The Lemon Fool

Hmmm ... that didn't work ... here's a direct link to the image I meant to post:

http://www.stemmann.com/gallery/pages/ladepantograph_fuer_e_busse2/stg_ladestrom_systeme_ladepanto_e_busse_002.jpg

Pantograph recharging: The pantograph is the retractable mechanism sticking up from the top of the bus.


http://www.stemmann.com/en/products/charging_systems/chargingpanto_for_e_busses[/quote]

Thanks for the picture. It's a strange name for a refuelling pipe. Why panto? Why graph? The word could be an ideal candidate for the old TV program "Call my Bluff".

Sorcery wrote:Thanks for the picture. It's a strange name for a refuelling pipe. Why panto? Why graph? The word could be an ideal candidate for the old TV program "Call my Bluff".

It's not a pipe, unless you count an electricity carrying wire as a pipe, which I guess it is in one way of looking at it.

The name refers to the retractable mechanism and comes from the original use of it, but, as Wiki says, it's come to refer to any "kind of structure that can compress or extend like an accordion, forming a characteristic rhomboidal pattern." See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantograph.

I guess the place you're most often likely to see one nowadays is on top of trains or trams. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantograph_(transport)

Gosh, I remember trolleybuses. The sparks, the acceleration, the panto falling off the wire and having to be put back with a long wooden pole.

V8

Sorcery wrote:Thanks for the picture. It's a strange name for a refuelling pipe. Why panto? Why graph? The word could be an ideal candidate for the old TV program "Call my Bluff".

Aren't you old enough to have had a pantograph as a kid? Or made one from Meccano? You could use them to copy, or enlarge drawings (hence graph), plenty of pics if you google. The Greeks used them to copy writing (panto - all, graph - write)

88V8 wrote:Gosh, I remember trolleybuses. The sparks, the acceleration, the panto falling off the wire and having to be put back with a long wooden pole.

V8

They used to have a turning point down our road, always entertaining to watch the conductor moving the pantograph from one set of wires to the other with a long pole. I think modern tram systems manage without that!

PeterGray wrote:

Sorcery wrote:Thanks for the picture. It's a strange name for a refuelling pipe. Why panto? Why graph? The word could be an ideal candidate for the old TV program "Call my Bluff".

Aren't you old enough to have had a pantograph as a kid? Or made one from Meccano? You could use them to copy, or enlarge drawings (hence graph), plenty of pics if you google. The Greeks used them to copy writing (panto - all, graph - write)

No I don't think I did. Rather wish I had, might have been useful when given lines at school.

PeterGray wrote:

88V8 wrote:Gosh, I remember trolleybuses. The sparks, the acceleration, the panto falling off the wire and having to be put back with a long wooden pole.

V8

They used to have a turning point down our road, always entertaining to watch the conductor moving the pantograph from one set of wires to the other with a long pole. I think modern tram systems manage without that!

Just on semantics. The trolleybuses and old trams had poles for current collection (and return in the case of the trolleybuses). As stated, pantographs are the rhomboid, or half rhomboid (i.e. dogleg) type of retractable current collection. AIUI modern electric trains and trams have pantographs because they cannot be dislodged by wind etc which is a problem with the old fashioned poles.
I have been reading recently about the Manx Electric Railway which has poles, but the connected Snaefell Mountain Railway has bow type pickups like pantographs because it gets windy on the top of the mountain.

Mobile hydrogen matters... Scania, who already have hydrogen hybrids in use, have decided that it's a bad idea ... the use of hydrogen for such applications will be limited since three times as much renewable electricity is needed to power a hydrogen truck compared to a battery electric truck.
A great deal of energy is lost in the production, distribution, and conversion back to electricity. https://newatlas.com/automotive/scania- ... -hydrogen/

Reality, dear boy, reality.

V8

And yes, people are considering pantograph systems along motorways for trucks, so they only need battery range for off-motorway sections. http://www.csrf.ac.uk/2020/07/white-pap ... ification/

And on the same site http://www.csrf.ac.uk/2020/12/electrici ... n-economy/

If that kills hydrogen trucks, that just leaves hydrogen aircraft and ships.

General puff from the Hydrogen Council about worldwide hydrogen projects.
$300bn in total, of which $38bn operational or in build and $45bn at feasibility study or beyond.
https://hydrogencouncil.com/en/hydrogen ... -pipeline/

Much of it propelled by Govt unicorn-chasing money, no surprise there.

