Hydrogen fuel-cell ebikes can be 'recharged' in seconds

https://newatlas.com/ ^ | June 15, 2024 | Paul Ridden

[Jonty30]

While most ebikes on the road today will come with a battery pack, some are riding down the hydrogen fuel-cell cycle path. HydroRide not only has fuel-cell ebikes available, but also a compact refill station to top up H2 canisters. The global ebike market is estimated to grow in value to almost US$120 billion by 2030, and it's not surprising. Whether commuting or leisure riding, pedal-assist bikes take some of the strain out of the journey while also opening up routes for older riders. The vast majority of ebikes on the street roll with Li-ion batteries, but they can spend a good deal of time parked up charging, Swiss tech company HydroRide Europe AG is hoping to tempt e-cyclists over to the hydrogen fuel cell camp with the promise of super-fast top-ups for its range of city ebikes. And even has a compact hydrogen generator in its product portfolio, which can produce 20 g of hydrogen from 200 ml of purified water in around five-to-six hours. The company says that its refill station can even be powered by solar panels instead of the grid to produce green hydrogen, though efficiency and operational figures don't appear to have been revealed.

[TexasGator]

“I see a lot of people riding them at speed, and they aren’t pedaling!”

Florida:

Class 1: Motor assists when pedaling and stops at 20 mph.
Class 2: Throttle-actuated motor assist up to 20 mph.
Class 3: Pedal-assist mode, reaching speeds up to 28 mph.

Florida limits most trail usage to only class 1 but not strictly enforced.

My bike is Class 1 but now I see a lot of Class 3’s. My wife had a 1 but now she has a 3.

[TexasGator]

“In Canada, bikes must be pedal assisted to be considered a bicycle. It could be your local ordinances.”

And 500 watt / 32 kmph limits.

These alighn with our Class 1.

[TexasGator]

“To me, e-bikes are just electric mopeds.”

Mopeds require license and registration and cannot go on bike trails.

On the roadway the moped is a motorized vehicle, the e-bike is a bicycle.

[Chad C. Mulligan]

Two words, fireman: Confined Space. Like a garage or an apartment. I've personally seen what it can do. Another operator where I worked screwed up. Lucky it didn't kill somebody.

[fireman15]

Two words, fireman: Confined Space. Like a garage or an apartment.

In the post that you were responding to I said, “The natural gas and propane leaks that cause structures to blow up are because of explosive mixtures contained within enclosed spaces.”

It seemed like we were on different pages, but maybe not. Do you believe that hydrogen powered vehicles are used in enclosed spaces?

I am not a proponent of the “hydrogen economy”, but vehicles powered by hydrogen are much less of a risk to their users and the public than vehicles powered by Lithium based batteries. Are you going to harass local officials or move away if someone with an electric car moves in next to you?

“High-pressure H2 tanks are durable enough to remain intact even in the event of a high-speed crash. As a result, neither injuries nor deaths have been associated with the use of hydrogen cars relating with the H2 components, at the time this article was written.” The first internal combustion engine was invented in 1806 ran on hydrogen. The first successful hydrogen powered automobile was produced in 1860.

https://www.fastechus.com/blog/the-surprising-history-of-hydrogen-vehicles

https://www.hydrogenfwd.org/why-dont-we-hear-about-hydrogen-cars-exploding-all-the-time/#:~:text=The%20fact%20is%20that%20the,and%20lead%20to%20an%20explosion.

Vehicles powered by hydrogen-based fuel cells have many advantages over vehicles powered by lithium-based batteries and safety is one of them. Hydrogen has less of an opportunity to harm the public because than other gasses used for fuels because it dissipates so quickly because it is the lightest gas in existence. H2 has 1/2 the specific gravity of helium.

[RetiredTexasVet]

You don’t know that it is not $50,000 ... they stated no costs for purchase, maintenance, or resupply.

[Dr. Sivana]

You don’t know that it is not $50,000 ... they stated no costs for purchase, maintenance, or resupply.

True. I was working on the assumption that it would cost less than the entire hydrogen car ($51,000) that Toyota sells.

[Chad C. Mulligan]

Do you believe that hydrogen powered vehicles are used in enclosed spaces?

Of course not, but they are parked in enclosed spaces. Manhattanites take their scooters via elevator up to their apartments to prevent theft. There have already been apartment fires in NYC from lithium batteries igniting, (almost certainly while on charge -- don't get me started on that subject).

[norwaypinesavage]

The water is trivial. What matters is the amount of coal burned to produce the electricity to electrolyze the water that counts.

[fireman15]

There have already been apartment fires in NYC from lithium batteries igniting.

Lithium batteries have proven to be hazardous regardless of what they have been installed in. That said I have numerous computers, phones, charged electric bicycle batteries, numerous camera and drone batteries in and batteries for other gizmos in my home and have for many years. I have never had a problem... (knock on wood)

Not abusing your equipment and Keeping a close track of how your batteries are holding up by various means helps prevent catastrophic failures. Beyond that it is a numbers game. A small percentage of batteries fail and cause problems.

Despite hydrogen powered vehicles being around since 1860... there have been very few mishaps. This is because of the precautions taken when working with a flammable gas but also because of the nature of hydrogen. As I have said previously, hydrogen is the lightest element and gas so despite a wide flammable range it dissipates so quickly that outside of massive dirigibles filled with a massive amount of hydrogen... hazardous situations just do not tend to develop very easily.

[Jonty30]

The water is trivial, it would feed trees.
IMO, coal plants are trivial as well because their by-products are absorbed by nature. Any real problems are just engineering problems that we need to figure out.

