PlaneShift
Fan Area => The Hydlaa Plaza => Topic started by: derwoodly on November 06, 2005, 06:41:38 am
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Burning Hydrogen will not cure all of our energy problems.
After reading a few posts by others that seem to think that Hydrogen was new atomic energy of the 21st century, I thought I needed to post that. One simple reason for this is the fact that hydrogen is \"made\" by burning natural gas. There are other reasons as well; like, storage, safety and price.
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derwoodly you make some very fine points, and as technology goes right now you are correct. I do not think, however, that you are giving the benifits a chance.
Lets start with basic facts :D Facts are always a nice thing.
1.) As you stated, we now obtain hydrogen by burning natural gas. Natural gas puts off far less pollutants than burning coal or gasoline, but its not perfect and its a fossile fuel.
-comments: This is only true right now. Hydrogen is the single most abundant elemant in the universe, so there are other ways of obtaining it. Burning natural gas to get it is not the wave of the future, we\'ll need new ways of obtaning this abundant resource.
2.) A hightly reactive gas, hydrogen isn\'t as easy to contain - besides that fact that its a gas, unlike gasoline which is a liquid (hmm gas is a liquid...:D)
-comments: This is not something that can\'t be overcome, but fueling stations would need to start converting to the means necessary for storage.
3.) Safety - I think the point you are going to try to make here is that hydrogen to be efficient must be stored at high pressures - somewhere areound 5000 to 10000 psi. Thats extremely high! Its also flamible, but because of the way it expands it doesn\'t explode the way we think - it dissappates into the air and hte explosion is diffused by its gaseous nature - that said no one wants to be in any explosion!
-comments: In practice current fuel cell storage tanks have rigid and tough standards: One - they must be made in two layers - one of composide carbon fiber (insanely strong stuff). and two - they must be able to withstand a projectile entering and leaving the tank, thus rupturing it - all without exploding - and they meet these standards easily. So - they can withstand impacts greater than any car accident could put on them, and if they do rupture, are made in such a way that an explosion is diverted. Try shooting a gasoline tank, or dropping it off of a high building - instaboom! Fuel cells are actually safer in this regard, plus a hydrogen explosion if one occurred doesn\'t last as long, nor is it as violent. Remember the HIndenburg - it didn\'t EXPLODE!!!! IT burned all the way to the ground slowly. Safety is probably better.
4.) Price - prices for hydrogen are currently prohibitively expensive. Far more than gasoline right now.
-comments: In reality it is like any consumable good - as demand goes up the price will be driven down as it become more common. Remember how expensive your first cdburner was? Mine was nearly $500 for a cheap one. Nowadays one can pick one up for around $40 - a far cry cheaper!
Burning Hydrogen will not cure all of our energy problems.
You\'re right. Hydrogen wouldn\'t be good currently for powering our cities electricity, or things like that - but it would be an excellent fuel for consumer vehicles.
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Originally posted by derwoodly
Burning Hydrogen will not cure all of our energy problems.
After reading a few posts by others that seem to think that Hydrogen was new atomic energy of the 21st century, I thought I needed to post that. One simple reason for this is the fact that hydrogen is \"made\" by burning natural gas. There are other reasons as well; like, storage, safety and price.
Hydrogen is not made by burning natural gas. I guess you\'ve never heard of wind power, solar power, wave power, thermal power, or any other \"renewable\" resource.
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A quote from the gob-er-ment
\"Hydrogen Production and Delivery
Almost all of the hydrogen produced in the U.S. today is by steam reforming of natural gas and for the near term, this method of production will continue to dominate. Researchers at NREL are developing a wide range of advanced processes for producing hydrogen economically from sustainable resources. These R&D efforts fall into five major categories:\"
Here is da link... http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_production_delivery.html
AND yes right below it is listed the methods you mention. My point is that most of this is all theoretical just like how all of our energy needs would be met by nucular power back in the 1960\'s.
[ edit: ah the Hindenburg a shinning example of hydrogen technogy... \"Remember the HIndenburg - it didn\'t EXPLODE!!!! IT burned all the way to the ground slowly.\" I am sure the dead passengers are counting their blessings!!! ]
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Aren\'t the explosions a really minor aspect compared to the pollution that will eventually make it impossible to live on Earth?
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The hindenburg was a terrible disaster, but it accentuated my point - which was had the ballon been filled with gasoline you never would have found the pices of any of those passengers. The ballon sank slowly flaming. The real problem was that the people were suspended in a basket from a ballon made of flamible materials (jet fuel - no seriously - the coating on the balloon was a compound used in rocket fuel - its the real problem in the hindenburg accident.
