Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies

NY Times ^ | November 28, 2004 | MATTHEW L. WALD

[endthematrix]

The Slimes have plenty of hot air, can we use that?

[neverdem]

Are you a speed reader? I just posted it.

[wildcatf4f3]

Oh baby when they break through on this it will slingshot the USA ahead.

[FredZarguna]

Researchers at a government nuclear laboratory and a ceramics company in Salt Lake City say they have found a way to produce pure hydrogen with far less energy than other methods, raising the possibility of using nuclear power to indirectly wean the transportation system from its dependence on oil.

Understand this: unbound hydrogen is energy expensive to produce. People pushing it either don't understand, or understand but don't want the public to understand that hydrogen is NOT an energy source. It's simply a storage medium for energy produced somewhere else.

Like battery technology, if you drop your objection to burning uranium, most of your environmental problems go away, and that has nothing to do with hydrogen. But as soon as you say nuclear power you might as well say black magic voodoo. Because when you say nuclear power, that's what the scientifically illiterate masses (and altogether too many mis-educated scientists) hear.

[neverdem]

The Slimes have plenty of hot air, can we use that?

Harness the "paper of record" as an institutional effort for a patriotic endeavor? Did you start drinking after the previous article?

I'll ping the list in the morning. We'll see if it's still in breaking news.

[neverdem]

Doesn't mis-educated scientist qualify as an oxymoron, just like the left likes to use that word to mock military intelligence?

[neverdem]

It's out of breaking news already.

[Timm]

Understand this: unbound hydrogen is energy expensive to produce. People pushing it either don't understand, or understand but don't want the public to understand that hydrogen is NOT an energy source. It's simply a storage medium for energy produced somewhere else.

I think the article was very clear that hydrogen is not being used as an energy source in the processes described.

What makes hydrogen interesting is that, though it is energy expensive to produce, it compares reasonably well in energy density to other portable fuels. It is more energy dense than electricity from conventional batteries, for example. It is, though, not quite as good as gasoline, but it is not so much worse that performance of hydrogen-fueled vehicles could not be comparable to ICE engines.

Furthermore, even if the hydrogen produced by electrolysis provides only 1/2 of the energy employed to produce it, if electricity is cheap enough to generate then an important step toward economic use of hydrogen can be taken.

Look, I'm as cranky as anyone about hyperbolic liberal worries about "peak oil" and other thinly disguised misanthropy. Still, the possibility of an economical alternative to gasoline for vehicle fuels, an alternative that can be produced in abundance entirely domestically, is so important that it is worth investigating. It's interesting to see the progress being made on the hydrogen front.

Here's a link to Shell's hydrogen page with some interesting information:

http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=hydrogen-en

[timestax]

Hydrogen is explosive...right??!

[SC Swamp Fox]

But if electricity demand on the power grid ran extremely high, the hydrogen production could easily be shut down for a few hours, and all of the energy could be converted to electricity

This could work. The utility companies have to build enough capacity to handle the peak demand. If they can use that capacity during non-peak time to produce a fuel for vehicles, it just might be feasible.

[boycott]

ping

[Scarchin]

So is gasoline and natural gas.

[timestax]

The Hindinberg

[FredZarguna]

think the article was very clear that hydrogen is not being used as an energy source in the processes described.

The article is clear. Hydrogen is not an energy source from any process that exists on earth (except in thermonuclear weapons). I'm going somewhat beyond the article, because my point is that the buzz about hydrogen is a distraction--probably a deliberate one.

Still, the possibility of an economical alternative to gasoline for vehicle fuels

Perhaps, you aren't clear, however, since you call hydrogen "an economical alternative to gasoline for vehicle fuels." Hydrogen, as the article makes clear, I make clearer, and you acknowledge IS NOT A FUEL. It cannot be an alternative to any fuel. You want to make hydrogen right now, the only way you will be able to do that in quantity is by burning coal. That's it. Now, imagine burning 3.5 to 4 times as much coal as would be required to power a coal powered vehicle, and that's the amount of coal a hydrogen powered car will burn. In addition to burning all that coal, you also have transport and manufacturing problems with a highly explosive gas that you don't have with gasoline, but that's another story for another thread.

The point of the post is: forget about hydrogen, per se. If you're willing to burn uranium, then lots and lots of alternatives open up. Maybe hydrogen included, maybe not. But the point is, we suffer from a lack of common sense, not a lack of unbound hydrogen, or coal, or even energy at all.

[Tax Government]

Is anyone monitoring the *reduction* in oil requirements due to the country's increasing use of the net to conduct business?

[FredZarguna]

Doesn't mis-educated scientist qualify as an oxymoron, just like the left likes to use that word to mock military intelligence?

I wish. Unfortunately, there are a lot of scientists who do just fine in their own fields who're tremendously backwards when it comes to understanding nuclear power. For that matter, there are quite a few physicists--some of them nuclear physicists, who oppose nuclear power as well.

[Jackson Brown]

After MANY years of being cynical of the "end of oil" industry and global warming...the fact of US dependence on the middle east -- and countries run by scumbags, like Venezuela (even Russia, Mexico, and Canada) -- for oil has NOW made it clear to me that we must get to the point of being energy independent again.

As I see it, the most available -- and "patriotic" -- thing (to me) for the American people and the car makers to do is to accelerate a transition to hybrid cars/trucks/SUVs. I own a Lincoln Towncar and Navigator SUV.

For the first time in my life, I am seeing that the fact that I can afford the costs to run them is VERY secondary to US security. As I see it, it's now time a WWII type program at home in support of "the war effort".

Whatever the outcome of these attempts to change to other fuels (and I am VERY skeptical about hydrogen for at least the next 20-30 years) -- NOW is the time to begin to really extricate the US from NEEDING such big percentages of critical supplies from other countries.

It's fine to want them, but it's the huge DEPENDENCE that bothers me. Now that we are seeing the growth of Muslim extremism all over the world -- AND -- the Anti-Americanism threat from our "friends and neighbors" (including) Canada and Mexico. I don't want to have to have our soldiers -- someday - really have go to fight and die for oil.

I am not anti-globalism by any means....I'm all for opening markets...et al. However, I've come to the point of being dead set against the dependence other countries for ANY the critical basics we need.

(Not to mention, If we can be more self sufficient on energy, then that would help the balance of trade and the dollar.)

[investigateworld]

ping