Green Hydrogen: The Solution for Dirty Diggers?!

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

I didn't think I would be swayed for why they decided to use hydrogen in a combustion engine rather than a fuel cell arrangement, but after listening to the gentleman in the blue suit I can totally understand where he's coming from and appreciate his reasoning. It's not the greenest solution, but it is night and day better than diesel alternatives and I am in favor of anything that is an improvement and can be useful and practical.

[@موسى_7]

Fuel cells are heavy and dust could be a problem. Batteries are a closed system; no dust can come in. Chemicals go back and forth, and current flows, but with fuel cells, air and hydrogen must enter from outside the cell (not going back and forth) and dust could enter with air. Also, JCB dealers in places such as India appreciate having a repairable engine instead of a fuel cell.

[@IMGreg..]

Looks like JBC is leading the pack on HCE there has to be military and long haul application via land and sea. Trains, ships and submarines use diesel electric hybrid configurations. Transport trucks use diesel. There doesn't seem to be a really good reason why these larger machines need to be BEV other than infrastructure. We're killing the planet waiting on the ultimate technological breakthrough when a simple solution has been around for 50 years. Sure maybe not as efficient as a fuel cell will be but we can have HCEs now vs ?????

[@matthewbaynham6286]

@@موسى_7 fell cells can be maintained and repaired whether you're in India or elsewhere.

[@brushlessmotoring]

If you think catalytic converter thefts are bad, wait till you put a brick of platinum in your digger and leave it overnight on a job site .... (Fuels cells use Platinum as the catalyst)

[@GG-gt5ot]

Hydrogen is a dead end, green hydrogen can never be cheaper than batteries.

[@bishwatntl]

Harry Metcalfe talked to JCB a few months ago and came to the conclusion that what JCB are working on could be very applicable to farmers, too, for very similar reasons to mining and construction.

[@xxwookey]

Makes sense: very high power machinery with very high usage rate.

[@agt155]

JCB make lots of farm machinery.

[@richardfranks2831]

I agree. I think a economic apparatus for hydrogen production from local renewable power is the last piece missing from this puzzle, or is that already available?

[@SimplySketchyGT]

They could make their own fuel 🤪

[@petesplaneta9340]

Tractors for farming have a lot more down time and are mostly parked by a grid connection. I would have thought that batteries are a better solution for that use case.

[@polishguy8495]

We need an independent test on NOx pollution coming out of these.

[@tomo1168]

JCB doesn't belong to Volkswagen :D

[@bimblinghill]

Fair. Although if they are running it so lean that the combustion temperatures are lower, as Ryan Ballard said around the 13:00 mark, that should result in low NOx.

[@andreas4687]

@@bimblinghill doestn make lean combustion making it run hoter?

[@bimblinghill]

@@andreas4687 To a certain level of 'lean', yes. However if you lean out still further the temperature drops, which seems to be what they're saying.

[@andreas4687]

@@bimblinghill makes sense. just watched that part 😅 1:100 is way leaner than any petrol or diesel. they are around 1:14 afaik.

[@mrcogginsgarage7062]

Very pleased to see that you've finally got to see what JCB are up to.

[@davidfitzpatrick1242]

I agree, they’ve been naively averse to hydrogen in previous videos, but for heavy plant there’s a good case to be made, provided the hydrogen is green. Using excess capacity from wind turbines to electrolyse hydrogen, rather than just shutting them down, is one way.

[@ThinkOfANumber68]

Very clever to keep the combustion temperature down to prevent NOx production.

[@xxwookey]

Indeed. I'm surprised that you can do that and still get better-than-diesel efficiency, but if they really have done that then 'good job'. Does indeed seem like a system that could work well. I guess the next question is how much does it cost? I'm guessing the catch is that hydrogen cost a lot more per litre than diesel at the moment.

[@fat_biker]

I like the tacit admission that at some point fuel cells are going to be robust enough that they are the answer, but the cool thing is that if & when that ever happens, all the infrastructure that supports this will still work! If they are saying that from the head gasket down, these hydrogen engines are the same as their diesel engines, you can see a market for retrofit kits. 'Buy a new hydrogen backhoe from us, & we will sell you up to 10 conversion kits for your existing JCB equipment at cost of manufacture. Buy 2, have up to 20.

[@gigabyte2248]

@@xxwookey The headline figure is this: while a filling station for hydrogen cars is still ~4 times more expensive per mile travelled than diesel, supply arrangements for hydrogen buses put the cost per mile about at price parity with diesel. If you've got something like a bus depot, you can negotiate a contract with a hydrogen supplier for regular deliveries, then they can invest in production and transport for the stuff. Buses (and off-highway vehicles) also normally use the lower pressure of 350bar - reducing energy loss from compression and lowering the demands on gas hardware - which helps. As for the nitty-gritty, I think we all know that the options on the menu are 'grey' hydrogen from steam reforming methane, 'blue' hydrogen from steam reforming and carbon capture and 'green' hydrogen from electrolysis of water. Grey hydrogen dominates, but physics and economics say that there's nothing stopping green hydrogen from beating it, as long as the electrolysers are reasonably-priced and the rest of the facilities needed (pipework, compressors etc.) are reasonably-priced too. At the top level, electrolysers are still dominated by engineering costs, rather than materials costs. Batteries are the other way around, with materials dominating the cost, but increasing the volume of electrolyser production allows the engineering cost to be 'spread' between more units. Moreover, as more companies get more total units out there, further product generations of electrolysers won't need as much engineering work or up-front tooling. The cost of electrolysers *will* fall if volumes rise. Even finer detail: the dominant hydrogen electrolyser technologies are proton exchange membrane (PEM) and alkaline electrolysers. Solid oxide systems and anion exchange membrane systems are looking promising in the lab, but aren't in serious production. PEM has higher upfront cost and higher efficiency (lower running cost) and alkaline electrolysers have a lower upfront cost but poorer efficiency (higher running cost). PEM electrolysers have been proposed for on-site production at filling stations and small site installations. Alkaline electrolysers have been proposed for centralised electrolysis facilities, potentially co-sited with onshore wind farms, solar farms and incoming high voltage feeds from offshore facilities and interconnectors. It looks like it's going to be difficult to get small-scale PEM facilities to be profitable, and the most serious projects I've been looking at are for large-scale alkaline electrolysis hubs. These would suit the proposed tanker systems for off-highway applications nicely: a handful of regional hydrogen hubs around the country, refuelling tankers for projects in the area. Initially, green hydrogen buses, trucking, chemical processes, steelmaking and off-highway sites would only be viable near hubs, but rising demand would stimulate rising supply and possibly good national coverage.

[@rogerclarke7407]

@@fat_biker I hope they will licence this tech so other diesel or aftermarket manufacturers can make their own conversion kits.

[@scrubronnie3006]

I suspect the running lean had a lot more to do with avoiding detonation than NOx. Handy side effect though.

[@fatherofgrafton]

Interesting video. Great to have Helen ready to ask the difficult questions about the science and engineering without the company just presenting marketing fluff.

[@bobbabaluba]

Except for being slightly clueless about the location of the combustion chamber.

[@alfienoakes69]

@@bobbabaluba I expect she was just dumbing it down for us simpletons.

[@peterchandler8505]

She did not cover the corrosion / embrittlement risks... Hydrogen is not easy stuff to deal with

[@WirelessGriff]

Another great episode. Can we please see more of Helen C. testing / asking the tricky questions…..

[@messiermitchell4901]

Hydrogen, whilst limited, has its use cases, and this is definitely one of them

[@Robert-cu9bm]

It's one of the most used resources... Used industry everywhere.

[@mrfishsticks266]

Limited? Are you nuts? Hydrogen is the most abundant resource in the world

[@richardfranks2831]

As much as the use case for Hydrogen ICE power may be valid, I think JCB primarily wants to keep making ICE engines for a good few years to come, retuning on their R&D investments, keeping factory Jobs and service revenue streams secure. It makes good business sense.

