Bush Could Usher in Hydrogen Age as Kennedy Did Space Age

glennsacks.com ^ | Tuesday, January 28, 2003 | Glenn Sacks

[cinFLA]

Compared to just about any other means of cheap transportable energy like say an internal combustion engine or even steam turbine it is massively efficient. I do not recall any of the other means of energy production and storage that even approach this level of efficency perhaps you could enlighten me

First you take Nuclear and lose 70% then electrolysis and lose another 30% then the fuel cell and lose another 40?% or more. That gives about 12 percent efficiency.

[harpseal]

I was reffering to the one process of electrolysis of water which is about the only efficient part of the cycle. I do however realize that one can not merely take one part ofthe cycle overall. With petroleum we must count all the energy used in getting it from the ground, to the refinery, the the internal combustion engine. I really have no idea of the final efficiency there. The whole thing will come down to cost per joule of usable energy where the rubber meets the road.

[Uncle Miltie]

Hydrogen fuel moves the emission from the tailpipe to the smokestack.

Electricity is required to separate hydrogen, and in the U.S. we get it from coal, gas, oil, nukes, and hydro. Each of these has its less-than-desirable ecological impacts.

To elminate emissions from the tailpipes, which of the former list of electricity production capabilities do you propose we expand?

[cinFLA]

With petroleum we must count all the energy used in getting it from the ground, to the refinery, the the internal combustion engine. I really have no idea of the final efficiency there.

If you have no idea then why did you make such a ABSOLUTE statement about the great efficiency advantage of H2?

[Paradox]

I am against government subsidies to industry in general, for philosophical reasons, as well as practical ones. However, in this case, I think as we have seen, that this could be a National Security issue. The sooner we can tell the camel boys to kiss our a$$, the better and safer off we will be.

As for those who remember the Hindenburg, what actually did the most damage was the burning of the SKIN, not the hydrogen. Hydrogen, in and of itself, doesnt "burn", nothing burns by itself, it needs oxygen, so if you were to go into the middle of a tank of hydrogen and light a match, nothing would happen.

As someone else posted, Gasoline is a far more dangerous substance.

[riversarewet]

...and the money that stays in this country..

[ArrogantBustard]

The petroleum fuel age:

[ppaul]

Touche'

[VetoBill]

The whole thing will come down to cost per joule of usable energy where the rubber meets the road

No the whole thing will come down to if the fuel in question is portable. Coal may very well be the cheapest energy source, but how many cars out there can run on coal.. and more important how many of those drivers would want to physically handle coal?

Liquid fuels are as of now vastly superior over electricity powered, gas powered (hydrogen, propane), or (for lack of better term) solid powered (wood, coal). Society will allow a fuel with more cost per BTU to be used if the fuel is portable.

[RightWhale]

George W. Bush today has the opportunity to usher in the Hydrogen Age

Thanks for reposting. War for oil? Ha! The oil industry is going to be taking a big hit in the next two decades. But that doesn't mean Texaco and BP will be out of business. Far from it. The oil companies are already repositioning themselves as the energy companies. They are researching and developing the hydrogen tech. Texaco and BP will still be in business, and revenues will be even greater. Oil wells will be less interesting, but gas wells will be valuable. Industrial manufacture of methane will also become important on a large scale.

[delapaz]

Actually the most interesting thing about the Hydrogen initiative would be its effect on foreign policy and oil exporting countries.

Follow me here:

1. Bush launches a huge hydrogen initiative costing billions of dollars, sets a goal of 15 years for viable technology.

2. Opec says uh-oh we better start pumping oil while we can still get more than $20 a barrel for it.

3. World oil prices fall as OPEC produces more oil.

Question for the class: How many $/bbl do oil prices have to fall before Bush and the USA have recovered their "Investment" in Hydrogen?
Followup question: Is the hydrogen policy more about alternative fuels and clean air or foreign policy? Discuss amongst yourselves.

[RightWhale]

We might spend some time learning what actually happened with the Hindenburg. Maybe take a brush-up course in chemistry.

[texson66]

The US government set a national priority for NASA ( a government agency) in the 60s to go to the moon and return befor 1970. It was a definable goal that was also measurable and important in the Cold War. And it made the Soviets take risks which resulted in a "Lost Space Race" for the USSR.

Hydrogen fueled cars are none of the business of the Federal government. The liberals can mandate all kinds of rules about it. It won't happen until hydrogen is an economic alternative to gasoline.

