Isn't Hydrogen a red herring?

[pinkpops]

There is practically no free hydrogen - it is all bound in water and hydrocarbons. Separation requires electricity, most likely from nuclear - nice opportunity to sneak a few of those in, huh? Solar, wind, possibly but not likely.

[bowens43]

1. No, it's not a red herring.

It's very workable.

[pinkpops]

2. no fair

slpain youself

[papau]

3. What process to get Hydrogen is "green" w/no oil use?

and scales up to actually be useful?

I suspect hybreds are the way to go - at least for the next 20 years.

[XNASA]

4. Is that the problem?

Fuel cells are kinda bulky, and expensive. Hydrogen is also difficult to transport. Ya?

[pinkpops]

6. yeah

There was a feature on this on PBS Nightly News I believe. The main thrust was cost, size, storage, with slight mention of the fuel itself. But why even start if there is no free Hydrogen?

[kalian]

13. SOLAR

...duh!

[pinkpops]

72. or

wind etc

[The Bish]

5. personally

I don't mind them building more nuclear plants to provide energy to make hydrogen. I'd like to see them replace all of the existing coal plants with nuclear.

[pinkpops]

7. nuclear ?

as in clean energy too cheap to meter?

[The Bish]

11. A moronic quote

made by an idiotic political appointee does not disqualify nuclear power. Even if he was the chairman of the AEC.

[pinkpops]

63. an oft repeated

moronic quote

[alfredo]

8. Clinton had a deal with Detroit to work on

fuel cells and hybrids. It was several years along when Bush scraped it in favor of something that extracted hydrogen from gasoline.

[drb]

9. It fits my definition of a red herring...

...in that you are absolutely correct - where will the hydrogen come from?

There are no hydrogen mines - if there's hydrogen in the air, it'll be floating around way up high, and you'll need quite the ladder to get it. It can be produced from water -- but the process requires the use of electricity!

I look at hydrogen as being a convenient battery to store electrical energy.

No more. No less.

Next time someone starts pimping hydrogen, ask where the hydrogen will come from. When you get down to the point where they don't know, you will have made your point.

[treepig]

19. thank your lucky stars there are no hydrogen mines

if there were, consider the consequences if atmospheric oxygen was used to oxidize all the mined hydrogen:

1) oxygen content of the atmosphere would plummet, dooming oxygen-breathing organisms such as my self to extinction

2) in the short term, all that water exhaled by tailpipes of cars would freeze into black ice in colder climates in the winter, greatly increasing highway fatalities (but, in a positive vein, the number of people left to go extinct in point 1 would be reduced)

3) in the long term, all the newly made water would make the oceans overflow, and make noah's flood look like child's play

[Another Bill C.]

10. Hydrogen

I think there's a lot more to learn about hydrogen as a fuel by searching the Web than by hanging around this forum.

Optimistically, we have about 100 years worth of petroleum left. However, as soon as supplies start sliding, the prices will rise rapidly and consequently will be available to a lessening number of people.

Nuclear energy would be fine if it weren't for the radioactive waste it produces and the risk (however slight) of meltdown. In spite of 50+ years of research, we still don't have a solution to these hazards.

The point is that we have to find something to replace petroleum within the first half of this century. At this point hydrogen is the most promising alternative we have.

[The Bish]

12. Two solutions.

One for radioactive wastes: Reprocessing of the spent fuel rods will dramatically lessen the amount of waste that exists as well as creating more fuel for reactors. The rest of the waste can be stored in secure containers as it is now. The worst of this waste will will decay away in a little over 100 years leaving mostly isotopes with long half-lives that are less dangerous.

Two for meltdowns: What we have always had. Its called the containment dome. Containment domes are designed to hold in any danger created by a meltdown.

Hydrogen is the most promising alternative to petroleum that we have but to produce it we have to use the most promising alternative to coal that we have which is nuclear.

[drb]

14. Where will we get the hydrogen?

Hmmm?

[Salviati]

15. well hydrogen as an energy source is completely useless

and anyone who proposes hydrogen as an "alternative" to petrolium should be liberally beaten with the ignorant stick until they've got some sense knocked into them. Sorry to be so blunt, but to anyone who knows about this, these facts have been obvious from the get-go. There is no free hydrogen, any hydrogen that will be used is going to be obtained by breaking up water, and this is going to take more energy than we can get out of it in any fuel cell. However, hydrogen may find it's use as a portible energy storage system.

The problem with a lot of green or more renewable energy sources is that they don't produce energy on demand either temporally or spatially, they produce energy when and where conditions are favorable to do so, e.g. when and where it's sunny, windy, when the tides are going in or out. About the only exception I can think of offhand is geothermal, and even then, there are some places that are better than others, e.g. Iceland.

So some method has to be devised to store the energy at times and places of peak production, so it can be used later or elsewhere. As far as pumping energy into a static power grid, there may be more efficient ways to store energy, flywheels, superconducting rings, etc, but as far as portable use goes, hydrogen may find it's place there...