[@emmajacobs5575]

Exactly. They have a vested interest in continuing the production of a basic technology (IC Engines) where they already have a lot invested.

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

As musk has said a few times "People do not change their minds, they just die" (said with respect to extending the human lifespan)

[@Robert-cu9bm]

@@emmajacobs5575 I think they're living in reality and not la la land with electric unicorns.

[@enemyofthestatewearein7945]

That may well be true, but in fairness JCB have invested in exploring all avenues (BEV, FCEV etc) and are proposing the technologies that they think will make most sense for each use case. They did explain why fuel cells would be problematic and batteries are simply not practical in the heavier applications. It has to be remembered that construction equipment has a very tough life, and in many cases durability is perhaps even more important than fuel cost, because downtime and delays in construction cost serious money.

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

@@enemyofthestatewearein7945 But battery electric vehicles have almost no moving parts, and they do not need to deal with combustion: no high heat, no high pressures, no extreme heat cycles, no soot. They require almost no maintenance, are extremely durable, and the only "downtime" is charging, which is a design and infrastructure problem and not a "downtime" problem. And charging with these hydrogen combustion vehicles is not any better with their measly 1kg per minute pressure equalization. The explanation of why they cannot do electric was shallow and dishonest. These are people from the combustion engine department of JCB trying to keep their old jobs, and their old way of doing things. Ever since I consulted for one of the biggest automotive suppliers, and had to deal with the people who had survived endless restructuring rounds and who also had not bothered to leave themselves, I have been a huge proponent of Universal Basic Income. All bigger organizations are full of people clinging to dead end jobs until retirement, irrespective of how unhappy they are with that job, and these people are always holding back progress, as progress threatens them and their "position". UBI would take away a large part of the impetus for this, and both innovation and efficiency would be vastly increased. The social aspect of UBI is almost a bonus, a side-effect. Or another way to put it is what Elon said.

[@bristolfashion4421]

JCB are pushing forward in some great ways - (hard) hats off to them ! Facing facts, making difficult decisions and comeing out on top. What a team. Steam exhaust and local fuel production - tick, tick - every bit as powerful as the diesel engine - tick. Minute nox levels... What's not to like??

[@maygarland6123]

Having watched Harry's farm on this system around 9 months ago i was wondering if you were going to discuss this. I'm glad you have and im glad youve mentioned Nox emissions as it wasnt talked about before. Thank you

[@ChromeFlakes]

I cannot believe no one is asking the question. How is the hydrogen made?! It takes an incredible amount of energy to produce hydrogen. Lots of “natural” gas is burned. It’s all fair and well hydrogen can be made on site, but tonnes of gas need to be burned in order to produce it. Will there also be a giant inefficient carbon capture machine on site?! Until we can actually make “green hydrogen” the use of blue hydrogen has been proven to have higher total emissions than just burning diesel. Robert has mentioned this more than once in his podcasts... what on earth is going on?

[@timscott3027]

Yup they will just start using blue hydrogen, look how clean we are blah blah blah just don't ask how we make hydrogen.

[@ChromeFlakes]

@@timscott3027 Exactly! I just can’t believe Robert didn’t even mention this.

[@davidf2281]

9:10 By my calculations 1kg per minute is equivalent to charging at about two megawatts, or about 800kW effective if you assume combustion efficiency of 40%.

[@BasketKees]

Good observation. I appreciate what JCB are doing for the short term. They have demonstrated that it works, is relatively easy to implement and is a lot cleaner than diesel. Good on them, start building plenty of those engines! But batteries will beat it soon enough in capacity, simplicity, maintenance and with time probably cost and even weight. Infrastructure is a thing, but this solution is quite expensive in infrastructure and by necessity electricity will be everywhere soon enough.

[@davidf2281]

@@BasketKees Yeah, I think it's a medium-term solution at best but they can maybe get a decade or two of life out of it.

[@brushlessmotoring]

Yes, but you have already lost 60% in the electrolyser and transportation, so it depends on if you are measuring input energy or not. Battery swap seem more versatile to me, the swap would be faster than the H2 fill, and make the charging time less critical, stack the empties up near-site and recharge them, much less diesel spent transporting energy than will be needed to truck hydrogen around, and battery charge / discharge is 90% efficient compared to hydrogen from water at around 33% round trip. (Fuel Cell) - not sure about combustion efficiency, but I'm fairly sure it's even lower than the fuel cell.

[@davidf2281]

@@brushlessmotoring I wasn't commenting on the viability of the system; it was merely an observation on the rate of transfer of useable energy vs battery charging. I tend to agree with JCB though that batteries are impractical in this use case, at least for the moment.

[@brushlessmotoring]

@@davidf2281 I agree too, I just don't see how hydrogen is more practical, and I really take issue with the unchallenged claim it's zero carbon - it isn't.

[@lucidmoses]

I feel we've long past hydrogen being useful in cars but this seems a reasonable idea. Especially if they can generate the hydrogen on site.

[@avatr7109]

Yeee

[@MrAdopado]

Unfortunately JCB have signed a contract to bring their hydrogen from Australia! Yep ... beggars belief.

[@nikumeru]

Hydrogen is perfect for semi trucks and heavy industry machinery like this.

[@glockmanish]

​@@nikumeru You can only assume hydrogen to be "perfect for semi trucks" if you never bothered to make some simple calculations regarding the logistics. H2 for any kind of ground transportation is absolutely useless and will loose the cost comparison against anything by a long shot! Equipping a service area with DC charging facilities for trucks requires only 1/4 of the investment compared to the hydrogen nonsense. On top of that only 1/4 of the electrical energy is consumed for DC-charging vs (green!) H2-refilling. Additionally the argument of distribution of the electricity consumption throughout the day to relieve the grid does not take place either, because the electrolyser draws as much electricity the whole day as the DC charging park does in its peak hours! Against this background, every kilometre driven with hydrogen will ALWAYS cost at least 4 times as much as with battery electric vehicles. The long version: For trucking companies, time = money, so the truck should ideally be on the road all day and only have to charge at the legally mandated break. So let's assume 9 hours @80km/h on average, i.e. 720km. Mercedes quotes a consumption of just over 100kWh/100km for the eActros, but 1. 20 ton truck 2. partially loaded 3. distribution traffic (medium average speed) and 4. in optimal weather. I will assume 200kWh/100km for 40-tonne semi truck, realistic average load, motorway speed and average weather for the year. *This means that a 40T truck must have 1440kWh of battery on board* to be able to replace current diesel trucks in all situations. If we further assume 200Wh/kg of gravimetric energy density at pack level, then the battery *weighs 7 tonnes* according to the current state of the art. However, I am confident that the weight of a battery of this capacity can be halved by 2030. There are many approaches (e.g. solid-state, sodium-ion, battery as a structural support). In order to charge the battery during the legally mandated 11-hour rest period, it must be charged with an average of 130kW. Now imagine a typical service area at night with 20 to 100 parked/resting trucks. This means that a power supply of 2.5 to 13 MW must be available only for the trucks at peak hours at each individual service area. Since there will also be the need to quickly charge a truck with the upcoming 600kW charging stations, e.g. because there are two drivers on a truck, I would easily add 50% to this, i.e. around 4-20MW. And now imagine the hydrogen nonsense: A tanker truck carries around 400kg of hydrogen. Let's take a hydrogen energy density of 33kWh/kg, conversion losses of 70% in the fuel cell in the truck and also the above-mentioned energy requirement per driving shift of 1440 kWh of electrical energy as a basis. For this 1440kWh of electrical energy we need 2060kWh of hydrogen on board, which corresponds to 62kg. And FYI: The tanks for this amount of hydrogen also weigh around 1.5 tonnes, based on a tank weight of 150kg for 6kg of hydrogen in the Mirai and Nexo. *According to this back-of-a-napkin maths there has to be a hydrogen tank truck for every 6 refuelled fuel-cell 40-ton semi trucks!* *Small service areas would therefore need 4 hydrogen tank trucks every evening, larger service areas need 17 of them ... EVERY EVENING!!!* This means that the hydrogen MUST be produced locally, which is why the 50% production losses must be added (electrolysis, pumps for high-pressure storage, ...). This would mean that a service area with 100 parking spaces would consume around 412 MWh per day just for the 100 trucks refilling before resting for the night! In order to produce the hydrogen over the 24 hours, the service area must be equipped with a power supply of AT LEAST 17 MW and operate around the clock just to fuel 100 trucks! All this must be done with maintenance-intensive and error-prone hydrogen cryo-equipment worth probably €10-20 million Euros (1 million € per filling station plus the electrolyser with tanks holding least 500 kg of hydrogen to cope with the evening rush) with many single-point-of-failures! To provide hydrogen to all the trucks during the day you can double all the above ... investment AND power connection AND ongoing power and maintenance cost ... As you see ... there is no benefit for hydrogen in semi trucks, just cost ... and lots of it! Short- and medium-haul semi trucks will move to battery-electric, just because it will make sense financially. Long-haul semi trucks will stay with diesel for quite a long time ... and that is okay ... the CO2 per tonne per km with a properly utilised semi truck isn't that bad and they only make up a very low single-digit percentage of the traffic related CO2 anyway. The amount of GHG emitted building the neccessary infrastructure to convert them to H2 wouldn't amortize for decades compared to running them with diesel ... at that time the right batteries are long available!

