Hydrogen in motorsport

Hi,

I am a student at Uni and for my honours year dissertation i am looking at "could a hydrogen fuelled championship be a sucess".

Therefore I have set up this thread to ask anyone interested in motorsport to take a survey for their opinions of using hydrogen technology in the sport.

The survey link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JLN2WHP

It is alone 9 question long and shouldn't take long to complete

I would like to say thanks in advance to anyone who does the survey and if anyone thinks they might have some useful information on the subject it would be much appreciated

Thanks

What country are you from?

Took your survey.

Answered. Good idea!

Survey taken!

I really do hope the hydrogen thing takes off. Imagine an environmentally friendly 4 rotor!

Took it.

Since you're the one doing the study and all. How would you propose to get a greater energy ROI for the electrolysis needed to extract hydrogen than is currently available?

As far as containment and infrastructure go, those will come easily after H can be produced in large enough quantities to warrant it's usage as an alternative to hydrocarbons. This is the issue I always have when people bring up alternative fuel sources like hydrogen.

Also, mmmm envirofriendly 4 rotor...

The crashes should be really interesting!!

For what it's worth took your survey, am curious to see how this technology works out in the long run.

In reply to fastoldfart:

While funny, you do know that the Hindenburg burned because of a static discharge setting off the skin dope, which was roughly the same chemical compound as the solid fuel used in the Shuttle's boosters...

Hi everyone,

Firstly thanks to all of you that have taken the survey, cheers

To answer a couple of questions i am from the UK studying at Bath University

And the extraction of hydrogen question (The0retical), i have obviously had to research into this area of hydrogen production and it is a very big talking point because of the expense in creating hydrogen. The most common way is electrolysis but a pricy method which include the metals used and electricity to power it which is created by fossil fuel, a vicious circle :)

However progress is being made with experiments using new materials and techniques, the latest promising method is "nanotrees" that mimic real life plants to take in sunlight, water and CO2 and produce hydrogen fuel. It uses cheap materials such as zinc oxide and silicon to deliver cheap hydrogen fuel.

Article link : http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/blog2/index.php/hydrogen-fuel-production/nanotrees-turn-sun-and-water-into-hydrogen-fuel/

The DOE (department of energy) are funding several methods in hope that one will come good and lead the way in mass hydrogen production. All are experimental so far, time will tell...

Took the survey. Good luck with your dissertation.

I've taken the survey.

A steam-emitting four-rotor is interesting, but as much as I love the howl of an internal combustion engine, hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative to batteries make electric look like the clear winner. All that efficiency freed from (some of the) the weight and production difficulties of batteries...

Eventually, I wonder whether any excess racket coming from a car will sound just as sloppy and inefficient as Harleys do to me now. "...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (yeah, yeah, I know, there are some very high-performing Harley-based bikes, but generally speaking their power/noise ratio is horrendous)

Javelin wrote: In reply to fastoldfart: While funny, you do know that the Hindenburg burned because of a static discharge setting off the skin dope, which was roughly the same chemical compound as the solid fuel used in the Shuttle's boosters...

The skin dope didn't exactly have an oxidizer, the main part of an SRB's fuel mixture... That's like saying sugar is roughly the same chemical compound as THC. Less accurate, actually, as sucrose and THC have identical elements.

AND the source of ignition is still contested. Sheesh.

BRB, off to get baked off cotton candy.

One thing I noted- Hydrogen is not zero emissions.

In ICE- NOx compounds are formed.
In fuel cells, the lack of HC purity (unless 100% made from water) means that most fuel cell cars produce more HC's than a PZEV vehicle does.

In reply to Osterkraut:

Citation is about a dozen Discovery Channel specials.

I have no idea what the current standings are, honestly, as it's been about 10 years since I last looked into it, and the only reason I did was my Dad worked for USBI (then USA) at the time they had sent in the skin sample for analysis.

I'd imagine the conclusion of the whole matter will never be undisputed.

As much as I hate using Pop Sci as a source but it's quick and dirty, plus I knew I read it somewhere at some point. Gain of salt etc the article is 15 years old.

That nano tree paper from UCSD is pretty slick. Need someone with money to back it because government funded science in the US is going by the wayside, at least in my opinion.

Javelin wrote: In reply to Osterkraut: Citation is about a dozen Discovery Channel specials. I have no idea what the current standings are, honestly, as it's been about 10 years since I last looked into it, and the only reason I did was my Dad worked for USBI (then USA) at the time they had sent in the skin sample for analysis. I'd imagine the conclusion of the whole matter will never be undisputed.

I'll allow it, Discovery programming is known for it's accuracy.

The0retical wrote: As much as I hate using Pop Sci as a source but it's quick and dirty, plus I knew I read it somewhere at some point. Gain of salt etc the article is 15 years old.

As you can see, that guy really likes to say the Hindenburg was painted with rocket fuel, which it isn't. No surprise a hydrogen expert doesn't want his gas (livelyhood?) as the bad guy.

Rufledt wrote: Imagine an environmentally friendly 4 rotor!

You, sir, owe me a clean pair of shorts.

(survey taken, good luck)

In reply to Osterkraut:

Obviously he doesn't want it to be the bad guy but you've got a guy that is an expert in the field and evidence is very circumstantial. AL however does burn very very well in the presence of oxygen when ignited. So I'm failing to see whole oxidizer argument here since this did not occur in a vacuum.

The SRB comparison on the other hand is a bit dubious I will give you that.

Survey done.

The best response I've seen about hydrogen safety and the Hindenberg, I can't take credit for it: "Imagine if the blimp had been filled with gasoline."

The0retical wrote: In reply to Osterkraut: Obviously he doesn't want it to be the bad guy but you've got a guy that is an expert in the field and evidence is very circumstantial. AL however does burn very very well in the presence of oxygen when ignited. So I'm failing to see whole oxidizer argument here since this did not occur in a vacuum. The SRB comparison on the other hand is a bit dubious I will give you that.

If I implied aluminum won't burn, that was not my intention. I brought up the oxidizer because solid rocket fuel is more than 50% oxidizer, and if you're going to call something rocket fuel, it needs to be close to rocket fuel.

In reply to Osterkraut:

Gotcha. On that note I didn't mean to imply that it was solely the skin which caused the disaster, just pointing out that there were a number of contributing factors, eye witness accounts vary, and that indeed we'll only ever have speculation as to what happened because the forensics that we have today were not available at that time to conclusively prove what happened.

On the issue at hand, seriously more 4 rotors!

The0retical wrote: In reply to Osterkraut: Gotcha. On that note I didn't mean to imply that it was solely the skin which caused the disaster, just pointing out that there were a number of contributing factors, eye witness accounts vary, and that indeed we'll only ever have speculation as to what happened because the forensics that we have today were not available at that time to conclusively prove what happened.

Indeed. My main point was to show that Javelin's information was at best a theory, and not the fact he purported it to be.

Apologies to the court, I left out my intentional smilies to show that it was indeed a tongue-in-cheek floundering as opposed to any sort of fully vetted, researched, fact.

(And on another note, is the skin/dope actually close to "rocket fuel" minus the oxidizer, or were the NASA/Discovery boffins making a good 1 hour TV show? I just thought it was cool that I got to see the skin piece in real life.)

I took the survey. FWIW fuel cells are already in use in the electric forklift industry as a substitute for batteries . When they work right they are better than batteries.