If they are not over priced rip offs then sure why not. Otherwise I'll stick to what is currently available and no need to day dream about overpriced electric tech.
@@SD-tj5dh that's pretty much how every sail works except the most basic. Sails rarely push in the direction the wind is blowing. In fact, one can sail into the wind using a method known as tacking.
I think that's great! More people should think about innovations like these, even if they cant take action and create ideas themselves. At least we can be more aware of what bright ideas are possible, and that's what's going to push advancements and technological breakthroughs.
@@otakukj I would command the great Black Pearl and sink this useless junk ship ... Any 8yo learning how do draw ship designs knows one simple fact of what has the largest square footage on any ship with sails? These guys thought that was ... the deck? Yea the Black Pearl has 2,900 square meters of? Solar sail? People just don't know about true innovation out at sea. Cos even to this day most sane people run for the hills when they see black sails? ;-)
Or just use sails. The hydrogen isn't a fuel, it's a storage medium, and not a particularly efficient one, which is why the primary storage is batteries.
@@coldtech06 no no, he's got a point. Hydrogen electrolysis takes a lot more energy to achieve than what you'd get back out even in ideal conditions, and fuel cells aren't that great either.
The flipside to using hydrogen fuel cells is that the byproduct of using it is purified water. When you're surrounded by seawater its 2 birds 1 stone solution to energy storage.
The sails are used quite effectively on the energy observer. They can create enough thrust on the boat to allow the electric motors to run in reverse and charge the batteries/generate hydrogen. Whatever smart simple response you have, this is innovation that could easily be scaled up for transport vessels.
(1:56) "Then it just takes the H out of the H2O, with a little help from electricity." Ah, there's the rub. How about some efficiency math here? Then it compresses the H with a LOT of a help from electricity. Numbers please!! Then it runs the H through a fuel cell and converts it into electricity. Efficiency numbers, PLEASE. Then the electricity runs an electric motor. Total energy wasted in the process? Expense? Interested viewers want to know.
Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous. Just use a supercappacitor. Solar panels:15% Battery:90% Electrolysis:70% Fuel cell:80% Motor:80% Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar. Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar. Needless to say I came here to dislike the video. Doesn't include pumps and such.
It's simple, you just get a massive subsidy from the tax payer, or even better, do a Tesla and get subsidised by your competitors through regulatory credits. You then announce publicly that you are going to use the technology to sail to Mars and your share price will soar. You then issue some more shares and use the money to lower your debt gearing and give yourself a massive bonus. A bit of smoke and a bit of mirrors, and it all makes sense. If anyone asks you about energy efficiency, just call them a racist and get them deplatformed.
Thank you for pointing this out - as an engineer who went through 4 full courses related to energy efficiency and thermodynamics, it really irks me everytime I see these people just skirt right around the problems with these products and inventions. Really goes a long way to disenfranchising researchers who might *actually* be interested in these tehcnologies, when the primary stance of the product is essentially "just use a little electricity!!!". I hope it's not lost on anyone that "inventions" like this boat are simply the modern "perpetual motion" scams of the modern day.
one problem... to get hydrogen... and power on the same time mean when part got broken... you stuck in the middle of nowhere with no sail... yeah the solar taken all the space that you had no sail on a boat....
@@calistohuettich The problem with batteries, on a BOAT, is their weight. Not only the buoyancy loss but also extra drag when under power. I'm sure the conversion losses are more than compensated for by drastically lower weight. And hey, if you're making hydrogen you're also making oxygen, which can't be bad to let some of that percolate into the living space in the boat.
@Donald Kasper"Impossible to store hydrogen" is basically a myth. Modern pressure tanks can store highly pressurized hydrogen without significant losses for months. By the way, the storage capacity of this vessel is 62 kg of hydrogen. This equates to ~200 liters of diesel and can generate ~1000 kWh of electricity by fuel cells.
Yes, it takes 1.4 volt to spit water. Under load, the fuel cells produce 0.5 vols. That means only the part of the electrolysis and fuel cells is at 35% efficiency. Then you need to compress the hydrogen, clean the water and so on.
@@Ostsol Yes, new tanks are made out of composite materials. However, the process of tank filling is still horrible. Either one uses a cascade of sources at different pressure levels, a valve system that deals with the heat, or a compressor system for each filling point. The filling pressure is at 350 to 400 bar, while the physical limit are 800 bar. Liquid hydrogen is even worse, since there are Para- and Orthogen version of hydrogen molecules. Storage, transport and filling (move from one container to the next) are not yet solved problem areas.
Hydrogen is more efficient than petroleum cycle, but EV is far more efficient than both hydrogen and petrol, so it seems economics might skip hydrogen as there isn't as much incentive to change from petrol as there is to full batteries.
@@TCBYEAHCUZ So the other question is: would it be better to replace the mass of all the hydrogen equipment with more batteries? One would hope that the designers of this vessel did such a study, but it'd be nice to hear a rough comparison.
The water to H2 conversion process wastes 60% of the solar power .. the conversion of hydrogen gas into a propulsion via an engine will have at best an efficiency of 30% of the stored H2 energy density... you have been fooled into thinking that 1x0.6x0.3 = ~18% energy conversion (at best neglecting storage vessel weight) is better than using another battery would have a storage efficiency of ~90% and a usage efficiency of ~97% or ~87.3% total solar conversion to prop power. dont be an idiot.
Its basic engineering. Conversion is really bad. You lose lots of energy each time you convert it. Everything in life is about cost effectiveness. It's for sure not cost effective.
I think ya'll are missing the point...Solar energy is FREE. Efficiency only matters where loss exceeds any potential gain, and Time is the only factor when determining a net-loss. Anyone who thinks Solar-to-Fuel Cell is a poor investment is just stupid. The energy conversion rate is irrelevant. The fact that the energy *source* is itself, inexhaustible by any relevant comparison, is all that matters.
40,000w per kg for H2 275w per kg for LI It has a massive weight advantage over batteries and in a boat or any vehicle weight is its biggest deficiency, you lose energy converting it but you gain a massive advantage when moving it.
These are the voyages of the "Energy Observer." It's six year mission to explore new technologies and boldly go where no man has gone before..." Cut to theme song
Is using electricity to generate hydrogen really more efficient than just having bigger batteries? Sounds fishy. What if you just replaced all of the hydrogen equipment with battery capacity? Surly you are losing energy in the conversion.
Regular rechargeable batteries (lithium ion batteries) carry charge by building tiny multi-layer polymer walls to separate charges in the cells. These polymer material adds a ton of weight to rechargeable batteries and also produces a lot of heat when currents run through them. Hydrogen fuel cells do not require micro separators to store charges because hydrogen and oxygen are relatively stable. This in theory results lighter batteries with that wastes less power from producing heat in operation.
This is experimental, so I’d guess these questions will be answered. I assume the hydrogen is an attempt to have long term fuel during cloudy or stormy days.
Efficiency isn't everything. Convenience and utility are significant calculations to consider. I'm a truck driver, own my truck thus pay for its fuel. I would gladly buy 90kw worth of solar panels to generate 30kw worth of usable hydrogen that could be dispensed into my truck or my passenger vehicles. I spend over $45k per year on diesel (at $3 per gallon mind you) so 90kw of solar would pay for itself very quickly. Being able to stop by my farm, fuel my truck and continue on my way.... If it saves me $450k over 10 years by spending say 100k up front to set up my own solar powered hydrogen fuel generation and storage...makes sense to me....
First .. I love the concept. As the owner of a sailboat, it has been my experience that complicated devices and the oceans don't mix well together. Breakdowns in the middle of the pacific can't be fixed by going to a local West Marine. The more one depends on computers and other electronic devices the greater the risk of failures that could be life-threatening. Having sails will reduce some of the impacts as at least they can limp to the nearest island. I hope the sails have manual overrides for those automated systems. That being said ... I do see these prototypes being used in a home. Being able to generate and store hydrogen from excess solar means less dependence on batteries that require rare earth metals that are quickly being depleted. I'd rather store my power than sell it back to the utilities. Of course, it also means having a bomb in your home, but homes have been exploding from propane for over a hundred years and we still use it. I know I do.
I was thinking what happen if they made a solar power flying planet like u see in games & movies I feel later down line maybe the year 2030 or 2040 they will try it
@jshowa o That is not what happens when a gas under very high pressures suffers a puncture to its tank. Simply put there is an explosion, usually a very violent one.
Indeed, well done there. I am glad this is has come to life. This is possible since 10 years ago I have designed one which had its own fuel cells to produce hydrogen in Mersin when I was working for Toros University. I designed it for Navimar. I even designed later a cargo ship around this idea. But I never found the funding.
Maybe I'm missing something, but a quick Google search showed that the most prominent way to produce hydrogen is through the burning of natural gas and fossil fuels. This doesn't apply to the boat, but if we are to transfer to hydrogen cars (which are nearly twice as expensive as some electric cars) and make the transition to hydrogen stations instead of gas stations, wouldn't we still have a pollution problem, combined with a disincentive of a high price for users? This is similar to how most electricity in the U.S. comes from power stations burning fossil fuels, and so the creation of the electricity for an electric car are still in the end 'creating' a lot of pollutants. I wish I didn't have to state this but I feel I must: I am all for reducing our pollutions and carbon footprint. I'm a huge believer and supporter of any and all efforts to help the environment and the earth. I'm just putting forward some of my knowledge (which as I said may not be complete) as to some of the current difficulties and possible problems that we can hopefully overcome and solve.
It’s apparently a huge roadblock for green hydrogen technology, at least until they start producing much more hydrogen through electrolysis powered by renewable sources, like this boat does.
That's true, but energy efficiency is not the only relevant factor. The complete hydrogen system (electrolyzer, tanks, fuel cells) weighs 2.1 tons and can deliver ~1000 kWh of electricity with full hydrogen tanks. A typical lithium-ion-battery of this capacity would weigh ~7 tons, a lithium-iron-phosphate-battery for higher safety even more. And for typical energy shift over the day, they use a 106-kWh-battery anyway (short time storage). It's pretty interesting, but I miss numbers regarding energy consumption at different speeds. Basically, it's a solar ship and therefore rather slow. But I wonder how slow. And how far the ship could go with one filling of hydrogen only (depending on speed), without solar input or wind.
@@AurumFaber The weight alone of the "storage" of this boat (that is a BS figure) would cause the boat to sit about half a foot deeper into the water.. They are lying about the equipment.
Battery electric vehicles run on coal currently. In most countries, it's the primary electrical production. Most places in America even, a Tesla is less "green" than a diesel engine, so a truly "off grid" system is worth taking a look at.
To all the people calling out on the efficiency - yeah Hydrogen might have a lower efficiency compared to batteries but you need resources to *PRODUCE* these batteries and they will degrade over time creating waste products. When you generate the Hydrogen using solar power the efficiency might be a lot lower but there are no waste products whatsoever - hence a better outcome for the environment - or am I missing sth here? :)
id love to know some actual details about this, what efficiency do they get from pumping up the water, removing the salt, splitting it into hydrogen, compressing and then converting back in to electricity? sounds like theyd be much better off using extra batteries? also, if they have sails why do they need electricity apart from to power internal electronics? seems like some rich kids on a big holiday
Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous. Just use a supercappacitor. Solar panels:15% Battery:90% Electrolysis:70% Fuel cell:80% Motor:80% Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar. Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar. Needless to say I came here to dislike the video. This doesn't include pumps and electronics and such.