[LSatyl]

16. Hell No, it is *the* answer:

Using hydrogen and fuel cells are only half the equation, the other half is renewable power sources.

I'll use solar power as an example, but you can replace solar power with wind power, tidal power, biomass power, etc.

Solar power has a serious problem when compared to other fuels: the sun has to shine. We have to store energy during the day, for use at night. Batteries are rather limited, hydrogen offers a great promise. We can use hydro-eloctrosys during the day to create hydrogen gas from water. The hydrogen can be stored, or even transported (think gigantic solar factories in the desert). When using the hydrogen to generate electricity (either burn it, or use it in fuel cells), no waste is generated, the end product is water.

It's a circle:

Water - add energy -> Hydrogen - extract energy -> Water

As long as we use renewable sources to create hydrogen, we've got a clean solution.

There are lot's and lot's of troubles along the way: solar panel efficiency, hydro-electrisys efficiency, larger fuel cells etc. But people saying that transport and storage is a problem should look to our current fossil fuel infrastructure. All problems you can foresee for hydrogen, we've allready solved for oil, kerosine and gas.

Hydrogen holds a promise of a clean fuel which can give rise to a decentralized electricity grid with power for all.

[happyslug]

17. Yes, bio-mass is more cost effective

We have been producing a bio-mass based fuel for centuries, i.e. Alcohol. Grain Alcohol can be produced with low energy cost input (i.e. yeast and leave it ferment). This gets you to 15% alcohol content (At 15% alcohol, the Alcohol kills the yeast and ends alcohol production).

15% alcohol content is NOT pure enough to use as a fuel, but through distillation the alcohol percentage can be increased to almost 100%. Whiskey and other hard liquor makers have been doing this since about 1500.

The costs will be much higher than at present. Most crops today are harvested by oil based tractors which will have to either be replaced by horses or alcohol based tractors (I lean to the former, given the costs to produce alcohol, which in my opinion, will be higher than having horses eat the grain and provide the power to plant and harvest the crop).

You will thus have an increase in the base for the Alcohol (i.e. grain production costs will increase) AND increase in the energy input to distill the alcohol. I see prices going for about $10-20 a gallon with an outside cost about $50 a gallon.

Hydrogen has its own costs problems, namely breaking the HOH group into 2 H and 1 O atom takes a good bit of energy. Much higher than the cost of removing the water by distillation to produce 100% alcohol. Hydrogen today is cheap for its uses methane as a base, once you have to convert to a water basis energy costs goes up and with it the costs to convert. I just see Alcohol as a cheaper option for unlike Hydrogen you have ways to produce Alcohol that does not require the use of Alcohol or electricity. Hydrogen requires the use of Electricity and with the coming expected shortage of Natural Gas And Oil Electric power will be restricted (I also see growing use of Electricity in the railroad and highway system, more than enough increase tp prevent any power to be diverted to the production of Hydrogen.

What I mean by increase use of Electricity by the Railroad and Highway system, I see the railroads going to overhead pantographs system to provide power. Such pantographs will sooner or later be added to the Interstate highway system for use by long haul trucks (as an alternative to fuel based trucks). Both will use up any potential excess electric power that might exist over the next 50 years. Thus no electric power will be available to convert Water to hydrogen and thus Bio-mass is a more likely alternative.

[mastein]

18. Alcohol as energy is already big in the midwest

and it could be produced for LESS than gasoline is now. Iowa has a great ethanol program, but it really cannot go national until and unless Congress levels the playing field for ethanol vs. oil on subsidies. Obviously, the current cabal doesn't want to let that happen, and has actively worked (along with most of the TX and LA delegations, including Democrats from that area) to see that ethanol funding doesn't happen. Bush I even convinced Sen. Grassely (R-IA) to vote against it, though Grassely a farmer himself has since seen the light.

A second and third economic positives are to raise the price of corn an grain commodities and make farming a viable occupation again and reduce the need for foriegn oil (and thereby coddling of Saudi, and any involvement in IraQ).

As for wind, solar, and geothermal they are nice backups and can add something, but as pointed out earlier in this discussion are not as reliable as we need. None of these three will ever be a prime source of energy like coal and oil are today. Solar battteries are now strong and efficient enough to really work, but a bad weather spurt and winter can cause problems. Geothermal is also solid, but the technology is not well dessiminated nor is the considerable now-how to build it for buildings taught to most architects/mechanical engineers.

[happyslug]

36. Error, Error, Error

First, Error, at present Gasohol is NOT taxed like Gasoline at the federal level (and in the mid-west at the state level). This is The subsidy to the Gasohol (i.e. Alcohol as fuel program) that you pointed. This subsidy is the main reason Alcohol can compete with Gasoline in today’s marketplace, without the subsidy Alcohol can NOT compete. The reason for this is alcohol is MORE expensive to produce than gasoline even at today's high (for Americans) price of gasoline. Once oil is no longer a competitor this price difference will disappear and along with the increase in Gasoline will come an increase in the price of Gasohol (slowly eliminating the price advantage of Gasoline which I believe occurs at about $2.50 dollars per gallon for errors 2 and 3 also come into play when determining when the subsidy is no longer needed).

