Thread: After The EU, Australian Territory Moves To Ban New ICE Sales In 2035

Originally Posted by 101RRS

if every vehicle in the future is going to be powered by a fuel cell where is the power going to come from to generate enough electricity to make the hydrogen to run millions and millions of cars - just in Aust.

I read an interesting article recently that suggested electrolytic Hydrogen will never be viable and pointed towards a number of other viable renewable sources. None were as simple as "insert electricity and extract hydrogen" and required multiple step catalytic processes, but seemed to be using plant based renewable feedstock to get large quantities of hydrogen. Of course now I want it I can't find it.

Until the problem of electricity generation, storage, distribution and recycling of batteries is solved (hint, will require something other than Lithium), battery electric cars are a short term "solution" to a long term problem. So that's a "never" then.

Synthetic fuels are an interesting avenue and neatly skirt around the terminally low octane of hydrogen that makes it impractical for direct use in anything other than a Wankel. Still need hydrogen feestock though.

Originally Posted by 101RRS

Gav you make a good point about where is the power going to come to run all these future EVs and while I agree with you that the hydrogen fuel cell is the way to go and will most likely be the way we go, the same point that you make about generating enough energy to recharge these EVs needs to be asked for Hydrogen cell vehicles - if every vehicle in the future is going to be powered by a fuel cell where is the power going to come from to generate enough electricity to make the hydrogen to run millions and millions of cars - just in Aust.

Ultimately the power has gotta come from somewhere - you get nothing for free.

Agreed, and a good point. Yes, we still need a wad load more power whichever way we go. It is far easier to build one line to a large facility than upgrade the existing infrastructure to every home to cope with battery EV's though. Build a Nuclear plant near existing large networks and a hydrogen plant next door. In Victoria the Latrobe Valley would be an ideal location for both as all the big infrastructure is there for the Brown Coal mines already - would make sense to transition a place like this that to start from scratch. Pretty sure the locals wouldn't mind either - I'm from that area originally and I know plenty of folk there that would welcome industry on that scale in the area.

Getting the nuclear plant will be the hard bit though - I don't think renewables alone will be enough to both replace existing demand as well as the new demand that will come with the switch away from ICE vehicles.

Originally Posted by BradC

I read an interesting article recently that suggested electrolytic Hydrogen will never be viable and pointed towards a number of other viable renewable sources. None were as simple as "insert electricity and extract hydrogen" and required multiple step catalytic processes, but seemed to be using plant based renewable feedstock to get large quantities of hydrogen. Of course now I want it I can't find it.

Until the problem of electricity generation, storage, distribution and recycling of batteries is solved (hint, will require something other than Lithium), battery electric cars are a short term "solution" to a long term problem. So that's a "never" then.

Synthetic fuels are an interesting avenue and neatly skirt around the terminally low octane of hydrogen that makes it impractical for direct use in anything other than a Wankel. Still need hydrogen feestock though.

JUST IN - Germany could restart three more nuclear power plants, in addition to the three that are still in operation, within "a few months or weeks," says the chief of the Technical Inspection Association (TÜV).

Link

Hazer in Perth have another scalable why using 1/8th of the power the other water splitting way uses in the Hydrogen space.

BMW news on Hydrogen is interesting

Personally I think the billlions +++++++ of $$$$ have options. Several will be used and several are needed.

The best bit is we have several trillion tonnes of essential needed resources for every one of the C02 free power options Add locally produced green steel and aluminum.... just might have massive economic advantages IF smart people/business get on the game here as I think they may/will.

