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Hydrogen on demand from silicon nanospheres - just add water
The Register ^ | 23 January 2013 | Richard Chirgwin

Posted on 01/23/2013 10:55:20 AM PST by ShadowAce

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1 posted on 01/23/2013 10:55:27 AM PST by ShadowAce
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To: rdb3; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; Salo; JosephW; Only1choice____Freedom; amigatec; stylin_geek; ...

2 posted on 01/23/2013 10:56:11 AM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: AdmSmith; Big Giant Head; grey_whiskers; Brandybux; dfwright; Bikkuri; Dacula; BuddaBudd; mbj; ...

3 posted on 01/23/2013 10:56:19 AM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ShadowAce

The gas station to become the sand and water station?


4 posted on 01/23/2013 10:58:09 AM PST by Ingtar (Everyone complains about the weather, but only Liberals try to legislate it.)
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To: ShadowAce

Okay, what do you do with the silicic acid after the balls are all used up?...................


5 posted on 01/23/2013 11:01:53 AM PST by Red Badger (Lincoln freed the slaves. Obama just got them ALL back......................)
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To: ShadowAce

At the risk of being the mean old engineer....how much energy does it take to produce enough nano particles of silicon to liberate a watt of energy?

Sad experience tells me the answer may something greater than a watt.


6 posted on 01/23/2013 11:04:26 AM PST by Pecos (If more sane people carried guns, fewer crazies would get off a second shot.)
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To: ShadowAce

So, E really does = Mc Squared.


7 posted on 01/23/2013 11:05:20 AM PST by Zeneta (Why are so many people searching for something that has already found us ?)
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To: ShadowAce

How much energy is required to create these nanospheres?


8 posted on 01/23/2013 11:07:10 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: Pecos
Some people never had that talk and fail to understand.


9 posted on 01/23/2013 11:11:24 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: ShadowAce

I work in the shadow of a power-generating facility that helped build and support my community since the 1950’s. It is now closed by the United States because of the coal ash produced along with the power it produces. It is a sad day to cast aside an old friend in favor of the wishful and hopeful thinking of morons.


10 posted on 01/23/2013 11:16:50 AM PST by Coffee... Black... No Sugar (I'm gonna' BICKER!)
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To: Red Badger
Okay, what do you do with the silicic acid after the balls are all used up?...................

Hey, you're not allowed to ask questions like that if the inventor is a lib. Their "intentions" were good, after all. Supposedly.

11 posted on 01/23/2013 11:20:43 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Pecos
Sad experience tells me the answer may something greater than a watt.

Sad experience and the laws of physics, Jim! Energy is liberated when hydrogen is oxidized. Therefore the same amount of energy is going to need to be added to split the hydrogen atoms back off the oxygen, presumably provided by some reaction involving the silicon, so you're exactly correct. To be fair, the developers aren't pitching this as "energy from nowhere" but simply as a potential way to transport energy derived from some existing source.

12 posted on 01/23/2013 11:25:42 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Coffee... Black... No Sugar
I work in the shadow of a power-generating facility that helped build and support my community since the 1950’s. It is now closed by the United States because of the coal ash produced along with the power it produces. It is a sad day to cast aside an old friend in favor of the wishful and hopeful thinking of morons.

If your governor and state legislature had stones large enough to see, they'd direct that the plant resume operation and dare the feds to do something about it.

13 posted on 01/23/2013 11:27:59 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Pecos

It will always cost more in than anything puts out.

The cost to drill, refine and produce gas is 80% and the engine then is only 20% efficient in the real world in terms of emery out.

Same with batteries. Why does a pack of batteries cost $10? Because it takes energy to make them.

No one is saying this new way to make fuel cells is “free” energy. But it would be DAMN convenient to carry this in place of a heavy battery or generator and “just add water” to make power.

If one of these cost $2,000 and I could carry it to a remote spot and or use it if TSHTF with just water, I would buy 2 of them!

A power generator than runs on WATER would be a gift of the gods especially if ITEOTWAWKI.


14 posted on 01/23/2013 11:28:57 AM PST by Waywardson (I did not vote for that pro-abortionist candidate!)
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To: thackney

Some people never had that talk and fail to understand.


Most cannot understand even when taught

Thermodynamics was probably the single most important class I ever took.

It’s also the one single subject area that the largest number students had difficulty understanding.

if hard core STEM students have a hard time grasping Thermodynamic fundamentals, how much of chance does your average public high school graduate or even your average liberal Arts College Grad have.

This is why we have so much bogus garbage floating around pretending to be energy policy.

Large scale Man Made Global Warming is a hard sell to some one who understands Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer


15 posted on 01/23/2013 11:30:54 AM PST by rdcbn
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To: rdcbn

Thermo was the hardest class I ever took...


16 posted on 01/23/2013 11:44:05 AM PST by RBW in PA
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To: rdcbn

Thermo was the hardest class I ever took...


17 posted on 01/23/2013 11:44:11 AM PST by RBW in PA
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To: Still Thinking
Okay, what do you do with the silicic acid after the balls are all used up?...................

Well, to paraphrase Hillary Clinton at today's senate hearing, "What difference does it make!"

18 posted on 01/23/2013 12:29:33 PM PST by mc5cents
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To: Pecos
At the risk of being the mean old engineer....how much energy does it take to produce enough nano particles of silicon to liberate a watt of energy? Sad experience tells me the answer may something greater than a watt.

I don't think that's the point of it. The cost of the nanospheres will be much greater than the value of the resulting power in most civilian uses.

But I would imagine that silicon has an indefinitely-long shelf life, as does water. There are lots of military applications for something that can sit in a box for years, and then deliver reliable power on demand.

19 posted on 01/23/2013 3:08:07 PM PST by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: Red Badger; Still Thinking
Okay, what do you do with the silicic acid after the balls are all used up?...................
While you’re thinking about that you might get a headache . . . could you possibly use it for a feedstock to make acetylsalicylic acid?

20 posted on 01/23/2013 3:40:57 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which “liberalism" coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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