12 ms·

Where are all the people that complain about the dangers and impracticality of hydrogen when the topic of using a corrosive gas that poses an immediate danger t

Where are all the people that complain about the dangers and impracticality of hydrogen when the topic of using a corrosive gas that poses an immediate danger to life and health at concentrations as low as 300 ppm as a fuel comes up? They're trying to avoid using the stuff in industrial refrigeration it's so nasty, and yet here we are gleefully considering rolling down the highway with it in the cheapest vessel industry can lobby for strapped to our bum. I guess the notion has passed so quickly we haven't had time for the media to program us with corporate agendas...

PumpkinSpice 3y ago
I don't think it's realistic as a fuel for cars, but "worldwide transportation" means more than that. I suspect they're talking about container ships, tankers, and such. Ammonia is easier to liquify than hydrogen, and is in many respects easier to handle. However, it's definitely not something you want to have a spill of at a gas station or in your garage, and for that reason, it probably won't have "consumer" uses. As far as industrial gasses go, it's certainly nowhere near the worst, and there's plenty of ammonia tankers on the roads today, but large spills do kill people every now and then.
- aifooh7Keew6xoo 3y ago
  It is certainly easier to liquefy, I can't argue that point.
- justinclift 3y ago
  Hmmm, "gas station filled with petrol that explodes" vs "gas station filled with hydrogen that explodes". Being near either one as it explodes would be bad, but I wonder which one looks more impressive movie-effects-wise? :)
  - sfink 3y ago
    In my limited understanding, neither one really explodes. The petrol one would look like a huge impressive fireball that launches a big black mushroom cloud and then just burns like crazy. The hydrogen one, if the hydrogen is fairly pure, would be like a big faint blue wispy fireball, not all that impressive. If there were an oxidizer in the mix somehow, it would be rather more explosive.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      Cool, thanks. :)
    - anon_cow1111 3y ago
      The issue with hydrogen is that it has a fairly wide combustion range (meaning the ratio of fuel/air that can burn), I can't remember the numbers but it's several times greater than other common fuels. The other issue with hydrogen is that the combustion happens VERY fast... if you ignite gasoline vapor/air in an open 5-gallon jug, you have a nice rocket that'll fly 50 feet or so. If you ignite hydrogen/air in the same jug, you have permanent hearing damage and shards of plastic embedded in you.
      - Taiwan_No_1 3y ago
        [dead]
    - amluto 3y ago
      If the hydrogen is fairly pure and the amount is question is small, then sure: combustion will happen at the hydrogen-air interface. If it mixes with air before ignition, then it can burn all a once, and Wikipedia informs me that “the limits of detonability of hydrogen in air are 18.3% to 59% by volume.”. Yes, it will literally detonate with supersonic flame velocity. I once got to watch some moderately crazy students fill an ordinary party balloon with a stoichiometric mix of hydrogen and oxygen at ambient temperature and pressure. When it was ignited, the result was extremely impressive. No one was injured (because we were all warned to protect our ears and open our mouths and balloons don’t produce significant shrapnel), but the shock wave was not at all subtle. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety
      - ben_w 3y ago
        Why is having open mouths important?
        adrianN 3y ago
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    Hydrogen is way worse than gasoline or any hydrocarbon. It has to be stored at very high pressures and there’s no practical situation in which it doesn’t explode.
- TheSpiceIsLife 3y ago
  Toyota have produced a prototype ammonia engine they claim is the end of the EV market.
  - aaronbrethorst 3y ago
    Neat. I look forward to them rolling out a production model in 2043.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      I look forward to them rolling it out downwind.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    They can keep making claims to cover up their complete bungling of their market position. As for the idea itself. Ammonia as fuel fails the first principle of safe design. It’s a poisonous gas. Using it as a fuel is a willingness to trade the safety of people for a cheaper fuel.
    - jackmott 3y ago
      [dead]
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      The move from cars to SUVs in America was so car manufacturers could skip emissions and safety requirements of cars on the technicality that SUVs are “light truck” chassis[1]. Dan Luu shows that those safety regulations are often a box ticking exercise for manufacturers except Volvo[2]. American stroad design is a particularly bad mix of street and road which is more dangerous for drivers and pedestrians than other designs. And the diesel emissions scandal so many car manufacturers were caught defrauding. “willingness to trade the safety of people for a cheaper X” is exactly what we should expect car companies (and companies in general) to do, because that’s what they’ve done so often though history. [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo https://youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo “These stupid trucks are literally killing us” -NotJustBikes [2] https://danluu.com/car-safety/ https://danluu.com/car-safety/
- keep_reading 3y ago
  https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tech/engine/corrosion-of-conformity-toyota-takes-aim-at-evs-with-ammonia-engine/ https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tech/engine/corrosion-of-c...
