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There's nothing wrong with internal combustion per se, if electrolysis+ICE works out cheaper than battery in terms of lithium/rare earths/whatever there is no f

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion per se, if electrolysis+ICE works out cheaper than battery in terms of lithium/rare earths/whatever there is no fundamental objection to it.

tshaddox 4y ago
Wouldn’t ICEs be worse for local pollution?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ryao 4y ago
  There is a hypothetical internal combustion engine that burns hydrogen directly. I think that the other poster was talking about that. Unfortunately, it is not just inefficient, but also has a major rust problem. It also would still generate NOx.
- gruez 4y ago
  What pollution would hydrogen/oxygen combustion produce?
  - stephen_g 4y ago
    NOx is formed from combustion in air, from the nitrogen that makes up much of the air. If you could feed it pure oxygen then you'd avoid that but nobody's going to want a car with an oxidiser tank onboard.
XorNot 4y ago
That seems completely implausible though based on the losses. An ICE tops out at 25% efficient or so. A hydrogen fuel cell is 40-60% and efficient and that's likely to rise. If you're bothering with fueling cars with hydrogen gas, you might as well make them electric and get a huge range boost for free (and way more torque, less maintenance etc.) There's just no logical reason to try and burn hydrogen in ICE engines.
- shagie 4y ago
  > There's just no logical reason to try and burn hydrogen in ICE engines. In commenting in another spot - https://youtu.be/AouW9_jyZck https://youtu.be/AouW9_jyZck goes through many of the engineering and practicality reasons behind that.
scottLobster 4y ago
The fundamental objection is quite real: Distribution. Hydrogen, due to the small size of the atoms, requires perfect seals and even then can slowly penetrate even metal containers. Cooling it enough to liquify it requires extreme temperatures and pressures as to destroy any efficiency gains. Someone has to build that infrastructure, and do it on a national scale, for hydrogen to have even a chance at beating EVs/Hybrid/Gasoline cars. Say what you will about EVs, at least we already have an electric grid.
- xxs 4y ago
  Worse, hydrogen permeates most metals and embrittles[0] them, too. Synthetic methane produced by electricity is likely still superior to hydrogen with both suffering terrible inefficiencies, at least methane is easy to transport. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion per se, if electrolysis+ICE works out cheaper than battery in terms of lithium/rare earths/whatever there is no fundamental objection to it.

tshaddox 4y ago

Wouldn’t ICEs be worse for local pollution?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ryao 4y ago
There is a hypothetical internal combustion engine that burns hydrogen directly. I think that the other poster was talking about that. Unfortunately, it is not just inefficient, but also has a major rust problem. It also would still generate NOx.
gruez 4y ago
What pollution would hydrogen/oxygen combustion produce?
- stephen_g 4y ago
  NOx is formed from combustion in air, from the nitrogen that makes up much of the air. If you could feed it pure oxygen then you'd avoid that but nobody's going to want a car with an oxidiser tank onboard.

XorNot 4y ago

That seems completely implausible though based on the losses. An ICE tops out at 25% efficient or so. A hydrogen fuel cell is 40-60% and efficient and that's likely to rise. If you're bothering with fueling cars with hydrogen gas, you might as well make them electric and get a huge range boost for free (and way more torque, less maintenance etc.) There's just no logical reason to try and burn hydrogen in ICE engines.

shagie 4y ago
> There's just no logical reason to try and burn hydrogen in ICE engines. In commenting in another spot - https://youtu.be/AouW9_jyZck https://youtu.be/AouW9_jyZck goes through many of the engineering and practicality reasons behind that.

scottLobster 4y ago

The fundamental objection is quite real: Distribution. Hydrogen, due to the small size of the atoms, requires perfect seals and even then can slowly penetrate even metal containers. Cooling it enough to liquify it requires extreme temperatures and pressures as to destroy any efficiency gains. Someone has to build that infrastructure, and do it on a national scale, for hydrogen to have even a chance at beating EVs/Hybrid/Gasoline cars. Say what you will about EVs, at least we already have an electric grid.

xxs 4y ago
Worse, hydrogen permeates most metals and embrittles[0] them, too. Synthetic methane produced by electricity is likely still superior to hydrogen with both suffering terrible inefficiencies, at least methane is easy to transport. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement