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New Tech Transforms Sea Water Into Hydrogen Fuel for Cars
The Epoch Times ^ | April 14, 2023 | Naveen Athrappully

Posted on 04/14/2023 9:52:05 AM PDT by Perseverando

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To: Seruzawa
But if you have to keep burning coal to get hydrogen you haven’t gained anything.

Power plants get you some efficiencies of scale. An oil burning ICE is 25-40% efficient. Electricity turned into motion is more efficient. So, even an oil burning electric plant may be okay from an efficiency standpoint, and it was mostly the principle on which the petrol burning Volt operated.

There may be some advantage to relocating the source of the emissions. It might be better to burn the coal in some remote area than in the San Fernando Valley, Mexico City or Peking for LOCAL pollution reasons.

None of this justifies the draconian reset being forced on everybody.
41 posted on 04/14/2023 10:26:44 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you can’t say something nice . . . say the Rosary." [Red Badger])
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To: Red6
Chrysler tried.


42 posted on 04/14/2023 10:29:10 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you can’t say something nice . . . say the Rosary." [Red Badger])
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To: Perseverando
The only advantage with H2 is that can actually be stored, so we could use wind and solar energy to make it, then use the stored hydrogen to generate electricity when it's not windy or sunny.
If we use any other source of energy in the production of H2, then nothing is gained.
Is it cost effective? Don't know but considering the greenie track record, I doubt it.

43 posted on 04/14/2023 10:29:42 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: GingisK

we dump the hydrogen, we want the O2


44 posted on 04/14/2023 10:29:59 AM PDT by mylife (I was a sort of country boy, a cockeyed optimist, wrapped in international intrigue and espionage)
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To: rightwingcrazy

Title should be

“”Scientists” need more government money.”

The electricity will appear from the wall. Just like it will for all our forced electric cars.


45 posted on 04/14/2023 10:35:49 AM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: fwdude; rightwingcrazy
My hunch is that the apparent hydrolysis process that this entails requires massive amounts of energy input. Just rearranging the furniture in the room, essentially.

Your hunch is correct. The best round trip efficiency I'e read about from using electrolysis (using electricity to make hydrogen from air and water) to store it as hydrogen gas, then later using that hydrogen to generate electricity with a fuel cell, is 50% to 70%. Thus you lose 30% to 50% in the process from start to end.

That makes it horrible except for certain use cases. However, if you're in a good situation for it (one of the use cases) then this news could be a significant breakthrough. One hurdle with electrolysis has been filtering the water to give the unit nothing but pure water; a hurdle they're touting they've crossed (if their claim is accurate).

For me, personally, my only interest in a hydrogen electrolyzer and fuel cell is if the Dims keep ramping up their stupid war on energy. Right now our all-electric home is 80% energy independent, including charging our EV for most of our driving (we have an ICE pickup for some driving). It'd be infeasible to make my home fully 100% energy independent because I'm running into the law of diminishing returns. But if the Dims use their energy policies to go full boar with their mark of the beast type promises they every now and then threaten us with, then I might consider an electrolyzer/fuel cell combination for long term energy storage beyond my current battery bank. On the days I have great sunshine and have already charged my home solar batteries and EV battery and have nowhere else to put the excess solar power, I might use that power to run an electrolyzer to generate hydrogen gas to store in a tank that my system can later power a fuel cell with when home battery power gets low. It would be an inefficient use of the solar power on a kWh-by-kWh basis, but on a dollar cost basis it's a lot cheaper to store many kWh's in a hydrogen tank (and increase capacity further by buying a larger tank) than it is to expand the battery stack an equal amount. Especially for the last 20% of power (which I don't need as often as the first 80%, thus I'm not as concerned about over 30% to 50% round trop loss).

46 posted on 04/14/2023 10:37:47 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Perseverando

More government maffs. Use 5 units of electricity to produce 1 unit of electricity.

” The fuel cells do not burn this gas. Instead, cells transform the chemical energy of the fuel into electrical energy”

What is the temperature range? The local cell towers here all fell for fuel cell backup generators using methanol based fuel. In the winter the tanks froze rendering them useless.


47 posted on 04/14/2023 10:38:22 AM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: PIF

Yeah unless it’s a nuclear reactor, basically it’s seawater and electricity or regular tap water in electricity either one will work.


48 posted on 04/14/2023 10:41:14 AM PDT by dila813
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To: Perseverando

Turning electricity into hydrogen and back into electricity again. Each step wastes some energy due to inherent inefficiency. In the end, we will just have to burn more fossil fuels.