Second, Error, the present price of Gasohol reflects the fact that the underlaying crop use to make alcohol is planted, harvested and Transported to market by OIL using tractors and/or Trucks. Thus when we convert to Bio-mass fuel, the planting, harvesting and transportation of the crops to be converted to Alcohol must also be Planted, Harvested AND transported by the crops used to make alcohol. Direct conversion from drop to animal would be more efficient than from crop to alcohol to transport so I see animals coming back in Rural areas as the main means of during planting and harvesting (with animals complementing Alcohol using trucks). The point of this error it that today's price of alcohol reflects the use of Oil and once oil is gone (or expensive) alcohol costs will also raise to the $10-20 a gallon I pointed our at the start of this sub-thread.

Third, Natural Gas is the feed stock for most fertilizers and weed killers. With the upcoming shortage of Natural Gas PRODUCTION PER ACRE will drop. Converting to crops that people can NOT eat (But can be converted to Alcohol) will offset this a bit, but I foresee a drop in production per acre as we go to bio-mass as a fuel. This will also force up the price of Alcohol as will the related fact that as we go to from today's tractors to horse drawn equipment more people will have to be employed back on the farm to keep up any sort of food production. Thus you will not only see a drop in production per acre, but also per farmer. Both will drive up the price of the underlaying crop that will be the basis of Bio-mass fuel. Thus I see prices at the $10-20 level but I can see it going to $50 Acre (Prices of Gasoline went to almost $75 a gallon during the siege of Sarajevo during the War in Bosnia)

[mastein]

76. Reply to "Error" msg.

Sorry I have taken so long to write back, have been busy with other stuff. I will try to respond the best I can but I realize in advance that my information is at the least old, if not outdated.

1) The last time I looked the US subsidies gasoline production here and also takes other measures in the market to ensure that gas prices stay well below prices in Europe and the rest of the industrialized world. Those subsidies amount to a dollar or more per gallon savings at the pump. Yes, ethanol is somewhat subsidized especially when you look at it in terms of farm subsidies, but at the moment according to several experts (I can probably dig up some links) it is the only legitimate competitor to oil based gasoline in the marketplace right now. (this assumes that the biomass, conversion and delivery are somewhat local as the pipeline structure for alcohol isn't what oil is, and yes I realize the difference in pipeline requirements etc. that would make piping alcohol more prohibitive).

2) I never said that ethanol other alcohols etc. would could completely supplant oils in the marketplace. That cannot happen for a variety of reasons, we all know that. Just realize that every drop of ethanol used is that much less we have to pull from the saudis, iraqis et al.

3) Granted I do not work for a pesticide manufacturer, but every pesticide I have seen is not methane based. Most are nitrogen or phosphorous based organic chemicals. Methane may have some uses both in chemically making the pesticides (though I am aware of none) and as a fuel for reactors, but until and unless evidence can be produced otherwise, methane is not an issue. Also, your doomsday scenario cannot happen for a variety of reasons, too many to go into.

I look forward to any replies. Good topic.

[pinkpops]

20. Correct me if I am wrong -

Alcohol has carbon - what are the implications for the environment.

[Salviati]

21. well, once you get the cycle going...

it should be just fine for the environment. The problem with oil is you're taking all this carbon that's been locked up underground for millions of years and spewing it into the atmosphere. So as you do this, the net carbon content of the atmosphere goes up. With biomass derived alcohol, the carbon in the alcohol comes from the biomass, which in turn gets it from the atmosphere. So there is no net increase in carbon in the atmosphere.

Of course i'm sure there are some more subtleties than this, but I don't know what they are. The main point is, however, that you don't quite have the same problem burning biomass derived fuels as with petrochemicals...

[pinkpops]

22. makes sense

[Vogon_Glory]

23. I Think That Hydrogen Is A Red Herring, But...

I think that hydrogen is a red herring put out by the Bush administration and its oil industry allies, but not for the reasons you say.

First and foremost, I think that the limited research on hydrogen fuel is a distraction to lead attention AWAY from alternative fuels that could be developed and marketed far, far sooner. I suspect that the big energy companies as well as the Shrub know very well that hydrogen fuel storage would require a new, very expensive infrastructure that would have to replace the petroleum infrastructure (oil tanks, pipelines, auto fuel tanks, refineries, etc.) already in place. That would take at least a couple of decades and cost consumers (industrial as well as private) tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars.