[@t1n4444]

@@glockmanish Lovely calculations and all that, and might even be true ? We'll see if you're right in the years to come.

[@GraemeLeRoux]

The key point here is that JCB’s equipment tends to work in an environment where fuel is delivered to the machine so I doesn’t matter what the fuel is, the process is the same. Given that you use Hydrogen made sustainably and that they burn it at a low enough temperature to avoid creating NOX what does it matter how they turn the fuel into mechanical energy? Good on JCB. Good on Full Charged for publicising it.

[@brushlessmotoring]

Except, there is no green hydrogen at scale, there is a small amount for greenwashing purposes, but its very expensive, in reality Hydrogen is a fossil fuel with remote CO2 emissions, it looks cleaner, but the atmospheric result is the same as burning diesel onsite. Never expected Fully Charged to promote fossil fuel burning.

[@iangregory3719]

I think it was the program's from Orkney (or Shetland, I can't remember) where they generated so much from their renewable sources, mostly wind, that the excess was used to split water, and the H2 stored in HP cylinders. Instead of seeing turbines turned off because there's no need for their electricity, it would make sense to use that in the same way. You can even pull the water out of the atmosphere. This is a first step on what could become a very widespread technology,. Large freight trucks, watercraft, with VAWT's to make the "fuel", to old Diesel/Electric trains reengineerd to run on these power plants.....the potential is enormous.

[@brushlessmotoring]

How much diesel (or hydrogen) do you think it takes to get that physical, compressed, chilled hydrogen from Orkney to say a building site in Newcastle? Now, instead, build a high voltage DC interconnect from Orkney to the UK grid, and push that excess power into the grid, and, at the building site in Newcastle, have a smart charging battery station use that excess power to charge swappable batteries for the shift the next day (Volvo are making inroads here). Turning electricity you can push around wires at the speed of light into a physical product you have to carry on a truck and maintain complex storage conditions for .... I don't get it ... it just doesn't make any sense. In reality, hydrogen is not made at scale from renewables and is made from fossil fuels. 75 million tons a year. And it's a pain to handle. It's mostly used un refining and chemical industries, it makes no sense to turn a flywheel when you just use a reliable brushless electric motor.

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

The economics of turning excess electricity into hydrogen are already sketchy today. LiFePO4 battery production will scale up massively in the next 1-3 years, and the cost will drop significantly in that timeframe (production cost is already well below 100usd/kWh on the cell level today). The cost to dot MW scale grid level LiFePO4 batteries around the whole of the UK should be less than 100Billion GBP, spread over 10ys, for a whole day worth of grid level storage (the .uk uses less than 1000GWh on average per day). To put this 100B number in some context... Hinkley Point C costs 23Billion GBP. Germany decided to support hydrogen with 9B EUR over 10ys starting in 2020. Germany also just approved 100billion EUR extra in military expenditure for 2022 alone. Also, the uk has just over 32M cars. If 30M of them have a 50kWh battery in 10 years time, you have 1.5d worth of electricity stored in them. There will be no excess electricity that can be 4x wasted with hydrogen. And if we do have excess electricity still, we will find other, more useful, uses for it.

[@Pottery4Life]

Great episode. How about a follow up with all the solar and wind powered Hydrogen plants in the UK.

[@SharhbiniRauf]

Too slow green proccess, fastest way to producing electric is build hydrogen steam turbine generator, if goverment can build canal and pump water from sea canal they can make infinity cycle of hydrogen steam turbine generator, electrolysis + steam turbine or steam engine is most powerful option.

[@paulaschofield]

Love this, and also love the idea that it's feasible to manufacture hydrogeon locally rather than importing it and refining it from thousands of kms away. Is the next step, hydrgeon ICE UTEs and ICE cars?

[@KamiInValhalla]

This is absolutely amazing. Hopefully, it is just as easy to repair in the field if something goes wrong.

[@andrewreynolds912]

I'm sure it will it's still an internal combustion engine with a few modifications to work on hydrogen, of course

[@davidwicks9835]

Really impressed with this episode. I had no idea you could burn hydrogen and only emit steam. What a great combo of presenters. 👍👍👍

[@alancapes5644]

Interesting and well done, Helen is excellent with technical explanation; however JCB was not forthcoming on technical facts. Efficiency numbers, power and fuel requirements, cost and carbon footprint of fuel, and lifecycle cost of ownership.

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

Hydrogen has no future, it is between 16 and 36% efficient electron to electron, and absolutely no infrastructure exists today. It is only the current fossil fuel industry and some hangers-on that are pushing it. The big plan is to not store those excess renewable electrons in 99.9% efficient batteries, or to make electricity usage more able to scale up and down, or to find new sensible uses for excess electrons. The absolute nightmare is for consumers to produce their own energy at near perfect efficiency, and then to store it for many days. Instead the plan is to waste half the energy to produce hydrogen, basically eradicating sporadic cheap electricity, to then sell us back our own energy at an mark-up, so we can then convert it back to electrons at half efficiency (whether you use fuel cells or combustion, efficiency is pretty comparable)... For more than a century, the central premise of the worlds economy has been energy scarcity. We now are on a path to make energy ubiquitous and cheap, and are about to unlock the social and economic potential of unlimited nearly free energy. But these companies are trying to maintain that energy scarcity model by deliberately wasting three quarters of the energy. Between solar and wind, battery storage (short term energy storage, needing no extra infrastructure), and biomethane (long term energy storage and gap filler, for which all the infrastructure exists already), the energy puzzle is solved, it just needs to be implemented. But that would end the business model of the fossil fuel industry and big central electricity producers, and this is what hydrogen is supposed to "solve".

[@Jonny5a]

Still need to solve the green part of the hydrogen fuel problem but good that these exist and hopefully be ready by time it is

[@robgater275]

It's funny. I work in fire rescue service in Melbourne Australia. In 2006, we were asked to look at BMW 7 series hydrogen cars from a rescue perspective in case there was an accident while they were driving here in a test capacity to try and convince our oil company loving government they should use hydrogen. BMW said they had been working on hydrogen for 30 years at that time and these cars were a well presented product. Of course our government didn't like them and they had to be shredded after use. When people say hydrogen cars either fuel cell or combustion engine I just laugh and recall that event. However with JCB doing this to heavy diggers given the remoteness of power etc. Brilliant 👏 👍 😀

[@Kaziklu]

I remember the BMW attempts that had this High Pitch sound that was not great. So it is nice that they found a way to make it work and keep it green. Niagara Falls is about to build a Green Hydrogen plant using Hydro electric power to produce Hydrogen. The really beautiful part of a combo of Fuel Cell and H2ICE is it is the same fuel. Meaning you can as a company produce your hyrdogen where ever and have Fuel Cell for urban area with noise limits or for small machines. While still having the big H2ICE around for industrial scale and or long term use.