@@AurumFaber All those stats sound wonderful, did you include the energy consumption used carting batteries around in water? 40,000w per kg for H2 (storage) 275w per kg for LI (storage) The efficiency loss of H2 is more than made up with the energy saved when moving it.
@@lavericklavericklave PlanetSolar is a pure solar panel and battery boat that was launched in 2016 and made famous via youtube, it was roughly the same size and took more energy to move because it weighed 3.4 times more due to using batteries.
That's what I would call an understatement! It takes about a third of the solar yield of a very sunny day to generate 1 kg of hydrogen. 21 kWp x 7 full-load-hours / 3 = 49 kWh for electrolysis. Additional a few kWh per kg H2 for compression.
nothing new at all, i did hydrogen extraction (hydrolysis ) when i was a kid in school. all you need to do is put a buttload of electricity into the water and capture the hydrogen that collects from the electrodes. its very easy. the problem is that it takes the buttload of electricity. and once you have captured the hydrogen, you can store it, compress it into bottles and use it when you need it. it will run a engine pretty well. but the efficiency of the conversion is the problem. of course they don't discuss that tiny little detail. seems like people are always pretending to reinvent some old idea and paint themselves as the smarty pants.
Because it doesn't make much sense normally. If you have a powerful electricity source, you better use the electricity directly for propulsion instead of making hydrogen with it. The major part of the electricity produced by the solar panels on this boat goes directly into the electric motors and into the battery. Hydrogen production happens mainly during laytimes, when there is no electricity for propulsion needed. And Stanley Meyer's water powered buggy was obviously a scam, like other "water powered cars" before. Water isn't an energy source, it can only be used for energy STORAGE like here.
I’m so happy they produce the ship it’s one step towards Star Trek independence, including the silent Yacht, keep going I’m going to be so happy when they finally finish their journey around the world yeah yeah yay go energy observer!
So, hmm, they're using the solar panels for electrolysis (after charging the batteries),to make hydrogen, to generate electricity from a fuel cell. But doesn't it take more juice to split water than you get from the resulting amount of hydrogen? Why not just get bigger batteries? And are their hydrogen storage tanks lined with graphene or something? Hydrogen really likes to leak through most all things.
Batteries are heavy. That reduces range. Converting surplus energy into hydrogen and storing it is a kind of battery. At least this is what I have been reading about it all.
Energy density. Energy density of hydrogen is over 200 times than that of lithium batteries. If the vessel does produce excess energy than what's needed.. then storing it in as less space as possible is the next priority. An increase in weight of the vessel increases draught.. Which leads to more resistance and consequently more power
@@-7-man It seems to be working. You can't argue with success. Sailboats have had good results with battery electric. Regen under sail. It all has it's place.
@@natesnacks7829 QUOTE from web, Why is hydrogen more explosive? Hydrogen is lighter than air and diffuses rapidly - 3.8 times faster than natural gas - which means that when released, it dilutes quickly into a nonflammable concentration. Also its more flammable than gas. Used for rocket to go to space.
hydrogen when taking safety precautions is no more dangerous then any other fuel or gas that’s explosive when contained. Hydrogen isn’t some unstable radioactive explosive gas that will explode by anything and everything. The gas itself can not only be detected by meters, alarming you of it’s presence, but in a car it will be compressed in a static charged container. At this point It’s no more explosive then a gas tank unless there is a leak. And still the hydrogen leaking won’t explode simply with outside air. It’s a gas that get a bad wrap in all honesty.
@@natesnacks7829 did i say it explode with air contact? No. Did i said about radioactive. No. It is more explosive than a gas tank? Yes. Is it more flammable than gas? Yes. I never concider driving any sort of gas car period.
You lose efficiency in the cracking of the water into hydrogen and burning it again, and in forcing it into pressurized tanks. With the sails, I would just add extra batteries and forget the hydrogen stuff.
Trust me, their maths had taken all that into account during the design & engineering process, before spending any dime & time on construction. It's just like how one's body utilizes energy to digest & metabolize the food you eat into energy! It's worth it, the energy expended on filtration, conversion, & storage is only a tiny fraction compared to the energy stored.
@@ntwalipat2 The low round-trip efficiency of a RHFC (Refrigerated Hydrogen Fuel Cell) energy storage system results in very high energy costs during operation, and a much lower overall energy efficiency than lithium ion batteries (0.30 for RHFC, vs. 0.83 for lithium ion batteries). RHFC's must improve dramatically before they can offer the same overall energy efficiency as batteries, which have round-trip efficiencies of 75-90%
On paper LI batteries makes more sense until you have to carry those batteries on a boat 40,000w per kg for H2 275w per kg for LI The efficiency loss of H2 is more than made up with the energy saved when moving it.
@@Awol991 It may not be as efficient, but considering the almost unlimited source of water which is free, the only thing to worry about would be equipment maintenance.
There is hardly any difference compared to fresh water. You have to preprocess the water anyway. You need 9 kg of water to produce 1 kg of hydrogen (and 8 kg of oxygen) by electrolyzis. And ~50 kWh of electricity. But you need only 0.04 kWh of electricity for the desalination of 9 kg of water by reverse osmosis. Or even less.
It takes enormous energy to crack h2o into hydrogen. Hydrogen is very low power density unless liquefied which takes another boat load of power. Massive waste compared to storing in batteries.
40,000w per kg for H2 275w per kg for LI While it is low density it has a massive weight advantage over batteries and in a boat or any vehicle weight is its biggest deficiency due to drag, you lose energy converting it but you gain a massive advantage when moving it.
Militaries have been doing this since the 1970's. There's a submarine that operates like this. It converts H²O into H and O², then uses the hydrogen for power and the oxygen for breathing.
And how does it use hydrogen for power without oxygen? 🙂 You seem to mix things up. Yes, nuclear submarines use electrolysis to get oxygen for breathing. But they don't use hydrogen for power production/propulsion. On the other hand, there is a german submarine which uses hydrogen fuel cells for power supply during submerged cruise. Surfaced, it uses normal diesel engines, like other non-nuclear powered submarines. But there is no hydrogen production from water on board of course. Where would the electricity come from?
@@701983 It's used in a 17.5 kw hydrogen generator to power accessories. YES they exist, but I'm not going to explain to a moron troll how a hydrogen generator works in an environment where was just oxygen made. Go do some homework!
@@gordonlawrence1448Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous. Just use a supercappacitor. Solar panels:15% Battery:90% Electrolysis:70% Fuel cell:80% Motor:80% Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar. Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar. Needless to say I came here to dislike the video.
For those of you who can't comprehend, the excess energy stored after meeting energy demand, battery charged, is then stored as hydrogen. You simply cannot make a battery big enough to justify powering a boat. Energy storage in hydrogen is much denser.
Just use batteries for twice the efficiency. I'm sure this is a gimic to make us pay for hydrogen as we can make solar electric cheaply to power batteries.
@Horatio Jones lkr Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous. Just use a supercappacitor. Solar panels:15% Battery:90% Electrolysis:70% Fuel cell:80% Motor:80% Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar. Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar. Needless to say I came here to dislike the video.
You do know that hydrogen and batteries have a place in the future? Batteries work for cars and short journeys but hydrogen will be for ships and planes since they weigh less than batteries for long distance journeys. I am saying at current lithium batteries anyway. Ships and planes contribute a lot of co2, turning all of them green well, hydrogen is the way
@@lammy12ninja Hydrogen on a plane is a joke idea as is too explosive. Hydrogen on a boat is equally wrong. You have to use double the energy so this makes long distance more difficult then new battery technology.
@@super-sim1665 yeah I agree hydrogen is explosive but the staff and increase in technology safety will make it safe enough they work with kerosene to refuel planes all the time which is also very dangerous. And the I was talking about a full scale hydrogen on ships where it would have a tank of hydrogen on board its lighter than the batteries look on UA-cam hydrogen on ships a lot of companies are considering it in the race to turn green. Batteries are just not energy to weight efficient on long journeys
@@MysticDonBlair that would be the one big con before purchase haha. Only the filthy rich will be illegible. Wonder if money will be a required after purchase? They make it seem like this is a nuclear sub that can travel for years on end without refuelling.
@@user9b2 did you know that sail boats were first made in 1300 B.C. ? There is nothing special about a boat using sails to be more efficient cause that is now considered primitive technology.
The Conversion from solar to Hydrogen fuel and back to electricity is only about 20% as efficient had they just added more Lithium batteries. Hydrogen fuel cell technology is interesting but is a long way from being more efficient than batteries. The hydrogen fuel cell technology for this application is good as a proof of concept but It is not cost effective or efficient use of space on that craft. It is expensive, in both money and energy, to pry hydrogen loose from other elements, store it, and convert it back to useful energy. The value we get out of it has never quite justified what we invest in producing it. It is one of those technologies that seems perpetually on the verge of a breakthrough, but never quite there. Currently storing electricity in lithium batteries is far more efficient than converting to Hydrogen and back to electricity.
Except that batteries use elements that have to be mined and are in limited supply. You also do not advance technology unless you invest in it. IF we can get ultra capacitors in increased density they will be much better. They store energy electrostatically rather than chemically (batteries store energy chemically).
That is a very interesting the thrilling topic! It's even partially one of my project actually. Well even electricity is not so expensive in Province of Quebec Canada, my project is to install solar panels, batteries and a plan, like they did in their boat, to produce the extra energy, when the batteries will be charged, into hydrogen to use it as back up when the sun time is not long enough, like during winters. The house will use a geothermal heating/air conditioning system as it's much more energy efficient. I have to find a way to install those with respecting the city rules about safety though. You know, hydrogen is explosive and in a suburb, it can be an issue. Well I have a question here though. Do they use sea water to do the water electrolyse? Yeah it's more conductive than soft water and do not need to add more chemicals. But my concern is that on the positive electrode (anode) it will also extract chlorine from the salt. So what they do with it? it's a very polluting chemical, right? Yeah I heard you when you said they desalinate the water? Okay but is that process is does not needs energy, at least for the pump, because I know those device use reverse osmosis filters? Also how the electrolyse can efficiently work without adding some chemical to speed up the process to make the water more conductive? Anyway the topic is very inspiring, thank you so much!!!
Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous. Just use a supercappacitor. Solar panels:15% Battery:90% Electrolysis:70% Fuel cell:80% Motor:80% Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar. Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar. Needless to say I came here to dislike the video.