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  It is important to note that hydrogen, due to the small size of the molecule, is really hard to contain as a gas. Moreover, leaked hydrogen gas is an indirect but potent greenhouse gas via interfering with the degradation of existing methane in the atmosphere. If we leak enough hydrogen, we might not be helping the climate very much. I was once in a presentation which claimed formic acid to be a better alternative, but I'm not an expert in that field, so I can't comment on its merits.
  - amluto 3y ago
    There were some recent articles suggesting that there may be enough natural hydrogen seeping out of the ground to supply all of humanity’s energy needs. It seems a bit unlikely that leakage of hydrogen from fuel systems would matter much in comparison.
    - nick222226 3y ago
      How about radon, is that fissible?
      - nukeman 3y ago
        No, it gives off alpha particles and gamma rays. Hypothetically, you could build a device to harvest that energy (along the lines of an RTG), but the energy density and conversion efficiency would be laughable, given the 3.8 day half-life and gaseous state.
      - amluto 3y ago
        To be clear, I’m saying enough hydrogen to power humanity chemically, not by fusion. Enough hydrogen to power humanity by fusion is readily available anywhere :)
- ForgedEngine 3y ago
  Use compressed air or NOx as oxidizers for delayed combustion in engines. Not only would it provide a means of storing energy for ICEs, but it would also eliminate pumping losses on the intake stroke.
- idontwantthis 3y ago
  I wonder if this process would be easy enough that “ammonia battery” plants would just synthesize on site when solar power is high. Like charging up a battery with no need to move anything. Or maybe a regional factory with short pipelines.
Retric 3y ago
At atmospheric pressure Ammonia liquifies at −28 °F (−33.3 °C), Hydrogen −423.17 °F (−252.87 °C). That alone is a vast improvement. You can build a car/boat/aircraft that keeps its Ammonia fuel tank cool with minimal effort however it’s wildly impractical with hydrogen. Add the issues with hydrogen embrittlement and Ammonia starts to look trivial by comparison. People deal with industrial quantities of Ammonia on a regular basis without significant issues. Hell even gasoline and diesel are toxic and can be quite dangerous
- aifooh7Keew6xoo 3y ago
  https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/attempt-to-pass-a-tanker-may-have-led-to-deadly-chemical-crash-in-downstate-illinois-official-says/3240193/ https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/attempt-to-pass-a-tank... No, they have significant issues on a regular basis still.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Anything dangerous at scale has issues. That doesn’t mean people are unwilling to fill up at a gas station or use other hydrocarbon fuels despite plenty of far worse examples. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/06/1053162519/sierra-leone-oil-tanker-explosion https://www.npr.org/2021/11/06/1053162519/sierra-leone-oil-t... And plenty of more recent examples: https://www.fox29.com/news/tanker-truck-fire-closes-stretch-of-northeast-extension-in-montgomery-county https://www.fox29.com/news/tanker-truck-fire-closes-stretch-... Ammonia is one of the most common chemicals manufactured and transported around the world and has plenty of accidents but hydrocarbon accidents get into the hundreds of deaths: 150 dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoa_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoa_disaster 500-600 dead 5000–7000 suffering severe burns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juanico_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juanico_disaster 167 dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Alpha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Alpha People even hook up to natural gas lines after events big and small like: 300 dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion or here’s a recent event which destroyed 60-100 homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrimack_Valley_gas_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrimack_Valley_gas_explosion...
rossjudson 3y ago
Pretty sure they're talking about moving energy, not energy for moving.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> danger to life and health at concentrations as low as 300 ppm Well its not like you can put any petrochemical fuels in you coffee
- Gare 3y ago
  This is for ammonia inhalation.
darkclouds 3y ago
[dead]
lazide 3y ago
I don’t think either is a good fit really, if that helps.
doctorwho42 3y ago
Replace highway infrastructure with train infrastructure that is powered by overhead lines. Build out the power grid to support that, and blanket the country with new rail lines that are nationalized and run as a public utility. Result, reduces carbon footprint of travel - land shipping - ability to build out modern towns - etc Toss in a bill to require all train lines to also install national fiber. You now have enabled the revitalization of large swaths of the county.
andrepd 3y ago
Especially frustrating when considering that decarbonising a large part of transportation is easy, but boring: it's trains, light rail, it's cycling infrastructure. Not as sexy as futuristic energy sources, but it's what will save us in this sector: viable alternatives to the horrendously inefficient automobile This is not to mention everything else. The immense death toll directly (crashes) and indirectly (pollution, particulates, etc). The waste of space in cities. The waste of time in traffic that is unfixable if everyone is driving in an individual car. Etc etc. I wish people would stop trying to save the auto industry and start looking at the root of the problem.
greggsy 3y ago
Bulk transport, not consumer vehicles