Other alternative fuel sources are already within ten to fifteen years of deployment. Several Asian companies are already doing research on micro fuel cells that run on methanol. Other experiementers have built fuel cells that run on methane, petroleum fuels, or complex hydrocarbons Most of these have been judged uneconomical in the cheap energy enviornment of the US, despite the fact that they might come closer to being sensible in a high energy cost enviornment like Brazil.

I strongly believe that a good deal of energy production could be implemented using bio-mass, either from farm or farm animal waste, sewage, or agricultural production. I think that the incumbent administration and its allies aren't interested in seeing this challenge to the petroleum status quo, and are doing their best to distract us with the hydrogen vision while they quietly ax funding or technical support for more feasible alternatives that could be ready sooner.

[papau]

25. I agree n/t

:-)

[pinkpops]

26. well put

I think red "herring" is a term used to describe a false lead which is put out by people trying tho steer other people away from the proper path. I don't know that all you describe will get us where we need to go, but there is no doubt in my mind that it will take us in the right direction, which is a clean source of energy. While hydrogen may be clean, it is not a source of energy.

[NNadir]

29. Methanol is a serious pollution risk, however dimethyl ether is better.

You've made a pretty fine analysis for the most part. Because of the difficulty of storing and transporting hydrogen, it does not make a very good primary fuel. However, local hydrogen generated from water gas reactions using carbon sources (for which local biomass may well be suitable) can be used to make hydrogen equivalent fuels.

Methanol is one such fuel. However methanol is extremely toxic and is miscible with water. Not only is it miscible with water, but it is very difficult to remove from water. It is also somewhat corrosive.

A much better fuel is the related dimethyl ether, which can be made directly from synthesis gas (water gas). Dimethyl ether is a relatively high boiling gas (4C) that is relatively non-toxic. Although it is miscible with water, it can be removed from water simply by passing air through the water. It is possible to run existing diesel engines on dimethyl ether with minor modifications. Since it is easy to liquify this gas, which has, unlike hydrogen, a critical temperature above room temperature (much like LPG) it is easy to ship and store this material economically.

[pinkpops]

74. yup

[pinkpops]

75. yup

[alexwcovington]

24. Nuclear power is not inherently dangerous

When handled properly and used correctly, nuclear power is clean and safe. But one thing it isn't is renewable. Uranium and Plutonium are notoriusly hard to find and refine (In fact, Plutonium doesn't naturally exist on Earth, it has to be made from Uranium)

So when you attack nuclear power, do it the right way and attack it for not being a renewable resource.

[many a good man]

27. Nuclear power is also prone to human error, greedy corporations

Even if the waste problems can be safely handled, I don't trust the energy companies to put enough resources in safety and training. It only takes one bad plant to ruin your whole day...

[NNadir]

28. It's then difficult to state why no one in the United States has ever died

from operation of a nuclear power plant.

Contrast this with the many hundreds of thousands of persons who have died in the United States because of air pollution from the normal operations of fossil fuel powered plants. In fact every day that a coal fired plant operates IS a bad day, 365.24 days a year.

Obviously whoever it is that is operating nuclear power plants CAN be trusted, since over thousands of reactor-years of operation these plants have saved the lives of tens of thousands of persons.

As long as your bashing "corporate" operations, I note that the only people ever to be killed by commercial nuclear power plant operations anywhere were in a socialist country, that of course being the former Soviet Union, where several hundreds of persons died as a result of the glorious socialist labor practices as practiced at the Chernobyl plant.

Of course, with the dismantling of a governmental regulatory role by the Bushies, nuclear operations and all other industrial operations become more dangerous. However the nuclear danger is trivial when compared with the other status quo, notably oil - now the subject of agressive war - and coal, the source of enormous atmospheric and terrestrial (in the form of heavy metals like Mercury, Lead, and Uranium) pollution.

[pinkpops]

30. I don't think you can say no one has ever died

if you count cancer deaths from radiation. Of course people die from coal exposure as well, and sun exposure.

[NNadir]

31. I have done so. If I'm wrong it should be very easy for you to...

contradict me. You simply need to demonstrate a case in which a person has been proven to have died from radiation as a result of commercialnuclear power plant operation. I will for your benefit, include a case where you can show that someone has died from the storage of the much feared nuclear waste.

No commercialnuclear power plant operation has resulted in a radiation related death. (There have been some deaths from non-nuclear causes, just as there are deaths at coal plants, gas plants, in fact plants of all types).

The most serious nuclear accident in US history, TMI, killed no one. http://www.upmc.edu/newsbureau/gsph/three_mile_island.htm.

According to an article in Science 3. Luis Cifuentes, Victor H. Borja-Aburo, Nelson Gouviea, George Thurstson, and Devra Lee Davis, Science, Vol. 293, pp1257-1259 August 17, 2001, in just four cities Mexico City, Sao Paolo, Santiago, and New York the annual mortality rate is about 40,000 people from the effects of air pollution. So unless you can demonstrate numbers of deaths like this from commercial nuclear power operations, you will be very far from convincing me that nuclear energy is not a far safer energy alternative than the status quo.

