The end of diesel cars is coming soon!

LNG is, as I understand the form used to transport gas. It’s cooled to something like -160 degC where it condenses. Massive ships bring it into the UK https://www.southhooklng.com/
It’s then warmed up and piped around the country as gas. I can’t remember the expansion rate from liquid to gas but it is something like 600 times the volume.

I guessed from Jim’s post that there might be a vehicle fuel angle to it. We run a thirsty old Jeep on LPG, so any alternative that might have similar or more govt support to keep costs low could be interesting…

Christ knows tbh, hopefully @Jim will explain.

This is worth a read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_vehicle

LNG is mostly methane (with a little bit of ethane) whereas LPG is propane, butane, or a mixture of both. Methane has a lower boiling point than propane (-161C cf propane -42C and butane -1C at normal atmospheric pressure) so LNG is more difficult to liquify, hence the need for cryo-tanks. LPG can be liquified under pressure at ambient temperature.

Hydrogen is really difficult to liquify and transport (and also has a nasty habit of diffusing through pipes) so generation on demand makes more sense.

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They are interchangeable with (very) slight modification IIRC.

LNG is mainly used by HGVs. it’s already available in quite a few places in the Uk. nothing to do with the domestic gas supply.

Unfortunately, it’s not compatible with LPG… I asked that question!

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So what is going to power the 100KVA sub-station?

A big fuck off diesel gen-set.

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Jim.

Using a figure of 22kWh per 100km travelled for an electric car How much more electricity do we need to go to 100% electric vehicles? | Energy Matters, running your 1000kVA supply at full whack 22 hours a day would allow the filling station to generate enough fuel for about 100,000 km of travel each day. However this assumes 100% generation efficiency in the filling station and also that fuel cell electric cars are as energy efficient as battery electric cars. Let’s chop our number down to 75,000 km of travel to allow for the fact that the filling station won’t run at full whack for 22 hours (although it can generate hydrogen and store it of course) and let’s chop it further to 60,000km of travel to account for the station’s efficiency. I think both of these numbers are doing the filling station a favour, to be honest, but there you go. Let’s ignore the fact that fuel cells and batteries might have different efficiencies.

If an average petrol car does about 60km per gallon (yes, you can do a lot better, but what do people actually get, given town driving etc ?) then your electric filling station will be servicing the same customer mileage as a petrol station selling 1000 gallons a day. An average petrol station sells about 8 tons of petrol per day, it seems UK petrol station throughput 2001-2012 | Statista. 8 tons is a bit more than 10000 litres of petrol which is rather more than 2000 gallons.

Bottom line: even with its great big electrical unit your filling station wouldn’t be able to service as much customer mileage as a typical petrol station currently can. It wouldn’t be a ridiculously long way behind though.

VB

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Hydrogen cell technology is the way forward not electric vehicles.

Here is an idea.
Make formula 1 use hydrogen cell power in their cars. Push the technology forward and then apply to our road going vehicles. Hopefully they would find tech to make then more thrifty and fuel efficient and that way it could be a realistic alternative to fossil fuel.

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F1’s influence over road car technology is over stated. If it had the influence which some assume, all Ferraris and Mercs would be Hybrids.

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A lot of people disagree with that, although quite a lot agree too. I don’t think it’s clear-cut.

VB

There’s very little evidence to suggest it’s the near future or the way forward, other than wishing.

I have to say, Hydrogen cell is the Betamax of this age, waaay too late, the average person now thinks combustion engine is bad and electric motor is good.

We need to drive-down global energy use - that’s the bottom line. Electric and Hydrogen just shift pollution away from the immediate vicinity of the car to somewhere else.

One ideal way to save energy is to make the vehicles themselves lighter - from that POV electric is an absolute dead end IMO.

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Unless we’re prepared to buy it from (= rely on) people who have tons of sunshine and cheap real estate.

VB

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Troo o grate 1 - same can be said of nukes I guess - but that’s going to need a hell of an investment in infrastructure.

Sahara desert, huge solar arrays

Distribution…not too much fun.

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