Posted on 07/29/2008 5:48:39 AM PDT by Red Badger
On average, a car is in use for ten years or more, so I think that embrittlement, as well as leakage, might be significant over that timeframe. You are talking about consumption in a fixed location, which is not the same as for private vehicle power.
An auto gasoline tank can be stamped metal, shaped to fit around other components, but a high-pressure (10,000 psi) hydrogen tank will have to be a heavily reinforced cylinder. And what is gained in the lower fuel weight will be given up many times over in the tank weight.
In addition, dispensing a gas is far different from dispensing a liquid. Expansion and compression during fueling wastes a significant amount of energy. And then how do you measure the amount dispensed? Actually, I think that the most practical solution would be tank exchange, which would require every hydrogen car to use a standard tank.
And for this, for the same tank volume you get about 1/3 the hydrogen of gasoline, and far less energy. True, it can be used far more efficiently in a fuel-cell electric car, but I don’t believe the cost will ever make it worthwhile.
Back to butanol. As a “hydrocarbone-like” alcohol, it actually can almost replace gasoline in most current engines, unlike ethanol. It used to be made by fermentation in the Weizmann ABE reaction, which produces acetone, butanol, and ethanol in a 3:6:1 ratio. Weizmann was a chemist before becoming the first Prime Minister of Israel. You can read about it from one of its proponents at Butylfuel LLC, which has developed a modified reaction to maximize butanol yield.
http://www.butanol.com/
Go back to my first response. I do NOT consider hydrogen to be acceptable as a vehicle fuel. I can't be any plainer than that. I don't know why you keep harping on it.
And anecdotal data on the "time frame" for embrittlement. A carbon steel pipeline in the Ruhr Valley has been used to transfer hydrogen FOR ONE HUNDRED YEARS.
And I'm very familiar with the proposed use of fermentation to produce butanol. But, as yet, it is NOT considered a viable commercial approach.
OK, we covered many topics and I missed that point. We do disagree on a few points, but more in terms of degree than opposition. I don’t know that hydrogen can be transported through our current natural gas pipeline network, if only because of capacity - the same BTUs would need several times the volume, which would mean higher pressures and flow rates.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think your use of hydrogen gas is as a chemical feedstock rather than as fuel. I just do not believe that its use as fuel (actually, an energy vector) will ever be economically justifiable - unless it leaves the planet!
2/3 of our crude oil consumption becomes transportation fuel, and over 95% of our transportation fuel comes from crude oil, through many billions of dollars worth of infrastructure. I don’t think we can change that very quickly, so I think that the best solutions will have to make use of it. That is why I like the idea of algae culture as a new feedstock - but I also think that butanol is worth investigation.
But I was not - and am not - picking a fight. I have learned from our conversation.
You obviously have a VERY serious problem with reading comprehension. I already SAID that the pipeline network would need to be expanded in capacity. Sheesh.
"Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think your use of hydrogen gas is as a chemical feedstock rather than as fuel."
You're wrong.
"I just do not believe that its use as fuel (actually, an energy vector) will ever be economically justifiable - unless it leaves the planet!"
Well, I didn't believe that oil would cost $140 per barrel, either.
"2/3 of our crude oil consumption becomes transportation fuel, and over 95% of our transportation fuel comes from crude oil, through many billions of dollars worth of infrastructure. I don’t think we can change that very quickly, so I think that the best solutions will have to make use of it."
Which is why ethanol is a good idea "now". It uses much of the existing infrastructure with the shortest lead time of any current alternative, with the possible exception of oil-seed derived diesel.
"That is why I like the idea of algae culture as a new feedstock - but I also think that butanol is worth investigation."
And again, I've already said that for the longer term they are worthy research topics---but they're not available NOW.
I have not said a single word of criticism about you and your manner of expressing yourself, and have confined my remarks to the subject under discussion. You, on the other hand, have been ill-mannered, boorish, and personal in EACH of your responses. I have gleaned a few factual items scattered among your vituperation, but I have learned a lot more about you - and it is not pleasant.
I have been polite, you have been just the opposite. That says a LOT more about you than about me.
Have a nice day.
Tough. I get REALLY TIRED of people who come onto energy threads and post the same tired old talking points.
The blooms of the pea-soup colored algae — so big they've been showing on satellite photos — are toxic to fish and small animals and irritating to humans. The lake once notorious for its pollution is cleaner than ever, yet the algae continues to thrive.
Why not turn it into oil? Isn't it time?
Search key word algae and lots of articles about oil and algae will come up to read.
Animal too big and rare take too much manpower to process.. krill very small and abundant processing can be automated..
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