The opposition to nuclear power on the basis of either safety or environmental grounds is just hype based on mythology, fear, exaggeration, hype and mass psychology.

[pinkpops]

33. All I can acknowledge is that

nuclear may be safer than the status quo. You seem a little rabid there, Nnadir.

[NNadir]

35. One man's rabid is another man's passion. The atmosphere is collapsing.

I may or may not be rabid, or I just may be passionate.

I have been studying nuclear energy for several decades and have come to the conclusion that it's rapid expansion is important for both disarmament, health and environmental issues. I believe we only have at best a few decades to fend off disasters that rejection of nuclear power will exacerabate.

The misinformation surrounding the nuclear issue DOES however make me a little crazy and frankly frustrated and incredulous. If I am overly strident, I apologize.

[Salviati]

32. That's why if we decide to go nuclear...

I'd like to see it in the form of a nationalized power industry... I don't want the profit motive anywhere near any decisions that need to be made about nucear safety...

[pinkpops]

34. amen

[Frangible]

37. not entirely true

With breeder reactors and recycling fuel we really don't have to worry about running out of fissionable material.

Not that it matters much anyway, there's too much nukephobia in this country to ever adopt nuclear power or use it for hydrogen fuel cells on a large scale. We're locked into using coal and hydrocarbons for a very long time. Heck, it's why they renamed NRI to MRI.

[enki23]

38. if only....

if only we could find an inexhaustible duracell battery mine, our energy problems would be over forever...

(though the "disposal of waste" bit might be tricky.)

[pinkpops]

39. So starting with Hydrogen

We end up talking about nukes, which is what the pres has in mind when he says we should set our sites on hydrogen as a fuel, knowing full well (though he might not personally understand the issues) that hydrogen is not the fuel, only the storage medium.

[The Bish]

40. Is this eligible for a kind of DU version of Godwin's rule?

Godwin's rule of course being:

o If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
wasn't necessary or germane without it necessarily being an
insult, it's probably about time for the thread to end.
o If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
was vaguely related but is basically being used as an insult,
the speaker can be considered to be flaming and not debating.
o If someone brings up Nazis in any conversation that has been
going on too long for one of the parties, it can be used as
a fair excuse to end the thread and declare victory for the
other side.

so on DU would the bringing up of "Shrub supports it" be a sort of site specific application of this rule. I mean whether or not he supports it is irrelevent. I can't stand Bush and think he's wrong on say 95% of everything he supports but maybe on 5% he's right. If I agree with the Democrats on 95% of the issues and the Republicans on 5% that give me two options.I can either just accept the Democrats for what they are and fall into step with the 5% I think they are wrong on. Or I can support the democrats at the elections and fight like hell within the party and among the party activists to make them agree with me where they don't. The only choice I can in good conscience make in this decision is the second one. To bring up shrub within this debate is a dishonest debate tactic where you are basically saying that it does not matter what the facts of the issue are since all that matters is that Bush is for it therefor we should be against it. That is not what the Democratic party should be. We should be the party the stands for something not just the party that stands for the opposite of whatever the Republicans stand for.

Jeff

[pinkpops]

41. shrub or no shrub

it looks like hydrogen is a code word for nuclear. So why not just say nuclear? Spend enough money on battery research and you might ne able to charge them easier, cheaper,safer than freeing up hydrogen and trying to haul it around in your car.

[The Bish]

42. I have no problem saying nuclear

I am expressing willing to admit that to create any kind of substainable hydrogen economy nuclear must be used. I just also happen to think that this is a good idea.

Jeff

[gethmord]

43. My only concern with hydrogen.

Safety. Remember the Oklahoma bomboing. A whole truck full to produce that blast. With hydrogen you could get the job done with a 55 gallon drum. Probably a bit more distruction with the hydrogen. Some where around one ounce of hydrogen has the same amount of energy as one gallon of gasoline. But Hydrogen explodes where gasoline burns real slow.

[NNadir]

44. Your calculation of energy density is way off.

If one ounce of hydrogen had the same energy content as one gallon of gasoline, our problems would be solved. Unfortunately this calculation is way off. The energy density of hydrogen is way lower than gasoline.

The overwhelming safety problem with hydrogen is that it burns much faster than gasoline, since gasoline is a liquid at ordinary temperatures and hydrogen is a gas even at extremely low temperatures and high pressure. These same features make hydrogen too expensive to ship over long distances, which is why it is almost always used close to the site where it is manufactured.

Hydrogen has extremely low viscosity and high mobility. It leaks from many fittings that would not cause problems with other gases, and it mixes extremely quickly with air. (The hydrogen molecule as the highest mean molecular speed of any molecule at a given temperature.) It is too thus too dangerous to use in automobiles or in many other applications, except as a reaction intermediate (for instance in the decomposition of hydrocarbons and water into carbon dioxide and hydrogen).