The compound, a layer of iron oxide covered with coats of cellulose butyrate acetate mixed with powdered aluminum, is very similar to a mixture used to power solid fuel rockets. \"The Hindenburg was literally painted with rocket fuel,\"
Hydrogen is not made by burning natural gas. I guess you\'ve never heard of wind power, solar power, wave power, thermal power, or any other \"renewable\" resource.
umm I don\'t even udnerstand that sentence. it seems to imply that wind solar power and wave power are sources of natural gas - I think you mean these can be used to make electricity? These are great but there are limits to solar technology as solar panels employ some extremely rare materials, and the others aren\'t something that could be portable for a car. But he was correct - hydrogen IS made by burning natural gas as he points out.
Explosions may be a small aspect except that in the marketplace you need to establish safety and reliability appearnace anyways to make a product good enough for mainstream.
Also if we would put more research into many of these technologies we\'d be advancing faster.
Also on a side note - things have been invented that get great gas mileage, by Voltswagon and GM, but Exon and Shell, and Brittish Patroleum have bought and destroyed many of these technologies - to them its smart business - don\'t alllow a product that threatens your profits, but it hurts us in the long term and pads their pockets.
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The hindenburg didn\'t explode/burn due to the hidrogen, but bad materials (fibers). If it was hidrogen that was burning, you wouldn\'t see it, the flame is invisible to us. And yeah, it\'d be a boom more likely.
edit: read the upper broader explanation :)
Hidrogen is good since we can get it out of water adn that is what you get when you burn it, so it\'s a renewable source, not yet enough effective, but this is the way. Alchohols are also good and clean fuels.
But the future lies in fusion reactors, go read about it on http://www.fusion-eur.org/
And yeah, hidrogen is key. :P
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Corret me if im wrong but isnt water the by-product of hydrogen?.
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Here\'s how I envision hydrogen fuel working: hydrogen is produced via power from fission/fusion reactions through electrolysis. The hydrogen is used in a fuel cell and produces water as a byproduct. Rinse and repeat. :)
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Originally posted by derwoodly
A quote from the gob-er-ment
\"Hydrogen Production and Delivery
Almost all of the hydrogen produced in the U.S. today is by steam reforming of natural gas and for the near term, this method of production will continue to dominate. Researchers at NREL are developing a wide range of advanced processes for producing hydrogen economically from sustainable resources. These R&D efforts fall into five major categories:\"
Here is da link... http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_production_delivery.html
AND yes right below it is listed the methods you mention. My point is that most of this is all theoretical just like how all of our energy needs would be met by nucular power back in the 1960\'s.
[ edit: ah the Hindenburg a shinning example of hydrogen technogy... \"Remember the HIndenburg - it didn\'t EXPLODE!!!! IT burned all the way to the ground slowly.\" I am sure the dead passengers are counting their blessings!!! ]
i) I should have said that burning fossil fuels isn\'t the only way of producing Hydrogen and there are much better ways of doing it which involve renewabler resources. Basically, you only need electricity and water, and there are plenty of ways to produce electricity using wind power, wave power, thermal power, etc etc. And I don\'t know what your media tells you, but here in Canada it\'s a pretty well established fact that renewable energy resources are not \"theories\".
ii) The Hindenburg is not an example of hydrogen POWER. We\'re not talking about filling up a huge balloon with hydrogen, we\'re talking about filling up a gas tank.
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Originally posted by lynx_lupo
The hindenburg didn\'t explode/burn due to the hidrogen, but bad materials (fibers). If it was hidrogen that was burning, you wouldn\'t see it, the flame is invisible to us. And yeah, it\'d be a boom more likely.
edit: read the upper broader explanation :)
Hidrogen is good since we can get it out of water adn that is what you get when you burn it, so it\'s a renewable source, not yet enough effective, but this is the way. Alchohols are also good and clean fuels.
But the future lies in fusion reactors, go read about it on http://www.fusion-eur.org/
And yeah, hidrogen is key. :P
i) I\'ve never read an academic paper suggesting that we\'re anywhere close to cold-fusion technology.
ii) Hydrogen production requires water and electricity. There are many known, established, workable, practical sources of renewable energy for the production of electricity. Water is also easy to get in the 1st world.
iii) Race cars run entirely on alcohol, which we can produce from corn. Like you suggested, the financial interest of the oil companies is in oil. They\'re killing the Earth at a proffit, and won\'t stop until the stuff disapears completely.
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Originally posted by zanzibar
i) I\'ve never read an academic paper suggesting that we\'re anywhere close to cold-fusion technology.