PumpkinSpice 3y ago

I don't think it's realistic as a fuel for cars, but "worldwide transportation" means more than that. I suspect they're talking about container ships, tankers, and such. Ammonia is easier to liquify than hydrogen, and is in many respects easier to handle. However, it's definitely not something you want to have a spill of at a gas station or in your garage, and for that reason, it probably won't have "consumer" uses. As far as industrial gasses go, it's certainly nowhere near the worst, and there's plenty of ammonia tankers on the roads today, but large spills do kill people every now and then.

aifooh7Keew6xoo 3y ago
It is certainly easier to liquefy, I can't argue that point.
justinclift 3y ago
Hmmm, "gas station filled with petrol that explodes" vs "gas station filled with hydrogen that explodes". Being near either one as it explodes would be bad, but I wonder which one looks more impressive movie-effects-wise? :)
- sfink 3y ago
  In my limited understanding, neither one really explodes. The petrol one would look like a huge impressive fireball that launches a big black mushroom cloud and then just burns like crazy. The hydrogen one, if the hydrogen is fairly pure, would be like a big faint blue wispy fireball, not all that impressive. If there were an oxidizer in the mix somehow, it would be rather more explosive.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Cool, thanks. :)
  - anon_cow1111 3y ago
    The issue with hydrogen is that it has a fairly wide combustion range (meaning the ratio of fuel/air that can burn), I can't remember the numbers but it's several times greater than other common fuels. The other issue with hydrogen is that the combustion happens VERY fast... if you ignite gasoline vapor/air in an open 5-gallon jug, you have a nice rocket that'll fly 50 feet or so. If you ignite hydrogen/air in the same jug, you have permanent hearing damage and shards of plastic embedded in you.
    - Taiwan_No_1 3y ago
      [dead]
  - amluto 3y ago
    If the hydrogen is fairly pure and the amount is question is small, then sure: combustion will happen at the hydrogen-air interface. If it mixes with air before ignition, then it can burn all a once, and Wikipedia informs me that “the limits of detonability of hydrogen in air are 18.3% to 59% by volume.”. Yes, it will literally detonate with supersonic flame velocity. I once got to watch some moderately crazy students fill an ordinary party balloon with a stoichiometric mix of hydrogen and oxygen at ambient temperature and pressure. When it was ignited, the result was extremely impressive. No one was injured (because we were all warned to protect our ears and open our mouths and balloons don’t produce significant shrapnel), but the shock wave was not at all subtle. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Why is having open mouths important?
      - adrianN 3y ago
- colechristensen 3y ago
  Hydrogen is way worse than gasoline or any hydrocarbon. It has to be stored at very high pressures and there’s no practical situation in which it doesn’t explode.
TheSpiceIsLife 3y ago
Toyota have produced a prototype ammonia engine they claim is the end of the EV market.
- aaronbrethorst 3y ago
  Neat. I look forward to them rolling out a production model in 2043.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I look forward to them rolling it out downwind.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  They can keep making claims to cover up their complete bungling of their market position. As for the idea itself. Ammonia as fuel fails the first principle of safe design. It’s a poisonous gas. Using it as a fuel is a willingness to trade the safety of people for a cheaper fuel.
  - jackmott 3y ago
    [dead]
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    The move from cars to SUVs in America was so car manufacturers could skip emissions and safety requirements of cars on the technicality that SUVs are “light truck” chassis[1]. Dan Luu shows that those safety regulations are often a box ticking exercise for manufacturers except Volvo[2]. American stroad design is a particularly bad mix of street and road which is more dangerous for drivers and pedestrians than other designs. And the diesel emissions scandal so many car manufacturers were caught defrauding. “willingness to trade the safety of people for a cheaper X” is exactly what we should expect car companies (and companies in general) to do, because that’s what they’ve done so often though history. [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo https://youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo “These stupid trucks are literally killing us” -NotJustBikes [2] https://danluu.com/car-safety/ https://danluu.com/car-safety/
keep_reading 3y ago
https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tech/engine/corrosion-of-conformity-toyota-takes-aim-at-evs-with-ammonia-engine/ https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tech/engine/corrosion-of-c...
alwayslikethis 3y ago
It is important to note that hydrogen, due to the small size of the molecule, is really hard to contain as a gas. Moreover, leaked hydrogen gas is an indirect but potent greenhouse gas via interfering with the degradation of existing methane in the atmosphere. If we leak enough hydrogen, we might not be helping the climate very much. I was once in a presentation which claimed formic acid to be a better alternative, but I'm not an expert in that field, so I can't comment on its merits.
- amluto 3y ago
  There were some recent articles suggesting that there may be enough natural hydrogen seeping out of the ground to supply all of humanity’s energy needs. It seems a bit unlikely that leakage of hydrogen from fuel systems would matter much in comparison.
  - nick222226 3y ago
    How about radon, is that fissible?
    - nukeman 3y ago
      No, it gives off alpha particles and gamma rays. Hypothetically, you could build a device to harvest that energy (along the lines of an RTG), but the energy density and conversion efficiency would be laughable, given the 3.8 day half-life and gaseous state.
    - amluto 3y ago
      To be clear, I’m saying enough hydrogen to power humanity chemically, not by fusion. Enough hydrogen to power humanity by fusion is readily available anywhere :)
ForgedEngine 3y ago
Use compressed air or NOx as oxidizers for delayed combustion in engines. Not only would it provide a means of storing energy for ICEs, but it would also eliminate pumping losses on the intake stroke.
idontwantthis 3y ago
I wonder if this process would be easy enough that “ammonia battery” plants would just synthesize on site when solar power is high. Like charging up a battery with no need to move anything. Or maybe a regional factory with short pipelines.