I disagree. It's not particularly thermally efficient, this is true, due to the high energy cost of hydrogen electrolysis. However the planet gets an average of 1000w of solar irradiation per hour per square meter which puts the solar energy received on land at somewhere around 145,000,000 gwh received every hour whereas the entire energy requirement of all 7+ billion people is around 0.002% of that (assuming the 57 kwh per day each number I found is approximately right). Which means that, even before toughing nuclear decay (geothermal / nuclear reactor), we have the energy resources we just need to bring down the cost of harnessing it. I think being able to produce effective energy from low quality fluids is the self-evident way to go as it will allow us to harness so much limitless energy that worrying about energy losses in conversion will seem silly. Plus if we can scale up low quality steam thermal conversion we'd be able to take that hydrogen and put it through a combination of Sabatier and Haber reactors to produce both energy (both are exothermic reactions requiring some degree of cooling / steam production) while easing the requirement of storage then a mixture of the two fuels with methane being made from atmospheric CO2. There are better short term regular use options, ranging from highly efficient like batteries to extremely cost effective to scale up (hydro or cyrogenic) energy storage for day-to-day load balancing to long-term or distributed storage in the form of synthesized chemical energy (carbon neutral methane + carbon-free hydrogen/ammonia), but suggesting something can't happen due to market forces is so, SO short sighted. It can and only depends on machines that work on low-quality steam. Which exist and yes. I intend on it. ;P
@@Cheebzsta Hydrogen fuel cells receive energy and store it for later use, it is a battery for all intents and purposes. Your point about solar power is nice but not useful in the discussion of fuel cells being a good option over other energy storage methods. The fact is converting energy+water into hydrogen and then converting that hydrogen back into power later on is an inefficient process that wastes a lot of electricity. Using best processes (unlikely available on small boat) it takes about 180MJ (mega joules) to create 1kg of hydrogen from water which has a specific energy of 143 MJ/kg. The best modern fuel cells operate at around 60% efficiency (again, unlikely available on small boat) so of the 143MJ stored only 86MJ can be extracted, in other words of the initial 180MJ investment only 48% is usable. Over half of the power provided by the solar panels is already wasted and that doesn't even count the power needed to pump water through the filter as described in the video. Compare that to Li-ion batteries that have a 99% charge efficiency and an 80-90% discharge efficiency, you will see why fuel cells suck. Also batteries don't need to pump/filter water to power themselves. This whole project is nonsense imo.
@@Mediiiicc So the whole project is nonsense because hydrogen as an energy storage has different qualities than battery storage? Sorry Medi that's an objectively silly statement. Yes, if you eliminate cost, weight and toxic waste concerns batteries are objectively better. If you deem toxic waste unacceptable, have weight concerns, are worried about the cost of scaling up the size of the storage or rolling out new infrastructure you are precluded from using existing battery storage technology. I'm working building my own hybrid using a cryo-battery functioning off of my combustion engine's waste heat for the less immediate power storage needs to supplement a typical lithium titanate battery specifically to bring down the cost of my hybrid conversion so this isn't some airy fairy hypothetical. I'm literally using combined sources of energy storage because of the fact that batteries aren't ideal for my circumstance (they're too expensive for the stored range I want). I'm also looking in to using brine electrolysis as a way to produce hydrogen for energy storage while generating a value-added material in chlorine/hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. I'll then be using destructive distillation of wood to produce methanol for my home bio-diesel use. Naturally I'd want to shift to hydrogenating syngas to generate methanol or even hydrogenating the captured CO2 from the flue gas from my turbine generators but again: I want things now and don't have an unlimited budget so one step at a time. Once we've stopped digging up fossil fuels and adding net carbon to the biosphere we can worry about the relative pro's/con's of respective technologies but until the One Tech to Rule Them All is mastered only a fool would ridicule these efforts.
@@Cheebzsta It is nonsense because they are not proving anything, energy generation/storage/usage needs can all be calculated from home on a piece of paper.
The major part of the electricity is directly used for propulsion. Another part gets stored in the battery for nightly use. And just a fraction of the solar yield is stored by hydrogen production. For instance during laytimes, when there is plenty of solar energy and just a little consumption.
How uninformative as you forgot to inform us on the inefficiencies of hydrogen conversion from sea water to the usable power, would it be safe to say 60% loss. Plus the huge costs involved in setting it up.
All energy transfer systems have efficiency costs, this system stores excess energy (having fully charged its own batteries.) What alternatives are available to store energy on a boat? Flywheels? Compressed air? You cannot simply keep adding more batteries (the boat would sink.)
My problem with hydrogen cars is not the absence of refueling stations, it’s the explosive nature of the fuel. If they can mix the hydrogen with something to make it less explosive, I might reconsider it. Also, the energy to put hydrogen into a tank is higher than the energy that is put into the tank. It creates a larger carbon footprint, which needs to be mitigated more.
The mirai tank can take .50 cal bullets without leaving dents. I'd say its pretty safe. Also... the infrastructure is being developed. It costs more now, sure, but when it is properly developed and mass production of hydrogen is needed. It will get cheaper.
Umer Salman I recall reading about the impenetrability of the hydrogen tank. It’s more resilient than a gasoline tank for sure, however just one accident at a hydrogen refueling station and the explosion would be ... brobdingnagian. Are hydrogen stations being installed across the nation? I’d rather go with electric, maybe reconsider hydrogen in ten years or so.
I struggle to see the benefit of the hydrogen system here? Why not just increase the battery capacity and prevent the need for the energy losses from filtering and hydrogen compression
It must be because you cannot fully anticipate how long will the sun not available to produce solar power. At least when you are sorrounded with seawater you have redundancy.
@@nonitoopena73 that hydrogen doesn't make itself. It is exactly as vulnerable as battery storage. When it runs out - it runs out. No sun - no energy. That is not the redundancy you are looking for. It is redudndat as in Why do we have this again??
@WeThePeople 2020 petroleum to ship them all over the world? As opposed to unicorn magic to ship H2 tanks all over the world? The one thing I would agree on is that H2 is better used in jet airplanes, as they can benefit from gas expansion for propulsion instead of just using electricity to turn propellers. And with all the airplanes burning kerosene today - it would be a good idea to clear the sky up a bit. But the H2 price vs kerosene is not there. We need more solar power to make H2 specially for our flight demand to be sustainable and clean at the same time.
And when you decommission it, it will have 5x the pollution impact than an old rickety diesel-fueled boat. BUT WHO CARES about the long term, short term is where it's at! Basically where the attention span of the people that applaud this kind of thing. Fun fact: it tends to coincide with the attention span of toddlers. Make your own math, if you can.
yay and imagine what will happen when all the électrick cars will need to have their battery's changed, will be great when we will need to stor all that crap polluting evrything.
Using photovoltaic solar panels to make H2 is not very efficient but this was just a technology demonstrator. When the Artificial Leaf panels become available that'll make all the difference because it's eliminating the electrolysis step. Germany and Japan are collaborating on Artificial Leaf technology. Lokheed Martin already bought the patents on another version of the Artificial Leaf invented by Nocera.
Assuming it is traveling along the equator during the equinox. What is its average speed per day. What is it peak speed? How much range do the batteries and stored hydrogen give you. Thanks
Seems like a lot of something for nothing. Use salt water batteries and your good.. why waste space with solar/wind/hydrogen generation that is very dangerous? Salt water batteries can be simply refilled with sea water when the ionized properties are depleted with no harm to the environment at all. Worst case scenario, you have to replace anodes and cathodes { positive and negative plates} every 3 to 6 months. That ship was a waste of money and time. Not to mention sailing lol.
They use hydrogen because of the amount of energy they want to store. Otherwise they would have used a larger battery which would be much more efficient and salt water batteries need even more space for the same amount of energy than the batteries they already use.
@@5thElem3nt I hear you but, you do see how massive the thing has to be right? Take away all of the other systems and their weight and guess what, a lighter vessel emerges with amazing efficiency. That boat is a sales platform for un-needed technology while ignoring the obvious solutions. That is called a scam my friend. Besides, aluminium salt water batteries are by far the most efficient and lightest option. It is the fact that they need to be maintained and refilled that discourages their use on land but, again, this is IN SALT WATER!
@@JSabh I am not a huge fan of hydrogen as energy storage either, especially not in cars, mostly because it's inefficient. But if the energy would be lost otherwise, why not use it. I never heard of aluminium salt water batteries. But if I understand it correctly, they are not rechargeable. The aluminium is the energy source. Sure for one boat you coul use new aluminium every time, but if you want to use aluminium salt water batteries on much larger scale, you need to recycle the aluminium. And then theire efficiency is below 20%.
@@5thElem3nt there have been advancements with the salt water battery. Carbon is used instead of aluminum in some cases but, the galvanic reaction with the aluminum is no different than lithium or lead/acid. They all work the same way and all deteriorate. There are recharchable salt water batteries as well but, changing out anodes is fine with me. Recharging takes other equipment lol.
The problem is rather the high effort to produce hydrogen first. This ship with this big solar array could produce at best 3 kg of hydrogen at a very sunny day. Without any other energy consumption (no propulsion, no "living"). Or did you mean the cons of burning hydrogen in an ICE instead of using it by fuel cells and electric motors like here? The main disadvantage would be lower efficiency of the ICE.
Why would anybody want to trade from one expensive fuel for hydrogen? Nothing beats an electric car in terms of cost per km. Using solar panels to create hydrogen makes no sense. The only advantage is quick refueling. You can generate your own electricity for a reasonable investment. Try generating and storing you own hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the most inefficient ‘battery’ known to man. The boat would be much more efficient if it used batteries. And 200 m3 of solar cells will produce about 17 kw average over the day, or 420 kwhr. That is enough to power a small outboard motor (with nothing left over to produce any hydrogen). And don’t even think about going above 50 degrees north in the winter. As usual, this is useless Greenwash. No Green technology ever works. And the round the world trip is simply a Greenwash holiday. You could test this vessel in Portsmouth harbour. But no - as usual these Eco-warriors want a free holiday, paid for by you and me. So they get sponsorship for a grand holiday of a lifetime. And you pay for it.... R
......you don't get away quickly saying it stores the excess hydrogen fuel unless we're told how it's stored . There are technology challenges for hydrogen storage.
Because of the limited storage capacity of batteries with acceptable weight. The complete hydrogen system (fuel cells, electrolyzer, tanks) weighs 2.1 tons and can generate ~1000 kWh of electricity with full hydrogen tanks. About ten times the capacity of the battery. A battery of this capacity would weigh several times more. Of course, you could adapt living and cruising to the actual supply of energy, but with this big storage capacity, you don't have to. Anyway, it's just a testbed for the different devices under harsh conditions. It's not meant to be the ship of the future.
@@701983 LiFePO4 would be 381 Kwh of storage for that weight with no moving parts and would only require connection to the charge controllers. It is more efficient to use sail driven motor regeneration system than to convert water to hydrogen via electrolysis and reconvert via fuel cell. Way less fire risk too.
Fuel cells. Or as Elon Musk calls them "fool cell". Joking aside, I believe he makes a good argument against fuel cells. It is less efficient to convert energy to electricity to hydrogen and back again. It is at best a stopgap solution until batteries are lighter. Also batteries usually fizz out rather than deflagrate...