Cold Fusion isn\'t the only type of Fusion. There\'s prototype reactors being built atm which don\'t use cold fusion.
And yes, once hydrogen powered vehicles become more common then it will be acquired from water instead of gas, as the price of getting it from water would balance against the amount of people using it. I believe that getting hydrogen from water is cheaper than producing petrol/gas from hydrocarbons, but it would cost a lot to switch.
As for the dangers of hydrogen powered stuff.... well I really don\'t think that it makes much difference if the safety is in place. Exploding petrol is just as deadly as exploding hydrogen. :)
So yeah, I\'m all for hydrogen powered vehicles. Much better than petrol powered.
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Originally posted by Xordan
Originally posted by zanzibar
i) I\'ve never read an academic paper suggesting that we\'re anywhere close to cold-fusion technology.
Cold Fusion isn\'t the only type of Fusion. There\'s prototype reactors being built atm which don\'t use cold fusion.
And yes, once hydrogen powered vehicles become more common then it will be acquired from water instead of gas, as the price of getting it from water would balance against the amount of people using it. I believe that getting hydrogen from water is cheaper than producing petrol/gas from hydrocarbons, but it would cost a lot to switch.
As for the dangers of hydrogen powered stuff.... well I really don\'t think that it makes much difference if the safety is in place. Exploding petrol is just as deadly as exploding hydrogen. :)
So yeah, I\'m all for hydrogen powered vehicles. Much better than petrol powered.
ehhhhhhh
The cost of staying with fossil fuels is measured in more than just the cost of production. But anyway, you can put a match out in jet fuel. Hydrogen combusts at much lower temperatures than gas.
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Really it has very little to do with Hydrogen Fuel cells or whatever per se. The issue here is that we need to start looking for alternative fuel souces because of the future of the crude oil market... which prices will just go up and up as the supply dwindles... we will have to do something soon enough.. why not start looking now?
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Yes, Idealy hydrogen would be a good way transport energy, but as I said, it does not solve our energy needs.
Yes, I have herd of fusion, solar energy, and biomass. I have no doubt that these technologies will help in the future. However in the real world of today, Hydrogen is released from natural gas by burning natural gas to make steam that is used to heat more natural gas to break the hydrogen bonds and produce free hydrogen. And this is the most cost effective way of doing it. To say that polution free hydrogen can be made from fusion power plants is not todays science. In addition, it is not anywhere close to cost effective. You will need several billion dollars spend on creating some sort of fusion powered hydrogen generator that will never be able to make hydrogen as cheeply as a plant that uses natural gas. And that is assuming you have a technological breakthrough that has not happend in the last 40 years.
... and no, I am not stalking you Val, you and I just post about the same time of day.
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If the issue is how expensive the energy itself is, then we\'ll just have to use less of it.
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Originally posted by zanzibar
If the issue is how expensive the energy itself is, then we\'ll just have to use less of it.
If you make people get less of something that they got used to getting more, they will go berserk on the government.
derwoodly: You two posted with 9 hours difference :O
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Zan,
I am not sure what your point is. What I am saying is that it is not enough that it be technically feasable to do something. It also must be effecient as well. Currently Hydrogen is not produced by running a current through water. It can be done, but that is not how commercial Hydrogen is made. If you did manage to make it that way you would be forced to sell it at a huge loss and your employees would have to be sacked and the plant closed as soon as you ran out what ever funding you somehow manged to scam off of people like Valbrandr.
So lets review... Hydrogen is prduced by seperating the Hydrogen atoms from natural gas. Cold fusion is about as ready for commercial use as warp engines, derwoodly can not tell time, and Valbrandr will be running for office on the \"Social Idealist\" ticket.
Does that about cover it?
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Originally posted by Cha0s
... and produces water as a byproduct. Rinse and repeat. :)
Was that a deliberate pun? :)
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cold fusion, what is that? Sounds contradictive to me. Anyway, it\'s a simple, cheap and very safe concept involving plasma - anticold. Research is only making it better, but the current reactors are too small and the self-sustaining efficency hasn\'t been reached yet. Think 2050.
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Remember that natural gas won\'t last forever as well, and burns quite clean anyway, much better than oil or coal. Another way of getting hydrogen is to genetically modify bacteria to excrete it, and \'milk\' it off them in huge farms. The bacteria have already been made in labs, they just need to be made more efficient and then stuck in massive quantities. Could be started up within the next few years easily.