Hydrogen is a useful intermediate for the manufacture of fuels and in this way will have an expanding role to play in the energy systems of the future. But its use as a primary fuel is way overhyped. There will probably never be a "hydrogen economy."

[pinkpops]

45. You seem to have a good handle on it

What would you say about the storage capacity per pound of batteries versus hydrogen (apparatus included in both cases). I assume both technologies could improve with adequate R&D.

[gethmord]

46. Ok, Then how come the BMW car running on..

Liguid Hydrogen can get 200 miles on one gallon of liquid hydrogen.
This isn't a fuel cell vehicle. It's basicly a detuned 5 series.
Actually thats the first prototype.
The new 750h uses both a fuel cell for power generation. And a duel burning IC engine for motion. It has a 180 mile range on hydrogen power.
The first gen., had a small tank in the trunk. It held somewhere around a gallon, surounded by a liquid nitrogen refridgeration system.
As far as I know they are still running out of Frankfurt International Airport. At least they were two years ago.

[pinkpops]

47. I don't get the how come part

but that is interesting news. do you have some links?

[gethmord]

48. Ok, found links, I was a bit off.

pound for pound hydrogen has four times more energy gasoline.
The second gen. BMW has a thirty gallon tank for hydrogen. Thirty gallons of liquid hydrogen ways 15lbs. Thirty gallons of gas weighs 180lbs. Which propels the car for 240 miles and up 133 mph. It also proveds hydrogen to its fuel cell, which the car uses in place of a lead acid battery.

http://www.bmwworld.com/hydrogen/

They have also designed a totally hydrogen powered Mini Cooper.
WOW, I just read some about the Mini. Cool new breakthroughs.
Also General Motors is putting the fuel cell research on the back burner, for hydrogen burning IC motors. Until they can make superconductors that can operate at around 300f, fuel cell vehicles won't take off. The electric motors for vehicles are just too weak. Look at the Honda Insight, it ways around 1200 lbs. Most collisions in the real world, total the vehicle. Because every other vehicle out masses it three to one. Tractor trailers out mass it up to 40 to 1.

[pinkpops]

49. That's pretty interesting stuff

especially the solar part. They don't say anything about cost - I assume this is not a product I can buy at my BMW dealer. The energy required to compress the hydrogen must be pretty high, don't you think. If the ultimate energy source is solar we have to contend with the high cost of that technology.

[The Bish]

51. Which gets us back to the point of amount of hydrogen

that can be compressed to fit in a given space. Your own post gives it away.

"pound for pound hydrogen has four times more energy gasoline."

So 15 pounds of hydrogen in a 30 gallon tank has the same energy as 60 pounds of gasoline according to my calculations. (4x15=60). Thus a 30 gallon hydrogen tank holds as much energy as a 10 gallon gasoline tank. (180lbs for a 30 gallon tank 180/60=3 30/3=10) Hopefully these numbers can get better plus with some of the technologies used in hybrids can make the fuel go further. Do you know if the BMW car has the ability to recapture the energy lost in braking? If not they should look into implementing it.

[gethmord]

54. No, the fuel cell is just for replacing the battey.

The car is just like the one you drive. just it can burn hydrogen instead of gasoline. I'm interested in what the Mini can do. The seven series heats the hysrogen up to operating temperature before mixing with air. The Mini doesn't. The fact that you can run it at colder temp., should increase millage and power.

Out of a book that I have, titled "The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives " by Tenney L. Davis. A very good book about the history of explosives. And no, it does not tell you haw to make the stuff. It does give chemicial compositions.
Liquid Hydrogen with straight air burns at appox. 1000 meters per second.
Hydrogen and oxygen in liquids burn at 3000 meters per second. Or I should say explodes. To put this in perspective. A #6 blasting cap is 3500 meters per second, TNT is 5200 meters per second. Gasoline is probably somewhere around 100 meters per second, and thats being generous.

[NNadir]

50. There are two ways of looking at energy density, mass density and volume

density.

The mass density of hydrogen is quite high, about 33 kW-hr/kg, compared to gasoline's 12 kW-hr/kg. However 2 grams of hydrogen (gas) occupy 22.4 liters at ordinary pressure or about 6 gallons. Because of this the volume density is very, very low. This means that six gallons of (gaseous) hydrogen has 1/500th of that 33kW-hr energy value.

You can compress it of course, but the more you compress it, the greater the danger associated with leaks, particularly under catastrophic conditions such as in a collision, the more weight you must add for structural integrity, and the greater the cost of storage and shipping. This is why hydrogen is not shipped long distances now.

