| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
29 Nov 2004 05:05:52 AM |
| Object: |
Hydrogen |
Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28hydrogen.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Researchers say they have found a way to produce hydrogen with far
less energy than other methods, a development that would move the
country closer to the goal of a "hydrogen economy."
Hydrogen
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Hydrogen&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Hydrogen&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Hydrogen&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Hydrogen&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Stephen Herring
http://news.google.com/news?q=%20%22Stephen%20Herring%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Stephen+Herring%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&tab=nw&ie=UTF-8&sa=N
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Stephen+Herring%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&output=search&cat=gwd/Top
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=Stephen%20Herring&safe=images&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
.
|
|
| User: "Glenn Arnold" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 03:08:41 PM |
|
|
John Harshman wrote:
Fred Stone wrote:
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in
news:elHrd.37292$6q2.27@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
<...>
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are
the "clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
Quick! Everybody quit breathing!
Or at least do it near a tree.
No joke. One of (in my opinion) the more reasonable CO2 sequestration
options is to carbonate water in large quantities and use it for
agricultural irrigation, which increases yeild. That locks the C back in
vegetation reasonably well, but I guess it depends on your crop whether
it truly affects global warming.
One of the crops they are talking about using it for is timber, which is
a pretty good approximating the natural carbon cycle (not perfect, but
close).
Glenn Arnold
.
|
|
|
| User: "John Harshman" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 03:44:16 PM |
|
|
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Fred Stone wrote:
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in
news:elHrd.37292$6q2.27@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
<...>
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are
the "clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
Quick! Everybody quit breathing!
Or at least do it near a tree.
No joke. One of (in my opinion) the more reasonable CO2 sequestration
options is to carbonate water in large quantities and use it for
agricultural irrigation, which increases yeild. That locks the C back in
vegetation reasonably well, but I guess it depends on your crop whether
it truly affects global warming.
One of the crops they are talking about using it for is timber, which is
a pretty good approximating the natural carbon cycle (not perfect, but
close).
Irrigated timber?
.
|
|
|
| User: "Glenn Arnold" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 05:25:14 PM |
|
|
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Fred Stone wrote:
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in
news:elHrd.37292$6q2.27@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
<...>
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are
the "clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
Quick! Everybody quit breathing!
Or at least do it near a tree.
No joke. One of (in my opinion) the more reasonable CO2 sequestration
options is to carbonate water in large quantities and use it for
agricultural irrigation, which increases yeild. That locks the C back in
vegetation reasonably well, but I guess it depends on your crop whether
it truly affects global warming.
One of the crops they are talking about using it for is timber, which is
a pretty good approximating the natural carbon cycle (not perfect, but
close).
Irrigated timber?
Yep. It probably wouldn't be feasible if old growth timber were
abundant, but we're running out fast. Anyway, they're trying it out. I'm
guessing it may just be used for seedlings. Once the trees are
established it makes a lot less sense.
Glenn Arnold
.
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|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Paul J Gans" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 01:04:35 PM |
|
|
In talk.origins Fred Stone <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote:
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in
news:elHrd.37292$6q2.27@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
<...>
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are
the "clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
Quick! Everybody quit breathing!
NO! Just quit exhaling.
----- Paul J. Gans
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Glenn Arnold" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 03:01:24 PM |
|
|
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
Mike wrote:
"Bob Pease" <robertjp@askmeinapost.com> wrote in message
news:coh7nd$bnf@dispatch.concentric.net...
"Gary Bohn" <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns95B0C8585D8B6GaryBohn@130.133.1.4...
AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncqn8mg.d1.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:23:12 +0000 (UTC),
Gary Bohn <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote:
maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in
news:18510aff.0411290320.4279c678@posting.google.com:
Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28hydrogen.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Researchers say they have found a way to produce hydrogen with far
less energy than other methods, a development that would move the
country closer to the goal of a "hydrogen economy."
<snip>
Now there's an idea. Make everybody's cars into little mobile
hydrogen bombs. Let the terrorists come and attack then. We'll blow
them all to hell.
It can't be any worse than having cars as mobile environment
destroyers, rendering air quality so bad in places that some folks
can't breathe, while simultaneously dumping billions of dollars into
currupt regimes who then turn around and fund the terrorists.
Whoa there Aaron. I was making a funny. You know me, I couldn't be
serious if my life depended on it. Besides I think hydrogen powered
vehicles would be great and have thought so for 30 some years.
I'm not sure that everyone reading these XPed ngs understands that the
amount of energy you get from burning hydrogen is not the same as what you
would get from a fusion reaction.
In the case of burning hydrogen in automobiles, the hydrogen, even IF
produced from fossil fuels, would give up to 10 times as much energy as
putting the same amount of fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine,
and
give almost no pollution.
This is why hybrid cars are at least a stopgap solution ..
My option would be batteries charged by solar power. but I don't want to
spend a dollar per mile for fuel and pay 50 kilobux for a monster machine
with two tons of batteries that had to be charged half of the time anyway.
I think it's sad that we don't have the research and development
priorities
set up to get nuclear and solar power down to a p;ace where they can be
marketed competitively with fossil fuels.
Bob Pease
The simple solution is to use alcohol to fuel the cells. Hydrogen is a blind
alley; it's far too volatile for Joe Public to be trusted to handle and can
lead to minor explosions within the fuel cells too. Just producing it leads
to a huge cloud of pollution from the generating plant, which in the US
would be powered by coal or some other fossil fuel. On the other hand
alcohol can be produced from the fermentation of waste foodstuffs, corn
husks etc and distilled very efficiently indeed in purpose-built stills
featuring "stripper" stages. Experience with the type of still used to
produce liquor is deceiving; they are much less efficient. A still which is
built to produce fuel-alcohol produces a much higher yield in a single pass
than a traditional one can in 3x passes through it. Even the residual mash
can be used for cattle feed.
Another promising fuel for fuel cells is vegetable oil.
The only reason so many auto-makers and oil companies in the USA have
committed to Hydrogen is
because it is absorbing all the human energy which might otherwise be
devoted to the search for more realistic alternatives to petroil and
wrapping them up in a journey to certain failure. Your legislators are also
a party to this.
With alcohol it's all so simple.
Without huge 4WD PSU's it's even simpler.
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Semantically, "clouds of pollution" is a lot different from "clouds of
CO2." I can't keep track of the players here, but someone claimed that a
byproduct of H2 production was atmospheric methane, which simply isn't true.
Also, there's a strong benefit to economy of scale, in that it makes no
sense to collect CO2 from tailpipes, but it makes a lot of sense to
collect it from an industrial source. Carbonated beverages get their CO2
from H2 production, (as well as industrial combustion). Similarly, CO2
sequestration makes more sense at a central location than for individual
cars.
Glenn Arnold
.
|
|
|
| User: "John Harshman" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 03:52:31 PM |
|
|
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
Mike wrote:
"Bob Pease" <robertjp@askmeinapost.com> wrote in message
news:coh7nd$bnf@dispatch.concentric.net...
"Gary Bohn" <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns95B0C8585D8B6GaryBohn@130.133.1.4...
AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncqn8mg.d1.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:23:12 +0000 (UTC),
Gary Bohn <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote:
maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in
news:18510aff.0411290320.4279c678@posting.google.com:
Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28hydrogen.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Researchers say they have found a way to produce hydrogen with far
less energy than other methods, a development that would move the
country closer to the goal of a "hydrogen economy."
<snip>
Now there's an idea. Make everybody's cars into little mobile
hydrogen bombs. Let the terrorists come and attack then. We'll blow
them all to hell.
It can't be any worse than having cars as mobile environment
destroyers, rendering air quality so bad in places that some folks
can't breathe, while simultaneously dumping billions of dollars into
currupt regimes who then turn around and fund the terrorists.
Whoa there Aaron. I was making a funny. You know me, I couldn't be
serious if my life depended on it. Besides I think hydrogen powered
vehicles would be great and have thought so for 30 some years.
I'm not sure that everyone reading these XPed ngs understands that the
amount of energy you get from burning hydrogen is not the same as what you
would get from a fusion reaction.
In the case of burning hydrogen in automobiles, the hydrogen, even IF
produced from fossil fuels, would give up to 10 times as much energy as
putting the same amount of fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine,
and
give almost no pollution.
This is why hybrid cars are at least a stopgap solution ..
My option would be batteries charged by solar power. but I don't want to
spend a dollar per mile for fuel and pay 50 kilobux for a monster machine
with two tons of batteries that had to be charged half of the time anyway.
I think it's sad that we don't have the research and development
priorities
set up to get nuclear and solar power down to a p;ace where they can be
marketed competitively with fossil fuels.
Bob Pease
The simple solution is to use alcohol to fuel the cells. Hydrogen is a blind
alley; it's far too volatile for Joe Public to be trusted to handle and can
lead to minor explosions within the fuel cells too. Just producing it leads
to a huge cloud of pollution from the generating plant, which in the US
would be powered by coal or some other fossil fuel. On the other hand
alcohol can be produced from the fermentation of waste foodstuffs, corn
husks etc and distilled very efficiently indeed in purpose-built stills
featuring "stripper" stages. Experience with the type of still used to
produce liquor is deceiving; they are much less efficient. A still which is
built to produce fuel-alcohol produces a much higher yield in a single pass
than a traditional one can in 3x passes through it. Even the residual mash
can be used for cattle feed.
Another promising fuel for fuel cells is vegetable oil.
The only reason so many auto-makers and oil companies in the USA have
committed to Hydrogen is
because it is absorbing all the human energy which might otherwise be
devoted to the search for more realistic alternatives to petroil and
wrapping them up in a journey to certain failure. Your legislators are also
a party to this.
With alcohol it's all so simple.
Without huge 4WD PSU's it's even simpler.
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Surely it depends on what's used to make the steam. Assuming (worst
case) that the steam is produced by an oil-fired power plant, can we be
assured that the combined CO2 from oil-burning and methane, uh,
dehydrogenation (?) comes out to be less than would have been produced
by the gasoline-fueled cars replaced by cars that use the hydrogen? Do
you have actual numbers on that?
Semantically, "clouds of pollution" is a lot different from "clouds of
CO2." I can't keep track of the players here, but someone claimed that a
byproduct of H2 production was atmospheric methane, which simply isn't true.
Also, there's a strong benefit to economy of scale, in that it makes no
sense to collect CO2 from tailpipes, but it makes a lot of sense to
collect it from an industrial source. Carbonated beverages get their CO2
from H2 production, (as well as industrial combustion). Similarly, CO2
sequestration makes more sense at a central location than for individual
cars.
Now that's an argument that works, assuming it actually gets done, and
you actually do sequester the carbon. At least it puts off global
warming and the collapse of civilization until the methane runs out.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Glenn Arnold" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 05:39:44 PM |
|
|
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
Mike wrote:
"Bob Pease" <robertjp@askmeinapost.com> wrote in message
news:coh7nd$bnf@dispatch.concentric.net...
"Gary Bohn" <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns95B0C8585D8B6GaryBohn@130.133.1.4...
AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncqn8mg.d1.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:23:12 +0000 (UTC),
Gary Bohn <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote:
maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in
news:18510aff.0411290320.4279c678@posting.google.com:
Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28hydrogen.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Researchers say they have found a way to produce hydrogen with far
less energy than other methods, a development that would move the
country closer to the goal of a "hydrogen economy."
<snip>
Now there's an idea. Make everybody's cars into little mobile
hydrogen bombs. Let the terrorists come and attack then. We'll blow
them all to hell.
It can't be any worse than having cars as mobile environment
destroyers, rendering air quality so bad in places that some folks
can't breathe, while simultaneously dumping billions of dollars into
currupt regimes who then turn around and fund the terrorists.
Whoa there Aaron. I was making a funny. You know me, I couldn't be
serious if my life depended on it. Besides I think hydrogen powered
vehicles would be great and have thought so for 30 some years.
I'm not sure that everyone reading these XPed ngs understands that the
amount of energy you get from burning hydrogen is not the same as what you
would get from a fusion reaction.
In the case of burning hydrogen in automobiles, the hydrogen, even IF
produced from fossil fuels, would give up to 10 times as much energy as
putting the same amount of fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine,
and
give almost no pollution.
This is why hybrid cars are at least a stopgap solution ..
My option would be batteries charged by solar power. but I don't want to
spend a dollar per mile for fuel and pay 50 kilobux for a monster machine
with two tons of batteries that had to be charged half of the time anyway.
I think it's sad that we don't have the research and development
priorities
set up to get nuclear and solar power down to a p;ace where they can be
marketed competitively with fossil fuels.