[@markwellington1254]

Bravo JCB! This is what we need the world to start thinking about alternatives to gas and diesel powered vehicles.

[@Fs0n1ine]

Surprising video and if we remember that only 5 years ago BMW was showing off H2-burning 7 Series prototypes that have now completely vanished, I am assuming JCB et el will soon enough switch to BEV. Volvo are doing it and it seems for their diggers etc charging can be supplied at remote locations in the form of large battery packs on lorries/trucks. But I remain open to this working out.

[@andymccabe6712]

'i am assuming that JCB....will soon enough switch to BEV' You appear to have made this assumption based on NOTHING AT ALL! Except, perhaps, your own dogma!? There appears to be no current KNOWN battery technology/support infrastructure/charging system/operating practices etc etc etc which will allow these machines to become EVs!!! So, tell me - HOW......... ???

[@brushlessmotoring]

@@andymccabe6712 Battery swaps after 6 hours for a second battery that was charging for 5. Needs about 200kWh packs, can go inside the counterweight. The problem with hydrogen is it still emits CO2 when made, this doesn't solve anything that matters to Fully Charged, the only green part of that digger was the paint. We make 75 million tons of hydrogen every year from fossil fuels, with CO2 emissions, for processes that actually use hydrogen like making ammonia and refining oil, the idea we would waste green hydrogen on something than can be done with a battery and electric motor is daft, use the green hydrogen (what little there is of it) for processes that actually need hydrogen. Running a hydraulic pump with an electric motor makes far more sense than a hydrogen combustion engine and all the complexity involved there. You would spend more diesel trucking the hydrogen in than you would have spent digging using diesel.

[@markmilligan6616]

This just reniforces the idea that there isn't only one way to clean up transport/construction although some would have you believe because it doesn't suit their particular viewpoint.

[@robertroberts5218]

This is fabulous. Rather than reinventing the entire wheel they managed to merely have to fix a flat tire. That's the difference between making a whole new system and just retooling a few parts on existing equipment and infrastructure. Since the engines have the same formfactor, they can swap out to existing equipment as retrofits is amazingly great. Some muckety-muck in some big organization or government ought to give JCB a big award, a huge pat-on-the-back and lots of free advertising for this accomplishment. If the hydrogen production could be modular and transportable, it could show up on site of any new big construction job.

[@markpryce-davies823]

Wow blown away by this, attempts for hydrogen combustion engines haven't been all that good till now e.g. Toyota and BMW. Good to see JCB seem to have cracked the code to getting the combustion just right. This would be ideal solution for long distance trucking, shipping, diesel rail too.

[@gormauslander]

I'm very glad she asked about NOx, because I was about to. Very cool that they thought about this and handled it very efficiently.

[@MrAdopado]

But no hard numbers unfortunately.

[@gormauslander]

@@MrAdopado Yeah. "Eliminated as a problem" basically just means that they passed a safety threshold.

[@everestyeti]

I think it's going to be an absolute game changer, let's remember these engines are doing far more work than a car engine with what seams to be little or no impact on the environment. I can see the haulage industry looking further into this as well, from there side you wouldn't need expensive batteries and you would need to increase the weight of the vehicle doing the pulling, which would impact on costs off repairing roads and infrastructure and the costs to the load space. More weight in what you are using to pull or tow the weight, would mean less weight on what you could pull, meaning that the load space would be more expensive.

[@rahultpa]

Great video. We need more approach & different options also other than EV. Greatly produced also for general audience.

[@jonathondeeds3423]

Fully Charged I am so glad you are on board with hydrogen combustion this technology really needs to be recognised as a green transport solution.

[@jonathanmeazza427]

This the right way to go with heavy machinery. BMW tried this with their cars but the car would look ugly and would be huge. The crash test would be a nightmare scenario as well. This is a good thing Fully Chaged have reported on here.

[@skyflight99]

For all the negative comments: please consider that we have to get from here to there. Absolutely, high efficiency is best, but if we cancel all our current industry we will weaken ourselves to the point that we cannot make the change. Instead of saying, "this isn't good enough" become an engineer or lacking that talent an investor and create ways to make it better.

[@t1n4444]

😂 Unfortunately your audience treats EV technology as a big boy's toy. Having an electric vehicle which can accelerate from rest to 60mph in an alleged 2.1 seconds is of more interest that having "sustainable" personal transport. Far better to have someone like "Captain Slow" as the presenter so as to introduce some gravitas into the proceedings.

[@brushlessmotoring]

Sure. Swappable batteries in place of the counterweight. The problem with the way hydrogen is made is that it still emits CO2 - and will continue to do so - 75 million tonnes of it a year, so it's not that this JCB hydrogen combustion engine "isn't good enough" it's that it completely fails to achieve it's stated purpose, and it's all green washing the emissions down the river, putting a big 'zero carbon' or 'zero emissions' sticker on those vehicles is a big fat lie, and Bobby fell for it.

[@t1n4444]

@@brushlessmotoring Hmm, your post comes across as a tad disingenuous. You type as if there will be no further research and development on the topic of hydrogen production methods or its use in generating energy. Suggest readers Google up the topic and read for themselves the current (groan) situation of ongoing development of hydrogen production. As for the CO2 generated in the process you again type as if nothing is being done to collect this gas. Why not point to the methods of storing CO2 as well as? It's not as if your scientists are doing nothing about it, is it. Excellent channel this may be for droning on about EVs as a "thing", it might be more informative when discussing how to power the motors. It might have been more informative on the science of wireless charging, perhaps with explanatory diagrams, and the overall efficiency of the process. It should be noted that although LiFePo4 is "today's" battery technology of choice there are other battery technologies in development as we type. Suggest the producers attempt to cover the entire topic of EVs in a more informative way, and invest in less "excitable" presenters. They might, for example, have explained the economics of having to build, store and distribute many extra batteries for the "exchange" function, or sourcing of the raw materials to build said extra batteries and costs of recycling the units when required. It occurs to me that the bottom line is that "we" the customer will be funding the lot.

[@Adrian-uc4ox]

Programs like Fully Charged Show should be Airing on the BBC

[@ChangesOneTim]

The more I'm reading about Green H2 internal combustion technology and its potential, the more I'm convinced that this is the best alternative to fossil in practically all uses beyond the private car. You simply cannot replicate equivalent diesel fuel-carrying capacity with batteries in HGVs, buses, trains, boats, earthmovers and tractors. Even for car-engined commercial vehicles such as taxis and delivery vans, EV power still has too many limitations compared with diesel despite some two decades of battery R&D and one false dawn after another. For urban quietness if nothing else, battery/H2 ICE hybrid can be the answer. For JCB to have cracked the huge NOx nut is a brilliant breakthrough. UK government now must be brought on-side so that investment in Green H2 infrastructure can really take off. After some 150 years, internal combustion tech is well understood and it seem can keep getting better. Better the devil we know! What's not to like?😀

[@reganovich]

As long as the source of Hydrogen is not grey H2 this makes sense - and frankly, given that Gas prices are so high now then Green hydrogen will become competitive. If we can also see the emergence of quality local hydrogen electorlyzers and storage for Farmers then this is a viable and practical emerging solution..As far as batteries go; legitimate argument there to use them but in this use case (i.e Farm/Construction Machinery) battery tech isn't quite there yet in terms of capacity per weight. So, this does look like a legitimate and valid use case for hydrogen and the build out of local infrastructure for individual farmers/county councils to power their heavy machinery "under their own steam" Hydrogen is not the answer for Cars, but it can be a solution over the next 15 years to decarbonise heavy machinery - frankly I'm glad to see this emerging. Next time you see a Diesel tractor pulling a load, think about the amount of expense and carbon occurring. That could be avoided with green hydrogen. The farmer saves money. The environment is better for it. So we absolutely need practical solutions and this fits that brief. This is a good thing to emerge..Good on JCB..I hope they have success with this

[@outbackev-hunter6035]

Ok great but some points to consider... 1. the only reason H2 has more energy density is the compression liquidifcation process on the tanking side using energy...need to be included as x more energy on production side 2. it will still have Nox there is only 21% oxygen compared to 78% Nitrogen, the odds are not in their favor...we don't need another diesel gate....get measurements on real life use... 3. certainly cleaner than Diesel ⛽️ but compare the entire systems of electric especially localised solar to charge battery swaps please... cheers

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

4. Tons of moving hot bits which need maintenance. The one advantage a fuell cell has over direct combustion is less maintenance, not-near zero maintenance like with pure batteries, but less.