Yep. It's _game over._ 402 mile EPA range on a Tesla Model S with solar, wind, and hydro everywhere. Tesla recently became the largest car manufacturer by market cap, and Toyota still doesn't get the message. Anyone with a brain saw this a decade ago.
Hydrogen makes most sense, in my opinion, with large seafaring vessel, where both weight and *space* are at a premium. H² might also be useful in commercial air travel; with both passenger and/ or cargo craft
Mark Sweeney - Gasoline/petrol goes boom. It burns. Hydrogen goes BOOM, it explodes. Spill some gas and the fumes explode as they become a gas, gasoline as a liquid just burns. Put a pail or bucket with some gas ⛽️ and light it, the top will burn. Hydrogen IS a gas, in liquid form it’s very cold and goes gaseous very fast. A canister of gasoline when leaking will burn, and eventually with enough heat and oxygen, explode. Hydrogen will just explode. That’s why the efforts in the past to use an engines electricity to separate water into Oxygen and Hydrogen and reintroduce it into the fuel mixture failed. Hydrogen goes BOOM. Big boom. It will work for a while, but if too much hydrogen is produced, BANG.
@@Erin-Thor you stay in the dark age and keep looking for oil to make fuel...there is a lot of water in the sea to make fuel..! i have a lpg jeep never gone boom at all ? still here... we need to move on to new fuels quick...
Mark Sweeney dude, liquid propane is not hydrogen, LOL! Do some homework. Yes, we do! But hydrogen is hard to safely store and has inherent risks. How do I know this? My late slightly goofy early adopters tech modified his Lincoln continental with a kit that used electricity from its alternator to separate water intro oxygen and hydrogen, and into the air intake to boost his mileage. Had it professionally done in Dallas, and according to his notes did indeed boost his mileage considerably but not near the double predicted. Every time he got gas he refilled the water reservoir. Then he decided to go to Oklahoma... a little too much hydrogen built up and he heard a loud POP and his engine locked. It didn’t just crack his engine, it nearly split it in two. All I meant was Hydrogen explodes, caution is key. There’s a REASON we don’t have hydrogen vehicles yet, and it’s not just because we don’t have refueling stations yet. There are major safety issues! My grandfather owned Sterling Transit a trucking company in California (assets purchased by Clearwater trucking) who was an early adopter of LPG vehicles. It helped extend the life of their company, good for you!
@@marksweeney2645 All I'm hearing is "reeeee oil is barbarian fuel! No! You're wrong, my idea is flawless! I'm never wrong! STOP SHOWING ME FACTS DAMNIT!!!!!!"
@@mrofnocnon Only clueless fools think ... €4.2 million ... took 3 seconds to look up, lol! Or just buy a 1000 euro used sailboat and travel around the world with zero energy costs and zero impact on the environment.
A glass of water has enough hydrogen to fuel any car or vessel for a substantial amount of time it's source of power required for electrolysis that comes into question
There are issues with this. 1. You are taking energy from the solar cells and storing it in batteries like normal but then you run it through membrane filters and a electrolysis process then store the hydrogen in tanks which.means you need a compressor that also uses power. You then are burning the hydrogen in a engine that has less efficiency than a electric motor and takes up more space. Safe to say this isn't efficient at all compaired to just having more batteries and running a electric motor. 2. It's a maintenance nightmare. Your average Mariner/sailor is likely to know how to troubleshoot a diesel or gas engine but will have little to no idea how to deal with an entire system of fuel processors ,storage and the engine itself. And the dangers are worse than diesel because diesel tends to be pretty hard to ignite but with your system you are providing a easily combustible fuel with a strong oxidizer in a enclosed space ,sure not too bad as long as it's contained but anyone who spends alot of time on the sea will tell you that if something can leak it will leak. 3. Sure the wings are more efficient than sails for a given surface area,sails will commonly be easier to fix if they break and don't rely on automated systems to function.
There is no engine. Fuel cells are galvanic cells similar to batteries. They convert chemical energy directly into electricity by electrochemical reactions. With the generated electricity, you can run an electric motor or use it for other purposes. And yes, it's much less efficient and more complicated than storage by battery. But you get much more storage capacity per weight. The hydrogen system (electrolyzer, compressor, tanks, fuel cells) weighs 2.1 tons and can store ~1 MWh electricity (output with full tanks). Additionally, you get a lot of hot water from waste heat of the fuel cells. And just to make it clear again: Only a fraction of the energy goes through the hydrogen storage process. Most of it is directly used for propulsion, a part goes into the battery for night use, only excess energy is used for hydrogen production.
However, it's not meant to be the ship of the future, but just a technology demonstrator. Solar provides too less energy for attractive performance, no matter what storage system you use. There might be solar hybrids for recreational vessels in future, but probably hardly any pure solar electric ships.
@@701983 this tech would have been better demonstrated in a car or a aircraft. With a ship you can just use sails or solar because you have room for it and it's simple and reliable.
Deltac.. this is a scam for stealing from trust fund babies. JC is trying to say that pumping fuel cells to 5-10k psig wouldnt waste any energy nor add any weight to the boats.. he is either a useful idiot .. or getting paid.
@@zarthemad8386 You don't "pump fuel cells". Of course, you have to compress the hydrogen for storage. Allegedly (seen in another video), 4% of the energy that goes into hydrogen storage is lost for compression to 350 bar. That's at least plausible.
Sorry, I am not getting it. Since the roof is filled with solar panels, why not power an electric engine directly with the energy produced by panels themselves? This would save great losses arising from energy conversion and storage as hydrogen. Is this the case? It looks to me like a sophisticated sailboat
The major part of the solar energy is used directly, without storage. But 50% of the day is night. And the other 50% aren't sunshine only, there can be weeks of little sunlight, depending on the region and the season. So they use a big battery for short term storage: from day to night. Very efficient, but pretty limited capacity (106 kWh). And the hydrogen system for long term storage: from sunny days/weeks to cloudy days/weeks. Or from weeks of laytime to weeks of cruise. Inefficient, but high capacity (~1000 kWh output from 62 kg H2).
Hey What The Fam! Want to see more videos on sustainable or ocean technologies? Let us know down below
I do
If they are not over priced rip offs then sure why not. Otherwise I'll stick to what is currently available and no need to day dream about overpriced electric tech.
Could have attached a link to their social media in the description.
More ocean tech vids please! Seasteading is the future for me. ;-)
This vessel was just docked in the Bahamas 4 days ago
"No ship have been ever to cross the ocean without refuelling"
Magellan: Laughs in 16th century sailing
You do have a very valid point
At least with this vessel you can utilise the wind for power but you're not bound to go the direction that the wind is blowing.
@@SD-tj5dh that's pretty much how every sail works except the most basic. Sails rarely push in the direction the wind is blowing. In fact, one can sail into the wind using a method known as tacking.
@@SD-tj5dh you can go wherever you want with sails, and they are far more reliable at sea than any kind of engine
@@SD-tj5dh that's why people created several types of sails, including those that rotate so you can literally go around that problem.
I had a similar concept at age 14 but for an airship. I love to see this!
I think that's great! More people should think about innovations like these, even if they cant take action and create ideas themselves. At least we can be more aware of what bright ideas are possible, and that's what's going to push advancements and technological breakthroughs.
@@jeremiahmunguia1136 thank you for the positive comment, you brought a smile to my face =)
@@otakukj I would command the great Black Pearl and sink this useless junk ship ...
Any 8yo learning how do draw ship designs knows one simple fact of what has the largest square footage on any ship with sails? These guys thought that was ... the deck?
Yea the Black Pearl has 2,900 square meters of? Solar sail?
People just don't know about true innovation out at sea. Cos even to this day most sane people run for the hills when they see black sails? ;-)
The Germans did too.... But they didn't go far did they?
CIA to be fair they did really well. Airships should be a lot more popular than they are. It’s just a shame helium is so expensive
Or just use sails.
The hydrogen isn't a fuel, it's a storage medium, and not a particularly efficient one, which is why the primary storage is batteries.
Random guy on the YT comment section outsmarts scientists and engineers
@@coldtech06 no no, he's got a point. Hydrogen electrolysis takes a lot more energy to achieve than what you'd get back out even in ideal conditions, and fuel cells aren't that great either.
The flipside to using hydrogen fuel cells is that the byproduct of using it is purified water. When you're surrounded by seawater its 2 birds 1 stone solution to energy storage.
The sails are used quite effectively on the energy observer. They can create enough thrust on the boat to allow the electric motors to run in reverse and charge the batteries/generate hydrogen.
Whatever smart simple response you have, this is innovation that could easily be scaled up for transport vessels.
But the way it is store is easily scalable, you just add bigger tanks.
(1:56) "Then it just takes the H out of the H2O, with a little help from electricity." Ah, there's the rub. How about some efficiency math here? Then it compresses the H with a LOT of a help from electricity. Numbers please!! Then it runs the H through a fuel cell and converts it into electricity. Efficiency numbers, PLEASE. Then the electricity runs an electric motor. Total energy wasted in the process? Expense? Interested viewers want to know.
Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous.
Just use a supercappacitor.
Solar panels:15%
Battery:90%
Electrolysis:70%
Fuel cell:80%
Motor:80%
Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar.
Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar.
Needless to say I came here to dislike the video.
Doesn't include pumps and such.
It's simple, you just get a massive subsidy from the tax payer, or even better, do a Tesla and get subsidised by your competitors through regulatory credits. You then announce publicly that you are going to use the technology to sail to Mars and your share price will soar. You then issue some more shares and use the money to lower your debt gearing and give yourself a massive bonus. A bit of smoke and a bit of mirrors, and it all makes sense. If anyone asks you about energy efficiency, just call them a racist and get them deplatformed.
@@krisanderson5636 wow, ok. So that is their plan.🤔
@@krisanderson5636lmfao!!!! Truth
Thank you for pointing this out - as an engineer who went through 4 full courses related to energy efficiency and thermodynamics, it really irks me everytime I see these people just skirt right around the problems with these products and inventions. Really goes a long way to disenfranchising researchers who might *actually* be interested in these tehcnologies, when the primary stance of the product is essentially "just use a little electricity!!!".
I hope it's not lost on anyone that "inventions" like this boat are simply the modern "perpetual motion" scams of the modern day.
That thing looks like an Avengers or Supervillain Vehicle. I LOVE IT
That just sounds like sailing with extra steps.
Ooh la la someone's getting laid in college
Up
Ep barba dirkle someones going to get laid in college.
DanTheMan2500 I don’t know what video you were watching lolol
@@JamiePike only cool people understand
I love this, the boat is literally surrounded by its fuel; and its clean fuel.
one problem... to get hydrogen... and power on the same time mean when part got broken... you stuck in the middle of nowhere with no sail... yeah the solar taken all the space that you had no sail on a boat....
@@campkira Did you watch the video LOL. ! it has sails.
@@calistohuettich The problem with batteries, on a BOAT, is their weight. Not only the buoyancy loss but also extra drag when under power. I'm sure the conversion losses are more than compensated for by drastically lower weight. And hey, if you're making hydrogen you're also making oxygen, which can't be bad to let some of that percolate into the living space in the boat.
