OT: How the electric car revolution could backfire

[Andy Burns]

Like this ...

[Chris Hogg]

The metal is palladium. It doesn't have to have a macro sponge structure. The hydrogen diffuses into the spaces between the palladium atoms. Pd can absorb over 900 times its own volume of hydrogen. Whether that would be sufficient to give a car a respectable range, I don't know, but Pd is bloody heavy (about 1.5 times as dense as iron) and more expensive than platinum (in the order of $28,500 per kilo, platinum $22,800 per kilo, both subject to daily variation), so I can't see it being used as a medium for hydrogen storage.

It was hydrogen (actually deuterium) in palladium that led to the 'cold fusion' rumpus sparked off by Fleischmann and Pons.

[tim...]

But you can't blame that end result on the Tories, they (mostly) campaigned against it

but we haven't regained control yet, so we have to follow the pack until we do

tim

[Robin]

High-pressure tanks. See eg

Have you compared the energy densities (per unit weight) of batteries and hydrogen tanks? If you do so I think you might revert to arguing that EVs have the advantage because of the infrastructure costs plus the public perception of risk. That is the big issue since even with advances in hydrogen production:

a. it is a whole layer of infrastructure costs on top of a grid for electricity; and

b. an ever more risk-averse (not to say irrational) population is unlikely to react well to the first "hydrogen event".

[Vir Campestris]

Given enough cheap power fresh water is easily obtained from seawater, either by reverse osmosis or old fashioned distillation.

You can also make clean, safe drinkable water from anything wet - again, given enough power.

Andy

[Vir Campestris]

I looked at Renault's web site the other night.

The lease charge for the batteries is comparable to the cost of petrol.

Andy

[Max Demian]

You mean that there's a convention that all big steel things are feminine?

[Andy Burns]

Looks like the range needs to be de-rated by between 25 and 50% to allow for aircon/heating compared to the telsa. Setting out on a cold dark winter day with only 124m in the "tank" would be well into range-anxiety territory.

Looks like you can own, rather than hire the battery, for an extra £5k.

[charles]

but you don't get those days in California.

[Richard]

This year's most useless bit of "I'm an intellectual" information.

[Steve Walker]

It certainly isn't a functional object and it isn't an advertising hoarding or the like, so it must be art.

I like it anyway.

SteveW

[charles]

but, in reality I'm an engineer - looking at the nonsense spouted about electric cars. A claimed range in warm, sunny California cannot be directly tranfered to the UK.

[dennis]

You don't have to lease.

[Tim Streater]

Only if it's blown out of all proportion by the media. There've been plenty of incidents of oil tankers catching fire and incinerating 50 or

100 fatheads who were sitting next to it gathering fuel from the wreck. There was that train crash in Canada a few years back - 44 dead IIRC. There was a tanker that crashed in Spain and burnt a nightclub to the ground full of people.

Note: I'm not advocating one approach over another. Chris Hogg gave us some reasons why palladium adsorption is unlikely to be feasible. And no, I haven't looked at the likely range or cost or safety of hydrogen under pressure being used with fuel cells.

[Huge]

"Art is what I am pointing at when I say 'This is art'."

Me too.

[Tim Streater]

You might. I had to larf when my nephew, normally resident in the US northeast and thus used to cold winters came to spend Xmas with me in California. That year, cold snap and we had -5C for two weeks. He took it as a personal affront.

[Bill Wright]

Why should people 'make do'? Progress is supposed to be in a forwards direction. There was enough making do in years gone by. We don't want it now. I want to be able to travel where I like when I like. I want my house to be properly heated. I don't want power cuts thanks to unreliable windmills. I know the greenies would like us to go back to the Stone Age but bollocks to them. They're all crackers.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

You're a bloody genius you are at deliberately misunderstanding what somebody has said.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

Campsite supplies generally assume a maximum load of 4 or 5A. They certainly aren't designed for a significant proportion of pitches wanting to charge electric vehicles. Possession of a 13A plug does not mean that 13A is available.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

My point is that the change to electric vehicles (if it happens) will involve a lot of inconvenience and worse for Joe Public that the politicians will brush under the carpet. They will call it 'collateral damage'.

Bill