[@scrubronnie3006]

Hydrogen does not liquefy at any pressure at normal temperatures. Even liquid hydrogen (which you need cryogenics for) has low energy density compared to liquid hydrocarbons, roughly a quarter that diesel. When you include the necessary pressure tanks you can halve that again. People frequently say hydrogen has high energy density as specific energy (energy per unit weight) and energy density proper ( energy per unit volume) are often conflated in common speech. Hydrogen has high specific energy, not energy density.

[@koiyujo1543]

Internal combustion engines have efficiency problems with hydrogen, but if this company figured out how to do that and because this makes it a lot more cheaper than fuel cells than that's a big win win!

[@Helix_Bonopart]

Thank you JCB and Fully Charged. We act like reducing fossil fuel usage is just some luxurious thing we are doing to improve the environment for our children. Nope! We are past peak oil and running out of fossil fuel quickly. The price of fossil fuel from this point forward will grow exponentially and cause starvation. We need to hurry up the switch over while we still have enough oil to power the switch over.

[@brushlessmotoring]

Unfortunately this is not the solution you hope it is, 75 million tons of hydrogen is made from fossil fuels every year with millions of tons of CO2 emissions as a result, these machines, in a commercial setting, will be using CO2 emitted hydrogen, no business will be buying green hydrogen (made from renewable electricity though an electrolyzer) for idealogical reasons (even if some consumers might pay 2x more at the pump to feel good).

[@drewcipher896]

Rather walk by a hydrogen powered construction site than a diesel one for sure!

[@OverlordActual]

I'm happy Robert has been giving the Hydrogen perspective a voice with this and the Fully Charged Show podcast. Just nice to see him be willing to go out and look at the use cases for Hydrogen and if they work.

[@brushlessmotoring]

As long as he doesn't ask too many questions about where the hydrogen came from.

[@MrJoegotbored]

This is super cool. It's exciting to see financial interest pushing conservation. I've never understood why industry didn't jump at the opportunity to save $ by investing in clean energy when energy is such a huge chunk of operating expenses. This tech partially converts the operating expense to a capital expense. That's huge news. Earth shaking news. Good for JCB. I hope it's not a gimmick!

[@brushlessmotoring]

It's a gimmick.

[@petecoop84]

I’m sure there’s a little NOx, but this is an excellent technology to use now. Maybe in 10 years fuel cells or batteries will improve and we won’t burn stuff, but this is so much better than burning diesel.

[@blomit]

I'm happy to see Robert accept that hydrogen combustion is not just viable but necessary for a fast transition that can carry industry's for the next 20 years

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

Why? Hydrogen is a non-starter. We would need to build 2-4x the renewables to enable "A hydrogen economy". No infrastructure exists for hydrogen; everything, from electrolyzers, to a transportation network, to storage, to power plants, all would have to built from scratch. And if hydrogen does get heavily funded by gouvernments (aka, by us), we will end up selling our own domestic solar production for cents, and buying the same kWh back from the current fossil fuel industry, for whole euros. We will also never be able to fill up our own home or car batteries cheaply on a windy day, as the cheap electrons will all be wasted for hydrogen production. Hydrogen is only talked about by those stuck in industries that will suffer the most from the energy transition.

[@philiphawe4773]

Amazing. Very impressed by the relatively small changes required. I would expect that combustion of hydrogen is less efficient that a PEM cell, but look around today and you see that the most efficient solution to energy is at the confluence of cost and efficiency. By utilising existing designs and changing a fraction of the engine, the delivered cost will be low, easily offsetting 'losses' in efficiency. Consider also the ruthenium etc. metal savings as well! Plus you can deliver you product to customers quickly. I think these will become more popular that the additional cost of battery, cell and management systems, which formerly made hydrogen power more expensive. Now if they can scale up for long distance trucking, I can see the more complex designs falling by the wayside. The complex designs for trucks only make sense when hydrogen is $6-10 per kg (now); but when it falls to $2 per kg, combustion heavy trucking fleet solutions will make economic sense and will become more popular. But what about ammonia power and combustion...?

[@TheChortletastic]

You have to be practical, things that run for long periods, including trains I guess, need this time of technology. Well done JCB!

[@proxy7863]

Trains are better off electric

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

Trains are mostly electrified. Trains that run on lines that are not fully electrified yet should come with big enough batteries that they can charge up while in stations or while they are on a track with electricity.

[@SW-lw6mt]

This sounds like a great achievement, hope to see this commercially available sooner than later!

[@roland9367]

Hi Fully Charged, please also look into the Dutch company called DENS, they make hydrogen containers for buildingsites to charge all the electric equipment (including big ones) because there typically is no infrastructure for charging. It would need a refill every couple of weeks. They don't store hydrogen as gas but as formic acid.

[@t1n4444]

An interesting point indeed. It's amusing to read the punditry ... there appears to be no acknowledgement that R&D continues apace. JCD is but one developer, who's to say another outfit's research might not go further?

[@androo4519]

Maybe a hydrogen generator to charge battery electric plant machinery would be a better solution all round.

[@logicalChimp]

@@androo4519 Based on how much energy they pump into that digger, and how long it runs, a battery power'd digger would need to be permanently connected to a 50kW connection... and/or have a 1 megaWatt battery, and somehow managed to charge it in the ~2hr of downtime each machine gets (given the vid says they typically operate 20-22hr / day on big sites)

[@mentality-monster]

So they store hydrogen by attaching it to carbon. Where does that carbon come from? What happens to it after the hydrogen is severed from it. Whole point of all this tech is to decarbonise!

[@logicalChimp]

@@mentality-monster Carbon attached to oxygen is a problem (because it becomes light enough to rach upper atmosphere. Pure carbon, however, is not an issue, as it's heavier than air and thus stays at ground level. Or so I understand it.

[@emilenoronha9802]

It is fantastic that they have made these. It will be fantastic to see things like this make it into things like planes and boats.

[@fastfreddy19641]

It's a good start as long as they continue with developing the fuel cells.

[@brushlessmotoring]

I'd like to see them solve the CO2 emissions from the hydrogen production. 75 million tons of hydrogen are produced every year, and 99% of it emits CO2, I can't think why you would want to make the fuel cost to building sites 10x more expensive than diesel (Green Hydrogen requires a lot of electricity to make) when you could rent them 200kWh cheaply charged swappable batteries and use onsite or near-site power to recharge them and not have to truck hydrogen from refineries on the coast where the hydrogen is actually made. Volvo has the right idea, JCB appears to be having it's Toyota moment. I have no idea why Fully Charged is covering them, clearly the green paint on the wheels has him fooled, I don't know what Helen's excuse is, because she is definitely smarter than this.

[@koiyujo1543]

I can't believe they manage to pull off the ability to make that engine a little more efficient than actual diesel!

