This looks very promising, lets hope it's not squashed by vested interests!
www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-08/hydrogen-fuel-breakthrough-csiro-game-changer-export-potential/10082514

Should be OK, because Japan and S Korea are keen to use it.

The question in my mind is how scaleable is it? Can it replace SA Tesla batteries for instance.

Looks like hydrogen cars presented here are still combustion engine cars.
Not electric motors running on fuel cell transforming hydrogen into electricity.In such cast whole idea is doomed already.In 10 years from now, nobody will build combustion engines for cars anymore.Combustion engine production is completely not compatible with an electric engine.Once the public has tasted electric cars, nobody wants to go back to clanky combustion technology.But maybe this ammonia processing may find use in stationary energy storage.We still need a breakthrough in massive electricity storage and lithium battery are not good/ too expensive for the power station, wind turbines and solar farms.
Flow battery based on hydrogen could be the answer.

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Macroscien said..
Looks like hydrogen cars presented here are still combustion engine cars.
Not electric motors running on fuel cell transforming hydrogen into electricity.In such cast whole idea is doomed already.In 10 years from now, nobody will build combustion engines for cars anymore.Combustion engine production is completely not compatible with an electric engine.Once the public has tasted electric cars, nobody wants to go back to clanky combustion technology.But maybe this ammonia processing may find use in stationary energy storage.We still need a breakthrough in massive electricity storage and lithium battery are not good/ too expensive for the power station, wind turbines and solar farms.
Flow battery based on hydrogen could be the answer.

agree , so many moving parts in combustion , hardly any maintenance with electric , good by supercheap ..

Beside that every solar roof could recharge electric cars.
Just plug in.
Manufacturing ammonia at home , storage conversion to hydrogen, fuels cells etc make no sense on small scale.

Hydrogen was good idea invented by huge fuel distributors to keep monopoly on the business. Refuelling network, fuel tracks etc.
With electric cars you don't need that at all.
Powerpoint could be installed everywhere by every shop, any parking space. You don't need expensive petrol/ now dedicated recharge stations. Whole distribution business is going to bust in 10 -20 years.

Interesting viewpoint macro. At the moment, as I see it, the biggest drawback with batteries is the charge time, and lack of range.
Then there's the lithium element.

So for shortish city suburban use, charge over night and while at work. Electric makes sense. But long country trips, with current technology would be a hassle. Especially so for public transport that need to run almost non stop.

It's here that hydrogen has the advantage, quick fill and long range.

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decrepit said..
Interesting viewpoint macro. At the moment, as I see it, the biggest drawback with batteries is the charge time, and lack of range.
Then there's the lithium element.

So for shortish city suburban use, charge over night and while at work. Electric makes sense. But long country trips, with current technology would be a hassle. Especially so for public transport that need to run almost non stop.

It's here that hydrogen has the advantage, quick fill and long range.

I could solve you range problem in 5 seconds:
1) swap battery. One day electric cars and batteries could be standardized. Instead of long recharging you could swap whole battery quicker then take you refil petrol now.
2) Add on battery- For the extended trip, you could add a spare battery to your luggage compartment.
3) attach a trailer with a battery bank. Maybe not something that you need to buy to have, but battery trailer for hire.We may have automatic trailers- they will follow you on the motorway for 20 min to recharge your car the , disembark
4) We may have wireless charging line on the road. While driving on the road you could receive electric power wirelessly from your road. The similar manner how your phone could be charged wirelessly now.

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Macroscien said..
Looks like hydrogen cars presented here are still combustion engine cars.

Hyundai is already selling fuel cell buses, so why do you say combustion engines?

cleantechnica.com/2018/04/03/toyota-begins-selling-hydrogen-fuel-cell-bus-in-japan/

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Macroscien said..

I could solve you range problem in 5 seconds:
3) attach a trailer with a battery bank. Maybe not something that you need to buy to have , but battery trailer for hire.

I've had the same idea. 200km is more than enough range for city driving, but if you want to do a long drive, tow a 1000km battery pack.

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Mr Milk said..

Macroscien said..
Looks like hydrogen cars presented here are still combustion engine cars.

Hyundai is already selling fuel cell buses, so why do you say combustion engines?

cleantechnica.com/2018/04/03/toyota-begins-selling-hydrogen-fuel-cell-bus-in-japan/

Macroscien said..

I could solve you range problem in 5 seconds:
3) attach a trailer with a battery bank. Maybe not something that you need to buy to have , but battery trailer for hire.