And cold fusion (Fusion at room temperature) is not even proven to work. Normal fusion reactors are already being built as I said before. I\'m sure we\'ll get a reactor which produces more energy than it sucks in within the next 50 years. Just need the right strength magnetic field and a way to contain the energy for a long period of time (about 1 second would do it to get a chain reaction going). Once you have the energy output then hydrogen will become very cheap very fast. Anyway, best to get the cars out now and start the transition before the oil prices rise too high.
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Hmm, hydrogen.
I think the fuel cells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cells) themselves are quite nice alternative to conventional internal combustion engines. I\'m more concerned of the production, transportation and storing of hydrogen. Although abundant in the universe, hydrogen is surprisingly hard to produce in large quantities on Earth. As is, producing hydrogen from natural gas and burning it, is less efficient than burning the natural gas itself. Those areas are certainly worth researching.
Don\'t think burning hydrogen will \"cure all our energy problems\". That doesn\'t prevent hydrogen from being atomic energy of the future, though. Burning it is a chemical reaction, very different from its nuclear fusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion) reaction.
Burn reaction:
2 H2 + O2 --> 2 H2O (+energy)
Nuclear reaction eg:
D + T --> He + n (+much more energy)
where D=deuterium, T=tritium, n=neutron
In short cold fusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion) means any nuclear fusion reaction that occurs well below the temperature required for thermonuclear reactions. There are many ways to move atoms close enough to each other to make their nuclei join, thermal energy is just the most known way. But like said, the reaction needs to give more energy than it takes to be useful, and that\'s not likely to happen too soon.
Also, hydrogen itself is used as rocket/welding fuel. It burns with oxygen at temperatures up to over 3000?C. (For example, iron melts at 1538?C and boils at 2861?C) In addition it\'s odourless and colourless gas, making possible leaks hard to find.
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@ Xordan
Wow, bacteria production. That is interesting, that would be a fantastic way to produce Hydrogen. I am not sure that I would want to work at a bacteria plant, but it still sounds like a good idea.
@ Cherppow
Well said, and you provided the chemical formulas as well. Thankyou.
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Here are some helpful links:
ITER website (http://www.iter.org/index.htm)
Wikipedia article on ITER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER)
This is the international project that aims to build a plasma fusion reactor that can achieve break-even. Break even occurs when the reactor produces enough energy for the fusion reaction to sustain itself (and the hope is that it will eventually produce excess power output). This is probably 25-50 years away due to the massive costs and overhead involved. Not to mention the difficulty in containing the ~50 - 100 million degree C plasma with the magnetic fields...
Don\'t confuse plasma fusion with cold fusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion) , which has never been proven to work and is considered impossible or highly improbable by many reputable sources.
Here\'s another good layman link from wiki: Hydrogen power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_power)
It\'s not the most trustworthy source, but it addresses a lot of points mentioned here.
Meanwhile I found an old slashdot article on the car that made its own fuel (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/24/2151204&from=rss) . Doesn\'t look too feasible to me though.
What about solar power? I know it\'s not very effecient right now (best light to electrical power conversion effeciency was 30% I think). But maybe someday with improving technology and materials, it could reach 70%. Won\'t replace fossil fuels, but it will really help save massive amounts of energy and help in the transition to the next step.
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Originally posted by kbilik
What about solar power? I know it\'s not very effecient right now (best light to electrical power conversion effeciency was 30% I think). But maybe someday with improving technology and materials, it could reach 70%. Won\'t replace fossil fuels, but it will really help save massive amounts of energy and help in the transition to the next step.
Solar power is a very good technology. I\'m planning on having solar panels on the roof of my house when I\'m older, which should cut my energy bills by quite a bit.
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What about a wind generator? They make alot of power. There are a few schools that had one built and it powers their school - and adds enough electricity down the line that they actually get paid by the electric company.
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I think the chief problem with wind power is low \"power density\" - you need many square meters of wind power plant to replace something like a hydroelectric dam, oil, or nuclear plant. The payoff is that it is renewable, as long as climate is favourable :).
Even though hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, pure H2 is reactive enough that if there are other elements present (like on earth) then it will almost all be \'spoken for\' chemically. The real solution to the energy *generation* problem is nuclear - fission for now, fusion if we can get it. The only thing stopping us is people who are afraid of radiation because they don\'t understand it - more lives are shortened by pollution from coal and oil (not to mention mine accidents) than by radioactive waste!
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aye, wind power isn\'t a good solution for repacing a power plant - but to a farmer or someone with a little land its more feasible. Imagine if say 15% of the population had a wind generator powering their land. That is alot of people not using energy from plants, and ctually creating power on a widely distributed basis. Also, distributed power sources are safer for the masses as widespread poweroutages can be reduced or eliminated. I would rather see a day where each home is self sufficient power wise, and we don\'t need to rely on large power plants in other states for our power.
