Gigafactory

Quote: Face

I thought you got the make wrong and made a misspelling, and had no idea what a Mazda Murai had to do with fuel savings. Guess my head's just in a certain place...





Someone needs to explain this to me. I mean, sure, H is extremely unstable, more so than petrol or propane. But petrol and propane aren't exactly "safe", and there's millions of gallons of the stuff on the roads everyday. Propane tanks are being toted in trucks to camp, they're on RV's and pop-ups, they're used in big rigs, they're in converted autos... I don't ever remember hearing of the multiple propane disasters in the news. How is H so much worse?

Then compare it to petrol. H has a huge expansion ratio, something over 800 (propane is around 250). So a cubic foot of liquid H will turn into 800+ cubic feet of gaseous H when released. That is a big fireball. But I wonder if it's more dangerous? It seems to me that, while impressive, any fireball would be very limited. You get a big whoomp, and then it's over. Compare that to petrol. When released, petrol will likewise evaporate and atomize into a flammable cloud. When it whoomps, the fireball will be much smaller, but there will still likely be a large pool of the liquid stuff left. That means it'll burn and burn and burn for much longer than its gaseous counterpart. I dunno their energy output or the result of such on flesh, but I have a hard time envisioning an H fire burning even long enough to ignite the car, whereas other liquid petroleum products (brake fluid, oils, petrol) burn cars to the ground daily.

Is the fear of H overblown?

Quote: rxwine

I see the cost of the Fukushima accident has been double the prediction. Now at 105 billion. Does that count against nuclear cost?

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=fukushima+cost

Quote: kenarman

The difference between the flammable concentration range of hydrogen is 4% to 75%. The range for gasoline is 1.4% to 7.6%. This is the percent in the air at which they will ignite. Much narrow range for gasoline means it is inherently safer even though many of us have lit gasoline on fire with no problem.

The trillions that Chrysler is facing in their settlement for the Jeep gas tanks (and other issues) are based on 75 deaths from exploding gas tanks (some accidents were likely multiple deaths) so even fewer incidents over several years. What company would want to be the first to hope they had thought of every possibility as they put millions of hydrogen vehicles on the road.

Quote: kenarman

Of course it does. Works out to about 1 cent per KWH if we assume 1 similar accident every 10 years across world wide annual nuclear production. If you don't like my answer then adjust your computer model to get the answer you like. That is how climate science is to be done.

Quote: Evenbob

The gov't gave them 5bil and it's losing $4000
on every car they sell? Nice way to run
a business.

Quote: rxwine

I guess I should quibble with accidents as a cost. I have yet to be paid in a settlement where I thought, that made up for what happened or even the inconvenience.