[@manju-speaks-kannada]

I always used think , Why can’t we use hydrogen gas directly in combustion engine , like we use CNG vehicles in India . Glad to see this is already exist and innovative idea actually working . As long as hydrogen is green and cheap , it’s most optimal way to go green as it’s doesn’t require much change in Engine technology .

[@mgutkowski]

Sure, if you like throwing away 80% of the energy used to make the hydrogen in the first place. It's pretty much the most inefficient thing you can do with it.

[@abrasive_ideas]

No one is interested in developing more efficient hydrogen production if no one buys hydrogen, so you gotta start somewhere. classic "chicken vs egg".

[@mgutkowski]

@@abrasive_ideas no, this is fundamental chemistry and thermodynamics. Electricity will always be many times cheaper than green hydrogen, especially if you're using internal combustion to convert it.

[@stevetaylor2818]

@@mgutkowski Yes you are right, and I agree, but I also worked on farms and current battery technology won't work for a combine-harvester, that runs over 20 hours a day burning hundreds of gallons of diesel. Would require something like 10 Tesla car batteries, needing fast charging several times a day in the middle of a field. And not practical to battery swap a 20-ton battery. Basically were practical to use efficient batteries, should be using batteries, but were not currently practical, then what other option is there???????????? Hydrogen for now, until a more efficient way, is invented!

[@brushlessmotoring]

@@stevetaylor2818 a 25T excavator uses 15 litres per hour, which would move a car 180 km which would be about 30kWh, x20 hours is 600kWh or 3 battery swaps of 200kWh packs, assuming they replaced the counterweight with a swappable battery. A 200A single phase 240v service to the site could recharge one pack while the other was being used, non stop. That would be faster than hydrogen filling at 1kg per minute, and far more practical. Sites get power, often before heavy excavators come in, just for the site office, let alone the eventual building. JCB needs to work on battery tech and stop wasting time on fossil fuels - Hydrogen is made from methane, it's too expensive to use renewables.

[@mgutkowski]

@@stevetaylor2818 hydrogen is only about as energy dense as a battery *by volume* unless you go to cryogenic liquid. So assuming it's a converted spark ignition engine, to carry the same runtime as a tank of diesel needs a much bigger pressurised cylinder. Ironically bio-diesel would be ideal. Perhaps when they stop making 5% of pump fuel out of bio, they can sell it to construction.

[@budhicks101]

Love the explanation on running lean to not form NO compounds.

[@bordersw1239]

Interesting episode, having bought two houses on new build developments and living next to diesel machines for three years,I would much rather they were Hydrogen or EV rather than diesel. Would also be a good solution for ambulances.

[@gigabyte2248]

I think ambulances are a great application for hydrogen fuel cells. They're vehicles that need to be always ready, and on a busy day won't have the time even to rapid charge. Moreover, hospitals have diesel backup generators that could be replaced with fuel cells, and they're heavy users of high-purity oxygen, so on-site electrolysis would see better utilisation than somewhere like a fuel station. Maybe a plug-in hydrogen solution, like Stellantis' medium vans, so they can use electricity on slower days to keep the cost down

[@robertgreig9936]

We still love you, Helen and Robert. :-)

[@DrJaxonsElixirOfLife]

As long as these things will really be running on GREEN hydrogen they look like an incredibly good step forward...

[@brushlessmotoring]

They won't be green hydrogen, unless the site operator wants to pay 5x for the fuel they he needed to. Green hydrogen is expensive to make, it requires 3x the electricity it would need to do the same work if you just charged a battery, it will always be cheaper to make black hydrogen from methane with CO2 emissions until carbon taxes survive successive governments (liberals might implement them, but conservatives will repeal them). JCB are following Toyota down a hydrogen hole, encouraged by the fossil fuel industry - I understand why this happens, I just don't understand what Fully Charged is doing covering CO2 emitting green washing.

[@DrJaxonsElixirOfLife]

@@brushlessmotoring This is exactly what I was afraid of, and yes, what are they doing promoting such green washing nonsense..?

[@stewdean]

The case against fuel cells in polluted/dusty areas is one I've heard about before due to buses in China. I hope hydrogen combustion engines are a stopgap to full electric trucks. But major respect for getting rid of the NoX.

[@AllElectricLiving]

There is no green hydrogen available until the grid is already 💯 % green

[@ericciaramella1768]

The same is true of electrification (BEV). Moot point.

[@davec2211]

Another great video from the Fully Charged team, and a promising use of hydrogen from JCB, would like to have had a section hearing the digger working instead of it sitting there in the background, or being drowned out by music, also why can't they make use of the exhaust steam? It makes sense tho

[@cherrytreegoats3409]

good Idea mate, like re-gen on electric motors

[@chrishb7074]

Pass the hot steam through a turbine, extract energy and then straight on to the on-board coffee maker.

[@glockmanish]

You missed a point: the exhaust steam IS ALREADY BEING USED. There is a turbo charger using the exhaust energy to supply the engine with the stupid amount of air needed to reach that lean of a combustion and still produce usable power from the same (or roughly the same) displacement of the diesel engine it is based on.

[@davec2211]

@@glockmanish Air not Steam?

[@dizzyfpv4903]

Hydrogen in the form of ammonia, yes. Easier to transport and store.

[@t.g.2777]

You're right about ammonia but at the moment it is hard to create ammonia in a clean way, once clean alternative to Haber process is found then the floodgates of ammonia can open

[@InquisitiveBaldMan]

@@t.g.2777 Ammonia and Hydrogen are very much in a similar place. The cheaper way the market dictates hydrogen will be made is not the clean one. Lots of development needs to happen for either of them to be realistic. Hydrogen will probably work for JCB in mines but currently i can't fill up my car with it. Little research has been done for combustion of Ammonia but it produces nox too. It produces water and nitrogen, which is fine in the air, but an exhaust leak into the cabin wouldn't be too good (A Michael Portillo documentary "How to K ill a Human Being" named nitrogen as the number 1 way, it happens silently without you being able to tell)

[@InquisitiveBaldMan]

+ Hydrogen physically is a tiny particle very prone to leaking through all sorts of things... the physics is not favourable, batteries all of sudden don't look so bad.

[@t.g.2777]

@@InquisitiveBaldMan batteries not viable for large scale transport or industry as guy said in video the mass becomes too large with batteries required. Cars shouldn't be hydrogen, batteries are best solution but things like trucks, planes, boats etc will likely need hydrogen or ammonia or similiar

[@InquisitiveBaldMan]

@@t.g.2777 I think capacitor tech or some kind of battery capacitor hybrid is probably the future. None of the damage from quick charging of lithium batteries now.

[@inkooh8]

Sounds great. Years ago this is what I initially (mistakenly sort of) imaged hydrogen powered vehicles to actually be. Technically speaking, hydrogen fuel cell is also burning hydrogen since you're putting in hydrogen and getting water, then you've oxidized hydrogen--that's burning even if the car uses electricity from that for its power. Large industrial demand for hydrogen should hopefully help push green hydrogen to overtake blue and gray hydrogen.

[@brushlessmotoring]

Green hydrogen can never be cheaper than blue, gray or black hydrogen, and none of those hydrogens can be cheaper than diesel or gasoline - the laws of thermodynamics dictate this. The amount of renewable electricity required is too high, and the storage, chilling, pressurization costs of hydrogen will always make it expensive and complicated to deal with. If you swap out the combustion engine for an electric motor, add a battery swap system, and life gets so much cheaper for the operational cost of a 25T excavator. JCB will lose out to battery swap systems.

[@avatr7109]

love that what JCB is upto

[@darrenhitchcox6345]

I have been backing JCB to get this right and loved the concept. Electric infrastructure is not complete enough for all to switch, I would gladly swap to Hydrogen if the option was valid

[@brushlessmotoring]

But unfortunately, it isn't, and Job sites are even more inaccessible to hydrogen distribution than electricity is, and if you can make the electricity near-site, you can charge a battery and get 3x more useable work done for the same input power.