Bob Pease
The simple solution is to use alcohol to fuel the cells. Hydrogen is a blind
alley; it's far too volatile for Joe Public to be trusted to handle and can
lead to minor explosions within the fuel cells too. Just producing it leads
to a huge cloud of pollution from the generating plant, which in the US
would be powered by coal or some other fossil fuel. On the other hand
alcohol can be produced from the fermentation of waste foodstuffs, corn
husks etc and distilled very efficiently indeed in purpose-built stills
featuring "stripper" stages. Experience with the type of still used to
produce liquor is deceiving; they are much less efficient. A still which is
built to produce fuel-alcohol produces a much higher yield in a single pass
than a traditional one can in 3x passes through it. Even the residual mash
can be used for cattle feed.
Another promising fuel for fuel cells is vegetable oil.
The only reason so many auto-makers and oil companies in the USA have
committed to Hydrogen is
because it is absorbing all the human energy which might otherwise be
devoted to the search for more realistic alternatives to petroil and
wrapping them up in a journey to certain failure. Your legislators are also
a party to this.
With alcohol it's all so simple.
Without huge 4WD PSU's it's even simpler.
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Surely it depends on what's used to make the steam. Assuming (worst
case) that the steam is produced by an oil-fired power plant, can we be
assured that the combined CO2 from oil-burning and methane, uh,
dehydrogenation (?) comes out to be less than would have been produced
by the gasoline-fueled cars replaced by cars that use the hydrogen? Do
you have actual numbers on that?
No. But I know some engineers that I trust. I used to work in the
industrial gases business in combustion technology development. We had
some projects where the numbers clearly didn't support the process, if
it weren't for logistics (one involved production of CO as a feedstock.
the process was really expensive, but the alternative was shipping
liquid CO by truck through several states. Not a liability I'd want to
sign off on), so we got the bad news too. Not everything works, and they
know that.
But on H2 production I never heard any disagreement with the CO2
balance. I guess I could ask for numbers, if you really want to know.
Semantically, "clouds of pollution" is a lot different from "clouds of
CO2." I can't keep track of the players here, but someone claimed that a
byproduct of H2 production was atmospheric methane, which simply isn't true.
Also, there's a strong benefit to economy of scale, in that it makes no
sense to collect CO2 from tailpipes, but it makes a lot of sense to
collect it from an industrial source. Carbonated beverages get their CO2
from H2 production, (as well as industrial combustion). Similarly, CO2
sequestration makes more sense at a central location than for individual
cars.
Now that's an argument that works, assuming it actually gets done, and
you actually do sequester the carbon. At least it puts off global
warming and the collapse of civilization until the methane runs out.
Well, then there's methane hydrate....
Glenn Arnold
.
|
|
|
| User: "John Harshman" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 07:15:32 PM |
|
|
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
Mike wrote:
"Bob Pease" <robertjp@askmeinapost.com> wrote in message
news:coh7nd$bnf@dispatch.concentric.net...
"Gary Bohn" <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns95B0C8585D8B6GaryBohn@130.133.1.4...
AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncqn8mg.d1.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:23:12 +0000 (UTC),
Gary Bohn <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote:
maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in
news:18510aff.0411290320.4279c678@posting.google.com:
Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28hydrogen.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Researchers say they have found a way to produce hydrogen with far
less energy than other methods, a development that would move the
country closer to the goal of a "hydrogen economy."
<snip>
Now there's an idea. Make everybody's cars into little mobile
hydrogen bombs. Let the terrorists come and attack then. We'll blow
them all to hell.
It can't be any worse than having cars as mobile environment
destroyers, rendering air quality so bad in places that some folks
can't breathe, while simultaneously dumping billions of dollars into
currupt regimes who then turn around and fund the terrorists.
Whoa there Aaron. I was making a funny. You know me, I couldn't be
serious if my life depended on it. Besides I think hydrogen powered
vehicles would be great and have thought so for 30 some years.
I'm not sure that everyone reading these XPed ngs understands that the
amount of energy you get from burning hydrogen is not the same as what you
would get from a fusion reaction.
In the case of burning hydrogen in automobiles, the hydrogen, even IF
produced from fossil fuels, would give up to 10 times as much energy as
putting the same amount of fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine,
and
give almost no pollution.
This is why hybrid cars are at least a stopgap solution ..
My option would be batteries charged by solar power. but I don't want to
spend a dollar per mile for fuel and pay 50 kilobux for a monster machine
with two tons of batteries that had to be charged half of the time anyway.
I think it's sad that we don't have the research and development
priorities
set up to get nuclear and solar power down to a p;ace where they can be
marketed competitively with fossil fuels.
Bob Pease
The simple solution is to use alcohol to fuel the cells. Hydrogen is a blind
alley; it's far too volatile for Joe Public to be trusted to handle and can
lead to minor explosions within the fuel cells too. Just producing it leads
to a huge cloud of pollution from the generating plant, which in the US
would be powered by coal or some other fossil fuel. On the other hand
alcohol can be produced from the fermentation of waste foodstuffs, corn
husks etc and distilled very efficiently indeed in purpose-built stills
featuring "stripper" stages. Experience with the type of still used to
produce liquor is deceiving; they are much less efficient. A still which is
built to produce fuel-alcohol produces a much higher yield in a single pass
than a traditional one can in 3x passes through it. Even the residual mash
can be used for cattle feed.
Another promising fuel for fuel cells is vegetable oil.
The only reason so many auto-makers and oil companies in the USA have
committed to Hydrogen is
because it is absorbing all the human energy which might otherwise be
devoted to the search for more realistic alternatives to petroil and
wrapping them up in a journey to certain failure. Your legislators are also
a party to this.
With alcohol it's all so simple.
Without huge 4WD PSU's it's even simpler.
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Surely it depends on what's used to make the steam. Assuming (worst
case) that the steam is produced by an oil-fired power plant, can we be
assured that the combined CO2 from oil-burning and methane, uh,
dehydrogenation (?) comes out to be less than would have been produced
by the gasoline-fueled cars replaced by cars that use the hydrogen? Do
you have actual numbers on that?
No. But I know some engineers that I trust. I used to work in the
industrial gases business in combustion technology development. We had
some projects where the numbers clearly didn't support the process, if
it weren't for logistics (one involved production of CO as a feedstock.
the process was really expensive, but the alternative was shipping
liquid CO by truck through several states. Not a liability I'd want to
sign off on), so we got the bad news too. Not everything works, and they
know that.
But on H2 production I never heard any disagreement with the CO2
balance. I guess I could ask for numbers, if you really want to know.
I don't want numbers. I just want to know that they actually do work
out, and how much CO2 production you would be saving if you just
released all this into the atmosphere (no sequestration).
Semantically, "clouds of pollution" is a lot different from "clouds of
CO2." I can't keep track of the players here, but someone claimed that a
byproduct of H2 production was atmospheric methane, which simply isn't true.
Also, there's a strong benefit to economy of scale, in that it makes no
sense to collect CO2 from tailpipes, but it makes a lot of sense to
collect it from an industrial source. Carbonated beverages get their CO2
from H2 production, (as well as industrial combustion). Similarly, CO2
sequestration makes more sense at a central location than for individual
cars.
Now that's an argument that works, assuming it actually gets done, and
you actually do sequester the carbon. At least it puts off global
warming and the collapse of civilization until the methane runs out.
Well, then there's methane hydrate....
Potentially scary. One hears horror stories of a catastrophic release of
methane.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Glenn Arnold" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
02 Dec 2004 09:21:46 PM |
|
|
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
Mike wrote:
"Bob Pease" <robertjp@askmeinapost.com> wrote in message
news:coh7nd$bnf@dispatch.concentric.net...
"Gary Bohn" <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns95B0C8585D8B6GaryBohn@130.133.1.4...
AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncqn8mg.d1.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:23:12 +0000 (UTC),
Gary Bohn <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote:
maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in
news:18510aff.0411290320.4279c678@posting.google.com:
Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28hydrogen.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Researchers say they have found a way to produce hydrogen with far
less energy than other methods, a development that would move the
country closer to the goal of a "hydrogen economy."
<snip>
Now there's an idea. Make everybody's cars into little mobile
hydrogen bombs. Let the terrorists come and attack then. We'll blow
them all to hell.
It can't be any worse than having cars as mobile environment
destroyers, rendering air quality so bad in places that some folks
can't breathe, while simultaneously dumping billions of dollars into
currupt regimes who then turn around and fund the terrorists.
Whoa there Aaron. I was making a funny. You know me, I couldn't be
serious if my life depended on it. Besides I think hydrogen powered
vehicles would be great and have thought so for 30 some years.
I'm not sure that everyone reading these XPed ngs understands that the
amount of energy you get from burning hydrogen is not the same as what you
would get from a fusion reaction.
In the case of burning hydrogen in automobiles, the hydrogen, even IF
produced from fossil fuels, would give up to 10 times as much energy as
putting the same amount of fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine,
and
give almost no pollution.
This is why hybrid cars are at least a stopgap solution ..
My option would be batteries charged by solar power. but I don't want to
spend a dollar per mile for fuel and pay 50 kilobux for a monster machine
with two tons of batteries that had to be charged half of the time anyway.
I think it's sad that we don't have the research and development
priorities
set up to get nuclear and solar power down to a p;ace where they can be
marketed competitively with fossil fuels.
Bob Pease
The simple solution is to use alcohol to fuel the cells. Hydrogen is a blind
alley; it's far too volatile for Joe Public to be trusted to handle and can
lead to minor explosions within the fuel cells too. Just producing it leads
to a huge cloud of pollution from the generating plant, which in the US
would be powered by coal or some other fossil fuel. On the other hand
alcohol can be produced from the fermentation of waste foodstuffs, corn
husks etc and distilled very efficiently indeed in purpose-built stills
featuring "stripper" stages. Experience with the type of still used to
produce liquor is deceiving; they are much less efficient. A still which is
built to produce fuel-alcohol produces a much higher yield in a single pass
than a traditional one can in 3x passes through it. Even the residual mash
can be used for cattle feed.
Another promising fuel for fuel cells is vegetable oil.
The only reason so many auto-makers and oil companies in the USA have
committed to Hydrogen is
because it is absorbing all the human energy which might otherwise be
devoted to the search for more realistic alternatives to petroil and
wrapping them up in a journey to certain failure. Your legislators are also
a party to this.
With alcohol it's all so simple.
Without huge 4WD PSU's it's even simpler.
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Surely it depends on what's used to make the steam. Assuming (worst
case) that the steam is produced by an oil-fired power plant, can we be
assured that the combined CO2 from oil-burning and methane, uh,
dehydrogenation (?) comes out to be less than would have been produced
by the gasoline-fueled cars replaced by cars that use the hydrogen? Do
you have actual numbers on that?
No. But I know some engineers that I trust. I used to work in the
industrial gases business in combustion technology development. We had
some projects where the numbers clearly didn't support the process, if
it weren't for logistics (one involved production of CO as a feedstock.
the process was really expensive, but the alternative was shipping
liquid CO by truck through several states. Not a liability I'd want to
sign off on), so we got the bad news too. Not everything works, and they
know that.
But on H2 production I never heard any disagreement with the CO2
balance. I guess I could ask for numbers, if you really want to know.
I don't want numbers. I just want to know that they actually do work
out, and how much CO2 production you would be saving if you just
released all this into the atmosphere (no sequestration).
You asked if I had numbers. Then you say you don't want numbers, you
want to know if it works out. I have the word of engineers who are
working in the industry, and whom I trust to tell me differently if it
didn't work out, and whom I have asked this very question to myself
(it's a pretty obvious question), and they say that it works out. It's
not like they had anything to gain by lying. I offered numbers in case
you aren't willing to accept their word as I do.
If you want, I'll double check.
Never mind, I did double check. The difference is between methane and
gasoline. (But I still didn't get numbers) Octane, for example has about
twice the carbon to hydrogen ratio of methane. So just switching to
natural gas cars would give you a CO2 savings. H2O has 2 hydrogens, so
the comparison is for C8H18 to 8(CH4 + 2(H2O)). You can see that for
each carbon, there are 18 hydrogens in octane, but for each carbon,
there are 64 hydrogens in steam/methane. If you just consider hydrogen
the energy transfer medium, it produces a lot less CO2, so you have
quite a bit of room to add energy (still using methane) to heat the
steam. Overall, it uses more energy and produces more CO2 than straight
methane combustion, but a lot less than gasoline for CO2. I don't have a
comparison for energy.
This is assuming Hydrogen IC engines. As soon as you go to fuel cells,
the total efficiency goes way up over IC engines, so all the byproducts
go way down. I'll have to call another friend for info on fuel cell
efficiency. (Three of my coworkers who were laid off the same time I was
went to FuelCell Energy Inc. in Danbury).
Semantically, "clouds of pollution" is a lot different from "clouds of
CO2." I can't keep track of the players here, but someone claimed that a
byproduct of H2 production was atmospheric methane, which simply isn't true.
Also, there's a strong benefit to economy of scale, in that it makes no
sense to collect CO2 from tailpipes, but it makes a lot of sense to
collect it from an industrial source. Carbonated beverages get their CO2
from H2 production, (as well as industrial combustion). Similarly, CO2
sequestration makes more sense at a central location than for individual
cars.
Now that's an argument that works, assuming it actually gets done, and
you actually do sequester the carbon. At least it puts off global
warming and the collapse of civilization until the methane runs out.
Well, then there's methane hydrate....
Potentially scary. One hears horror stories of a catastrophic release of
methane.
No kidding. Even without it, it's still more carbon in the atmosphere.
But there's the same threat from CO2 sequestration. There have been
cases of lakes suddenly giving up their CO2 and asphyxiating villages.
Glenn Arnold
.
|
|
|
| User: "John Harshman" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
03 Dec 2004 08:47:01 AM |
|
|
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
Mike wrote:
"Bob Pease" <robertjp@askmeinapost.com> wrote in message
news:coh7nd$bnf@dispatch.concentric.net...
"Gary Bohn" <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns95B0C8585D8B6GaryBohn@130.133.1.4...
AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncqn8mg.d1.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:23:12 +0000 (UTC),
Gary Bohn <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote:
maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in
news:18510aff.0411290320.4279c678@posting.google.com:
Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28hydrogen.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Researchers say they have found a way to produce hydrogen with far
less energy than other methods, a development that would move the
country closer to the goal of a "hydrogen economy."
<snip>
Now there's an idea. Make everybody's cars into little mobile
hydrogen bombs. Let the terrorists come and attack then. We'll blow
them all to hell.
It can't be any worse than having cars as mobile environment
destroyers, rendering air quality so bad in places that some folks
can't breathe, while simultaneously dumping billions of dollars into
currupt regimes who then turn around and fund the terrorists.
Whoa there Aaron. I was making a funny. You know me, I couldn't be
serious if my life depended on it. Besides I think hydrogen powered
vehicles would be great and have thought so for 30 some years.
I'm not sure that everyone reading these XPed ngs understands that the
amount of energy you get from burning hydrogen is not the same as what you
would get from a fusion reaction.
In the case of burning hydrogen in automobiles, the hydrogen, even IF
produced from fossil fuels, would give up to 10 times as much energy as
putting the same amount of fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine,
and
give almost no pollution.
This is why hybrid cars are at least a stopgap solution ..
My option would be batteries charged by solar power. but I don't want to
spend a dollar per mile for fuel and pay 50 kilobux for a monster machine
with two tons of batteries that had to be charged half of the time anyway.
I think it's sad that we don't have the research and development
priorities
set up to get nuclear and solar power down to a p;ace where they can be
marketed competitively with fossil fuels.
Bob Pease
The simple solution is to use alcohol to fuel the cells. Hydrogen is a blind
alley; it's far too volatile for Joe Public to be trusted to handle and can
lead to minor explosions within the fuel cells too. Just producing it leads
to a huge cloud of pollution from the generating plant, which in the US
would be powered by coal or some other fossil fuel. On the other hand
alcohol can be produced from the fermentation of waste foodstuffs, corn
husks etc and distilled very efficiently indeed in purpose-built stills
featuring "stripper" stages. Experience with the type of still used to
produce liquor is deceiving; they are much less efficient. A still which is
built to produce fuel-alcohol produces a much higher yield in a single pass
than a traditional one can in 3x passes through it. Even the residual mash
can be used for cattle feed.
Another promising fuel for fuel cells is vegetable oil.
The only reason so many auto-makers and oil companies in the USA have
committed to Hydrogen is
because it is absorbing all the human energy which might otherwise be
devoted to the search for more realistic alternatives to petroil and
wrapping them up in a journey to certain failure. Your legislators are also
a party to this.
With alcohol it's all so simple.
Without huge 4WD PSU's it's even simpler.
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Surely it depends on what's used to make the steam. Assuming (worst
case) that the steam is produced by an oil-fired power plant, can we be
assured that the combined CO2 from oil-burning and methane, uh,
dehydrogenation (?) comes out to be less than would have been produced
by the gasoline-fueled cars replaced by cars that use the hydrogen? Do
you have actual numbers on that?
No. But I know some engineers that I trust. I used to work in the
industrial gases business in combustion technology development. We had
some projects where the numbers clearly didn't support the process, if
it weren't for logistics (one involved production of CO as a feedstock.
the process was really expensive, but the alternative was shipping
liquid CO by truck through several states. Not a liability I'd want to
sign off on), so we got the bad news too. Not everything works, and they
know that.
But on H2 production I never heard any disagreement with the CO2
balance. I guess I could ask for numbers, if you really want to know.
I don't want numbers. I just want to know that they actually do work
out, and how much CO2 production you would be saving if you just
released all this into the atmosphere (no sequestration).
You asked if I had numbers. Then you say you don't want numbers, you
want to know if it works out.
By which I mean I don't necessarily want to see all the nitty gritty
calculations, but I would like to know a quantified final result if
there is one.
I have the word of engineers who are
working in the industry, and whom I trust to tell me differently if it
didn't work out, and whom I have asked this very question to myself
(it's a pretty obvious question), and they say that it works out. It's
not like they had anything to gain by lying. I offered numbers in case
you aren't willing to accept their word as I do.
If you want, I'll double check.
Never mind, I did double check. The difference is between methane and
gasoline. (But I still didn't get numbers) Octane, for example has about
twice the carbon to hydrogen ratio of methane. So just switching to
natural gas cars would give you a CO2 savings. H2O has 2 hydrogens, so
the comparison is for C8H18 to 8(CH4 + 2(H2O)). You can see that for
each carbon, there are 18 hydrogens in octane, but for each carbon,
there are 64 hydrogens in steam/methane. If you just consider hydrogen
the energy transfer medium, it produces a lot less CO2, so you have
quite a bit of room to add energy (still using methane) to heat the
steam. Overall, it uses more energy and produces more CO2 than straight
methane combustion, but a lot less than gasoline for CO2. I don't have a
comparison for energy.
This could get complicated. What we really want to know is the final
energy/CO2 produced ratio between hydrogen and gasoline, counting all
parts of the process. Let's for the moment ignore extraction costs,
unless you want to count them. Same with transportation and storage
costs. I suppose it is reasonable to assume a methane power plant for H2
production; after all, you have to have a source of methane already. So
we're just counting energy produced in a car engine divided by the
amount of CO2 produced -- in the car in the case of gasoline, and in the
manufacturing process, either in the catalytic reaction or by burning
methane to generate steam, in the case of H2. Is there a number for
that? Kcal/mole of CO2?
This is assuming Hydrogen IC engines. As soon as you go to fuel cells,
the total efficiency goes way up over IC engines, so all the byproducts
go way down. I'll have to call another friend for info on fuel cell
efficiency. (Three of my coworkers who were laid off the same time I was
went to FuelCell Energy Inc. in Danbury).
