Electric bikes

[to v or not to v]

[MarJay]

BEV's are not as practical as internal combustion vehicles, but they are more practical than most alternatives. In some ways moreso, because you can charge them at home if you have space. Imagine a car that charges fully (or let's say 80%) overnight from a home charging point, and has a 250 mile range. It's ideal for commuting or shopping or whatever. The only thing you can't do is go on that long trip 500 miles north to see Granny in South Shields or something. Well, you can, but you need to stop to charge. A lot of people would stop for an awful service station 'meal' anyway.

There are one or two corner cases where BEVs don't work and that is currently what is getting people up in arms about them. Can you imagine 15 years ago if I told you that Audi, VW, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Mini and Porsche would all release full sized practical battery electric vehicles that have similar performance to IC vehicles if not better? You'd think I was a total nutter. Back then EV's meant stuff like the G-whizz, and we've come a LONG way since then. In 15 years time? Who knows?
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[Easy-X]

We've had EVs since the '70s that you could charge at home. Strange that the ideal never caught on

BTW other that EVs what are the alternatives to the ICE?
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[MarJay]

[Easy-X]

[Nobby the Bastard]

[MarJay]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

Where does hydrogen come from?

[Nobby the Bastard]

Well, originally the big bang....
____________________
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[Easy-X]

[Nobby the Bastard]

Hydrogen is an arse to deal with and using batteries as an interim measure is because you can get electricity to charge the batteries anywhere with access to the national grid.

Virtually no infrastructure is in place to manage hydrogen.
____________________
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[Easy-X]

The best thing you can say about Hydrogen is at least the simplest thing there is in the universe Well worth the effort to explore all the storage options, crucially at scale. Lithium-Ion batteries do a bad enough job in vehicles, you can't run a country on them and never will.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[MarJay]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

It was a rhetorical question. So what if the device only emits water vapour at point of use when it depends primarily on fossil fuels to make the fuel in the first place? The current ‘green’ alternatives to hydrogen production are either unreliable/low volume or needed elsewhere. Forget hydrogen, it doesn’t address the problem.

Biofuels from waste treatment are the best hope in my opinion.

[Robby]

[MarJay]

[Easy-X]

What we need is an energy storage system that's portable, easy to handle, quick to replenish...

https://www.generators-direct.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Sealey-JC20G-20L-Jerry-Can-Green.png
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Polarbear]

[Robby]

That works for small supplies, where I assume there are making from waste vegetable oil. The feedstock is essentially free, so the costs are processing and distribution. At cottage industry levels that gives you a price equivalent to normal diesel.

It doesn't scale though. There's a very finite amount of waste vegetable oil. To get more you either need to use fresh vegetable oil, and give over an awful lot of decent land to make it, or make some kind of synthetic fuel. I'm not aware of any of those in commercial use, energy required to make it is significant.

So, for a niche/hobby application like your boat, biodiesel from waste oil is an excellent drop-in fuel. It doesn't scale up to provide enough biodiesel to run every farm, quarry and HGV out there. Not without taking too much land away from food.

Costs aside, I would assume that canal boats are good candidate for electrical conversion. Space exists, weight is a non-issue, berths with power are all over the place, space on the roof for lots of solar panels and the engine power output is minimal. Could be an interesting place to use a couple of half worn out early nissan leaf batteries.

[Easy-X]

There's an equation at both ends of "Green." Waste oil has already done its primary duty so making biodiesel (even if the ICE produces some emissions) should be viewed entirely differently than purposely setting aside crops or pulling it out of the ground IMHO.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Polarbear]

[Nobby the Bastard]

Ste's mum's boat is a hybrid. Mind you, the boat was built from new to her specs...
____________________
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[Polarbear]

[MarJay]

My other half is involved with a company that supplies her Hydrogen and Hydrogen fuel cells for narrow boats. Completely silent and only produces water as a byproduct.
____________________
British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[Robby]