I've had the same idea. 200km is more than enough range for city driving, but if you want to do a long drive, tow a 1000km battery pack.

There is an interesting fight going on now between those two concepts.In the USA and regarding long haul road trucks.
1) One in powered by hydrogen

2) Tesla is using their lithium battery.I bet pure electric is the way to go without the need to complicate the system with hydrogen.

https://tesla.com/semi





I vote Pure Electric!

Its pretty unlikely we will ever have an electrically powered aeroplane operating on a commercial basis against planes powered by liquid fuel. They weight of the batteries would make the payload too small. So something like this ability to transport hydrogen safely could allow planes fueled by hydrogen powered engines to fly.

Vanadium based batteries are the next phase in bulk storage (not vehicle or home) for groups of users.
WA has resources (in the ground) ;)

Every power pole is a possible charge station and you can charge at home so electric cars make sense for convenience with the big infrastructure mostly in place it just need the charge times to reduce to something like super capacitors.
Hell my 6 year old LiFe batteries have a charge rate of 30C and whip todays batteries hands down and I have full charge times in 10 minutes. Total safe and just about explosion proof and now old technology so in some ways batteries are here we just don't have access to them.

If you can make hydrogen cost/environmental effective...it is not only cars that could use it.

Instead of coal/gas fired generators they can be fueled by hydrogen. No need for battery storage, and remember battery production is far from friendly to the environment, both the mining of the limited supply of these rare elements, the manufacture shipping, and the lack of recycling.

The problem the electric camp fail to acknowledge is the cost of mining the relatively rare minerals required, the fact many batteries are dangerous or require recycling and the cost associated with that, and yes - range.
There are plenty of places with no powerpoles......

It is good, but many talk like electric vehicles for almost everyone is fait accompli. Its not anywhere near as easy as they promote.

The CSIRO announcement is huge as there are already so many hydrogen powered vehicles but transport of hydrogen gas is uncool (think Hindenburg!!!!). To be able to get hydrogen from pumping ammonia thru a membrane is bloody amazing. Even better what will be left - nitrogen. Inert and safe.

To be fair, hydrogen takes a large amount of energy to produce but this transport issue is a big step to making it safer and easier

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Mark _australia said..
The problem the electric camp fail to acknowledge is the cost of mining the relatively rare minerals required, the fact many batteries are dangerous or require recycling and the cost associated with that, and yes - range.
There are plenty of places with no powerpoles......

It is good, but many talk like electric vehicles for almost everyone is fait accompli. Its not anywhere near as easy as they promote.

The CSIRO announcement is huge as there are already so many hydrogen powered vehicles but transport of hydrogen gas is uncool (think Hindenburg!!!!). To be able to get hydrogen from pumping ammonia thru a membrane is bloody amazing. Even better what will be left - nitrogen. Inert and safe.

Nitrogen could be pumped into the dirt to encourage the growth of plants.

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Macroscien said..

Mr Milk said..

Macroscien said..
Looks like hydrogen cars presented here are still combustion engine cars.

Hyundai is already selling fuel cell buses, so why do you say combustion engines?

cleantechnica.com/2018/04/03/toyota-begins-selling-hydrogen-fuel-cell-bus-in-japan/

Macroscien said..

I could solve you range problem in 5 seconds:
3) attach a trailer with a battery bank. Maybe not something that you need to buy to have , but battery trailer for hire.

I've had the same idea. 200km is more than enough range for city driving, but if you want to do a long drive, tow a 1000km battery pack.

There is an interesting fight going on now between those two concepts.In the USA and regarding long haul road trucks.
1) One in powered by hydrogen

2) Tesla is using their lithium battery.I bet pure electric is the way to go without the need to complicate the system with hydrogen.

www.tesla.com/semi





I vote Pure Electric!

Im surprised you and elon haven't got together on some joint venture. Electric hobie cats or pipelines through the centre of the earth. Similar minds i feel

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Mark _australia said..
(think Hindenburg!!!!). To be able to get hydrogen from pumping ammonia thru a membrane is bloody amazing. Even better what will be left - nitrogen. Inert and safe.

You definitely don't want to be a
ny closer to ammonia leaking from your vehicle. In the case of a bus, it means mass killing on the Syria barrel bombs scale.




Now let's imagine ammonia ship exploding at our port.
Or running onto the reef and leaking at Great Barrier - will dissolve all coral forever!