They predict that H2 prices will drop to c$1.50/kg by 2050.
Crystal balls?

V8

Steel production... 'Every major steel producer is considering something similar to bring its emissions down, and there are plenty of incentives for downstream customers like automakers to get on board with green steel as it becomes available. A new development in Northern Sweden, headed up by the current CEO of Scania, aims to get some volume into the market early.

H2 Green Steel (H2GS) is working with a budget of around US$3 billion dollars. It will use hydrogen produced with renewable energy from Sweden's Boden-Luleå region, and production is scheduled to begin in 2024. By 2030, H2GS expects to be producing five million tons of high-quality zero-emissions steel annually.

The company says it'll be the first large-scale fossil-free steel plant, producing hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized coils, which it expects to sell into the automotive, transportation, construction, pipeline and whitegoods markets, among others. '

More here https://www.h2greensteel.com/insights/fossil-free-steel

The kicker But like all hydrogen-based initiatives, the H2GS project is going to need the price of green hydrogen to come down dramatically to realize its full potential.

Jam tomorrow, perhaps.
https://newatlas.com/energy/h2gs-green-hydrogen-steel/

V8

and whiskey production:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... s-56279164

"Green hydrogen" could be produced at a site in the Highlands for use as an alternative to fossil fuels.

It has been proposed that ports and distilleries around the Cromarty Firth could be among the first to be supplied with the fuel.

A planned "hub" on the firth would make the hydrogen in a process using electricity generated by offshore and onshore wind farms.

A feasibility study has begun and the project could be operational by 2023.

I was wondering why you wouldn't just use electricity direct to heat the stills, presumably this means they don't have to do much conversion of equipment and the stills can be run on hydrogen instead of gas with only a minor conversion.

They are also working on producing steel using electricity, which will avoid the 30% efficiency problem. https://commodityinside.com/renewable-p ... -industry/

Nucor, a US steelmaker, has signed a 15 year Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) with EDF Renewables North America for 250 MW of new solar energy which is to be installed in Texas. It is expected that the plant construction will start in 2022 and begin producing power by 2023.

Thirty minutes of hydrogen puff, this time Radio 4 The Bottom Line yesterday https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000t6m1

Fuel cells, etc... not a word about leakage and other practical considerations.
Might all have sounded quite plausible to a casual listener or politician.

V8

https://www.economist.com/science-and-t ... drogen-gas

This might prove interesting? No access to the detail at the moment, so no real idea how it works.

BETWEEN HOPE AND HYPE: A HYDROGEN
VISION FOR THE UK
AUTHORS: JULIET PHILLIPS, LISA FISCHER
March 2021

https://9tj4025ol53byww26jdkao0x-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Between-Hope-And-Hype-A-Hydrogen-Vision-For-The-UK.pdf

It distinguishes between "Blue" Hydrogen - extracted from hydrocarbon fuel, with the consequent production of CO2, and "Green" Hydrogen which uses considerably more power to extract it from water. I found it interesting. One matter which caught my attention was the suggestion that Green Hydrogen to fuel Gas boilers may not be a sensible policy..

A study for the German Government found that the amount of green electricity needed to produce green hydrogen is
up to 600% greater than needed to power an equivalent number of heat pumps.
The CCC’s chief executive suggests that 30 times as much offshore wind farm capacity than currently available would be needed to produce enough green hydrogen to replace all UK gas boilers.

Far-off project to build 30GW of wind-powered electrolisers in Kazakhstan https://svevind.se/en/2021/06/23/svevind-and-kazakh-invest-national-company-jsc-sign-a-memorandum-of-understanding/ potentially making 3,000,000 tons per annum of hydrogen.

Like Russia, the Kazakh economy relies heavily on oil.
Will this hydrogen deal with Sweden's Svevind keep the future economy afloat.

V8

Michael Liebreich, one of the big cheeses in this space, has been pushing the idea of the hydrogen "ladder", putting different probabilities to using hydrogen in different applications. He's keen to concentrate what hydrogen is available in the top 2-3 rungs of the ladder, and not waste it on marginal applications in the lower reaches :

https://www.h2-view.com/story/birmingha ... ecker-bus/

(birmingham-receives-its-first-hydrogen-double-decker-bus)