diesel exhaust fluid

GM spenty boatloads of money before giving up on hydrogen for now and building the chevy volt.

Few would of been willing to spend a $100,000 for a car with limited fuel avability.:(

Reply to
hallerb
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Likely because there is no efficient way to produce it. A distribution system would be the easy part.

Reply to
George

Did you think about what you just wrote? If anyone can do it with their windmill can do it why aren't they? Did the oil companies hire saboteurs to loosen the bolts on all of the windmills?

Reply to
George

Those pesky details again.. It is just so much easier to make claims without considering them..

Reply to
George

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It's under $3/gallon if you happen to be close to a Pilot Travel Center or Flying J.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

Hey, it worked fine for Zeppelins, well maybe with a few exceptions

Reply to
RBM

I costs too much and it always will because you have to generate the electricity. When we have cheap electricity then that is doable. Wind generators are expensive and solar too.

Slowly, but indefinitely, from

Duh yerself!

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There are a lot of people pursuing practical solutions as well as working on the pure science.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Thies

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It's under $3/gallon if you happen to be close to a Pilot Travel

I have read that Pilot and TA truckstops have it at the pump for $3, but I don't have either near me. I'm sure, like any other fertilizer, if you buy it in bulk, it's dirt cheap. The problem with Def is that it has a two year shelf life, so you can't even stock up

Reply to
RBM

So I take it that the urea solution is being used in a lot of diesels. I was aware that Mercedes was using it in their Bluetec diesel cars, at least to meet the requirements of CA and states with similar tougher requirements. Is it now being used in new trucks, 18 wheelers too? The fact that Pilot has the urea would suggest it is.

Reply to
trader4

I'm waiting to see what happens with the Volt. While not costing $100K, it still seems mighty dubious to me. It costs $40K+ and has an electric range of about 100 miles. After that, the small gas generator kicks in. Even with the FED tax credit of $12K, which comes out of the taxpayers pocket, you're still paying $28K for it. And it's in a compact car that has parts and similar size features to cars costing $17K. Combine that with very limited recharge locations and that to recharge any electric car in your garage in a reasonable time requires a 240V, 50A+ circuit, it doesn't sound very practical to me. Anyone here want to buy one?

Reply to
trader4

On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 08:07:59 -0500, "RBM" wrote Re Re: diesel exhaust fluid:

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Excellent post.

Reply to
Caesar Romano

Does that mean I should cancel my deposit on the new Chrysler Von Hindenburg? (-:

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Not really, the technology works reasonably well. The DEF tanks on most of these vehicles hold enough for about 5,000mi, so it's not really any more difficult than filling up your washer fluid.

I have a 2009 diesel with just the DPF and it works just fine, and I'm ok with it not blowing clouds of black soot everywhere.

Dunno on that, but of course Hydrogen isn't an energy source, just a carrier and isn't "green" unless the hydrogen is produced from a "green" energy source like nuclear, wind, solar or hydro.

I recall BMW did/does have a diesel car that utilized a DPF and possibly DEF/SCR.

Reply to
Pete C.

So I take it that the urea solution is being used in a lot of diesels. I was aware that Mercedes was using it in their Bluetec diesel cars, at least to meet the requirements of CA and states with similar tougher requirements. Is it now being used in new trucks, 18 wheelers too? The fact that Pilot has the urea would suggest it is.

That is my understanding. Every over the road vehicle as of 2010 has to meet emissions standards, which I think they call tier 3.5. It is also my understanding that many, most, diesel manufacturers are opting to use the Def method, although I don't believe Cummins is among them

Reply to
RBM

Sorry, you are incorrect. Hydrogen was proved to be *useable* as a motor fuel 30 years ago, useable and viable are not the same thing. While an engine will run just fine on hydrogen gas and produce essentially no emissions, that does not mean in any way that hydrogen is viable, practical or "green" as a motor vehicle fuel.

Key problems with the "miracle" hyrdogen fuel:

  1. Hydrogen is not an energy source, it is only a carrier, essentially a battery. The hydrogen has to be produced using an actual energy source.
  2. If the energy source used to produce hydrogen isn't "green" the hydrogen isn't "green". This applies to hydrogen produced from natural gas, and hydrogen produced using electricity from coal fired electric plants. Only hydrogen produced from "green" sources such as nuclear, solar, wind, hydroelectric and the like can actually be called "green".
  3. Hydrogen is impractical to fill and transport in meaningful quantities for a motor vehicle. There are basically two ways to store it at a useable density, either at very high pressure, or as a cryogenic liquid, both of which require a lot of energy to get to that state, have dangers associated with transport, and in the case of hydrogen as a cryogenic liquid, they have to continuously vent hydrogen as it boils off whether it is used in the engine or not.

Assuming you produce the hydrogen from a "green" source, you still have a similar problem to pure electric vehicles, the issue of range and the ability to refuel in a reasonable amount of time comparable to the

Reply to
Pete C.

I'm waiting to see what happens with the Volt. While not costing $100K, it still seems mighty dubious to me. It costs $40K+ and has an electric range of about 100 miles. After that, the small gas generator kicks in. Even with the FED tax credit of $12K, which comes out of the taxpayers pocket, you're still paying $28K for it. And it's in a compact car that has parts and similar size features to cars costing $17K. Combine that with very limited recharge locations and that to recharge any electric car in your garage in a reasonable time requires a 240V, 50A+ circuit, it doesn't sound very practical to me. Anyone here want to buy one?

I heard that in California, the state and local govts are also subsidizing the volt, so the car winds up costing those environmentally concerned a mere $17K, which is about what your garden variety gasoline go cart costs. and I thought California was broke already

Reply to
RBM

Neither is easy.

Hydrogen can be produced "greenly" and efficiently only from a "green" energy source that is very abundant to overcome the inefficiency of the production process. Practically this means that nuclear and hydroelectric (tidal and conventional) are the only "green" sources with enough energy density to be viable.

Distribution is the next difficult part, you can ship hydrogen in gaseous state through pipelines ok, and in cryogenic liquid form in tankers ok, so getting it to fueling stations isn't too difficult.

Getting the hydrogen into motor vehicles that will use it is the problem since it has to be filled either at very high pressure (6,000 PSI+) to store a useable amount which really requires qualified fill station personnel and requires a slow fill rate for safety, or has to be filled and stored as a cryogenic liquid which also requires qualified fill station personnel and has the additional problem of the vehicle having to vent off hydrogen whether it's running or not, something common to all cryogenic gasses.

Reply to
Pete C.

It's not being pursued due to both the extreme ineffficiency of electrical hydrogen production which makes only high energy density "green" electricity sources such as nuclear and hydroelectric (tidal and conventional) the only practical energy sources to produce hydrogen "greenly", and the huge issues with storing enough hydrogen in a motor vehicle to give it a useable range and the long refill time required which makes it that much more impractical.

You really need to research beyond the hype and understand the science and the limitations.

Reply to
Pete C.

It also wasn't being used as a fuel for them, it was used as an essentially non-consumable so they didn't have to find a continuous source.

Reply to
Pete C.

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