Next question would be how soon all this is likely to be feasible in
actual cars that are competitive with gasoline-powered cars.
Semantically, "clouds of pollution" is a lot different from "clouds of
CO2." I can't keep track of the players here, but someone claimed that a
byproduct of H2 production was atmospheric methane, which simply isn't true.
Also, there's a strong benefit to economy of scale, in that it makes no
sense to collect CO2 from tailpipes, but it makes a lot of sense to
collect it from an industrial source. Carbonated beverages get their CO2
from H2 production, (as well as industrial combustion). Similarly, CO2
sequestration makes more sense at a central location than for individual
cars.
Now that's an argument that works, assuming it actually gets done, and
you actually do sequester the carbon. At least it puts off global
warming and the collapse of civilization until the methane runs out.
Well, then there's methane hydrate....
Potentially scary. One hears horror stories of a catastrophic release of
methane.
No kidding. Even without it, it's still more carbon in the atmosphere.
But there's the same threat from CO2 sequestration. There have been
cases of lakes suddenly giving up their CO2 and asphyxiating villages.
Perhaps carbonated water is not the best CO2 sink, at least as an end
product. I wonder if there's another. Wood, of course, but that takes
lots of time and space. CaCO3?
.
|
|
|
| User: "Glenn Arnold" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
03 Dec 2004 11:54:28 PM |
|
|
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
<snip>
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Surely it depends on what's used to make the steam. Assuming (worst
case) that the steam is produced by an oil-fired power plant, can we be
assured that the combined CO2 from oil-burning and methane, uh,
dehydrogenation (?) comes out to be less than would have been produced
by the gasoline-fueled cars replaced by cars that use the hydrogen? Do
you have actual numbers on that?
No. But I know some engineers that I trust. I used to work in the
industrial gases business in combustion technology development. We had
some projects where the numbers clearly didn't support the process, if
it weren't for logistics (one involved production of CO as a feedstock.
the process was really expensive, but the alternative was shipping
liquid CO by truck through several states. Not a liability I'd want to
sign off on), so we got the bad news too. Not everything works, and they
know that.
But on H2 production I never heard any disagreement with the CO2
balance. I guess I could ask for numbers, if you really want to know.
I don't want numbers. I just want to know that they actually do work
out, and how much CO2 production you would be saving if you just
released all this into the atmosphere (no sequestration).
You asked if I had numbers. Then you say you don't want numbers, you
want to know if it works out.
By which I mean I don't necessarily want to see all the nitty gritty
calculations, but I would like to know a quantified final result if
there is one.
I have the word of engineers who are
working in the industry, and whom I trust to tell me differently if it
didn't work out, and whom I have asked this very question to myself
(it's a pretty obvious question), and they say that it works out. It's
not like they had anything to gain by lying. I offered numbers in case
you aren't willing to accept their word as I do.
If you want, I'll double check.
Never mind, I did double check. The difference is between methane and
gasoline. (But I still didn't get numbers) Octane, for example has about
twice the carbon to hydrogen ratio of methane. So just switching to
natural gas cars would give you a CO2 savings. H2O has 2 hydrogens, so
the comparison is for C8H18 to 8(CH4 + 2(H2O)). You can see that for
each carbon, there are 18 hydrogens in octane, but for each carbon,
there are 64 hydrogens in steam/methane. If you just consider hydrogen
the energy transfer medium, it produces a lot less CO2, so you have
quite a bit of room to add energy (still using methane) to heat the
steam. Overall, it uses more energy and produces more CO2 than straight
methane combustion, but a lot less than gasoline for CO2. I don't have a
comparison for energy.
This could get complicated. What we really want to know is the final
energy/CO2 produced ratio between hydrogen and gasoline, counting all
parts of the process. Let's for the moment ignore extraction costs,
unless you want to count them. Same with transportation and storage
costs. I suppose it is reasonable to assume a methane power plant for H2
production; after all, you have to have a source of methane already. So
we're just counting energy produced in a car engine divided by the
amount of CO2 produced -- in the car in the case of gasoline, and in the
manufacturing process, either in the catalytic reaction or by burning
methane to generate steam, in the case of H2. Is there a number for
that? Kcal/mole of CO2?
I'm not sure I'm following you, but I think that's what I meant when I
said if you consider hydrogen the energy transfer medium, you can
compare the number of C atoms the the number of H atoms. I think that
gives you the answer you want. The steam-hydrogen equation gives you
3.55 times more energy per unit carbon. That excludes the energy to heat
the steam, but as I said, with that big a difference in the carbon to
energy ratio, you can afford quite a bit of slop in the process.
Also, the reformers use a shell and tube heat exchanger, so the heat is
recovered from the product and used to heat incoming water. So you
really only need to add the additional heat necessary to split the
molecules, the heat needed to get it in gaseous form washes out of the
equation. (minus the efficiency of the heat exchanger, which is in the
high 90's)
We actually had one of those heat exchangers in my lab, but we were
using it for an oxygen preheating application for combustion. It had to
be made out of some exotic alloy, to heat O2 to 1200 F. Sad thing is,
someone paid to have it built, and we installed it in the lab, but the
project stalled and I don't think we even used it once.
This is assuming Hydrogen IC engines. As soon as you go to fuel cells,
the total efficiency goes way up over IC engines, so all the byproducts
go way down. I'll have to call another friend for info on fuel cell
efficiency. (Three of my coworkers who were laid off the same time I was
went to FuelCell Energy Inc. in Danbury).
Next question would be how soon all this is likely to be feasible in
actual cars that are competitive with gasoline-powered cars.
"Dong Jin Kim, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company, said:
"Hyundai is dedicated to developing commercially viable, zero-emission
vehicles and our agreement with UTC Fuel Cells brings us one step closer
to our goal. By 2004, Hyundai will be testing and evaluating the
performance of fuel cell vehicles in fleet applications, allowing us to
further refine the application of fuel cells for every-day transportation.""
"Hyundai expects to make fuel cell vehicles available to US fleet
operators as early as next year, with limited consumer availability
planned for 2010."
http://www.carpages.co.uk/hyundai/hyundai_hydrogen_fuel_cell_vehicle_24_07_03.asp?switched=on&echo=164812993
Semantically, "clouds of pollution" is a lot different from "clouds of
CO2." I can't keep track of the players here, but someone claimed that a
byproduct of H2 production was atmospheric methane, which simply isn't true.