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Originally posted by Xordan
Exploding petrol is just as deadly as exploding hydrogen.
Petrol doesn\'t explode in the conditions that you have in a car. The highly compressed hydrogen would, however, leave nice little holes in the ground when lit.
Originally posted by lynx_lupoIf it was hidrogen that was burning, you wouldn\'t see it, the flame is invisible to us. And yeah, it\'d be a boom more likely.
The flame is visible, it\'s just that it is blue. And yes, the reaction is extremely exothermic. Don\'t do this at home kids, but if you fill a simple balloon with hydrogen and light it (from a distance, of course) you can feel a sudden heat wave that passes quickly even 5-10 meters away. Feels strange.
Originally posted by zanzibarRace cars run entirely on alcohol
So do some race car drivers, considering the stunts they pull off sometimes. ;)
Originally posted by Xordan
Solar power is a very good technology. I\'m planning on having solar panels on the roof of my house when I\'m older, which should cut my energy bills by quite a bit.
That might depend on the energy prices then. The solar panels cost quite a bit, also they don\'t remain as effective as they are when they are new (efficiency factor is currently about 20% when they are new).
According to wikipedia, the price of one cell with (approx. 10cm? surface) is at roughly 11 EUR (state-of-the-art-cells, efficiency factor above 20%).
*calculates* ...
Given a house of 10x10 meters footpoint, with a roof angle of 45 degrees (which is too much, so lazy me can use Pythagoras ;) ):
2 roof \"halves\", each with 10*sqrt(5? * 5?), that makes roughly 140m?, that\'s about 1,400,000cm?.
I seriously hope I made a mistake there, because that roof is a little expensive (1.5 Millon EUR).
General note):
2H20 + Enegergy -> 2H2 + O2 + thermal energy
2H2 + 02 -> 2H2O + Energy + thermal energy
The first equasion is the one happening when splitting up water into oxygen and hydrogen, the second is the one that applies when burning them together. Both times, you lose energy in form or heat that practically escapes unused.
As there is no efficiency factor of 100%, you will lose quite a lot of energy when splitting up water, especially it\'s a string and stable bond.
This cannot come from nowhere, so you have to put it in. If you have to make your fuel first, just to be able to burn it again, you lose energy, you don\'t save it.
Now, a general idea is to use renewable sources like solar energy to gain the hydrogen. That makes sense in a way, beause a) like I said, solar energy counts as renewable source of energy and b) you can\'t mount solar cells on cars (at least not effectivly, also imagine the traffic jam you get stuck in if you don\'t make it home before sunset :D)
Either that, or what Cha0s said: Good ol\' nuclear power.
Another attempt, still in the early stages, is using green algae. Basically, they use solar energy as well.
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Who says you have to buy solar panels new? At the university I attended, the solar car team bought a full pallet of solar cells at an auction for $100 - extremely cheap - approximately 1% of retail cost.
Used is a good way of saving money in the short and long term.
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Solar cells, as all things (except perhaps whiskey and wine), don\'t get better when they get older.
As a rule of thumb, I once learnt that that the efficiency factor decreases by 20% every 10 years. Perhaps it has gotten a bit better.
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Speaking of solar cells, here\'s some interesting news:
Nanotechnology Center Makes Flexible Solar Cell Breakthrough (http://nanotechwire.com/news.asp?nid=2555)
...researchers at Wake Forest University\'s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials have made significant strides in improving the efficiency of organic or flexible solar cells.
?The consumer market would be really open to having these conformal systems if you could, for instance, roll them up and put them away,? said Carroll, who is also an associate professor in Wake Forest?s physics department. ?Imagine a group of hikers with a tent that when you unrolled the tent and put it up, it could generate its own power. Imagine if the paint on your car that is getting hot in the sun was instead converting part of that heat to recharge your battery.?
Carroll said flexible, organic solar cells also offer several possibilities for military use.
?The military would obviously want something like that because you could only put maybe tens of those big solar panels on a transport, but you could put hundreds of ultra-thin flexible ones on a transport and supply half the army,? he said.
Using a set of polymer coatings, researchers at Wake Forest constructed a nanophase within the polymer called a ?mesostructure.? The ?mesostructure? changes the properties of the plastic and makes it better for collecting light.
Looks good if they can lower the manufacturing costs. Now that the military is interested, this might happen eventually as these fibers would need to be mass produced at a quick rate.