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CappyJax

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Hydrogen itself is a synthetic fuel prepared by the same physical chemistry as glucose.
I am not sure what this means. Glucose is a compound molecule made up of C₆H₁₂O₆. Hydrogen is just a single element but most commonly found in the molecular form H₂.
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ajdelange

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Hydrogen is not a synthetic fuel, it is an element.
We synthesize hydrogen from water by 2H2O + hv <-->2H2 + O2 just as we synthesize glucose from water + CO2 (6CO2 + 12H2O + hv <---> C6H12O6 + 6O2). To focus on the fact that hydrogen is an element, which of course it is, or that glucose is a hexose (which of course it is) only shows that you are missing the point entirely. Perhaps I am not explaining it clearly enough. From the pure physical chemistry point of view the synthesis of either of these fuels is the same and given that it is the economics that matter.

And the reason we would make fuels containing carbon is because they are:
1. Liquid at room temperature.
2. Easy to store.
3. Easy to transport.
4. Can work with our current distribution system.
5. Can be used in the millions upon millions of vehicles already in existence.
6. Have a significantly higher gravimetric energy density.
7. Have a significantly higher volumetric energy density.
These all relate to the relative costs. You aren't reading, or understanding, the posts.

Hydrogen is easy and safe to store too. It's just that the technology is verboten because it is basically the technology used to store fuel in fusion weapons. That comes under "cost"

Even if we developed a sustainable and never ending supply of hydrogen tomorrow, we would convert it into synthetic gasoline and diesel until fuel cell vehicles become the norm.
No, we wouldn't because we have less costly ways of storing electrical energy. Hydrogen is one of them for certain applications. That's why we use hydrogen where it is less costly than batteries. Try to understand that methane produced from hydrogen and CO2 brings all the problems to the point of use as methane extracted from a well. It is only if we can synthesize methane from raw feedstock at less cost to the environment and in $ than what it costs us to get it from the ground that we could consider synthetic fuels as viable. Substitute ethanol or any other synthetic fuel you have in mind and the same remark applies.



A hydrogen economy is a great concept,
It hasn't proven to be so for passenger vehicles up to this point in time and it is dirty.


but we need a bridge until that technology becomes available to everyone. Synthetic fuels are that bridge.
Such technology is at the laboratory stage today. It seems more reasonable to assume that battery technology with advance fast enough that hydrogen will never catch up and that "synthetic fuels" will never see wide application. What they may prove to be good for is as a means of sequestering CO2, however. But my crystal ball is at the shop right now.

Also, the storage capacity of hydrogen tanks make it impractical for long range aircraft and ships, so even with a hydrogen economy, we will still be needing the higher energy densities of synthetic fuels for a long time to come.
A ship is the perfect application for hydrogen and Viking has ordered its first hydrogen powered cruise ship. Airplanes are a different matter. They will be powered by liquid fuel for some time as it is the mass of the fuel being thrown out that makes the thing go. Whether these fuels come from fossil or synthetic sources will be determined by which is cheaper. Fossil is going to be cheaper for a long time.[/QUOTE]
 

CappyJax

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We synthesize hydrogen from water by 2H2O + hv <-->2H2 + O2 just as we synthesize glucose from water + CO2 (6CO2 + 12H2O + hv <---> C6H12O6 + 6O2). To focus on the fact that hydrogen is an element, which of course it is, or that glucose is a hexose (which of course it is) only shows that you are missing the point entirely. Perhaps I am not explaining it clearly enough. From the pure physical chemistry point of view the synthesis of either of these fuels is the same and given that it is the economics that matter.

These all relate to the relative costs. You aren't reading, or understanding, the posts.

Hydrogen is easy and safe to store too. It's just that the technology is verboten because it is basically the technology used to store fuel in fusion weapons. That comes under "cost"

No, we wouldn't because we have less costly ways of storing electrical energy. Hydrogen is one of them for certain applications. That's why we use hydrogen where it is less costly than batteries. Try to understand that methane produced from hydrogen and CO2 brings all the problems to the point of use as methane extracted from a well. It is only if we can synthesize methane from raw feedstock at less cost to the environment and in $ than what it costs us to get it from the ground that we could consider synthetic fuels as viable. Substitute ethanol or any other synthetic fuel you have in mind and the same remark applies.



It hasn't proven to be so for passenger vehicles up to this point in time and it is dirty.


Such technology is at the laboratory stage today. It seems more reasonable to assume that battery technology with advance fast enough that hydrogen will never catch up and that "synthetic fuels" will never see wide application. What they may prove to be good for is as a means of sequestering CO2, however. But my crystal ball is at the shop right now.