@Donald Kasper"Impossible to store hydrogen" is basically a myth.
Modern pressure tanks can store highly pressurized hydrogen without significant losses for months.
By the way, the storage capacity of this vessel is 62 kg of hydrogen. This equates to ~200 liters of diesel and can generate ~1000 kWh of electricity by fuel cells.
@@calistohuettich but the battery weight would way much more than the hydrogen if scaled up.
Such an amazing ship... imagine what could be done with the correct scale!
Fantastic, I would love to be a crewman on this boat
I know!
Ted M REAL MEN BURN COAL!!!!!
Lol。
We are going to drain sea water to the point there is no more air on this planet? like mars
@@alphaomega1969 Yes, exactly like Mars, I'm shooting for more like Venus.
No... the reason Hydrogen hasn't caught on compared to EV is that the energy loss in the hydrogen fuel cycle is was higher than with just electricity.
Yes, it takes 1.4 volt to spit water. Under load, the fuel cells produce 0.5 vols. That means only the part of the electrolysis and fuel cells is at 35% efficiency. Then you need to compress the hydrogen, clean the water and so on.
I'm also curious as to whether problems with hydrogen embrittlement have been solved.
@@Ostsol Yes, new tanks are made out of composite materials. However, the process of tank filling is still horrible. Either one uses a cascade of sources at different pressure levels, a valve system that deals with the heat, or a compressor system for each filling point. The filling pressure is at 350 to 400 bar, while the physical limit are 800 bar. Liquid hydrogen is even worse, since there are Para- and Orthogen version of hydrogen molecules. Storage, transport and filling (move from one container to the next) are not yet solved problem areas.
Hydrogen is more efficient than petroleum cycle, but EV is far more efficient than both hydrogen and petrol, so it seems economics might skip hydrogen as there isn't as much incentive to change from petrol as there is to full batteries.
@@TCBYEAHCUZ So the other question is: would it be better to replace the mass of all the hydrogen equipment with more batteries? One would hope that the designers of this vessel did such a study, but it'd be nice to hear a rough comparison.
The water to H2 conversion process wastes 60% of the solar power .. the conversion of hydrogen gas into a propulsion via an engine will have at best an efficiency of 30% of the stored H2 energy density... you have been fooled into thinking that 1x0.6x0.3 = ~18% energy conversion (at best neglecting storage vessel weight) is better than using another battery would have a storage efficiency of ~90% and a usage efficiency of ~97% or ~87.3% total solar conversion to prop power.
dont be an idiot.
Its basic engineering. Conversion is really bad. You lose lots of energy each time you convert it. Everything in life is about cost effectiveness. It's for sure not cost effective.
I think ya'll are missing the point...Solar energy is FREE. Efficiency only matters where loss exceeds any potential gain, and Time is the only factor when determining a net-loss. Anyone who thinks Solar-to-Fuel Cell is a poor investment is just stupid. The energy conversion rate is irrelevant. The fact that the energy *source* is itself, inexhaustible by any relevant comparison, is all that matters.
40,000w per kg for H2
275w per kg for LI
It has a massive weight advantage over batteries and in a boat or any vehicle weight is its biggest deficiency, you lose energy converting it but you gain a massive advantage when moving it.
These are the voyages of the "Energy Observer." It's six year mission to explore new technologies and boldly go where no man has gone before..." Cut to theme song
no, cut directly to BOOM. it's hydrogen we are talking about here
Is using electricity to generate hydrogen really more efficient than just having bigger batteries? Sounds fishy. What if you just replaced all of the hydrogen equipment with battery capacity? Surly you are losing energy in the conversion.
Regular rechargeable batteries (lithium ion batteries) carry charge by building tiny multi-layer polymer walls to separate charges in the cells. These polymer material adds a ton of weight to rechargeable batteries and also produces a lot of heat when currents run through them. Hydrogen fuel cells do not require micro separators to store charges because hydrogen and oxygen are relatively stable. This in theory results lighter batteries with that wastes less power from producing heat in operation.
This is experimental, so I’d guess these questions will be answered. I assume the hydrogen is an attempt to have long term fuel during cloudy or stormy days.
HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS GENERATE PURIFIED WATER AS A BYRPODUCT.
That's why an ocean going vessel would be better using fuel cells.
Matthew Tymczyszyn this guy gets it
Efficiency isn't everything. Convenience and utility are significant calculations to consider. I'm a truck driver, own my truck thus pay for its fuel.
I would gladly buy 90kw worth of solar panels to generate 30kw worth of usable hydrogen that could be dispensed into my truck or my passenger vehicles.
I spend over $45k per year on diesel (at $3 per gallon mind you) so 90kw of solar would pay for itself very quickly. Being able to stop by my farm, fuel my truck and continue on my way....
If it saves me $450k over 10 years by spending say 100k up front to set up my own solar powered hydrogen fuel generation and storage...makes sense to me....
First .. I love the concept.
As the owner of a sailboat, it has been my experience that complicated devices and the oceans don't mix well together. Breakdowns in the middle of the pacific can't be fixed by going to a local West Marine. The more one depends on computers and other electronic devices the greater the risk of failures that could be life-threatening.
Having sails will reduce some of the impacts as at least they can limp to the nearest island.
I hope the sails have manual overrides for those automated systems.
That being said ... I do see these prototypes being used in a home. Being able to generate and store hydrogen from excess solar means less dependence on batteries that require rare earth metals that are quickly being depleted. I'd rather store my power than sell it back to the utilities.
Of course, it also means having a bomb in your home, but homes have been exploding from propane for over a hundred years and we still use it. I know I do.
I was thinking what happen if they made a solar power flying planet like u see in games & movies I feel later down line maybe the year 2030 or 2040 they will try it
I already seen in movies where the plant look like it’s wrap around solar power panels which I feel some day someone will try out
@jshowa o That is not what happens when a gas under very high pressures suffers a puncture to its tank. Simply put there is an explosion, usually a very violent one.
THIS IS GREAT! Now haul several hundred metric tons with a draft deeper than this boat is tall and still be reliable. That would be EXTRA great.
you think if a container ship had hundreds of those sails and solar and the hydrogen it could work?
Would love to see more technologies....it is encouraging to know we are moving in the right direction. Stay safe🙏🏻❤️
Awesome and using technology that already exists today. Keep posting CNET!
Very interesting project.
Indeed, well done there. I am glad this is has come to life. This is possible since 10 years ago I have designed one which had its own fuel cells to produce hydrogen in Mersin when I was working for Toros University. I designed it for Navimar. I even designed later a cargo ship around this idea. But I never found the funding.
I would love to see more videos like this
Maybe I'm missing something, but a quick Google search showed that the most prominent way to produce hydrogen is through the burning of natural gas and fossil fuels. This doesn't apply to the boat, but if we are to transfer to hydrogen cars (which are nearly twice as expensive as some electric cars) and make the transition to hydrogen stations instead of gas stations, wouldn't we still have a pollution problem, combined with a disincentive of a high price for users? This is similar to how most electricity in the U.S. comes from power stations burning fossil fuels, and so the creation of the electricity for an electric car are still in the end 'creating' a lot of pollutants.
I wish I didn't have to state this but I feel I must: I am all for reducing our pollutions and carbon footprint. I'm a huge believer and supporter of any and all efforts to help the environment and the earth. I'm just putting forward some of my knowledge (which as I said may not be complete) as to some of the current difficulties and possible problems that we can hopefully overcome and solve.
It’s apparently a huge roadblock for green hydrogen technology, at least until they start producing much more hydrogen through electrolysis powered by renewable sources, like this boat does.
Even though it's a cool technology, hydrogen-fuel cell has larger system losses between the solar panel and the engine compared to BEV.
That's true, but energy efficiency is not the only relevant factor.
The complete hydrogen system (electrolyzer, tanks, fuel cells) weighs 2.1 tons and can deliver ~1000 kWh of electricity with full hydrogen tanks.
A typical lithium-ion-battery of this capacity would weigh ~7 tons, a lithium-iron-phosphate-battery for higher safety even more.
And for typical energy shift over the day, they use a 106-kWh-battery anyway (short time storage).
It's pretty interesting, but I miss numbers regarding energy consumption at different speeds.
Basically, it's a solar ship and therefore rather slow.
But I wonder how slow.
And how far the ship could go with one filling of hydrogen only (depending on speed), without solar input or wind.
@@701983 you need to look at density not weight ,more bulk is more space which is more weight. Less bulk is more space.
@@AurumFaber The weight alone of the "storage" of this boat (that is a BS figure) would cause the boat to sit about half a foot deeper into the water.. They are lying about the equipment.
Battery electric vehicles run on coal currently. In most countries, it's the primary electrical production. Most places in America even, a Tesla is less "green" than a diesel engine, so a truly "off grid" system is worth taking a look at.
@@Ranstone yes, with no hydrogen
To all the people calling out on the efficiency - yeah Hydrogen might have a lower efficiency compared to batteries but you need resources to *PRODUCE* these batteries and they will degrade over time creating waste products.
When you generate the Hydrogen using solar power the efficiency might be a lot lower but there are no waste products whatsoever - hence a better outcome for the environment - or am I missing sth here? :)
It would be alright on a very large scale. As so long as we can generate twice as much power.
Nope. You are correct. It's quite an interesting and cool mix of techniques + technology.
so for 1 billion dollars I can save money on fuel! thanks guys!!!
electrolysis is a really simple process, once it gets a foothold it'll be cheaper in almost every way lol
I support hydrogen technology development
id love to know some actual details about this, what efficiency do they get from pumping up the water, removing the salt, splitting it into hydrogen, compressing and then converting back in to electricity? sounds like theyd be much better off using extra batteries? also, if they have sails why do they need electricity apart from to power internal electronics?
seems like some rich kids on a big holiday
Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous.
Just use a supercappacitor.
Solar panels:15%
Battery:90%
Electrolysis:70%
Fuel cell:80%
Motor:80%
Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar.
Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar.
Needless to say I came here to dislike the video.
This doesn't include pumps and electronics and such.
@@AurumFaber you wouldn't get a UA-cam doc made about you with just a battery powered boat though ;)
@muhahaha precisely
Splish splash this idea is trash
@@AurumFaber All those stats sound wonderful, did you include the energy consumption used carting batteries around in water?
40,000w per kg for H2 (storage)
275w per kg for LI (storage)
The efficiency loss of H2 is more than made up with the energy saved when moving it.
@@lavericklavericklave PlanetSolar is a pure solar panel and battery boat that was launched in 2016 and made famous via youtube, it was roughly the same size and took more energy to move because it weighed 3.4 times more due to using batteries.
It takes the battery weight equation off as dead weight.
They want your money
That's what I would call an understatement!
It takes about a third of the solar yield of a very sunny day to generate 1 kg of hydrogen.
21 kWp x 7 full-load-hours / 3 = 49 kWh for electrolysis. Additional a few kWh per kg H2 for compression.
