The Slow Pace of Change

Although it often appears on car enthusiast channels, perhaps it could be a good engine for a sailboat.

It is curious that this engine designed for Drones appears again and again discussed talking about cars to make itself known. And the same happens with Hydrogen. It is as if the car were the center of the universe.

 

"That was fast"

Exactly

There are already two cars on the market with sodium batteries.

First came the Lithium batteries which were dangerous because they sometimes burned.

Then came the safer LiFePO4 and in four years we saw them drop in price a lot.

Then there was talk that in the "future" Sodium batteries would come, and they are already here and on an industrial scale.

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Northvolt develops state-of-the-art sodium-ion battery https://northvolt.com/articles/northvolt-sodium-ion/

 

Sodium

It is reasonable to think that within 5 years (say around 2030) when the production capacity is very large the Price will drop quite a bit as we have seen (2020-2024) on LiFePO4, and it would be a very good battery for boats, houses and small vehicles for the city. Its density is not spectacular; but it is enough.

 

So the technical issue is already solved (2030-) the big fat issue is price arbitrage and cooperative trading:

Energy trade model for interconnected renewable microgrids https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/01/03/energy-trade-model-for-interconnected-renewable-microgrids/

 

I mean that in Electrification I see three waves:

(I, 2020-) renewable sources: sun and wind
(II, 2030-) various forms of storage and price arbitrage: store to sell and
(III, 2040-) hydrogen as a way to store electricity and as a fuel for trucks, heavy machinery and Big ships.

(?!)

 

Form Factory One (2024-)

Home https://formenergy.com/

Iron-Air 100 h

I can't fit this battery on my 6 meter sailboat, haha

 

Couple problems there: can't do #1, until #2 is available. Before then #1 is generally a net loss. More emissions than energy saved.
#3 isn't ever happening. Can't store hydrogen. It leaks out through everything. Might be a daylight thing where it runs the gas turbines overnight while the sun isn't sunny.

 

Yeah, hydrogen won't be a player until you can store it as a liquid..... OH!...wait.....

(see this post from 2014 Hydrogen Fuel cells for ships https://www.boatdesign.net/threads/hydrogen-fuel-cells-for-ships.49734/#post-677391 )

 

I'll go out on a limb here.
And I'll stick mostly to boats and ships, with only a passing thought about automobiles.

To get it out of the way, I'll mention automobiles first.
I think there will be huge problems with trading the present fleet of Internal Combustion Only (ICO) autos with electric ones.
The natural resources and the electric infrustructure needed just doesn't seem to be there. The only sensible alternative I see would be Internal Combustion Battery (ICB) (also known as hybrid) ones that are powered by methanol. Methanol is liquid at room temperature and relatively easy to produce. It also has a little more than half the carbon in it as conventional fuels (it also is a bit less enrgy dense, but is probably more so than just hydrogen, liquid or gas). Now, I have read that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gass than carbon dioxide. However, it stays in the atmosphere for only 20 years or so. CO2 is basically forever (unless it is taken out of the atmosphere by photosynthesis). ICB autos are around today and have been around for over a decade. Per horespower, they get close to twice the milage as ICO autos. if this is true, even with the outrageous size and horespower/ton of present autos, I don't think it is unreasonable expect about 1/3rd the CO2 emission from them (Less carbon + higher efficiency). We could even go further. We could reduce both the size and HP/ton per vehicle. When I was comming of age, back in the 70's, the hp/ton of a typical auto was around 50. Today, it is closer to 100 (of course, back then, engines were less efficient). If we took today's engine efficiency and downsized the hp/ton we'd be better off. And if we downsized the autos too, we would most certainly be even more so. But markets by themselves would not get us there. Everyone wants the biggest, most powerful auto they can get. This is especially true with those who can afford new autos. And this is especially harmful, because these large, powerful autos end up on the used market, where people like me are more or less forced to buy them. On the income I bring in every month, I can barely afford to keep the auto I have on the road. It was 12 yo when I bought it. And it is having serious maintenence issues. But own it, I must. There are almost no transportation alternatives available where I live. In the trailer park I call home, at least half the families do not have an auto. I expect this trend to spread over the years. Given that there is no real effective government policy dealing with this issue, I expect the auto, as a mainstay of urban/suburban personal transit, to go the way of the Dodo bird. A sensible government policy may not even be possible this late in the game. But a possible one would be to ration the right to create CO2. And, when I say ration, I don't mean jacking up the price of carbon based fuels. I mean giving everyone a limit to how much they are allowed to use, based in the carbon in them. One could sell unused alotments on the open market. This would effectively make the rich pay disproportionately more, if they want to use more. OK, I am done with autos.