A ship is the perfect application for hydrogen and Viking has ordered its first hydrogen powered cruise ship. Airplanes are a different matter. They will be powered by liquid fuel for some time as it is the mass of the fuel being thrown out that makes the thing go. Whether these fuels come from fossil or synthetic sources will be determined by which is cheaper. Fossil is going to be cheaper for a long time.
[/QUOTE]


Dude, shut up. You are just embarrassing yourself.
 

ajdelange

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I am not sure what this means. Glucose is a compound molecule made up of C₆H₁₂O₆. Hydrogen is just a single element but most commonly found in the molecular form H₂.
Sorry about that. I painted with a broad brush for brevity's sake and hoped you would be able to fill in the rest. The equation'
6CO2 + 12H2O + hv <---> C6H12O6 + 6O2
describes the carbon/energy cycle in very high level terms. Plants take up CO2 and water and produce nature's most basic fuel, glucose. Glucose polymerizes to form starch with bound with lignin forms plant tissue. An animal eats the plant, lyses the starch back to glucose, sends that down the EMP pathway and through oxidative (oxygen respired by the animal is reunited with the products of the EMP pathway and the energy, originally from the sun, is put in chemical form such that a muscle can extract it and do work. If the animal happens to be man, that work may involve cutting down a tree and building a fire. In the fires the starch is reunited with oxygen directly and the energy released more quickly as heat and light. Some of the plant matter falls to the ground and decays releasing CO2 and heat. Some of the plant material becomes peat and eventually petroleum which can be burned later. Some of the starch will lyse into glucose which will be attacked by yeast releasing some energy, some CO2 and beer! The alcohol in that beer, though it would be a terrible waste, can be exposed to energy and oxygen and will burn releasing the rest of the energy in the glucose molecule.
 

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CappyJax

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We synthesize hydrogen from water by 2H2O + hv <-->2H2 + O2 just as we synthesize glucose from water + CO2 (6CO2 + 12H2O + hv <---> C6H12O6 + 6O2).
Just because hydrogen is synthesized from water does not make it a synthetic fuel. Hydrogen is used is making synthetic fuels. You could correctly call it syngas, but it is not synthetic fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

Hydrogen is easy and safe to store too. It's just that the technology is verboten because it is basically the technology used to store fuel in fusion weapons. That comes under "cost"
Hydrogen is not easy to store. It requires high pressures or low temperatures, both of which requires heavy storage vessels and associated equipment. If it was easy to store, we would be using it more than we are now. And the technology is not in anyway verboten to store hydrogen. I can buy a tank and store it in my house. And there is no fear of someone creating a fusion weapon, because they would need highly fissionable material to create the fission primary explosion.

Such technology is at the laboratory stage today. It seems more reasonable to assume that battery technology with advance fast enough that hydrogen will never catch up and that "synthetic fuels" will never see wide application. What they may prove to be good for is as a means of sequestering CO2, however. But my crystal ball is at the shop right now.
It is beyond the laboratory stage and well into the development stage.

A ship is the perfect application for hydrogen and Viking has ordered its first hydrogen powered cruise ship.
A hydrogen powered cruise ship is not a long range vessel. The size of the tanks needed to power a ship to cross oceans would reduce its payload capacity dramatically.

Airplanes are a different matter. They will be powered by liquid fuel for some time as it is the mass of the fuel being thrown out that makes the thing go.
Apart from a tiny number of rocket propelled aircraft, airplanes are not propelled by the mass of the fuel They are propelled by the mass of the air they accelerate rearward. If the mass of the fuel was the only thing that propelled them forward, they wouldn't get off the runway. And electric jets don't have any fuel being ejected out the back, and they, of course, work just fine. A hydrogen powered jet engine would work just as well a heavy-fuel powered jet engine. Actually better because it would have a cleaner and more efficient combustion. But again, the size and weight of the tanks needed to store the hydrogen would significantly impact the aircrafts range to around 1/10th that of the heavy-fuel range.
 

ajdelange

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Just because hydrogen is synthesized from water does not make it a synthetic fuel. Hydrogen is used is making synthetic fuels. You could correctly call it syngas, but it is not synthetic fuel.
Again, your attempt to refocus on the semantics makes it clear you are not grasping the concept. More to the point, I don't know much about synthetic fuels so I went and did a wee search. The very first paper I came to mentioned hydrogen as being an example of a synthetic fuel. The first sentence of the article you link to says

"Synthetic fuel
or synfuel is a liquid fuel, or sometimes gaseous fuel, obtained from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, in which the syngas was derived from gasification of solid feedstocks such as coal or biomass or by reforming of natural gas."

Thus if you insist on sticking to this definition of synfuel it is clearly not the solution as it is dirty and being dirty is high cost. Thinking that you would understand this I assumed you were talking about a clean synthetic fuel (such as hydrogen or glucose) with synthetic having its usual meaning in science. Glucose is a clean synthetic fuel IF it uses CO2 from the air. As you don't see the connection between glucose and fuel I doubt you can understand this and so I assume that you wouldn't understand the explanations of your other remarks (in one of which you are actually partially correct) so I'm not going to address those.
 