I sure wish they said the physical space taken by the battery vs the fuel cell system, and also compare the power density of that space.
nothing new at all, i did hydrogen extraction (hydrolysis ) when i was a kid in school.
all you need to do is put a buttload of electricity into the water and capture the hydrogen that collects from the electrodes. its very easy. the problem is that it takes the buttload of electricity. and once you have captured the hydrogen, you can store it, compress it into bottles and use it when you need it. it will run a engine pretty well. but the efficiency of the conversion is the problem. of course they don't discuss that tiny little detail. seems like people are always pretending to reinvent some old idea and paint themselves as the smarty pants.
true
Why can the electrolysis process happen right on board any vehicle? What about Stan Myers Dune buggy in the late 1970s?
Because it doesn't make much sense normally.
If you have a powerful electricity source, you better use the electricity directly for propulsion instead of making hydrogen with it.
The major part of the electricity produced by the solar panels on this boat goes directly into the electric motors and into the battery.
Hydrogen production happens mainly during laytimes, when there is no electricity for propulsion needed.
And Stanley Meyer's water powered buggy was obviously a scam, like other "water powered cars" before.
Water isn't an energy source, it can only be used for energy STORAGE like here.
Even in these rough times, we still continue to innovate! Amazing!
this was created in 2017
This idea is trash
No innovation here. It's a poorly thought out idea that is a financial wreck for anyone who buys it.
I’m so happy they produce the ship it’s one step towards Star Trek independence, including the silent Yacht, keep going I’m going to be so happy when they finally finish their journey around the world yeah yeah yay go energy observer!
Damn I'll be needing one for when a Zombie apocalypse happens
What do you do with the salt? sea life around desalination plants don't do well. One boat might not hurt but many of these might
curse at it for rusting your expensive toy in under 3 years.
So, hmm, they're using the solar panels for electrolysis (after charging the batteries),to make hydrogen, to generate electricity from a fuel cell. But doesn't it take more juice to split water than you get from the resulting amount of hydrogen?
Why not just get bigger batteries?
And are their hydrogen storage tanks lined with graphene or something? Hydrogen really likes to leak through most all things.
Batteries are heavy. That reduces range. Converting surplus energy into hydrogen and storing it is a kind of battery. At least this is what I have been reading about it all.
Energy density. Energy density of hydrogen is over 200 times than that of lithium batteries. If the vessel does produce excess energy than what's needed.. then storing it in as less space as possible is the next priority. An increase in weight of the vessel increases draught.. Which leads to more resistance and consequently more power
@@-7-man It seems to be working. You can't argue with success. Sailboats have had good results with battery electric. Regen under sail. It all has it's place.
It’s basically a solar powered boat. The hydrogen produced is sort of just a battery to store excess solar enegry
Like most things hydrogen it makes no sense.
That’s soooo sickkk. No joke
I am all for clean energy but Hydrogen car is one explosive situation I would never want to drive.
More explosive then a gas tank? How so?
@@natesnacks7829 QUOTE from web, Why is hydrogen more explosive?
Hydrogen is lighter than air and diffuses rapidly - 3.8 times faster than natural gas - which means that when released, it dilutes quickly into a nonflammable concentration. Also its more flammable than gas. Used for rocket to go to space.
hydrogen when taking safety precautions is no more dangerous then any other fuel or gas that’s explosive when contained. Hydrogen isn’t some unstable radioactive explosive gas that will explode by anything and everything. The gas itself can not only be detected by meters, alarming you of it’s presence, but in a car it will be compressed in a static charged container. At this point It’s no more explosive then a gas tank unless there is a leak. And still the hydrogen leaking won’t explode simply with outside air. It’s a gas that get a bad wrap in all honesty.
@@natesnacks7829 did i say it explode with air contact? No. Did i said about radioactive. No. It is more explosive than a gas tank? Yes. Is it more flammable than gas? Yes. I never concider driving any sort of gas car period.
that is cool! you know what else might work? Using a wind generator instead of a sail.
You lose efficiency in the cracking of the water into hydrogen and burning it again, and in forcing it into pressurized tanks.
With the sails, I would just add extra batteries and forget the hydrogen stuff.
Trust me, their maths had taken all that into account during the design & engineering process, before spending any dime & time on construction. It's just like how one's body utilizes energy to digest & metabolize the food you eat into energy! It's worth it, the energy expended on filtration, conversion, & storage is only a tiny fraction compared to the energy stored.
@@ntwalipat2 The low round-trip efficiency of a RHFC (Refrigerated Hydrogen Fuel Cell) energy storage system results in very high energy costs during operation, and a much lower overall energy efficiency than lithium ion batteries (0.30 for RHFC, vs. 0.83 for lithium ion batteries). RHFC's must improve dramatically before they can offer the same overall energy efficiency as batteries, which have round-trip efficiencies of 75-90%
Yes but you can drink the fresh water that's comes out as waste from cell.
On paper LI batteries makes more sense until you have to carry those batteries on a boat
40,000w per kg for H2
275w per kg for LI
The efficiency loss of H2 is more than made up with the energy saved when moving it.
@@Awol991 It may not be as efficient, but considering the almost unlimited source of water which is free, the only thing to worry about would be equipment maintenance.
Have you been to Iceland ? Have to stop by in Reykjavik, Akureyri, Vestmanneyjar .. it would be so epic!!!
hmmm, just put in more batteries....yea...
Man converting the sea water into Hydrogen fuel really seems like an energy intensive process.
extremely.. and its far far more wasteful than just using more batteries.
but Diesel is still the most sane option for sea travel.
There is hardly any difference compared to fresh water. You have to preprocess the water anyway.
You need 9 kg of water to produce 1 kg of hydrogen (and 8 kg of oxygen) by electrolyzis. And ~50 kWh of electricity.
But you need only 0.04 kWh of electricity for the desalination of 9 kg of water by reverse osmosis. Or even less.
It takes enormous energy to crack h2o into hydrogen. Hydrogen is very low power density unless liquefied which takes another boat load of power. Massive waste compared to storing in batteries.
40,000w per kg for H2
275w per kg for LI
While it is low density it has a massive weight advantage over batteries and in a boat or any vehicle weight is its biggest deficiency due to drag, you lose energy converting it but you gain a massive advantage when moving it.
Yeah I didn't see any cryo gear onboard ;)
Define ‘enormous energy’
Militaries have been doing this since the 1970's. There's a submarine that operates like this. It converts H²O into H and O², then uses the hydrogen for power and the oxygen for breathing.
And how does it use hydrogen for power without oxygen?
🙂
You seem to mix things up. Yes, nuclear submarines use electrolysis to get oxygen for breathing.
But they don't use hydrogen for power production/propulsion.
On the other hand, there is a german submarine which uses hydrogen fuel cells for power supply during submerged cruise. Surfaced, it uses normal diesel engines, like other non-nuclear powered submarines.
But there is no hydrogen production from water on board of course.
Where would the electricity come from?
@@701983 It's used in a 17.5 kw hydrogen generator to power accessories. YES they exist, but I'm not going to explain to a moron troll how a hydrogen generator works in an environment where was just oxygen made. Go do some homework!
why not just use nuclear power?
Beautiful boat and it's eco friendly, amazing .
have you ever heard the physics concept of conservation of energy..ahahahahaha
what are you bibbling about?
@@gordonlawrence1448Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous.
Just use a supercappacitor.
Solar panels:15%
Battery:90%
Electrolysis:70%
Fuel cell:80%
Motor:80%
Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar.
Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar.
Needless to say I came here to dislike the video.
@@gordonlawrence1448 Notice that the overall efficiency of this approach is not mentioned - that is the issue.
For those of you who can't comprehend, the excess energy stored after meeting energy demand, battery charged, is then stored as hydrogen. You simply cannot make a battery big enough to justify powering a boat. Energy storage in hydrogen is much denser.
Just use batteries for twice the efficiency. I'm sure this is a gimic to make us pay for hydrogen as we can make solar electric cheaply to power batteries.
@Horatio Jones lkr Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous.
Just use a supercappacitor.
Solar panels:15%
Battery:90%
Electrolysis:70%
Fuel cell:80%
Motor:80%
Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar.
Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar.
Needless to say I came here to dislike the video.
@@AurumFaber so I was right
You do know that hydrogen and batteries have a place in the future?
Batteries work for cars and short journeys but hydrogen will be for ships and planes since they weigh less than batteries for long distance journeys.
I am saying at current lithium batteries anyway. Ships and planes contribute a lot of co2, turning all of them green well, hydrogen is the way
@@lammy12ninja Hydrogen on a plane is a joke idea as is too explosive. Hydrogen on a boat is equally wrong. You have to use double the energy so this makes long distance more difficult then new battery technology.
@@super-sim1665 yeah I agree hydrogen is explosive but the staff and increase in technology safety will make it safe enough they work with kerosene to refuel planes all the time which is also very dangerous. And the I was talking about a full scale hydrogen on ships where it would have a tank of hydrogen on board its lighter than the batteries look on UA-cam hydrogen on ships a lot of companies are considering it in the race to turn green. Batteries are just not energy to weight efficient on long journeys
I love this ship sooo much!!
Hearing lots of pros but what are the cons? With any technology there is some hidden cons that you find out after purchase.
1: Absurdly expensive
2. Process is very inefficient compared to solar+batteries for example
3. The boat has fricking SAILS to even move
Lars Rye Jeppesen 👈 should at least watch the video before commenting, here, i made it easy for you 2:40.
@@MysticDonBlair that would be the one big con before purchase haha. Only the filthy rich will be illegible. Wonder if money will be a required after purchase? They make it seem like this is a nuclear sub that can travel for years on end without refuelling.
@@user9b2 did you know that sail boats were first made in 1300 B.C. ? There is nothing special about a boat using sails to be more efficient cause that is now considered primitive technology.
That's what they're sailing around the world to figure out. We won't know the cons until something goes wrong...if it does.
Everybody gangsta, until the fuel leaks
put in a safety gauge to let you know.....!
Every Oil Companies owned by UPIC: I will stop you right there.
More videos about clean energy and tech please!
not the first boat to do that
What other names are there? I'm new to all this.
Excellent! Also, thank you for not saying "very unique".
The Conversion from solar to Hydrogen fuel and back to electricity is only about 20% as efficient had they just added more Lithium batteries. Hydrogen fuel cell technology is interesting but is a long way from being more efficient than batteries. The hydrogen fuel cell technology for this application is good as a proof of concept but It is not cost effective or efficient use of space on that craft. It is expensive, in both money and energy, to pry hydrogen loose from other elements, store it, and convert it back to useful energy. The value we get out of it has never quite justified what we invest in producing it. It is one of those technologies that seems perpetually on the verge of a breakthrough, but never quite there. Currently storing electricity in lithium batteries is far more efficient than converting to Hydrogen and back to electricity.
Except that batteries use elements that have to be mined and are in limited supply. You also do not advance technology unless you invest in it. IF we can get ultra capacitors in increased density they will be much better. They store energy electrostatically rather than chemically (batteries store energy chemically).