Theres a rumour goin round where i live about loading it on ships to sell over seas to the detriment of our bay ! 400 hundred million litres of chlorinated seawater pumped back in everyday oh and super heated as well ! GFYS

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myusernam said..

Im surprised

Try to wake up from winter hibernation? Looks like brain remain still solid frozen

Macro the vehicle does not have any ammonia.
The tech here is transporting ammonia - yes its nasty but it is far safer than many things and far safer then hydrogen to transport- then at the place it is needed the membrane splits ammonia into H2 and N2.
It allows australia to be a big producer of something needed for vehicles and send it elsewhere, and thats what global solutions need.

I repeat - its safer than transporting hydrogen.

Dunno where the hell you got chlorinated seawater from...

If you are worried about it, then you need to start campaigning against every single supermarket, liquor store, abbatoir etc that uses ammonia as a refrigerant. Theres a sh!tload of it.....
Or try and shut down public swimming pools as chlorine gas is about the most scary thing I could imagine if it leaked.
(They don't use powder that then liberates chlorine like your home swimming pool)

I can see the scaremongering on social media already..... its as dangerous as dihydrogen oxide......

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Macroscien said..
Looks like hydrogen cars presented here are still combustion engine cars.
Not electric motors running on fuel cell transforming hydrogen into electricity.In such cast whole idea is doomed already.In 10 years from now, nobody will build combustion engines for cars anymore.

The article doesn't specify exactly but the hyundai nexo and the toyota mentioned as test vehicles are both fuel cell vehicles. The efficiency quoted is way up on internal combustion so I don't think the suggestion is to drag pistons back from the dark ages.

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Ian K said..

The article doesn't specify exactly but the hyundai nexo and the toyota mentioned as test vehicles are both fuel cell vehicles. The efficiency quoted is way up on internal combustion so I don't think the suggestion is to drag pistons back from the dark ages.

1. Whole article is very enthusiastically written ( as you want to sell IPO company shares next day) .

2. How you could explain two serious mistakes made senior manager/ scientist?


a) advantage of hydrogen over the electric car?
b) zero emissions? What about water? Anyway, if battery at this moment is the most expensive element in an electric car, Fuel cell 100kW will be astronomically expensive and I can't imagine for the price to come down below lithium battery.Then you hydrogen car still need to carry explosive hydrogen in the pressurized tanks. Complete nonsense.

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Macroscien said..
Looks like hydrogen cars presented here are still combustion engine cars.
Not electric motors running on fuel cell transforming hydrogen into electricity.In such cast whole idea is doomed already.In 10 years from now, nobody will build combustion engines for cars anymore.Combustion engine production is completely not compatible with an electric engine.Once the public has tasted electric cars, nobody wants to go back to clanky combustion technology.But maybe this ammonia processing may find use in stationary energy storage.We still need a breakthrough in massive electricity storage and lithium battery are not good/ too expensive for the power station, wind turbines and solar farms.
Flow battery based on hydrogen could be the answer.

Nice thoughts there. Sadly the current known resources available will allow for just under 10% electric vehicles would wide.
Europe and heavily populated country's will receive the majority of the electric vehicles. Australia will meander along with just the flotsam left over.
Data supplied via the AAA and Mineral resources industry.

Queue the footage of sir joe fuelling a hydrogen valiant a few years back

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Mark _australia said..
Macro the vehicle does not have any ammonia.
The tech here is transporting ammonia - yes its nasty but it is far safer than many things and far safer then hydrogen to transport- then at the place it is needed the membrane splits ammonia into H2 and N2.

I repeat - its safer than transporting hydrogen.

I have carted bulk [refrigerant] ammonia between Kwinana and the Brownes dairy plant in Balcatta, and bulk hydrogen to a few locations.

Much preferred the ammonia [and the bulk amounts of free ice cream while they spent hours decanting my tanks]
Brownes had specified the wrong sized fittings for unloading the tanks, and had to use a miniscule undersized hose

Carting the ammonia, I had been issued special safety suit and all the fancy respirator gear
Carting hydrogen, I laughed at the boss when he went to issue me a set of Nomex overalls "in case of fire"

Only other problem with electric in our country is that our power stations are all past their use by date and nobody will invest in new ones. Renewal energy is still a minimum of 20 - 50 years away from meeting baseload and only then if they have a breakthrough in storage technology. So expensive and riding Petrol prices will be replaced with exponential growth in electricity pricing!