Also, there's a strong benefit to economy of scale, in that it makes no
sense to collect CO2 from tailpipes, but it makes a lot of sense to
collect it from an industrial source. Carbonated beverages get their CO2
from H2 production, (as well as industrial combustion). Similarly, CO2
sequestration makes more sense at a central location than for individual
cars.
Now that's an argument that works, assuming it actually gets done, and
you actually do sequester the carbon. At least it puts off global
warming and the collapse of civilization until the methane runs out.
Well, then there's methane hydrate....
Potentially scary. One hears horror stories of a catastrophic release of
methane.
No kidding. Even without it, it's still more carbon in the atmosphere.
But there's the same threat from CO2 sequestration. There have been
cases of lakes suddenly giving up their CO2 and asphyxiating villages.
Perhaps carbonated water is not the best CO2 sink, at least as an end
product. I wonder if there's another. Wood, of course, but that takes
lots of time and space. CaCO3?
But vegetation does take up a lot of space. I think that's exactly why
the carbonated water for irrigation makes sense. As I understand it, the
point is to deliver the water in such a way that it gives up the CO2
locally within cover of vegetation, which takes it up quickly before it
moves up into the general atmosphere. I think some people have simply
spiked the air with CO2 in close proximity to plants and compared growth
rates. I think this actually started without giving a thought to CO2
sequestration, simply for the growth benefit, but it has since seen as
killing two birds with one stone.
Glenn Arnold
.
|
|
|
| User: "John Harshman" |
|
| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
04 Dec 2004 09:03:46 AM |
|
|
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
<snip>
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Surely it depends on what's used to make the steam. Assuming (worst
case) that the steam is produced by an oil-fired power plant, can we be
assured that the combined CO2 from oil-burning and methane, uh,
dehydrogenation (?) comes out to be less than would have been produced
by the gasoline-fueled cars replaced by cars that use the hydrogen? Do
you have actual numbers on that?
No. But I know some engineers that I trust. I used to work in the
industrial gases business in combustion technology development. We had
some projects where the numbers clearly didn't support the process, if
it weren't for logistics (one involved production of CO as a feedstock.
the process was really expensive, but the alternative was shipping
liquid CO by truck through several states. Not a liability I'd want to
sign off on), so we got the bad news too. Not everything works, and they
know that.
But on H2 production I never heard any disagreement with the CO2
balance. I guess I could ask for numbers, if you really want to know.
I don't want numbers. I just want to know that they actually do work
out, and how much CO2 production you would be saving if you just
released all this into the atmosphere (no sequestration).
You asked if I had numbers. Then you say you don't want numbers, you
want to know if it works out.
By which I mean I don't necessarily want to see all the nitty gritty
calculations, but I would like to know a quantified final result if
there is one.
I have the word of engineers who are
working in the industry, and whom I trust to tell me differently if it
didn't work out, and whom I have asked this very question to myself
(it's a pretty obvious question), and they say that it works out. It's
not like they had anything to gain by lying. I offered numbers in case
you aren't willing to accept their word as I do.
If you want, I'll double check.
Never mind, I did double check. The difference is between methane and
gasoline. (But I still didn't get numbers) Octane, for example has about
twice the carbon to hydrogen ratio of methane. So just switching to
natural gas cars would give you a CO2 savings. H2O has 2 hydrogens, so
the comparison is for C8H18 to 8(CH4 + 2(H2O)). You can see that for
each carbon, there are 18 hydrogens in octane, but for each carbon,
there are 64 hydrogens in steam/methane. If you just consider hydrogen
the energy transfer medium, it produces a lot less CO2, so you have
quite a bit of room to add energy (still using methane) to heat the
steam. Overall, it uses more energy and produces more CO2 than straight
methane combustion, but a lot less than gasoline for CO2. I don't have a
comparison for energy.
This could get complicated. What we really want to know is the final
energy/CO2 produced ratio between hydrogen and gasoline, counting all
parts of the process. Let's for the moment ignore extraction costs,
unless you want to count them. Same with transportation and storage
costs. I suppose it is reasonable to assume a methane power plant for H2
production; after all, you have to have a source of methane already. So
we're just counting energy produced in a car engine divided by the
amount of CO2 produced -- in the car in the case of gasoline, and in the
manufacturing process, either in the catalytic reaction or by burning
methane to generate steam, in the case of H2. Is there a number for
that? Kcal/mole of CO2?
I'm not sure I'm following you, but I think that's what I meant when I
said if you consider hydrogen the energy transfer medium, you can
compare the number of C atoms the the number of H atoms. I think that
gives you the answer you want. The steam-hydrogen equation gives you
3.55 times more energy per unit carbon. That excludes the energy to heat
the steam, but as I said, with that big a difference in the carbon to
energy ratio, you can afford quite a bit of slop in the process.
The question is whether that gross calculation works out when you look
at the actual reactions instead of just counting hydrogens.
Also, the reformers use a shell and tube heat exchanger, so the heat is
recovered from the product and used to heat incoming water. So you
really only need to add the additional heat necessary to split the
molecules, the heat needed to get it in gaseous form washes out of the
equation. (minus the efficiency of the heat exchanger, which is in the
high 90's)
We actually had one of those heat exchangers in my lab, but we were
using it for an oxygen preheating application for combustion. It had to
be made out of some exotic alloy, to heat O2 to 1200 F. Sad thing is,
someone paid to have it built, and we installed it in the lab, but the
project stalled and I don't think we even used it once.
This is assuming Hydrogen IC engines. As soon as you go to fuel cells,
the total efficiency goes way up over IC engines, so all the byproducts
go way down. I'll have to call another friend for info on fuel cell
efficiency. (Three of my coworkers who were laid off the same time I was
went to FuelCell Energy Inc. in Danbury).
Next question would be how soon all this is likely to be feasible in
actual cars that are competitive with gasoline-powered cars.
"Dong Jin Kim, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company, said:
"Hyundai is dedicated to developing commercially viable, zero-emission
vehicles and our agreement with UTC Fuel Cells brings us one step closer
to our goal. By 2004, Hyundai will be testing and evaluating the
performance of fuel cell vehicles in fleet applications, allowing us to
further refine the application of fuel cells for every-day transportation.""
"Hyundai expects to make fuel cell vehicles available to US fleet
operators as early as next year, with limited consumer availability
planned for 2010."
http://www.carpages.co.uk/hyundai/hyundai_hydrogen_fuel_cell_vehicle_24_07_03.asp?switched=on&echo=164812993
Hypothetically cool.
Semantically, "clouds of pollution" is a lot different from "clouds of
CO2." I can't keep track of the players here, but someone claimed that a
byproduct of H2 production was atmospheric methane, which simply isn't true.