As for pleasure boats, I think the planing powerboat is going to end up in the same museum as the steam powered one. The cost to run it, under the regeme I expect us to end up with, will be prohibitive. Wealthier boaters, who can afford slips, will likely switch to hydrofoil boats to get the same speed with less energy usage. But playfully running them up on a beach will not be an option. And they will cost more. Non-planing powered multis may prove to be a more popular option. Other than that, longer, narrower displacement monos may become the thing. And a lot of those may end up with assist sails. With that, electric propulsion seems a bit more practical.

As for commercial fishing boats, a switch to methanol might be a thing. But, honestly, I think that the days of fishing, with brute force, and on an industrial scale, are numbered. I think the cost to operate that way may one day soon overun the yield. Older methods may return. And at least some commercial fishing boats will likely end up with sails of some sort. And if they do, they will not be as perilous as they were in the days of yore. Better communications, better safety gear, and far better weather forcasting will likely see to that. But I have no idea of how we will get from here to there. Absolutely brutal government policy change may well be coming our way.

Smaller ships may well end up with assist sails, or even be primarily powered by sail. They can use both methane fuel and they can use their propellers to charge their batteries when the wind is sufficient. I have already seen this technolgy demonstrated with sailing yachts.

Work boats, such as tugboats and ferries, will likely stick with ICO engines, but burn methanol instead of diesel fuel.

Larger ships, such as huge bulk carriers and massive container ships may well end up with fission power. The upront cosrs will be huge, And the disposal of the radioactive waste will be huge problems. But they may end up being the least terrible of only very bad options.

I think we have been fiddling grasshoppers for at least the last thirty years. Sudden, brutal change may well hit us like a sucker punch from a mugger.

 

I followed the link. It's a salesman's pitch. Doesn't actually have any engineering info about storing enough hydrogen to run a ship.

 

Nickel-Hydrogen Batterie

Why This NASA Battery May Be The Future of Energy Storage - Undecided with Matt Ferrell https://undecidedmf.com/why-this-nasa-battery-may-be-the-future-of-energy-storage/

Enervenue to mass produce newest ‘30,000 cycle’ metal-hydrogen batteries in Kentucky https://www.energy-storage.news/enervenue-to-mass-produce-newest-30000-cycle-metal-hydrogen-batteries-in-kentucky/

Electric revolution is unstoppable:

2020-: sun and wind
2030-: storage
2040-: hydrogen

Perhaps large ships will continue to use fossil fuels. I don't know. It's a detail seen on a large scale.

 

I am now seeing some amazing LiFePO4 batteries:

Quinbrook eyes 16-hour batteries for Sun Cable in massive storage deal with China's CATL | RenewEconomy https://www.google.com/amp/s/reneweconomy.com.au/quinbrook-eyes-16-hour-batteries-for-sun-cable-in-massive-storage-deal-with-chinas-catl/amp/

12.000 cycles (?!!):

A Glimpse of Jinjiang 100 MWh Energy Storage Power Station Project https://www.catl.com/en/news/684.html

On my sailboat (an old MiniTransat 6.50) I have a small LiFePO4 battery

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Be that as it may, it is spectacular, we have gone from batteries that (the good and expensive ones) we could discharge maybe 50% and about 1000 cycles ....to batteries that we can get 80% and maybe last 3000-6000 cycles (?!)

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Well, you're an enthusiast, I'll give you that.

 

Nope...
pre-1200-: sun and wind
1760-: storage
1855-: hydrogen

You are too limited in your thinking. You only think about what YOU want, not what other will do with with the tech.

 

Yep, as you said salesman pitch, ..... because we can't. Right now there is a good/adequate way to store energy in a concentrated form without going to the way 'GOD' intended energy to be stored. Unfortunately, that liquid form takes many years to complete, and rather than find others methods, most limited societies would rather fight over the decreasing resources rather than develop better and more immediate methods. Today, more long term energy storage methods will have to be spent to go all electric in immediate forms during the next 30 years that it would be to maintain the status quo (see this international report https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/a...fCriticalMineralsinCleanEnergyTransitions.pdf ).

I'm not sure if CarlosK2 is a troll or an AI chat bot (driven by a troll); but he has not given human intellectual or even basic engineering thought to the problem or it's issues. There is no silver bullet to solve the issue. There is only nibbling away at the corners until a technological, or political, breakthrough is reached. Based on the last 20 years, my money is on a political one.

Nuclear Resurgence https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/12/nuclear-resurgence-nordhaus-lloyd