Retric 3y ago

At atmospheric pressure Ammonia liquifies at −28 °F (−33.3 °C), Hydrogen −423.17 °F (−252.87 °C). That alone is a vast improvement. You can build a car/boat/aircraft that keeps its Ammonia fuel tank cool with minimal effort however it’s wildly impractical with hydrogen. Add the issues with hydrogen embrittlement and Ammonia starts to look trivial by comparison. People deal with industrial quantities of Ammonia on a regular basis without significant issues. Hell even gasoline and diesel are toxic and can be quite dangerous

aifooh7Keew6xoo 3y ago
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/attempt-to-pass-a-tanker-may-have-led-to-deadly-chemical-crash-in-downstate-illinois-official-says/3240193/ https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/attempt-to-pass-a-tank... No, they have significant issues on a regular basis still.
- Retric 3y ago
  Anything dangerous at scale has issues. That doesn’t mean people are unwilling to fill up at a gas station or use other hydrocarbon fuels despite plenty of far worse examples. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/06/1053162519/sierra-leone-oil-tanker-explosion https://www.npr.org/2021/11/06/1053162519/sierra-leone-oil-t... And plenty of more recent examples: https://www.fox29.com/news/tanker-truck-fire-closes-stretch-of-northeast-extension-in-montgomery-county https://www.fox29.com/news/tanker-truck-fire-closes-stretch-... Ammonia is one of the most common chemicals manufactured and transported around the world and has plenty of accidents but hydrocarbon accidents get into the hundreds of deaths: 150 dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoa_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoa_disaster 500-600 dead 5000–7000 suffering severe burns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juanico_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juanico_disaster 167 dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Alpha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Alpha People even hook up to natural gas lines after events big and small like: 300 dead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion or here’s a recent event which destroyed 60-100 homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrimack_Valley_gas_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrimack_Valley_gas_explosion...

rossjudson 3y ago

Pretty sure they're talking about moving energy, not energy for moving.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> danger to life and health at concentrations as low as 300 ppm Well its not like you can put any petrochemical fuels in you coffee

Gare 3y ago
This is for ammonia inhalation.

darkclouds 3y ago

[dead]

lazide 3y ago

I don’t think either is a good fit really, if that helps.

doctorwho42 3y ago

Replace highway infrastructure with train infrastructure that is powered by overhead lines. Build out the power grid to support that, and blanket the country with new rail lines that are nationalized and run as a public utility. Result, reduces carbon footprint of travel - land shipping - ability to build out modern towns - etc Toss in a bill to require all train lines to also install national fiber. You now have enabled the revitalization of large swaths of the county.

andrepd 3y ago

Especially frustrating when considering that decarbonising a large part of transportation is easy, but boring: it's trains, light rail, it's cycling infrastructure. Not as sexy as futuristic energy sources, but it's what will save us in this sector: viable alternatives to the horrendously inefficient automobile This is not to mention everything else. The immense death toll directly (crashes) and indirectly (pollution, particulates, etc). The waste of space in cities. The waste of time in traffic that is unfixable if everyone is driving in an individual car. Etc etc. I wish people would stop trying to save the auto industry and start looking at the root of the problem.

greggsy 3y ago

Bulk transport, not consumer vehicles