2 at atmospheric pressure, I will reduce my level of safety concern.

The safety will be an engineering challenge that can be overcome, but not for free. replace your $200 tank that will vent outside the car with little issue, with
a high pressure tank that must not leak. They make high pressure composite H2 tanks and have tested them thoroughly to failure (fire, overpressure, penetration etc…). The tank is not going to be a problem aside from cost.

There are already fuel cell powered fork trucks in use today. The technology works.
Getting Liquid H2 delivered is relatively easy. Buying the compressor to boost it for tank filling is also easy. You can even buy your own hydrogen generator if you so desire.

http://www.praxair.com/~/media/Files/Specification%20Sheets%20and%20Brochures/Industries/Energy/P10267%202013m1.ashx
We can help too

Most of my skepticism stems from dealing with it every day. I’m guessing I should treat it more like nail polish remover.
If I want to use it at work, I need to handle it carefully, but its safe enough for the public as is.

If the market ever justifies the expense of using H2 vs gasoline there are plenty of production methods. So, when oil is 15x more expensive than it is right now and a commercial H2 vehicle is
available nation wide, I will gladly not buy one and likely still have the same car I had when I joined UBRF.

[Onyx_Z32]

@drvnkd

Hydrogen is tricky to play with in the industrial world let alone turn it loose on the general public.

I remember reading something about packing Boron atoms into the fuel cells along with the Hydrogen and the result was a much more stable (less explosively combustible) fuel cell? I could be wrong though, I haven’t followed it closely.

[JayS]

I wish people would stop saying “electric vs gasoline” or “H2 vs gasoline”.

We all understand that today oil is the king. In terms of the big picture (getting oil, refining it, delivering and burning in your car per mile) it’s impossible to beat. That’s why we use 3.5 billion barrels of it a year. It won’t be long before the arguments about how much cheaper oil is than H2 won’t be an issue though because oil costs are only going to keep going up. Since technology in these other fuels isn’t going to materialize overnight we need to start figuring out which of these non-oil options are best by comparing them to each other instead of comparing them to oil today.

[drvnkd]

It is really weird seeing old posts revived beneith whatever thread im looking at.

I may or may not start responding to whichever one is the most obscure.

[Onyx_Z32]

@drvnkd

seeing old posts

Are you seeing them through the Ai suggestions? I’m not sure how they’re triggered. I can scroll a topic and see the Ai part, but if hit the back button then seem to disappear.

But yes, there are some interesting suggestions, lol

[JayS]

@JayS

Well “disposal” is an ugly term. The components in that battery are hard enough to come by that the majority of it will almost certainly get recycled. For the current and near future demand where electrics and hybrids will make up a small percentage it’s probably not an issue. There were horror stories of a few battery component mines being ecologic disasters but the need for electric cars to be marketed as green made car manufactures force these plants to clean up or the manufactures would go elsewhere.

I think where people are being naive is when they don’t consider the scale of the issue. The amount of energy we use every day powering motor vehicles in industrial nations is astonishing. In the US alone we use almost 7 BILLION barrels of oil a year, and almost half of that is used to make gasoline. It’s why I laugh when I see suggestions like, “Oh we’ll just stock lots of batteries at fueling stations and swap them out like the batteries in your TV remote”. Ok, but there are 240 million vehicles on the road in the US. The typical gas station will carry between 6k to 10k gallons of fuel to keep those cars zipping along. All that storage space though is underground, and 100% of it is used to store the actual energy source. Change that source to batteries and now each battery has to be accessible, and each pack is a huge waste of space by comparison because the battery is mostly packaging with only part of it’s overall volume being the actual energy source. Think giant warehouse at every gas station, except gas stations don’t have room for giant warehouses. Then there’s charging them.

“We’ll just have 100’s of them charging at once on fast chargers at every gas station so we can just swap them out faster than a gas fillup”. Really? Telsa’s fast home charger is a 70 amp beast that requires a 90 amp breaker and still takes 4 hours to charge. No gas station has the option of upgrading to 7000 amp service. You’re talking about more power consumption than most factories, except now that power is at every big gas station? Hello rolling blackouts.

I called this in 2013. Just sayin.