Only other problem with electric in our country is that our power stations are all past their use by date and nobody will invest in new ones. Renewal energy is still a minimum of 20 - 50 years away from meeting baseload and only then if they have a breakthrough in storage technology. So expensive and riding Petrol prices will be replaced with exponential growth in electricity pricing!

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albymongrel said..
Only other problem with electric in our country is that our power stations are all past their use by date and nobody will invest in new ones.

There are already overcapacity in solar panels production. So the price is cheaper than any time in the past.
Setting up a solar panel on oped deserted land is no brainer. Doesn't take ages to build unlike a typical thermal plant, hydro or nuclear that need decades. The key is energy storage.So , being in government shoes I would rather sponsor research in bulk energy storage for stationary objects, not electric cars.There is still huge potential for pumped hydro to storage energy and creating artificial lake is no more destructive for the environment than massive coal pits and land filled with ashes.

The artificial lake actually increase scenery beauty, then moderate microclimate and could serve well for fish production too or recreational finishing, kayaking, SUP etc.

Australia is huge and almost empty so there should be plenty of potentials to build artificial lakes at minimal costs.

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Macroscien said..

....

Australia is huge and almost empty so there should be plenty of potentials to build artificial lakes at minimal costs.

Great idea, except .... you need water to pump. We're in the droughtie bit of the "land of flooding plains".

I guess you could use solar and wind to run a desalination plant and pump the water up a big hill.

Electric will have to work , we won't have fossil fuel options . Were not serious yet , every day I drive one hour to work on clogged roads in a V8 and every car has only one person in it. It's sad because we are whinging pigs.
Hope our kids can work it out.

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Macroscien said..
There are already overcapacity in solar panels production. So the price is cheaper than any time in the past.
Setting up a solar panel on oped deserted land is no brainer. Doesn't take ages to build unlike a typical thermal plant, hydro or nuclear that need decades. The key is energy storage.So , being in government shoes I would rather sponsor research in bulk energy storage for stationary objects, not electric cars.There is still huge potential for pumped hydro to storage energy and creating artificial lake is no more destructive for the environment than massive coal pits and land filled with ashes.

The artificial lake actually increase scenery beauty, then moderate microclimate and could serve well for fish production too or recreational finishing, kayaking, SUP etc.

Australia is huge and almost empty so there should be plenty of potentials to build artificial lakes at minimal costs.

Yes - storage.

We need the most energy from 4pm to 10pm.
Solar is wonderful and sorta free,but you need to store it. The storage is the issue, with massive amounts of expensive minerals needed to make the batteries.

No one thing is the single answer. We need a mix of things and tech developed in Europe for their cities does not necessarily translate well to the wide brown land.

Again, hydrogen internal combustion engines are very enviro friendly and there are plenty around but the movement of hydrogen fromone place to another is the issue. The CSIRO thing is bloody brilliant as the sunny country can use solar power to make ammonia when the sun is shining, then transport that (safer than hydrogen) to other countires, then use the membrane tech to make hydrogen from the ammonia at the place it is needed. Thus I don't know whatyour objection to the wonderful Australian invention is....

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Mark _australia said..

Thus I don't know whatyour objection to the wonderful Australian invention is...

Just interest me what is the total efficiency of such conversion.
Let us assume that you have 1000Kwh free electric energy manufactured by our wind or solar plant in Perth.
1. Now you need to electrolytically split water to hydrogen. ( What do you do with oxygen byproduct anyway at this massive scale)
2. Then you synthesize ammonia from your hydrogen
3.Transport ammonia few hundred km on land in cisterns to the port
4.Load ammonia onto the ship
5.Transport ammonia on the sea 15,000 km
6. Unload ammonia onto cisterns and transport on land to Shanghai 200km inland
7. Now you could use your ingenious membrane to separate hydrogen after quite complex thermal ammonia destruction
8,.Now you have plenty of gaseous hydrogen ... and do what exactly with that? I could see that the whole logistic cost more then the product is worth.
Total energy left after conversions and shipping - 10 kwh

I doubt that there is something really ingenious in those membranes too, That is a well-known fact that hydrogen atoms are so small that could easily pass through steel bottle walls. Why not to use a steel bottle instead? That is the problem with hydrogen. There is nothing in this world to keep compress hydrogen from escaping and liquification is outside technical means. The whole story looks like a big scam for me. Hopefully will not be sold to our retirement funds as an investment for hard cash.