That is a very interesting the thrilling topic! It's even partially one of my project actually. Well even electricity is not so expensive in Province of Quebec Canada, my project is to install solar panels, batteries and a plan, like they did in their boat, to produce the extra energy, when the batteries will be charged, into hydrogen to use it as back up when the sun time is not long enough, like during winters. The house will use a geothermal heating/air conditioning system as it's much more energy efficient. I have to find a way to install those with respecting the city rules about safety though. You know, hydrogen is explosive and in a suburb, it can be an issue. Well I have a question here though. Do they use sea water to do the water electrolyse? Yeah it's more conductive than soft water and do not need to add more chemicals. But my concern is that on the positive electrode (anode) it will also extract chlorine from the salt. So what they do with it? it's a very polluting chemical, right? Yeah I heard you when you said they desalinate the water? Okay but is that process is does not needs energy, at least for the pump, because I know those device use reverse osmosis filters? Also how the electrolyse can efficiently work without adding some chemical to speed up the process to make the water more conductive? Anyway the topic is very inspiring, thank you so much!!!
If you looked at the conversion loses, you'd realize that converting to hydrogen makes no sense
Collecting solar, then a battery, electrolysis, fuel cell, and motor? That's ridiculous.
Just use a supercappacitor.
Solar panels:15%
Battery:90%
Electrolysis:70%
Fuel cell:80%
Motor:80%
Removing the solar because that that efficiency is not assured that's only 40% efficient. 6% with the solar.
Compared to 79% efficient with supercappacitor. 12% with solar.
Needless to say I came here to dislike the video.
@@AurumFaber actually.. just buying a few more gallons diesel makes the most sense.
It makes more sense when you have to start carrying batteries on a boat.
what will you do if petrol is gone
the petrol industry is continous depleting its resources
and fyi the solar energy is renewable
They didn't link their youtube channel?!
Hydrogen is exceedingly inefficient. It has little chance of ever gaining traction in the market.
Regular fuel is less efficient.
I disagree. It's not particularly thermally efficient, this is true, due to the high energy cost of hydrogen electrolysis.
However the planet gets an average of 1000w of solar irradiation per hour per square meter which puts the solar energy received on land at somewhere around 145,000,000 gwh received every hour whereas the entire energy requirement of all 7+ billion people is around 0.002% of that (assuming the 57 kwh per day each number I found is approximately right).
Which means that, even before toughing nuclear decay (geothermal / nuclear reactor), we have the energy resources we just need to bring down the cost of harnessing it.
I think being able to produce effective energy from low quality fluids is the self-evident way to go as it will allow us to harness so much limitless energy that worrying about energy losses in conversion will seem silly.
Plus if we can scale up low quality steam thermal conversion we'd be able to take that hydrogen and put it through a combination of Sabatier and Haber reactors to produce both energy (both are exothermic reactions requiring some degree of cooling / steam production) while easing the requirement of storage then a mixture of the two fuels with methane being made from atmospheric CO2.
There are better short term regular use options, ranging from highly efficient like batteries to extremely cost effective to scale up (hydro or cyrogenic) energy storage for day-to-day load balancing to long-term or distributed storage in the form of synthesized chemical energy (carbon neutral methane + carbon-free hydrogen/ammonia), but suggesting something can't happen due to market forces is so, SO short sighted. It can and only depends on machines that work on low-quality steam.
Which exist and yes. I intend on it. ;P
@@Cheebzsta Hydrogen fuel cells receive energy and store it for later use, it is a battery for all intents and purposes. Your point about solar power is nice but not useful in the discussion of fuel cells being a good option over other energy storage methods.
The fact is converting energy+water into hydrogen and then converting that hydrogen back into power later on is an inefficient process that wastes a lot of electricity. Using best processes (unlikely available on small boat) it takes about 180MJ (mega joules) to create 1kg of hydrogen from water which has a specific energy of 143 MJ/kg. The best modern fuel cells operate at around 60% efficiency (again, unlikely available on small boat) so of the 143MJ stored only 86MJ can be extracted, in other words of the initial 180MJ investment only 48% is usable. Over half of the power provided by the solar panels is already wasted and that doesn't even count the power needed to pump water through the filter as described in the video.
Compare that to Li-ion batteries that have a 99% charge efficiency and an 80-90% discharge efficiency, you will see why fuel cells suck. Also batteries don't need to pump/filter water to power themselves.
This whole project is nonsense imo.
@@Mediiiicc So the whole project is nonsense because hydrogen as an energy storage has different qualities than battery storage?
Sorry Medi that's an objectively silly statement.
Yes, if you eliminate cost, weight and toxic waste concerns batteries are objectively better.
If you deem toxic waste unacceptable, have weight concerns, are worried about the cost of scaling up the size of the storage or rolling out new infrastructure you are precluded from using existing battery storage technology.
I'm working building my own hybrid using a cryo-battery functioning off of my combustion engine's waste heat for the less immediate power storage needs to supplement a typical lithium titanate battery specifically to bring down the cost of my hybrid conversion so this isn't some airy fairy hypothetical.
I'm literally using combined sources of energy storage because of the fact that batteries aren't ideal for my circumstance (they're too expensive for the stored range I want).
I'm also looking in to using brine electrolysis as a way to produce hydrogen for energy storage while generating a value-added material in chlorine/hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. I'll then be using destructive distillation of wood to produce methanol for my home bio-diesel use.
Naturally I'd want to shift to hydrogenating syngas to generate methanol or even hydrogenating the captured CO2 from the flue gas from my turbine generators but again: I want things now and don't have an unlimited budget so one step at a time.
Once we've stopped digging up fossil fuels and adding net carbon to the biosphere we can worry about the relative pro's/con's of respective technologies but until the One Tech to Rule Them All is mastered only a fool would ridicule these efforts.
@@Cheebzsta It is nonsense because they are not proving anything, energy generation/storage/usage needs can all be calculated from home on a piece of paper.
why use the electricity from the solar panels to separate the hydrogen and oxygen when you can just power the boat with the electricity?
The major part of the electricity is directly used for propulsion.
Another part gets stored in the battery for nightly use.
And just a fraction of the solar yield is stored by hydrogen production.
For instance during laytimes, when there is plenty of solar energy and just a little consumption.
How uninformative as you forgot to inform us on the inefficiencies of hydrogen conversion from sea water to the usable power, would it be safe to say 60% loss. Plus the huge costs involved in setting it up.
All energy transfer systems have efficiency costs, this system stores excess energy (having fully charged its own batteries.) What alternatives are available to store energy on a boat? Flywheels? Compressed air? You cannot simply keep adding more batteries (the boat would sink.)
Do you know the efficiency of an ICE?
@@wabisabi6802 35% would be doing well, but fuel is finite and emmisions a problem...
My problem with hydrogen cars is not the absence of refueling stations, it’s the explosive nature of the fuel. If they can mix the hydrogen with something to make it less explosive, I might reconsider it. Also, the energy to put hydrogen into a tank is higher than the energy that is put into the tank. It creates a larger carbon footprint, which needs to be mitigated more.
The mirai tank can take .50 cal bullets without leaving dents. I'd say its pretty safe.
Also... the infrastructure is being developed. It costs more now, sure, but when it is properly developed and mass production of hydrogen is needed. It will get cheaper.
Umer Salman I recall reading about the impenetrability of the hydrogen tank. It’s more resilient than a gasoline tank for sure, however just one accident at a hydrogen refueling station and the explosion would be ... brobdingnagian. Are hydrogen stations being installed across the nation? I’d rather go with electric, maybe reconsider hydrogen in ten years or so.
@@mrav8r I think battery powered electric is the way forward for the next 20 years. Hydrogen tech may be the ultimate end goal when lithium runs out.
I struggle to see the benefit of the hydrogen system here? Why not just increase the battery capacity and prevent the need for the energy losses from filtering and hydrogen compression
Because smart people are astoundingly stupid.
It must be because you cannot fully anticipate how long will the sun not available to produce solar power. At least when you are sorrounded with seawater you have redundancy.
@@nonitoopena73 that hydrogen doesn't make itself. It is exactly as vulnerable as battery storage. When it runs out - it runs out. No sun - no energy. That is not the redundancy you are looking for. It is redudndat as in Why do we have this again??
I mean without more batteries you need less rare metals... so I think its more environment friendly
@WeThePeople 2020 petroleum to ship them all over the world?
As opposed to unicorn magic to ship H2 tanks all over the world?
The one thing I would agree on is that H2 is better used in jet airplanes, as they can benefit from gas expansion for propulsion instead of just using electricity to turn propellers. And with all the airplanes burning kerosene today - it would be a good idea to clear the sky up a bit. But the H2 price vs kerosene is not there. We need more solar power to make H2 specially for our flight demand to be sustainable and clean at the same time.
How do you make solar panels ? FYI without coal there's no solar! 50% of making a solar panel is Coal
And when you decommission it, it will have 5x the pollution impact than an old rickety diesel-fueled boat.
BUT WHO CARES about the long term, short term is where it's at! Basically where the attention span of the people that applaud this kind of thing.
Fun fact: it tends to coincide with the attention span of toddlers. Make your own math, if you can.
Diesel is actually fairly green (CO not CO2), but I get your point. :)
yay and imagine what will happen when all the électrick cars will need to have their battery's changed, will be great when we will need to stor all that crap polluting evrything.
This boat is sick
They should have just went solar + wind and stored into batteries... that’s it.
Shadow Croix maximum energy efficiency, top speed. Hydrogen is terrible for efficiency and the batteries it offsets lowers the top power abilities.
Using photovoltaic solar panels to make H2 is not very efficient but this was just a technology demonstrator. When the Artificial Leaf panels become available that'll make all the difference because it's eliminating the electrolysis step. Germany and Japan are collaborating on Artificial Leaf technology. Lokheed Martin already bought the patents on another version of the Artificial Leaf invented by Nocera.
So, how is lithium for batteries mined? Oh ya! Massive oil burning machines!!! Great solution!!!!!!!!!!!
@@abrahkadabra9501 Doesn't removing electrolysis remove the purpose? Now you have a solar powered boat.
@@AurumFaber Seriously? Artificial Leaf solar panels make hydrogen from solar energy. No electrolysis involved and very efficient.
Assuming it is traveling along the equator during the equinox. What is its average speed per day. What is it peak speed? How much range do the batteries and stored hydrogen give you. Thanks
Seems like a lot of something for nothing. Use salt water batteries and your good.. why waste space with solar/wind/hydrogen generation that is very dangerous? Salt water batteries can be simply refilled with sea water when the ionized properties are depleted with no harm to the environment at all. Worst case scenario, you have to replace anodes and cathodes { positive and negative plates} every 3 to 6 months. That ship was a waste of money and time. Not to mention sailing lol.
They use hydrogen because of the amount of energy they want to store. Otherwise they would have used a larger battery which would be much more efficient and salt water batteries need even more space for the same amount of energy than the batteries they already use.
