Nikola Motor Company reveals its class 8 tractor design (EV/serial hybrid)

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Some of those Hydrogen supporters might have readen too much of those Jules Verne's stories...

The US Navy is testing technology to convert CO2 from sea water, catalytically combined with hydrogen from an electrolysis cell and forming synthetic JP8 equivalent so that the nuclear carrier produces fuels for it's air wings.

Nuclear power could be "stored" as hydrocarbons and distributed as it is now.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

From the info that I found about that Achates engine, it would eventually be good enought not just to drive a genset, since its output is very close to some engines in the 9-litre range used by European truck makers such as Scania.

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

The US Navy is testing technology to convert CO2 from sea water, catalytically combined with hydrogen from an electrolysis cell and forming synthetic JP8 equivalent so that the nuclear carrier produces fuels for it's air wings.

Interesting to say the least.

Nuclear power could be "stored" as hydrocarbons and distributed as it is now.

I don't understand how nuclear power could be "stored" as hydrocarbons, but anyway IIRC the current generation of nuclear submarines still rely on an opposed-piston Diesel from Fairbanks Morse as their backup power unit.

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

I don't understand how nuclear power could be "stored" as hydrocarbons, but anyway IIRC the current generation of nuclear submarines still rely on an opposed-piston Diesel from Fairbanks Morse as their backup power unit.

Using nuclear power to condense CO2 and electrolyze water to catalytically produce JP8 jet fuel (kerosene analog), is essentially the same idea but accelerated into a useful time frame instead of the eons needed to form fossil fuels. Both pathways are inefficient. But, if the primary energy source is cheap or free (sunlight and excess nuclear energy), efficiency is less of an issue. Storage for future use is the overriding goal. It is hard to store sunlight. It is hard to store electricity for long periods of time. Convert these energy forms to hydrocarbon liquids and they become useful years down the line in a concentrated form.

[freebeard]

Home Page - Cool Planet : Cool Planet

It doesn't take nuclear power, you can get fuel as a byproduct of producing biochar with their technology. And biochar can save the planet. Non-zero sum game.

[Hersbird]

From what I understand, current reactors use regular steam to run turbines to make electricity. Superheated steam isn't really necessary but reactors could be made that use that. A side benefit of the superheated steam is that it can be used for thermal cracking of water to make Hydrogen and Oxygen on a bigger scale. Right now there is really no use for large quantities of Hydrogen so they just make it the old fashioned way.

The big picture would be electricity from hydro, wind, solar, and nuclear, with a mobile fuel source hydrogen for a 100% greenhouse gas free energy world.

[freebeard]

Bio-mimicing nano-structured environmental valves that require no fuel, and tractors that run on Vodka.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Nissan is currently testing a solid oxide fuel-cell (SOFC) in Brazil, using ethanol as fuel. One advantage of this setup is that it's suitable to operate with a lower concentration of ethanol, about 45% dilluted in up to 55% water, while a piston engine won't operate properly with any concentration below 80% of ethanol. Just to remind, cachaça is usually standardized at 40% ethanol by volume...

Anyway, some reports are putting this setup in pair with non-hybrid Diesel vehicles MPG-wise, even though ethanol has a lower energy density.

[seifrob]

Few interesting things happened while this thread has been sleeping:

-- Nikola motors sued Tesla because of their truck (see here: https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/02/...s-suing-tesla/)
in what looks like patent trolling

-- Nikola motors made a change of course and now focuses on hydrogen powered trucks having some ambitious claims (1000 miles range truck, 700 hydrogen stations nationwide)

I had nothing to do yesterday so I have read their twitter /not every tweet/ and would like your opinion:

1) hydrogen stations:
- according to Nicola corp twitter their hydrogen stations will produce up to 8000 kg of hydrogen per day
- Nicola Corp. also says here they will be in 10 to 100 acres size. They intend to power them from sun and wind locally.

This sounds too good to be true to me.

- to produce 1 kg of compressed hydrogen you need around 65 kWh of electricity (50kw for electrolysis, 15 kW for compression) (source here)

- That means 400-520 MWh of electricity per station. Assuming 12 hours of constant sunshine every day, you need something like 45 MW power plant.

these are not pixies: wind power needs about 10 turbines, while solar power needs about 180-200 acres (source here)

2) hydrogen truck
according to this tweet the 1000 mile range, 1000 hp truck will carry 80 kg of compressed hydrogene onboard. (12500 hp*mi/kg)

The only available hydrogene vehicle I am aware of - Toyota Mirai - has 152 hp, 312 mi range with 5 kg of hydrogene. (9500 hp*mi/kg) (source here)

Their claims are, to say politely, quite ambitious.

I am not an expert. I could have made a mistake in my assumptions. What do you think?

[freebeard]

Don't know, but the use of graphene to make hydrogen tanks might reduce losses.

I went looking for a reference, and found:

Scientists discover white graphene architecture with hydrogen storage potential
Boron nitride-based structure could be used for safe hydrogen storage to fuel vehicles

More generally:

Impermeability

Sheets of graphene have such closely knit carbon atoms that they can work like super-fine atomic nets, stopping other materials from getting through. That means graphene is useful for trapping and detecting gases—but it might also have promising applications holding gases (such as hydrogen) that leak relatively easily from conventional containers. One of the drawbacks of using hydrogen as a fuel (in electric cars) is the difficulty of storing it safely. Graphenes, potentially, could help to make fuel-cell cars running on hydrogen a more viable prospect.

Graphene - A simple introduction - Explain that Stuff

[jjackstone]

Honda Clarity is hydrogen powered. There was one in the neighborhood a while back but I haven't seen it lately.
JJ