OT: If all cars were electric ...??

[harry]

You need coal/coke for iron production.

[harry]

Batteries will be recycled for the lithium.

[Chris Hogg]

I'm not sure of the relevance of that comment, Harry. Certainly, making ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen by the Haber-Bosch process uses an iron catalyst, but catalysts don't get consumed so the amount per tonne of ammonia produced will be small and recoverable.

And anyway, you can make iron using hydrogen as the reductant in place of coke.

[Chris Hogg]

The ceramic industry is a big consumer of gas, from brick-making through tableware, tiles, to sanitaryware. With the exception of some Bedfordshire brick kilns or small specialist tableware kilns, they're mostly gas-fired.

[Chris Hogg]

and the cobalt, a critical ingredient and with limited world-wide reserves, potentially limiting the supply of Li batteries.

[alan_m]

Does that include in-car heating and window defrosting in the colder months?

[Tim Streater]

You could run your ICE on hydrogen.

[alan_m]

In may places the current rail network can barely cope with the number of passengers it already has, especially in each of the 3 hour commuter slots at the beginning and end of each working day.

Most public transport doesn't actually go to where most people work or if it does the service is time limited to a few vehicles at peak time.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Cobalt is only used in some types of batteries.

Its very good for low powers, but not so good at high powers. I think when it stared to be phased out was hen model plane batteries really took off (sic!). Discharge rates went way up. You could flatten a battery in a very exciting minute of aerobatics.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Exactly.

And high power fuel cells dont exist. They have a nasty internal resistance and get very inefficient at - and hot - at high powers.

Plus hydrogen is a tricky bitch to store. It tends to leak and build up and go BANG.

Far better to add water and CO2 and make alcohol or other hydrocarbon fuels

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes when produced by nukes, because the claim is that its a primary source of energy.

And because its probably more efficient and safer to synthesise diesel or petrol than hydrogen which is very nasty stuff.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ltes ay that takes 3Kw. four brake horsepower. Its sigificant, but not THAT significant, excepot of course in traffic where it cam flatten your battery in a few hours of being stuck

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well, *potentially* you can.

Like most things that are definitely *possible* the devil is in the detail and cost of implementation.

I suspect that in fact many energy intensive industrial plants will be sited right by nuclear power stations - like Alcans smelter at wylfa...and of course waste heat to run greenhouses to grow the salad veg and tropical fruits...

And of course will we still be using steel? Or will it be aluminium, titanium and carbon fibre?

Carbon fibre reinforced concrete would be fun

[The Natural Philosopher]

Do they need to be? Is a reducing atmosphere necessary?

Gas is cheaper than electricity at the moment. It make not be for ever.

Our school kilns were electric for sure.

[NY]

Would a diesel hydrogen engine (ie compression ignition) be more efficient than a spark-ignition one and have much better low-speed torque, as is the case with petrol/diesel? Or is the difference only relevant for petroleum fuels and not for hydrogen?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yup. Thats why I say build new tracks along exising motorways. If rail is sensible. Imagine that the slip roiad is just a way to get onto a driverless wwagin that picks up power from a third rail, accerlerates up the slip road and joins all et other driverless cars doing 100mph two inches from each other. In fact might as well couple them together.

Until they need to exit. Then a gap is left for traffic joining

[Andy Burns]

Dad has both gas and electric kilns depending if oxidation or reduction is required for the end result.

[The Natural Philosopher]

IC effiiency is realted to pesak cylinder tempartures divide by exhasiut temeparatuires. and completeness of combustion, Diesels get a very explosive bang, and high temeperatires and run lean enough to completely burnm nearly all the fuel - and that is the trouble - thats ideal conditions for Nox production too.

I dont think that that high temepariure and pressure is neceassarily realted to what fuel you use or how you ignite iot. It so happens you HAVE to have that high pressure to run a diesel cycle.

Hydrogen offers no pollution advantages for NOX production over conventionmal diesel. Just carbon particulates.

The answer would be to run engines on pure oxygen. Nitrouss injection rules! perhaps :-)

[Roger Hayter]

Given that we have the technology and infrastructure for oxygen distribution already, perhaps that is not so far-fetched as it sounds. Unfortunately, I don't think our political masters are interested in rehabilitating the IC engine.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well thats OK then they can sit in their Piouses with flat batteries and get f***ed.

Absent of being a decent scientist or engineer that allows you to

*sucessefully* predict the outcome of *some* policies, Churchills insight can be recast.

"Politicians can always be relied upon to do what is in their best interests,,, ...after thay have exhausted all other alternatives.