I heard a fella talking on 101.1 today about several asian countries getting together and are working to develop hydrogen and ammonia motors. Several manufacturers will use the same motor and plan to change the auto industry. Pretty much the countries in the east getting out of the oil market. Any of yall heard anything about this? He was talking like its going on, not being planned but happening right now.

Both are available in abundance.

I don’t understand why hydrogen hasn’t been used more extensively.

The Hindenburg says remember me? Hydrogen is extremely unstable.

I believe the hindenberg was using pure hydrogen. The automotive motors will actually run off water, they remove the hydrogen mulecules from the water.

Cost to liquify and it’s very difficult to store without leaking. I worked in a liquid hydrogen plant and we had a customer that wanted it shipped to them by rail and by the time it arrived in California from Alabama only half of the shipment remained contained.

You’ve got it backwards. Water is the result/byproduct when hydrogen and oxygen interact. Hydrogen is the fuel. As stated above, there is no free lunch in physics/chemistry.

I am always amazed at what you can learn on this site.

Thank you for the explanation.

Well, that would make sense. He was talking about one of the problems being getting rid of the water because you couldnt just let it run out the tailpipe because of freezing issues in cold places.theyve developed a way to burn the water

Hydrogen is also compressed and right now extremely expensive. To fill up a Toyota mirai right now is a little over $200. (Mid size car)

I’m pretty sure hydrocarbons are used in the Haber-Bosch process to make ammonia.

He didnt talk alot about the ammonia motors while i was listening. He did say once they were wanting to focus on the hydrogen motor. I never heard of a ammonia motor

Virtually all hydrogen produced today is a by-product of the hydrocracking process used to make diesel and gasoline. It remains the only way to produce hydrogen without it being a net energy loss.

Bingo. Hydrogen is bought from oil refineries. As of right now anyways.

Some of the most promising research that I have seen is being done by Porsche, BMW and others working on making synthetic gasoline. Basically using solar to extract the synth fuel. They split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then combine the hydrogen with captured CO2 to create a synth fuel that can be burned in conventional gasoline engines.

I think they have the cost down to about $6 a gallon and still working on it.

Irish -

Have they advised what the comparison is to gasoline or diesel in energy density?

That's one of the main issues with ethanol as a fuel. It's a 25% net energy loss, but at least it costs more.

Hydrogen and nitrogen, not hydrocarbons. I've mentioned it before, but the book "Alchemy of Air" tells the story of the creation of the Haber-Bosch process. Basically needed to make cheap nitrates for wartime munitions as the traditional supply was depleted and transportation was both costly, and in wartime, unreliable. It instead provided abundant nitrogen fertilizers that helped feed the world. The German's were also building huge facilities for the manufacture of synthetic fuels, but never got them really operational before the end of the war due to the complication of the process and Allied bombers. Not energy efficient, but they didn't have any other options.

Olin in McIntosh also produces hydrogen as a byproduct from making chlorine and other products. I’m not sure if it’s still the case, but 20 or so years ago they were supposedly the biggest consumer of electricity in Alabama.

Same BTU's as gasoline from my understanding.

I've done some work at the little power plant there and I remember going there the first time and seeing miles of chlorine rail cars and thinking if the $hit hits the fan here, I'm as good as done for...

If it hits the fan there, there’s enough chlorine to wipe out thousands of people. I heard awhile back that production was going to be shut down there and it would be converted into a transportation hub. They’re probably tired of rebuilding it every few years.