[Jonty30]

Even with the Hindenburg, it wasn’t the hydrogen but the flammable paint that caught fire that then ignited hydrogen.

If the paint hadn’t caught fire, the hydrogen would have likely leaked away harmlessly.

[Chad C. Mulligan]

....hazardous situations just do not tend to develop very easily.

UNLESS the hydrogen is released into an enclosed space, as I have seen happen with my own eyes.

If you're really a fireman, you should be familiar with the risk analysis process called FMEA. (For lurkers, that's Failure Mode Effects Analysis). Something that was an integral part of my career for a good many years. While the probability of a hydrogen leak in an enclosed space is (hopefully) low, the resulting effects are likely to be catastrophic. Quit pretending that compressed hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is safe as houses, based apparently on your speculation, not actual experience. It's not.

[fireman15]

While the probability of a hydrogen leak in an enclosed space is (hopefully) low, the resulting effects are likely to be catastrophic.

As an expert in risk analysis, please provide us with one real world example of an actual catastrophic event where hydrogen being used as a fuel was released into an enclosed space and caused an actual catastrophic event resulting in death, injury or any type of major damage.

Despite hydrogen being used as a fuel source for vehicles since 1860... there have been no deaths or injuries associated with hydrogen being used as a fuel that I or presumably you are aware of. I worked as a Hazmat Officer in charge of a Hazmat team for many years. And yes, I went to many serious Hazmat calls during my career. You are the one who is operating on idle speculation and false presumptions.

From a Hazmat officer's perspective hydrogen is a near perfect fuel. If a large quantity is released into the atmosphere, it dissipates almost instantly and causes no environmental damage. H2 weighs 16 times less than O2.

And yes, hydrogen can be used as a cooking fuel inside of houses with risks that are likely less than that of propane or natural gas. I don't know what type of event you supposedly witnessed that you have blathered on about while providing no details... but it didn't cause a catastrophe... did it and probably was not likely to.

As I told you in another post when I was a kid my friends and I used to make hydrogen balloons using lye and aluminum foil mixed in bottles with the balloon covering the neck. We taped firecrackers to them. We would light them on fire while we were holding them in our hands. We wrapped large bundles in toilet paper and lit them on fire as they floated away. Although I would not recommend these activities to youngsters in our current overprotective society... this provided wonderful entertainment for us. The hydrogen was not as dangerous to us as the firecrackers or lye. I do not remember any serious injuries or burns to anyone or resulting fires.

It may be an idiotic waste of resources converting electricity or natural gas to hydrogen... but as electric cars eventually fail spectacularly in the marketplace this is what is coming next.

[Chad C. Mulligan]

High tech heat treating shop, doing heat treating and brazing in a reducing atmosphere. A supposedly trained operator failed to purge a retort properly and it blew the steel lid weighing several hundred pounds into the 40 foot shop ceiling hard enough to bend one of the joists. Had it been a wood frame enclosure it would have been matchsticks. From there, I’m done. You are just competing to “win the internet”. Well, it’s yours.

[NorthMountain]

14mph is not a useful speed. I can almost walk that.

14 MPH is just a bit slower than a four-minute mile. Can you "almost" WALK a four-minute mile? Really?

Impressive!!!

[Jonty30]

As I mentioned earlier, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. However, what is not an exaggeration is a bike that can only go 14 mph is a near completely useless bike.

You’d have to pay me to take it off your hands, so I can pay the landfill fee.

[fireman15]

“High tech heat treating shop, doing heat treating and brazing in a reducing atmosphere. A supposedly trained operator failed to purge a retort properly and it blew the steel lid weighing several hundred pounds into the 40 foot shop ceiling hard enough to bend one of the joists.”

And this has exactly what to do with hydrogen fueled vehicles? Nothing. I am assuming that hydrogen was being used as the fuel for brazing, but any other gas used as a fuel can and has caused the same type of mishaps.

I am not competing with you... you have made statements that try to convince others that hydrogen is dangerous when used as a fuel. Any liquid or gas used as a fuel can be dangerous under the correct conditions.

I am not an advocating for hydrogen to become a replacement for hydrocarbon fuels. Using natural gas to produce hydrogen is wasteful. Using electricity to produce hydrogen is wasteful. But hydrogen is no more dangerous than using propane or natural gas as a fuel. It has to be handled differently because of the high pressures involved in vehicular applications. If it was distributed in low pressure lines to heat people's homes or cook their food, it would be no more dangerous than natural gas.

You have tried to convince others that hydrogen is a menace and it is not. It just isn't an answer to the replacement of hydrocarbon fuels at this time. If the price of electricity dropped precipitously to the point that using electrolysis brought the price of hydrogen down to a very low price then maybe there could be a future in it. But that is not the direction that electricity is predicted to go.

[fireman15]

However, what is not an exaggeration is a bike that can only go 14 mph is a near completely useless bike.

I have to admit to being a bicycle lover, and I could not care less if a bicycle can make it to only 14 mph on electricity. Most people cannot average even 14 mph when riding a bicycle more than a few miles.

I do understand what you are saying. My wife has had some serious injuries and she needs a comfortable ride on a tandem. Most of the time we ride a mountain bike tandem on the road to smooth all of the bumps out. But that heavy inefficient bike is not as enjoyable to me as our aluminum framed road tandem with quality components. It is a joy when you can feel the energy from your legs converted efficiently into forward motion. But the actual fun we have isn't that much different.

We have a collection of older bicycles, and each has its own amazing attributes even if they do not always translate into high speeds.

[fireman15]

By providing us with a real-world example that you were personally familiar with. In reality you win the exchange for providing what I asked for with specifics. So, I say bravo to you in all sincerity.

Chad C. Mulligan