[@luc_libv_verhaegen]

You said it yourself "infrastructure" is the problem. I would posit that electric infrastructure is a tad further along compared to hydrogen infrastructure. And while electricity transportation wastes some energy, it is not in the same ballpark of what "green" hydrogen wastes.

[@john681611]

I think you will find a high voltage cable and charging station far closer than you would ever find a hydrogen source (15 stations UK wide). My problem with hyrogen is that its a huge pain to deal (it leaks though normal pipe matirials) with as well as being hugely dangerous (hindenburg anyone) oh and its not as efficent as just dealing with energy.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

The first question should be "What fraction of total yearly GHG comes from diggers? Is it significant?

[@grahamdavid007]

brilliant vid FCS team - thank you - as a massive hydrogen cynic even I'M won over by the use-case and their excellent engineering to solve it - very proud of JCB - well done

[@SimonAmazingClarke]

Well done JCB, thinking about the problem and coming up with great sollutions.

[@guardmanonduty5139]

With the way the states is attacking diesel fuel, if forced to go zero emissions, hydrogen ICE is the only way I would willingly switch my fleet. Good job JCB!

[@Tom55data]

One concern for me in the UK, is that the government has re-branded brown hydrogen to blue hydrogen so they can sell it as "green(wash)" stuff. I agree that this is good idea, and as long as the NOx emissions pass very strict requirements then I would support this (though the UK's washing is very dangerous)

[@EliotHochberg]

Since I’ve criticize in the past I want to give a good Anya for being open to an alternative that is a combustion engine. The goal, the goal I hope we all have, is to continue to reduce exhaust gases as much as we can. Maybe 30 or 40 years from now we won’t need a hydrogen combustion engine, but if we want to convince people in positions of power with money to make changes, we’ve got to consider the things that they do that we benefit from and support alternatives that make things move forward.

[@brushlessmotoring]

It's not just tailpipe emissions though, the goal is to stop putting sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere, and hydrogen is made from fossil fuels (fracked methane) and burnt with steam to make hydrogen and CO2 - the CO2 is then released into the atmosphere. There may be no pollution at point of use (I'm not convinced of the no NOx combustion claim), but the CO2 emissions have already happened (plus the diesel truck to get the hydrogen from the refinery to the job site).

[@EliotHochberg]

@@brushlessmotoring Be careful, because you are hewing perilously close to "EVs are bad because power generation is dirty". If you watched the video, it was suggested that the methods you describe are not the only ones, and that there are many current and upcoming renewable ways to obtain hydrogen. Tellingly, the industries where these and other similar very large and larger vehicles are used has the ability to potentially also add in their own hydrogen production on site, as mentioned in the video. Certainly, there is a distance to go, but if EV or fuel cells won't do the job, and won't in the near future without orders of magnitude improvements, then there needs to be something in between, and without these kinds of solutions, these companies will just keep using diesel, which I assume you would find a worse result.

[@brushlessmotoring]

@@EliotHochberg I don't think batteries are as far off as they are making out for excavators. Hummer EV with a 210kWh pack just launched, rough calculations are a 25T excavator would run for 6 hours on that battery, and you could charge a second one onsite or near-site from a much cleaner mix of electricity on the grid than the current mix of hydrogen production (75 million tons a year), hydrogen is nearly all fossil fuel based with CO2 emissions. With the way hydrogen is made, using diesel actually emits less CO2 (as would burning the methane directly that "potentially clean" hydrogen actually is made from) in my view, JCB should be working on a battery swap system, I think it's close, and they could put their considerable skills into taking it over the line, but as they admitted themselves they have invested a lot into engine R&D. Time to cut the losses and look to actually reducing CO2 emissions of construction machinery rather than moving the emissions somewhere else.

[@EliotHochberg]

@@brushlessmotoring I still think you’re ignoring the fact that these vehicles are orders of magnitude larger, and have far more intensive usage requirements. Having to even send a large digger back for even a 5 min battery swamp (that’s how long a Nio swap takes) is still more than the zero time it takes to swap out a driver at the end of shift and you only need to refuel once in 24 hours. I’m sure there are expense issues as well. And we should keep in mind that it’s very likely these aren’t the largest vehicles they have to provide power to. Even larger vehicles are actually hybrids, because the diesel fuel is used for generators instead to maximize efficiency. You also haven’t addressed where the power for the batteries will come from. It’s either coming from the same kinds of power plants that generate hydrogen, or it’s using renewables which could just as easily be used for either hydrogen or battery charging. At that point, it’s a matter of total efficiency and energy density. For this size vehicle, I suspect it comes out to a wash when it comes to hydrolysis vs storing energy from renewable wind, solar, etc. In the meantime, industry after industry, from busing to airlines to shipping has done the numbers and determined that the cost vs. effect isn’t there for battery tech. Maybe there will be a breakthrough that will make batteries 10x more energy dense, but so far it’s looking like that’s 20 years away minimum. Which means that most companies won’t pay for the added expense of battery powered vehicles, as the daily costs are too high. You can argue we should address that, but it doesn’t change that math. As for shifting where the emissions are, I thought that was the whole point of encouraging battery EVs, because even though some power plants are still coal or whatever, it’s easier to deal with a centralized emission source than to have emissions all over the place? I’m which case, as long as the result is clean where it’s used, who cares? I just find it very myopic to insist that batteries must be the only solution. If a company is willing to spend its’ own research money to develop alternatives, why denigrate them? That’s why I give kudos to FC for doing this story. 100 years from now, I’m sure the young people will decry batteries because of some other issue. Moving from horses to gas was seen as an environmental improvement (read up on manure in cities) but they didn’t anticipate how vehicle usage would change, and so too will there be unintended consequences. All the more reason to support alternatives so we have options. It’s going to be a process of different attempts, and it seems to me this is a laudable one, especially if some of the hydrogen extraction techniques folks are experimenting with come to fruition. I say, the more options and sincere attempts, the better.

[@EliotHochberg]

Also worth noting: Just watched today's TEN, and it reminds me that right now, batteries are dependent on lithium for their construction, and the industry predicts a shortage starting soon and going for 20 years. While I have no doubt that battery recycling and new battery chemistries will be developed, it's all the more reason to have as many alternatives as possible. It's also a good to consider: right now, transportation is all petroleum all the time, except for vegetable oil and ethanol. As a result, that industrial monopoly creates all sorts of problems, many of them political and economic. To me, spreading out the tech used to both generate energy as well as move vehicles is probably a good idea which will prevent the next hundred years from being just as bad politically due to cobalt and lithium as it was for us due to petroleum for the last hundred.

[@whos-your-mate]

If there was more of a hydrogen infrastructure it would make sense for vans and pick-ups too. Good work JCB 👌👍

[@peted7295]

This is great and I really want it to work, there is however a big but. That purpose built refuelling unit is not viable for travelling to multiple sites that are more than a few miles apart. There needs to be a solution that's roughly the size of an IBC that can go in the back of a pickup or be towed as a bowser, that is capable of filling the equivilent of at least 400 litres of diesel and can be refilled from a bulk tank at a base site. I don't know if it's possible, but if they can pull it off the end of diesel plant machinery won't be far behind.

[@biggityboggityboo8775]

Nice to see that they've managed to create combustion engines that can burn hydrogen cleanly and in a way that's easy to bring to market. To a certain extent this was to be expected and to say that fuel cells don't like dirt and chemicals in the air, well neither do combustion engines either. Obviously both need large amounts of air filtration to work effectively and it makes you wonder why you can't do that effectively for fuel cells in harsher environments. Nevertheless I don't think anyone has ever said that hydrogen itself is a bad idea. We know that when used it doesn't create CO2 but that's never been the issue. Once again this all comes down to where have you got the hydrogen from and if the source is anything other than renewable powered electrolysis then it's a complete red herring. Yes we need the vehicle capabilities and infrastructure to be present to allow for genuinely green hydrogen adoption. But what we really need now is a focus on hydrogen production with zero emissions. Not just at the vehicle tailpipe.