Liquid hydrogen, of course, occupies far less volume than the gas. It is the liquid hydrogen that runs the BMW. However the critical temperature (the highest temperature at which it can be liquified at any pressure) is 33 K (33 degrees celcius above absolute zero, -240C or -400F). This means that enormous amounts of energy must be used to cool and compress the gas. You can make the BMW go quite far on the liquified material, but actually when you include the energy cost of making and liquifying the hydrogen, you have suddenly made a Hummer look energy efficient. You must also deal with the extremely stresses and strains that the cyrogenic state places on materials, making metals brittle, for instance. There is also the risk, in the case of a leak, of the rapid boiling and expansion of the liquid hydrogen to make a huge fireball. The Dewar type flasks necessary to store the hydrogen are also quite expensive. They are usually insulated with liquid nitrogen, which also is quite expensive in both energetic and economic terms.

Not to worry. There are excellent hydrogen equivalent fuels that are liquifiable. My favorite is dimethyl ether, since it will require less infrastructure change to use. It runs diesel engines quite readily and cleanly.

[pinkpops]

52. density

OK, so when we compare these energy densities, we are aiming at determining how much weight, volume, etc. would need to be allocated for fuel and tanks. Safety and other considerations also figure in, and affect weight and volume as well. The goal, other than intellectual exercise, is to survey alternatives to gasoline as a fuel, presumably in order to reduce pollution and move to a more available source of energy. However, as has been stated, hydrogen is not so much an energy source as a clean storage medium, the reason being that hydrogen is not generally available in free form. The BMW site says the car runs on water - quite a stretch.

[NNadir]

53. Exactly.

Hydrogen is not a primary source of energy.

There are only really five primary sources of energy available on earth: Solar, fossil, nuclear, gravitational (harnessed in the tidal systems that are of minor importance), and geothermal. If you're really scrupulous, you will recognize that fossil energy is actually solar energy stored for millions of years, and that geothermal energy is actually nuclear energy (derived from the decay of radioactive Uranium, Thorium, their daughters, potassium and rubidium). Even you get even more scrupulous you will recognize that solar energy is in fact nuclear energy. (That leaves just gravitational and nuclear as primary sources.)

Hydrogen is not a form of energy. The claim to the contrary, recently cynically adopted by Bush as a pseudo-environmentalist shill, is sadly untrue.

[Salviati]

56. And if you believe in a unified field theory...

The gravitational and nuclear energies are really the same too...

:evilgrin:

[The Bish]

57. Geothermal is also gravitational

The increased pressure in the interior of the earth causes a lot of the heat too.

Jeff

[gethmord]

55. Actually, not really.

The fuelling station uses solar panels to generate electricty.
And it uses electricty to split water molocules.
The car burns hydrogen. And spits out water and oxygen out the tail pipe.
And a trace amount of ozone. Can't get away from that.

Also rumor has it that Mazda is working on a hydrogen burning Wankle motor.

[pinkpops]

58. I want to believe this

but I am having a hard time seeing the economy of it. I see huge solar panels running compressors to liquify hydrogen for a single car. Not to mention the (solar electric) energy to decompose the water in the first place. I'm not trying to start a fight here, just looking for a sense of scale.

[pinkpops]

59. It also

leaks

[onebigbadwulf]

60. Not really

Hydrogen dissociates fairly rapidly in certain instances- for example HCL, hydrochloric acid. Most acids have a lot of free Hydrogens waiting to be used up.

[NNadir]

61. Acids need metals to make hydrogen.

You cannot make hydrogen from hydrochloric acid without a reducing agent. For instance, you can treat steel with hydrochloric acid to get hydrogen and Ferric (or ferrous) chloride.

How do you get steel? You reduce iron sulfide with coal. Thus in this case, the hydrogen is made ultimately from coal. I would add that in this case, making the hydrogen also puts out quite a bit of sulfur oxides.

Waste hydrogen chloride is deep-welled. It is not energy.

[pinkpops]

62. where do you get the acid?

[treepig]

64. the "H+'s" obtained from acid

are protons, not hydrogen atoms (let alone the H2 (molecular hydrogen gas) form) and are basically irrelevant wrt the topic of this thread.

[mainegreen]

65. Umm, every missing the obvious....

Clearly you need energy to get hydrogen out of water, but see, heres the kicker....

That energy can come from hydrogen! Its called fusion and it kicks the pants out of every other energy source out there. And whats the by product?

Helium! Which released into the atmosphere will drift up in the atmosphere and, over time, is stripped off of the top of the atmosphere by solar wind.

Eventually humanity must switch to a 100% hydrogen civilization. Its clean efficient, and you can never, ever, ever run out of hydrogen.

Ever!

All this talk about needing petrochemicals or nuclear energy to extract hydrogen is the right having so pulled a hoodwink over us that we don't even think about it!

Its not like we haven't already achieved fusion. We have. All it takes is money to research appropriate technologies that can resist the heat of fusion!

http://www.fusion.org.uk/

Go Fusion!

[pinkpops]

66. Yes, I have actually been thinking of opening a thread

called "what ever happened to fusion?" I will have a look at your link.