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Again, your attempt to refocus on the semantics makes it clear you are not grasping the concept. More to the point, I don't know much about synthetic fuels so I went and did a wee search. The very first paper I came to mentioned hydrogen as being an example of a synthetic fuel. The first sentence of the article you link to says

"Synthetic fuel
or synfuel is a liquid fuel, or sometimes gaseous fuel, obtained from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, in which the syngas was derived from gasification of solid feedstocks such as coal or biomass or by reforming of natural gas."

Thus if you insist on sticking to this definition of synfuel it is clearly not the solution as it is dirty and being dirty is high cost. Thinking that you would understand this I assumed you were talking about a clean synthetic fuel (such as hydrogen or glucose) with synthetic having its usual meaning in science. Glucose is a clean synthetic fuel IF it uses CO2 from the air. As you don't see the connection between glucose and fuel I doubt you can understand this and so I assume that you wouldn't understand the explanations of your other remarks (in one of which you are actually partially correct) so I'm not going to address those.
Word use is important. Maybe learn the proper use of the word instead of getting upset at others when they call you out on it.
 

ajdelange

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Yes. If you knew what the word meant you might have understood what I was trying to convey. But without training in one of the sciences one would not expect you to be familiar with words like synthesis and lysis as used by chemists.

syn·thet·ic
(sĭn-thĕt′ĭk)
adj.
1. Relating to, involving, or of the nature of synthesis.
2. Chemistry Produced by synthesis, especially not of natural origin.
3.
a.
Prepared or made artificially: synthetic leather.
b. Not natural or genuine; artificial or contrived: "counterfeit rhetoric that flourishes when passions are synthetic" (George F. Will).

n.
A synthetic chemical compound or material.
 
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ajdelange

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I did not know the hydrogen power would be a chemical reaction rather than an ICE.
ICE, battery and fuel cell are all dependent on chemical reaction and one of the most fascinating aspects of all this is that the chemical reaction is the same. That reaction is burning in which electrons are transferred from a fuel (reducing agent) to an oxidizing agent which in all three cases here is oxygen. Oxygen is really grabby when it comes to electrons so it takes a lot of energy to get them away from it and fuel (the reducing agent) is simply something that stably holds electrons that have been ripped off oxygen atoms. The energy required for the separation in most cases ultimately comes from the sun. When fuel and oxygen are brought into proximity under appropriate conditions the electrons rush back to the oxygen and the energy that was used to get them away is returned. Thus whichever of the three forms of propulsion you vehicle uses it is propelled by the energy released when electrons flow to oxygen.

What differs is the fuel and the way in which the released energy is captured. In a battery or fuel cell (which is really a battery) the electrons are transferred through an external circuit which contains a motor and the current flow produces a magnetic field which transfers energy to the shaft. In the ICE there is no external circuit and the energy is released as light, heat, and pressure which must be converted by pistons and crank shaft to rotational mechanical energy.

In the fuel cell and ICE the fuel is something that contains hydrogen and this includes, of course, hydrogen itself and hydrocarbons. In a battery the fuel is lithium carbide. But the oxidizer is always oxygen as the gas in the case of ICE and FCEV and as a lithium/transition metal oxide in the case of the battery.
 

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CappyJax

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Yes. If you knew what the word meant you might have understood what I was trying to convey. But without training in one of the sciences one would not expect you to be familiar with words like synthesis and lysis as used by chemists.
This coming from a guy who thinks the mass of the fuel is what propels airplanes.
 

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Yes, but that's because it is! Now I should have said burned fuel and I didn't assuming that anyone who understands how these things work would understand that. And, to be complete I should have mentioned that bypass air would make some contribution too. And I should, for completeness, have harked back to the early 707 days when water was injected into the combustion chamber (the mass of the expelled water) added to the thrust.
 

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I hold three ATPs on my certificate, five flight instructor ratings, and an airframe and power plant mechanics certificate. I am quite sure I know how they work more than you. And it is not the mass of the fuel that provides thrust. Don’t try and backtrack, because it is obvious you thought the mass of the fuel had something to do with it or you wouldn’t have mentioned it in reference to hydrogen fuel.
 

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@CappyJax, @ajdelange Can we just call this round a draw and move on? This is the second thread you guys have managed to drag into the weeds.
 

ajdelange

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I'm going to take electruck's suggestion and just start ignoring this gentleman. But I would like to address the broader question of how much science/engineering do you guys want here. I'm on a Cybertruck forum and frequently get comments that the explanations as to how things work are welcome. I've had no such comments here so perhaps it's not welcome here and I can try to tone it down. But I don't believe I am the only tecchie on this forum and thus can't help feel that some people might be interested in such things as the insight about oxygen I put in post #25. It's been suggested that the guy who asked the question may not care? But does nobody care. Did No. 25 really drag the thread into the weeds? Is it too much off topic? Is this whole thread too much off topic? What, afterall has a FCEV/BEV combo got to do with Rivian?

Now I am always going to respond to somebody who posts something that is flat out incorrect. When someone with ATP and A&E ratings says that the mass of fuel has nothing to do with thrust I am astonished and horrified. I cannot let that stand. But note that I am not responding this time.
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