Norman_Conquest
Well-known member
R & C are trialling it in this area and will look to see if it is worth while rolling out to the borough.
The future for personal transport
- Thread starter SmallTown
- Start date
SmallTown
Well-known member
Hydrogen isn’t just flammable. It needs to be stored at pressure. So it’s explosive too.
SmallTown
Well-known member
My German friends hate the trains though. Say they are unreliable and frequently bad at letting people know about delays
BlindBoyGrunt
Well-known member
Everybody complains about trains but Germany's service is light years ahead of ours, and I've travelled on them a lot.
YouAreMyBoro
Active member
That sounds just like ours. I'd take that for £49 a month unlimited travel.
SmallTown
Well-known member
Fair point. It's super cheap. Just pointing out its not great. I agree I'd take that over super expensive and still unreliable
MolteniArcore
Well-known member
I was in Germany last weekend with this scheme in operation. Got a train from Dusseldorf to Venlo and you literally couldn’t move on the train. It was bonkers. Made our Transpennine trains look well organised
It’s a great idea though, if we did something like that over here it would be fantastic. People would save a fortune. Unfortunately the private train companies would lose a fortune so it’s never gonna happen.
MolteniArcore
Well-known member
Going by last weekend in Düsseldorf I can conform this is true. All the trains we got were late. The trams were brilliant though - we should get these built in all of our major cities.
We travelled from Venlo to Eindhoven to catch a flight home. Walked past the bar we spent the day at back in 2006 - great memories. Their public transport system (and bike network) is awesome - that is the model we should be looking at.
Gunslinger
Well-known member
I live in Germany and while the trains are not always perfect, they are litterally streets ahead of the UK
Never had an issue with them personally and use them a lot
Expat Smoggie
Well-known member
Hydrogen propulsion makes sense in all those countries which can count on solar and renewables. Nonetheless I think from an R+D standpoint we’re still in the infancy of all things Hydrogen propulsion. The technology is still looking at how it will develop the ecosystem let alone the providing the necessary tools and technology to sustain the transport systems (probably heavy goods).
Andy_W
Well-known member
Hydrogen is just not going to work, certainly not in cars with any sort of performance and range, and not large scale. There are major physics and physical limitations to actually creating something which is good, cheap, efficient performance and good range, which is also safe. Never mind the infrastructure to actually create the usable hydrogen, and move it (for the entire population). This battle is already lost to the EV, it was lost 5 years ago, and the margin of loss increases every year. Just look at the car industry, their mind was made up years ago.
It's like when people say that Toyota's V8, but running on hydrogen is going to work..... it just isn't. This is a good video explaining some of hydrogens problems:
Hydrogen just makes little sense for most uses, as it's not as efficient as electricity, and it will never be as efficient as long as the laws of physics exist. If we could get massive amounts of usable hydrogen without using electricity then sure, but it's not possible.
It likely won't replace gas in UK homes as 80% of gas pipes aren't up to scratch, and loads of them aren't even up to scratch for the gas they currently shift. The UK was early in using gas, and with that means we're quite reliant on old infrastructure/ pipes. These need replacing before any real thought goes into using a large chunk of hydrogen in people's homes. Some of these gas pipes can be upgraded or relined, but most can't, these would need completely new installs and the cost and disruption would be absolutely astronomical. Sure, we can use an extremely mild hydrogen blend in some homes, but this will never be more than 30%, not in the UK anyway and we will have almost stopped using gas altogether by then anyway. Ironically enough, the hydrogen blend only has a need for use when we still need gas, and we will just move away from needing this as electricity becomes cheaper and cheaper. It's only being introduced to reduce emissions quickly, it's a stopgap, and it makes sense for that.
It's only a matter of time (maybe a decade) before we average over 90% renewables for electricity generation (renewables took over gas this year), and have a method of storing them efficiently. Wind and Solar are already half the cost of gas for generating electricity, and this is only going to get better. Then comes the replacement of gas for heating and cooking etc, it's already started and within 10 years will have largely already switched over (then there's no need for gas/ hydrogen blend or hydrogen pipes to homes).
Hydrogen is basically like its own enemy, it is effectively aiming to become a gas replacement for industry and homes, but electricity can already be made so cheaply that there's going to be zero point in having gas at all, just use the electricity on what you intend to use the gas for, it's more efficient and cheaper. The only reason hydrogen is being looked at in some cases is as a stopgap is due to the duration it would take to move everything to renewable energy, but it's coming.
It's like when people say that Toyota's V8, but running on hydrogen is going to work..... it just isn't. This is a good video explaining some of hydrogens problems:
Hydrogen just makes little sense for most uses, as it's not as efficient as electricity, and it will never be as efficient as long as the laws of physics exist. If we could get massive amounts of usable hydrogen without using electricity then sure, but it's not possible.
It likely won't replace gas in UK homes as 80% of gas pipes aren't up to scratch, and loads of them aren't even up to scratch for the gas they currently shift. The UK was early in using gas, and with that means we're quite reliant on old infrastructure/ pipes. These need replacing before any real thought goes into using a large chunk of hydrogen in people's homes. Some of these gas pipes can be upgraded or relined, but most can't, these would need completely new installs and the cost and disruption would be absolutely astronomical. Sure, we can use an extremely mild hydrogen blend in some homes, but this will never be more than 30%, not in the UK anyway and we will have almost stopped using gas altogether by then anyway. Ironically enough, the hydrogen blend only has a need for use when we still need gas, and we will just move away from needing this as electricity becomes cheaper and cheaper. It's only being introduced to reduce emissions quickly, it's a stopgap, and it makes sense for that.
It's only a matter of time (maybe a decade) before we average over 90% renewables for electricity generation (renewables took over gas this year), and have a method of storing them efficiently. Wind and Solar are already half the cost of gas for generating electricity, and this is only going to get better. Then comes the replacement of gas for heating and cooking etc, it's already started and within 10 years will have largely already switched over (then there's no need for gas/ hydrogen blend or hydrogen pipes to homes).
Hydrogen is basically like its own enemy, it is effectively aiming to become a gas replacement for industry and homes, but electricity can already be made so cheaply that there's going to be zero point in having gas at all, just use the electricity on what you intend to use the gas for, it's more efficient and cheaper. The only reason hydrogen is being looked at in some cases is as a stopgap is due to the duration it would take to move everything to renewable energy, but it's coming.
As explained in that article, it's not explosive while in vehicle fuel tanks because there's no available oxygen.
Also, and as mentioned in an article on Hyundai's website:
What makes fuel cell cars safe
Last edited:
SmallTown
Well-known member
why? When compared to EV?
Still it’s kind of a moot point isn’t it because you’re describing most countries