Instead of more EPA mandates, why not take the bus or sub to work?

[finnman69]

There's just a little bit of stigma associated with hydrogen....

[MainFrame65]

I actually think the "Hydrogen-On-Demand" system used in the Chrysler Natrium demonstration vehicle (repeating your earlier link)

http://caranddriver.com/xp/Caranddriver/features/2002/august/200208_feature_natrium.xml?keywords=hydrogen

might turn out to be the best model for a safe, high density, portable energy storage medium. This link:

http://www.millenniumcell.com/solutions/white_hydrogen.html

provides much more information about the chemical processes and the intermediate fuel, which is a water solution of sodium borohydride. It is not flammable, and about as dangerous to handle as the wash water draining from a kitchen dishwasher.

But the important consideration is that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch", the old TANSTAAFL principle. All fossil fuels are "God's Battery" - energy accumulated and stored at a different time and place, that we now collect and use for our own purposes. Hydrogen is fantastically abundant, but here on earth is primarily hydrogen oxide (water), not much use as fuel because it is already oxidized. We can and do use what is available when we use hydrocarbon (fossil) fuels or biofuels such as alcohol and biodiesel, but we extract more energy from the carbon content of these fuels than from the hydrogen. We could use "reformers" to extract hydrogen from hydrocarbon sources for fuel, but the energy in the carbon would just be wasted, and the same amount of CO2 would result as just using the source fuel directly.

Replacing just 20% of our current petroleum consumption with biofuels would require NEW irrigated land larger than the state of Texas, plus the people and machinery to tend and process it. We won't do that.

I do expect to see small, alcohol sourced hydrogen fuel cells used to power portable appliances in the near future, but that will succeed based on portability and convenience rather than ecology, since it will emit CO2 as well as water vapor.

The Millenium Cell Corp technology linked above, or any other hydrogen based system, will require considerably higher energy input than the fuel will deliver to vehicles, unlike fossil fuels. Whether the hydrogen fuel is sodium borohydride, low-pressure metal hydride, or high-pressure
hydrogen gas, the hydrogen and the energy to package it will have to come from high-volume, fixed sources of energy in quantities several times our current capacity.

For that amount of energy, we will have to either make little atoms out of big ones (nuclear fission, which we can do very efficiently now) or bigger atoms out of little ones (nuclear fusion, which we are still trying to figure out.)

The best interim storage solution will depend on such factors as safety, convenience, and infrastructure cost. I would not to be around an accident involving high-pressure gaseous hydrogen and either a collision or a fire. Besides, high compression requires significant energy all by itself. Right now we have a good system for distributing liquid fuel. It would be nice to build on that.

Someone on another thread used the term "energy vector", which I think is a very sensible way to think of whatever we use as transportation fuel. We have been running our transportation system on (we think) solar energy stored in God's battery (petroleum) for a long time now, and not worried about recharging it. The low-cost ride will end someday, and we will need some alternative. Hydrogen is the most likely successor.

[desertcry]

The hydrogen age is a pie in the sky. Anybody with some Chemistry, Engineering , or Physics background knows that it would take more energy to generate Hydrogen than what one can take out of it(2nd law of Thermodynamics). So how will one create the energy to make Hydrogen? Nuclear Energy? Coal? Oil? the Sun? Wind? So we are back at square one again.

[unspun]

Don't worry about the "delete unconstitutional government" folks here in FR. (Ever look in to the Drug Wars threads? Sheesh.) They have a good point, but the best solution would be to carefully and conservatively amend the Constitution as well as complying by it.

(We can start with reversing Roe/Doe.)

[LonghornFreeper]

Well based on your replies I am pretty glad you weren't in charge at the Pentagon when DARPAnet was set up, long before anyone in the market was willing to spend anything on some "Internet" that was decades away. Freerepublic would be alot less useful if all the sharing was done by snail mail or over conference calls.

[green team 1999]

ok,no more smoking in america to prevent fuel cell explosions.

[cinFLA]

Well based on your replies I am pretty glad you weren't in charge at the Pentagon when DARPAnet was set up, long before anyone in the market was willing to spend anything on some "Internet" that was decades away. Freerepublic would be alot less useful if all the sharing was done by snail mail or over conference calls.

I have NO idea what you are referring to. If you want to make a point, make it!