@@5thElem3nt I hear you but, you do see how massive the thing has to be right? Take away all of the other systems and their weight and guess what, a lighter vessel emerges with amazing efficiency. That boat is a sales platform for un-needed technology while ignoring the obvious solutions. That is called a scam my friend. Besides, aluminium salt water batteries are by far the most efficient and lightest option. It is the fact that they need to be maintained and refilled that discourages their use on land but, again, this is IN SALT WATER!
@@JSabh I am not a huge fan of hydrogen as energy storage either, especially not in cars, mostly because it's inefficient. But if the energy would be lost otherwise, why not use it.
I never heard of aluminium salt water batteries. But if I understand it correctly, they are not rechargeable. The aluminium is the energy source. Sure for one boat you coul use new aluminium every time, but if you want to use aluminium salt water batteries on much larger scale, you need to recycle the aluminium. And then theire efficiency is below 20%.
@@5thElem3nt there have been advancements with the salt water battery. Carbon is used instead of aluminum in some cases but, the galvanic reaction with the aluminum is no different than lithium or lead/acid. They all work the same way and all deteriorate. There are recharchable salt water batteries as well but, changing out anodes is fine with me. Recharging takes other equipment lol.
cool, what are the cons of burning hydrogen?
The problem is rather the high effort to produce hydrogen first.
This ship with this big solar array could produce at best 3 kg of hydrogen at a very sunny day. Without any other energy consumption (no propulsion, no "living").
Or did you mean the cons of burning hydrogen in an ICE instead of using it by fuel cells and electric motors like here?
The main disadvantage would be lower efficiency of the ICE.
Why would anybody want to trade from one expensive fuel for hydrogen?
Nothing beats an electric car in terms of cost per km. Using solar panels to create hydrogen makes no sense.
The only advantage is quick refueling. You can generate your own electricity for a reasonable investment. Try generating and storing you own hydrogen.
Is this really a better solution than just using electric power though those solar panels seem apt
Hydrogen is the most inefficient ‘battery’ known to man.
The boat would be much more efficient if it used batteries.
And 200 m3 of solar cells will produce about 17 kw average over the day, or 420 kwhr.
That is enough to power a small outboard motor (with nothing left over to produce any hydrogen).
And don’t even think about going above 50 degrees north in the winter.
As usual, this is useless Greenwash.
No Green technology ever works.
And the round the world trip is simply a Greenwash holiday.
You could test this vessel in Portsmouth harbour.
But no - as usual these Eco-warriors want a free holiday, paid for by you and me.
So they get sponsorship for a grand holiday of a lifetime.
And you pay for it....
R
I completely understand you.
......you don't get away quickly saying it stores the excess hydrogen fuel unless we're told how it's stored . There are technology challenges for hydrogen storage.
Makes no sense. Why bother with hydro, when you can charge everything into batteries?
Because of the limited storage capacity of batteries with acceptable weight.
The complete hydrogen system (fuel cells, electrolyzer, tanks) weighs 2.1 tons and can generate ~1000 kWh of electricity with full hydrogen tanks. About ten times the capacity of the battery.
A battery of this capacity would weigh several times more.
Of course, you could adapt living and cruising to the actual supply of energy, but with this big storage capacity, you don't have to.
Anyway, it's just a testbed for the different devices under harsh conditions.
It's not meant to be the ship of the future.
@@701983 BC should have asked, "why bother with batteries on the scale they have"... for the same answer, research.
@@701983 LiFePO4 would be 381 Kwh of storage for that weight with no moving parts and would only require connection to the charge controllers. It is more efficient to use sail driven motor regeneration system than to convert water to hydrogen via electrolysis and reconvert via fuel cell. Way less fire risk too.
That is freaking SICK
Fuel cells. Or as Elon Musk calls them "fool cell". Joking aside, I believe he makes a good argument against fuel cells. It is less efficient to convert energy to electricity to hydrogen and back again. It is at best a stopgap solution until batteries are lighter. Also batteries usually fizz out rather than deflagrate...
Dunno... lithium ion batteries can be very combustible.
Yep. It's _game over._ 402 mile EPA range on a Tesla Model S with solar, wind, and hydro everywhere. Tesla recently became the largest car manufacturer by market cap, and Toyota still doesn't get the message. Anyone with a brain saw this a decade ago.
Hydrogen makes most sense, in my opinion, with large seafaring vessel, where both weight and *space* are at a premium. H² might also be useful in commercial air travel; with both passenger and/ or cargo craft
You kinda skipped over the little small fact that hydrogen goes BOOM! 💥
so do's petrol... was there much of that sold in the world...?
Mark Sweeney - Gasoline/petrol goes boom. It burns. Hydrogen goes BOOM, it explodes. Spill some gas and the fumes explode as they become a gas, gasoline as a liquid just burns. Put a pail or bucket with some gas ⛽️ and light it, the top will burn. Hydrogen IS a gas, in liquid form it’s very cold and goes gaseous very fast. A canister of gasoline when leaking will burn, and eventually with enough heat and oxygen, explode. Hydrogen will just explode. That’s why the efforts in the past to use an engines electricity to separate water into Oxygen and Hydrogen and reintroduce it into the fuel mixture failed. Hydrogen goes BOOM. Big boom. It will work for a while, but if too much hydrogen is produced, BANG.
@@Erin-Thor you stay in the dark age and keep looking for oil to make fuel...there is a lot of water in the sea to make fuel..! i have a lpg jeep never gone boom at all ? still here... we need to move on to new fuels quick...
Mark Sweeney dude, liquid propane is not hydrogen, LOL! Do some homework. Yes, we do! But hydrogen is hard to safely store and has inherent risks. How do I know this? My late slightly goofy early adopters tech modified his Lincoln continental with a kit that used electricity from its alternator to separate water intro oxygen and hydrogen, and into the air intake to boost his mileage. Had it professionally done in Dallas, and according to his notes did indeed boost his mileage considerably but not near the double predicted. Every time he got gas he refilled the water reservoir. Then he decided to go to Oklahoma... a little too much hydrogen built up and he heard a loud POP and his engine locked. It didn’t just crack his engine, it nearly split it in two. All I meant was Hydrogen explodes, caution is key. There’s a REASON we don’t have hydrogen vehicles yet, and it’s not just because we don’t have refueling stations yet. There are major safety issues! My grandfather owned Sterling Transit a trucking company in California (assets purchased by Clearwater trucking) who was an early adopter of LPG vehicles. It helped extend the life of their company, good for you!
@@marksweeney2645 All I'm hearing is "reeeee oil is barbarian fuel! No! You're wrong, my idea is flawless! I'm never wrong! STOP SHOWING ME FACTS DAMNIT!!!!!!"
Love the idea very much
Definitely the future. Who wouldn't love to travel around the world with zero energy costs and zero impact on the environment.
What do you think the cost would be of such a vessel? You have practically zero chance of ever being on one.
@@mrofnocnon Only clueless fools think ...
€4.2 million ... took 3 seconds to look up, lol!
Or just buy a 1000 euro used sailboat and travel around the world with zero energy costs and zero impact on the environment.
Great concept, price ? it is affordable and commercially viable ? that is the question ?
A glass of water has enough hydrogen to fuel any car or vessel for a substantial amount of time it's source of power required for electrolysis that comes into question
Good on those people sailing that boat around the world for years on end to help with the energy crisis. That can’t be an easy commitment.
Sounds fantastic
Thanks for sharing.
Wow...bravo to everyone involved...thanks...SCIENCE!
Sailing will be green and cool in the future... less battery maybe means it may fly short distance too?... a short land tours
There are issues with this. 1. You are taking energy from the solar cells and storing it in batteries like normal but then you run it through membrane filters and a electrolysis process then store the hydrogen in tanks which.means you need a compressor that also uses power. You then are burning the hydrogen in a engine that has less efficiency than a electric motor and takes up more space. Safe to say this isn't efficient at all compaired to just having more batteries and running a electric motor. 2. It's a maintenance nightmare. Your average Mariner/sailor is likely to know how to troubleshoot a diesel or gas engine but will have little to no idea how to deal with an entire system of fuel processors ,storage and the engine itself. And the dangers are worse than diesel because diesel tends to be pretty hard to ignite but with your system you are providing a easily combustible fuel with a strong oxidizer in a enclosed space ,sure not too bad as long as it's contained but anyone who spends alot of time on the sea will tell you that if something can leak it will leak.
3. Sure the wings are more efficient than sails for a given surface area,sails will commonly be easier to fix if they break and don't rely on automated systems to function.
There is no engine.
Fuel cells are galvanic cells similar to batteries. They convert chemical energy directly into electricity by electrochemical reactions.
With the generated electricity, you can run an electric motor or use it for other purposes.
And yes, it's much less efficient and more complicated than storage by battery. But you get much more storage capacity per weight.
The hydrogen system (electrolyzer, compressor, tanks, fuel cells) weighs 2.1 tons and can store ~1 MWh electricity (output with full tanks). Additionally, you get a lot of hot water from waste heat of the fuel cells.
And just to make it clear again: Only a fraction of the energy goes through the hydrogen storage process.
Most of it is directly used for propulsion, a part goes into the battery for night use, only excess energy is used for hydrogen production.
However, it's not meant to be the ship of the future, but just a technology demonstrator.
Solar provides too less energy for attractive performance, no matter what storage system you use.
There might be solar hybrids for recreational vessels in future, but probably hardly any pure solar electric ships.
@@701983 this tech would have been better demonstrated in a car or a aircraft. With a ship you can just use sails or solar because you have room for it and it's simple and reliable.
Deltac.. this is a scam for stealing from trust fund babies. JC is trying to say that pumping fuel cells to 5-10k psig wouldnt waste any energy nor add any weight to the boats.. he is either a useful idiot .. or getting paid.
@@zarthemad8386 You don't "pump fuel cells". Of course, you have to compress the hydrogen for storage. Allegedly (seen in another video), 4% of the energy that goes into hydrogen storage is lost for compression to 350 bar. That's at least plausible.
six years comes from the fact, that it is as fast it can do that
More ocean tech vids please! Seasteading is the future for me. ;-)
That's my idea when I was 8 years old, that's why I study chemistry
Very cool
Check on Nicol Trucking for heavy hauling with Hydrogen fuel.
Sorry, I am not getting it. Since the roof is filled with solar panels, why not power an electric engine directly with the energy produced by panels themselves? This would save great losses arising from energy conversion and storage as hydrogen. Is this the case? It looks to me like a sophisticated sailboat
The major part of the solar energy is used directly, without storage.
But 50% of the day is night. And the other 50% aren't sunshine only, there can be weeks of little sunlight, depending on the region and the season.
So they use a big battery for short term storage: from day to night. Very efficient, but pretty limited capacity (106 kWh).
And the hydrogen system for long term storage: from sunny days/weeks to cloudy days/weeks.
Or from weeks of laytime to weeks of cruise.
Inefficient, but high capacity (~1000 kWh output from 62 kg H2).
What is the power to weight ratio for hydrogen over present power sources..
Incredible innovation! Tell me, how could the crew infect anyone with CV when they've been out at sea since 2017??
They visit a lot of ports