[NNadir]

67. Fusion is nowhere near being practical.

I toured the Princeton Plasma Physics lab sometime ago, and while I support the research, we are a long way from a practical reactor. The Plasma densities are still very low and the energy break even point is still not overwhelmingly large, if it is present at al. There has been no work, absolutely no work on energy transfer systems, i.e. converting the energy into useful work. The neutrons that emerge are very fast 14 MeV roughly and interact weakly at that energy with matter. There is some tendency for the energy to get carried off by leakage.

A very big problem with fusion in my view is tritium breeding. The "hydrogen" in fusion reactors is a mixture of deuterium (Hydrogen-2) and tritium (radioactive Hydrogen-3). Deuterium can be obtained from sea water by a somewhat energetically expensive process of isotope separation (deuterium is way less than 1% of the hydrogen found on earth), but tritium does not occur naturally and must be made by bombardment of one isotope of Lithium (6) with neutrons. (Li-6 + n -> He-4 + H-3). Without isotopic separation of the lithium isomers (6 and 7) this is going to be an inefficient process, consuming excess neutrons to make 2 helium-4 atoms from metastable Beryllium-8 from the Li-7 + n -> Li-8 -> Be-8 -> 2 He-4. (All these nuclear reactions are extremely fast.) Since fusion is a mono-neutronic process, breeding is already impossible unless the cross section for the Li-6 + n reaction is infinite at all energies, which it is not. Further the increase in inefficiency owing to the presence of Li-7 will reduce it's breeding ratio even further beyond one.

It is also worth noting that Lithium is not a very common element. In a putative fusion economy, lithium mines might replace oil fields as political and martial footballs, although gram for gram, the energy content in Lithium is enormous when compared with oil.

It is possible to make tritium in nuclear fission reactors from Lithium, and even, albeit inefficiently, from deuterium through the H-2 + n -> H-3 reaction. This reaction however has a low probability and in fact, the tritium made in CANDU type nuclear reactors is not recovered. It is simply allowed to decay to He-3. (The decay of tritium with a half-life of 12.26 years further reduces the breeding ratio unless the tritium is used very quickly, almost instantaneously in fact.)

Today tritium is made exclusively from Li-6 + n reactions in fission reactors. As there is a breeding ratio of less than unity in the fusion system, you can never have a fusion reactor without a concommitant fission program. Further this implies means that the acceptance of nuclear fusion reactors (which induce small amounts of radioactivity because of neutron captures in structural materials) will depend on public acceptance of nuclear fission power. While fission power is enormously safe compared with most current alternatives, general public acceptance has been less than forthcoming. You would need to educate an enormous amount of people to overcome this hurdle. I've been trying this particular bit of education myself for years. It's not easy.

Best regards for a good question, though.

[pinkpops]

68. So fusion is not so simple

as squeezing a bottle of hydrogen (and "cold fusion" was no such thing). Is basic research on this and other possible "clean" nuclear being sufficiently funded by the government? I emphasize "the government" because clean cheap energy does not appear to have enough profit motive to merit intensive corporate attention.

[mainegreen]

69. Funding Sucks

The US was scared by the ITER reactor's 6 billion dollar price tag. Oooh 6 billion. Thats to much to spend on research into clean energy, but hey lets spend 85 billion on flinging uranium enriched bullets at arabs.

Europe is currently the only group funding fusion adequatly.

I feel certain that if our government approached fusion power the way they approached the Bomb, ie get all the smart little ducks lined up, stick them in the desert for four or five years, they'd emerge with fusion power, or very bloody close!

[NNadir]

70. I agree that funding for all forms of alternative energy must be increased

It certainly would have been better spent than the 100's of billions spent on Iraq.

I don't know that fusion would give the fastest results.

Wind, solar and conventional nuclear would all give almost immediate paybacks. Cleaner biomass would also come on line faster.

Fusion research should indeed be increased, but with attention to the cost-benefits and time lines since we have only a very short time to overcome the environmental collapse likely to attend the continued reliance on fossil fuels.

I note that there is a congressman who is intimate with fusion issues. Rush Holt, the very fine Democratic congressman from New Jersey is a former Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. Check this guy out. He should be a rising star in our party, because he's brilliant, principled and dogged.

[pinkpops]

71. yes I think that's the same Rush Holt

who has a bill concerning black box voting machines. He does have the resume of a serious scientist. It would be nice if we had more senators/reps with scientific background so they could grasp the issues instead of having "experts" lead them through with simplicity. I mean, putting the hydrogen out as bait without explaining the details of obtaining it is pure misinformation. I imagine congressman Holt could probably write a pretty good book on energy and energy policy.

[RapidCreek]

73. I agree completely with you.

When one considers the fact that the ONLY source of alternative energy the Neocons have actively embraced is hydrogen fuel cells...coupled with the fact that they are currently seeking to reliscence nuc plants...it becomes pretty obvious what the overall goal is. The first cannot be economically had without the second.

RC