49 posted on 04/14/2023 10:41:26 AM PDT by Telepathic Intruder
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To: Perseverando

Yeah there’s a startup that is going to be doing drone deliveries out of Israel, he uses a plug-in hydrogen generator with tap water to generate the hydrogen and then the Drone flies out and then it’ll plug in to get a recharge of hydrogen and then fly out again. It also has a greater cargo capacity as well, range, capacity, flight time, reliability, and utilization time is all increased


50 posted on 04/14/2023 10:42:55 AM PDT by dila813
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To: Perseverando

“The new method extracts hydrogen from the ocean by funneling seawater through a double membrane system, using electricity. The design was successful in generating hydrogen gas without the accompaniment of large quantities of harmful byproducts.”

sounds to me like just another variation of good ‘ol electrolysis ... btw, you don’t suppose oxygen is the “harmful byproduct” they’re referring to? ... oh, and certainly salt and other mineral will be a byproduct of this “new” method ... the very same salt and minerals that california now claims would “pollute” the sea so much that they’re refusing to allow any more coastal reverse osmosis plants to be built ... i wonder if they’d allow sea water hydrolysis plants?

“Vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells are fed with compressed hydrogen gas.” ...

and that’s the rub, right? ... the amount of energy to compress hydrogen is enormous, so much so, that compressing hydrogen wastes so much power that its use as a fuel is uneconomic and results in much more carbon-equivalent output ... and then of course, there’s the issue of tremendous container weight and extremely difficult connector leakage issues because hydrogen molecules are the smallest molecules in the universe and can escape through the very tiniest of cracks ...


51 posted on 04/14/2023 10:44:32 AM PDT by catnipman (In a post-covid world, ALL "science" is now political science: stolen elections have consequences)
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To: Perseverando
Hydrogen is a STORE of energy. Gasoline is a STORE of energy. A lithium based battery is a STORE of energy. Substantial expenditure of other forms of energy is required to load the STORE of energy. The hydrogen generation from sea water requires substantial electricity...how is that generated? The same applies to the lithium battery. Lots of electricity is required to charge it...how is that generated? Generation is still predominately coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear.
52 posted on 04/14/2023 10:47:04 AM PDT by Myrddin
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To: rightwingcrazy

Coal.........................


53 posted on 04/14/2023 10:47:37 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: rightwingcrazy

Coal.


54 posted on 04/14/2023 10:47:59 AM PDT by Eagles6 (Welcome to the Matrix . Orwell's "1984" was a warning, not an instruction manual.)
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To: Myrddin
The hydrogen generation from sea water requires substantial electricity...how is that generated?


55 posted on 04/14/2023 10:48:18 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Perseverando

“compressed hydrogen gas”

Just what I want in my automobile, a 5,000 psi tank of hydrogen.

Just when we thought nothing could be worse than batteries for energy storage, along comes this idea.


56 posted on 04/14/2023 10:53:58 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (I don’t like to think before I say something...I want to be just as surprised as everyone els)
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To: Perseverando

So called new system is just good old fashioned electrolysis. Very energy intensive because both the first and second laws of thermodynamics have to be satisfied to get from the mostly fossil generating plant to the electrolysis plant. The reason you can get a lot of energy out of burning hydrogen is that the 2H2 + O2 = 2H2O forms very strong bonds 237kJ/mol. And you have to put that much back in to break it apart again same energy budget as batteries, but the potential for higher energy density storage. In fact hydrogen compares well with gasoline on a weight basis. The fly in the ointment is how do you store the stuff. Even highly compressed H2 requires a lot of volume to get the same weight as gasoline and hydrogen seeps through most non metallic materials. Cryostorage gets the emery by volume higher, but it takes a lot of energy to cool the hydrogen to liquid and it constantly evaporates due to heat seepage. And filling a hydrogen storage tank compressed to thousands of psi is probably not all that fast.


57 posted on 04/14/2023 10:55:06 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy - EVs a solution for which there is no problem)
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To: rightwingcrazy

i saw that too...but go farther...how much electricity is needed for the process...reduce the entire “plan” to cost per mile.


58 posted on 04/14/2023 10:57:56 AM PDT by Sacajaweau ( )
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To: rightwingcrazy

A nuclear or fossil-fuel power plant, but you were not supposed to notice.

You also are not supposed to question how converting, transmitting, converting again, storing, then re-converting an energy source again can ever be more efficient and have less environmental impact than just using the original energy source directly.

That said, I’m pleased that they are researching new ideas; maybe they will find some shortcuts.


59 posted on 04/14/2023 10:59:18 AM PDT by Chewbarkah
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To: Paladin2

they said something about a key and a kite...


60 posted on 04/14/2023 10:59:35 AM PDT by Sacajaweau ( )
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