Sounds crazy at first but comes with some good advantages: it can cross rivers as it doesn’t need air for combustion, it’s silent, and you can load it anywhere at the battle field if you have solar panels, time and sun. Still you can rely on military logistics to carry a swap battery. But isn’t the military supply chain the first target to disrupt? My two cents, this is the next thing at battle fields.
Oh, and if all your equipment runs on electricity, you can load and reload power at your needs. Tank needs power but car not? Combat robot out if power and car is full? Transfer the power
Still you can rely on military logistics to carry a swap battery. But isn’t the military supply chain the first target to disrupt?
That’s true as well for hydrogen, though. And I guess there’s a higher chance of getting access to “power” somewhere in the field than finding a hydrogen tank. Also, energy density of lithium batteries is higher than for hydrogen storage.
energy density of lithium batteries is higher than for hydrogen storage.
opposite is true by a large margin. You’d still want a hybrid power train, and a charging from solar or BEV option never hurts, but H2’s advantage is quick refueling with battery charging on the go.
That applies if you’re looking at density per weight - but for most stuff driving around the interesting metric is density per volume, and hydrogen sucks there, even if we’re looking at liquid nitrogen, which is completely impractical for storage here.
To make matters worse, you’re limited to specific shapes for your pressurized tank if you want to optimize pressure it can take (and with that storage volume), while batteries you can stick in individual chunks pretty much wherever you find a bit of space.
While LH2 is about 1/3 the density of gasoline as heat energy, and 3/4 the density for electric energy, it is about 2kwh-electric per liter. Lithium batteries are under 1/4 of that.
Range of tanks is not super important other than blitzkrieg strategy where refueling infrastructure catches up. Even under blietzkrieg, tanks eventually get into a siege position and solar can be enough to sustain their position indefinitely. H2 is the best quick refueling method for electric heavy vehicles. A dispenser can be hidden 1 mile or so behind the front lines. Production facilities can be portable and moved forward
Who if not the Germans built an electric tank in 2020 https://efahrer.chip.de/news/geraeuschlose-einsaetze-weltweit-erster-elektro-panzer-kommt-aus-deutschland_103179
Sounds crazy at first but comes with some good advantages: it can cross rivers as it doesn’t need air for combustion, it’s silent, and you can load it anywhere at the battle field if you have solar panels, time and sun. Still you can rely on military logistics to carry a swap battery. But isn’t the military supply chain the first target to disrupt? My two cents, this is the next thing at battle fields.
Oh, and if all your equipment runs on electricity, you can load and reload power at your needs. Tank needs power but car not? Combat robot out if power and car is full? Transfer the power
Any reasonably sized pv installation near a battlefield will definitely not look suspicious on reconnaissance images.
You think less suspicious than these huge petrol storages in a city?
PV can be dismantled, if needed. I bet it’s even cheaper to replace when destroyed compared to petrol storage. Anyway, future will tell
Tanks are going the way of the battle ship though. Drones are doing a lot of the stuff they can do, and a lot of things they can’t.
I can imagine a unmanned autonomous tank though.
Drones also seem to be good anti-tank and anti-ship weapons.
That’s true as well for hydrogen, though. And I guess there’s a higher chance of getting access to “power” somewhere in the field than finding a hydrogen tank. Also, energy density of lithium batteries is higher than for hydrogen storage.
opposite is true by a large margin. You’d still want a hybrid power train, and a charging from solar or BEV option never hurts, but H2’s advantage is quick refueling with battery charging on the go.
That applies if you’re looking at density per weight - but for most stuff driving around the interesting metric is density per volume, and hydrogen sucks there, even if we’re looking at liquid nitrogen, which is completely impractical for storage here.
To make matters worse, you’re limited to specific shapes for your pressurized tank if you want to optimize pressure it can take (and with that storage volume), while batteries you can stick in individual chunks pretty much wherever you find a bit of space.
While LH2 is about 1/3 the density of gasoline as heat energy, and 3/4 the density for electric energy, it is about 2kwh-electric per liter. Lithium batteries are under 1/4 of that.
Range of tanks is not super important other than blitzkrieg strategy where refueling infrastructure catches up. Even under blietzkrieg, tanks eventually get into a siege position and solar can be enough to sustain their position indefinitely. H2 is the best quick refueling method for electric heavy vehicles. A dispenser can be hidden 1 mile or so behind the front lines. Production facilities can be portable and moved forward
And if your tank is electric, it can be modified later with a small nuclear or fusion reactor.