[@bhatkrishnakishor]

Also, is Hydrogen comes from hydrocarbons it will sequester Oxygen into water.

[@brushlessmotoring]

@@bhatkrishnakishor we get the water back, Steam reforming methane consumes water: CH4 + 2(H2O) = CO2 + 4(H2)

[@Preske]

People keep saying "Hydrogen is not the solution." And they're right. It's PART of the solution, not THE solution. There will always be niche markets where batteries aren't going to be enough.Imagine the amount of batteries and chargetime needed to operate a EV equivalent of a Komatsu P&H L-2350, or a BelAZ 75710. Hydrogen hybrids are perfect for this.

[@shipoffools2183]

So good to see developments being made to heavy machinery.

[@deanfielding5881]

Brilliant video. Thank you.

[@jamesengland7461]

Hydrogen can burn very lean because it can tolerate a wider range of fuel/air ratios than any other fuel.

[@nicdensley4104]

I was very skeptical, but JCB know what they are doing, I think this has got real potential

[@EleanorPeterson]

We fans of Robert's brilliant 'Scrapheap Challenge' days miss his internal combustion impressions. What's the world coming to when a mighty JCB only goes "mmm"...🙃

[@FarmerDrew]

It's definitely one of many solutions and I could see it becoming the dominant fuel. Especially as industrial hydrogen generation becomes more ubiquitous, sustainable and efficient with the renewable build-up and evolved, modernized grid. Just please don't explode me while I'm scraping manure. Signed, American Farmers.

[@davefroman4700]

There is nothing sustainable of fracking for natural gas, which is where industry wants to get the hydrogen from. They have ZERO incentive to use water because they already have all that money tied up in gas reserves. And the little thing nobody ever wants to talk about is the cost of it as a fuel. Big heavy equipment NEEDS a lot of weight. And Batteries are 300% more efficient than hydrogen burning engines.

[@abrasive_ideas]

@@davefroman4700 Yes, but they also need MASSIVE amounts of energy. Hydrogen has 8 times per Liter and 120 times per Kg as much energy compared to lithium ion batteries. Recharging is not fast enough when excavators have to work 24/7 on highway building sites, swapping non extinguishatable (if it falls and breaks) Li-on batteries is not realistic, and they are hugely expensive. Toyota has shown that you can shoot a hydrogen tank with a gun and it will NOT explode. Green hydrogen for the win!

[@davefroman4700]

@@abrasive_ideas And it will cost four times as much to operate than a battery operated machine. Combustion engines cannot get above 22% efficiency using hydrogen as a fuel source. Secondly because its a dry fuel its hard on the motors as well. This is a bad idea all around. At least a Fuel Cell can get higher efficiency, but still not on par with a battery electric drive unit.

[@RWBHere]

It has less Hydrogen per molecule than Ammonia (H2 rather than NH3 - apologies; I don't have suffixes in YT comments), but is cleaner and safer, provided that a way to stop it leaking out of the storage containers can be found.

[@shakesnbake]

That's wondeerful. Good old British innovation!

[@yveslegh]

Very very interesting...small step towards lorries, van's and even long range cars and not to forget cruise ships etc....

[@kinross24]

Yeh,,but how efficient is it, INCLUDING making the Hydrogen and delivery of it as well as the digger v battery?

[@xxwookey]

It'll be significantly less efficient, but if it lets you run the thing all day that might make the cost equation work. Like he said a machine with a big enough battery might weigh twice as much and cost 4 times as much, and you'd still have a problem of how to fill it up on site. more efficient solutions that don't actually work are not actually useful options.

[@alanmay7929]

@@xxwookey it’s actually super efficien! Hydrogen can be produced using excess energy and stored instead of wasting it, in island they have way too much electricity and they have been considering making hydrogen and storing for other uses also chemical industry.

[@alanmay7929]

@@xxwookey there are new hydrogen storage solutions beeing developed that will make it to not use those super high pressure tanks.

[@Leopold5100]

excellent, clever engineering at its best

[@semosesam]

Compelling arguments. Now we need to see actually green hydrogen production.

[@motocrusader]

WoW interesting one keep up a good work JCB

[@michaelfriedrich5571]

Thankyou enjoyed this very much.

[@EVinstructor]

Hopefully JCB have a battery vehicle development program going as well. As battery density increases hydrogen combustion is going to be expensive in comparison to the simplicity of batteries and electric motors. If a vehicle can’t charge on site the swappable batteries like a big electric drill should fix it. Alternatively a container full of charged batteries to rapid charge the machines that’s swapped out when it gets low and taken away to be charged.

[@benbrampton8196]

What an interesting episode. Fantastic content, well done FC team and well don JCB!!!

[@JamesSeedorf]

New Holland's methane and biomethane seems like a better approach. Natural Gas infrastructure is already all over the place and production directly from organic material is far easier than it is for hydrogen.

[@markiliff]

Nicely done, team. (Wicked jacket, Helen.)

[@johnbray3143]

Batteries are a much more efficient use of electricity than creating and burning hydrogen. There may be situations where batteries can't currently be used for plant, but hopefully they will become fewer, as their is little sign that we'll get a general hydrogen distribution system, so JCB could struggle sourcing it

[@zenzen9131]

Excellent video. I was aware of JCBs work in this area for some time now :)

[@lalhmachhuana2917]

We need to more production.👏👏👏👏👏👍👍👍👍

[@rickybryan1759]

Bobby saying ‘look at the pouring on that’ is every Dad ever who has paused to cast his eye over building site.

[@charliecollin3361]

Wouldn’t battery swap stations make sense for these sorts of applications? Biggest obstacle i could see would be ingress and contaminants working their way into quick-disconnect battery coolant lines. Thoughts?

[@richardfranks2831]

Battery swaps happen daily in warehouse machines today. I don’t buy that this isn’t viable for BEV construction gear.

[@MrAdopado]

@@richardfranks2831 The total kWh usage for a swap station would be staggering ... it would be charging batteries 24/7 and would need excellent grid infrastructure. In that sense no comparison to a warehouse with a few electric fork lifts. You would also be effectively multiplying the battery costs if a machine needs a couple of packs a day.

[@glockmanish]

@@MrAdopado But you know that the power usage for an on-site electrolyzer to produce the hydrogen would be around 4 TIMES as much?! From Volvos own site I can see that a typical excavator usually used in urban areas consumes between 15 and 20 Liters Diesel per hour. This translates to 150 to 200 kWh. From all the comparisons of ICE vs electric I have senn I adopted the efficiency factor of 5 ... which means that ICE engines consume aroung 5 times the kWh in fuel compared to an electric engine to do the same work. This means that it needs around 30 to 40 kW on average. For trucks there are already 400kWh battery packs in production. So the excavator could run for 10 to 13 hours straight on a single charge. So I wouldn't think that this is any problem. Providing the excavator with 200 liters of diesel every day isn't any more of a logistical nightmare than having a charged battery available every day.

[@glockmanish]

The battery module would be so huge that you could simply include the cooling loop for it in the module. That way only the electrical connection would be needed.

[@brushlessmotoring]

@@glockmanish I make 1L of diesel turned into work (so, reduced by the combustion engines 20% efficiency) as equivalent to 2kWh of electricity from a battery turned into work by a 90% efficient electric motor. So, 15L per hour of diesel is 30kW (per hour) resulting in a swappable 200kWh pack lasting a 6+ hour shift and then being swapped for an onsite or near-site re-charged replacement faster than the H2 refilling would take at 1kg/min. I think our sums are in the same ballpark, but I don't know if you are taking the engines (in)efficiency into account and only looking at the potential chemical energy of the diesel. (Same calc's for Hydrogen combustion, also terrible, fuel cells are better, but not great). Battery swap seems the only way to go to not result in CO2 emissions that cost more than the Diesel you are trying to replace. The whole endeavour seems like a foolish pursuit.