The future might seem uncertain. I think its very bright myself with many amazing options and opportunities Brad. Have a great day all. Multi tasking for this black duck. Sick staff and the normally busy PAY Wednesday is going to make me work harder than usual and we all know multi tasking is not cool

The 5 upgraded energy corridors are intended to allow many more generation sources to be connected, sending more power into the grid.
For example, Snowy Hydro 2.0 is useless without the network upgrade to send the power to NSW and Victoria.
There are solar farms wasting their electricity because the grid can't cope with what they produce.
As coal plants shut down the network transmission infrastructure is being connected to other generation sources in places such as the Hunter and Gladstone.
Big batteries will store power regionally for release on demand.
Bi-directional vehicles charged during the day can already also power dwellings at night.
The gas pipeline carrying Qld gas south to NSW and Vic is at capacity and needs duplicating.
It's a whole new way of thinking about energy as a decentralised rather than centralised system.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

The 5 upgraded energy corridors are intended to allow many more generation sources to be connected, sending more power into the grid.
For example, Snowy Hydro 2.0 is useless without the network upgrade to send the power to NSW and Victoria.
There are solar farms wasting their electricity because the grid can't cope with what they produce.
As coal plants shut down the network transmission infrastructure is being connected to other generation sources in places such as the Hunter and Gladstone.
Big batteries will store power regionally for release on demand.
Bi-directional vehicles charged during the day can already also power dwellings at night.
The gas pipeline carrying Qld gas south to NSW and Vic is at capacity and needs duplicating.
It's a whole new way of thinking about energy as a decentralised rather than centralised system.

It's easy to say and think it will work - try being an Engineer working the solution out so everyone can have the warm fuzzies about themselves - not so easy - trust me - that's what I do. Everyone goes on about decentralising power - and it has it's place for sure and will be an important part of the mix, but it won't work in the cities where 80% of the power is needed. Also, if you put every battery made into grid storage for the next 10 years you wouldn't come close to having enough. The 'big' batteries being installed now are good for peaking about 10 minutes at a time for part of the sub station loads that are connected to them - there aren't enough batteries in the world to make things work as they will need to.

Solutions will come, but not from people that read a few reports on Google, post about them on a forum and think they know it all.

Of some relevance to Australia.

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

There are solar farms wasting their electricity because the grid can't cope with what they produce.

Actually as my Social Studies teacher used to say, "that's a load of horse hockey".
Those solar farms are "wasting electricity" not because the grid can't cope, but because there is insufficient demand when they are producing. Nothing more complex than that.

If the power was dispatchable then they'd do very well, but it's not. They're trying to hurl power into an already satisfied grid and whining that nobody will take it because they have no way of storing it. "Wah wah wah, I can generate all this power but I want someone to store it for me and pay me for it". If they're so concerned, why aren't they providing their own battery storage? Oh that's right, because without huge subsidy it's still not viable.

Renewables are inherently unreliable. That's fine if you don't mind freezing to death in the dark, but for the rest of us there needs to be some stability in the grid.

Originally Posted by BradC

Actually as my Social Studies teacher used to say, "that's a load of horse hockey".
Those solar farms are "wasting electricity" not because the grid can't cope, but because there is insufficient demand when they are producing. Nothing more complex than that.

If the power was dispatchable then they'd do very well, but it's not. They're trying to hurl power into an already satisfied grid and whining that nobody will take it because they have no way of storing it. "Wah wah wah, I can generate all this power but I want someone to store it for me and pay me for it". If they're so concerned, why aren't they providing their own battery storage? Oh that's right, because without huge subsidy it's still not viable.

Renewables are inherently unreliable. That's fine if you don't mind freezing to death in the dark, but for the rest of us there needs to be some stability in the grid.

Renewables are now about 10% of worlds electrical supply

1. Solar is about 25% of the time
2. Wind is about 50% of the time

Excess or deficit is both issues as we all know. I am clearly Not anti solar wind hydro or hydrogen or EVs or Discos. You Deefer and Rangie types are questionable

Scale even as big as the Asian Renewable Energy project is a tiny bit. Real scale to get real results have a single current answer for the open minded not paranoid or indoctrinated types. It could of course me just being unrealistic with a lot less real data that Gav has. Engineer , Super Moderator & CA manager and so much more Mr HomeStarRunnerAU

Trillions of dollars for just 10% via Renewable is a bit of a hint