Also, there's a strong benefit to economy of scale, in that it makes no
sense to collect CO2 from tailpipes, but it makes a lot of sense to
collect it from an industrial source. Carbonated beverages get their CO2
from H2 production, (as well as industrial combustion). Similarly, CO2
sequestration makes more sense at a central location than for individual
cars.
Now that's an argument that works, assuming it actually gets done, and
you actually do sequester the carbon. At least it puts off global
warming and the collapse of civilization until the methane runs out.
Well, then there's methane hydrate....
Potentially scary. One hears horror stories of a catastrophic release of
methane.
No kidding. Even without it, it's still more carbon in the atmosphere.
But there's the same threat from CO2 sequestration. There have been
cases of lakes suddenly giving up their CO2 and asphyxiating villages.
Perhaps carbonated water is not the best CO2 sink, at least as an end
product. I wonder if there's another. Wood, of course, but that takes
lots of time and space. CaCO3?
But vegetation does take up a lot of space. I think that's exactly why
the carbonated water for irrigation makes sense. As I understand it, the
point is to deliver the water in such a way that it gives up the CO2
locally within cover of vegetation, which takes it up quickly before it
moves up into the general atmosphere. I think some people have simply
spiked the air with CO2 in close proximity to plants and compared growth
rates. I think this actually started without giving a thought to CO2
sequestration, simply for the growth benefit, but it has since seen as
killing two birds with one stone.
But will it work in the volumes needed for a hydrogen economy? Can
plants fix all the carbon generated?
Glenn Arnold
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| User: "Glenn Arnold" |
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| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
04 Dec 2004 02:11:42 PM |
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John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Glenn Arnold wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
<snip>
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where are the
"clouds of pollution" coming from?
CO2 is pollution, unless you're a global warming denier. Quite aside
from the source of the energy required to produce the steam.
True, but hydrogen production produces less CO2 than hydrocarbon
combustion. Overall, the equation is better than the current options,
and is likely to be commercialized in the foreseeable future.
Surely it depends on what's used to make the steam. Assuming (worst
case) that the steam is produced by an oil-fired power plant, can we be
assured that the combined CO2 from oil-burning and methane, uh,
dehydrogenation (?) comes out to be less than would have been produced
by the gasoline-fueled cars replaced by cars that use the hydrogen? Do
you have actual numbers on that?
No. But I know some engineers that I trust. I used to work in the
industrial gases business in combustion technology development. We had
some projects where the numbers clearly didn't support the process, if
it weren't for logistics (one involved production of CO as a feedstock.
the process was really expensive, but the alternative was shipping
liquid CO by truck through several states. Not a liability I'd want to
sign off on), so we got the bad news too. Not everything works, and they
know that.
But on H2 production I never heard any disagreement with the CO2
balance. I guess I could ask for numbers, if you really want to know.
I don't want numbers. I just want to know that they actually do work
out, and how much CO2 production you would be saving if you just
released all this into the atmosphere (no sequestration).
You asked if I had numbers. Then you say you don't want numbers, you
want to know if it works out.
By which I mean I don't necessarily want to see all the nitty gritty
calculations, but I would like to know a quantified final result if
there is one.
I have the word of engineers who are
working in the industry, and whom I trust to tell me differently if it
didn't work out, and whom I have asked this very question to myself
(it's a pretty obvious question), and they say that it works out. It's
not like they had anything to gain by lying. I offered numbers in case
you aren't willing to accept their word as I do.
If you want, I'll double check.
Never mind, I did double check. The difference is between methane and
gasoline. (But I still didn't get numbers) Octane, for example has about
twice the carbon to hydrogen ratio of methane. So just switching to
natural gas cars would give you a CO2 savings. H2O has 2 hydrogens, so
the comparison is for C8H18 to 8(CH4 + 2(H2O)). You can see that for
each carbon, there are 18 hydrogens in octane, but for each carbon,
there are 64 hydrogens in steam/methane. If you just consider hydrogen
the energy transfer medium, it produces a lot less CO2, so you have
quite a bit of room to add energy (still using methane) to heat the
steam. Overall, it uses more energy and produces more CO2 than straight
methane combustion, but a lot less than gasoline for CO2. I don't have a
comparison for energy.
This could get complicated. What we really want to know is the final
energy/CO2 produced ratio between hydrogen and gasoline, counting all
parts of the process. Let's for the moment ignore extraction costs,
unless you want to count them. Same with transportation and storage
costs. I suppose it is reasonable to assume a methane power plant for H2
production; after all, you have to have a source of methane already. So
we're just counting energy produced in a car engine divided by the
amount of CO2 produced -- in the car in the case of gasoline, and in the
manufacturing process, either in the catalytic reaction or by burning
methane to generate steam, in the case of H2. Is there a number for
that? Kcal/mole of CO2?
I'm not sure I'm following you, but I think that's what I meant when I
said if you consider hydrogen the energy transfer medium, you can
compare the number of C atoms the the number of H atoms. I think that
gives you the answer you want. The steam-hydrogen equation gives you
3.55 times more energy per unit carbon. That excludes the energy to heat
the steam, but as I said, with that big a difference in the carbon to
energy ratio, you can afford quite a bit of slop in the process.
The question is whether that gross calculation works out when you look
at the actual reactions instead of just counting hydrogens.
I'm trying to give you an order of magnitude in simple enough terms to
understand. You and I both accept that scientists who are modelling
atmospheric energy balance are in consensus that CO2 is a major
contibutor to global warming. You and I both know that the actual nitty
gritty of the calculations is more complicated than we can easily discuss.
Here we have an equation that shows an order of magnitude of 350%
difference between two systems, which was given to me by a scientist who
is part of the collective group of scientists studying the "hydrogen
economy," who are in consensus that hydrogen production will cut overall
CO2 emissions by a substantial margin.
My Toyota Prius gets about 45 mpg. Compared to an equivalent OTTO cycle
gasoline powered automobile, that's probably an efficiency of 125%
compared to normal (normal being 100%), but it's significant. Even if
the 350% difference between octane and hydrogen shakes down to 150%
after you consider all the more nickel and dime details, it's still an
improvement. But the bottom line is this: The scientists who are working
on the problem are in consensus: Steam/methane reformation will produce
a significant reduction in CO2 emmissions.
Also, the reformers use a shell and tube heat exchanger, so the heat is
recovered from the product and used to heat incoming water. So you
really only need to add the additional heat necessary to split the
molecules, the heat needed to get it in gaseous form washes out of the
equation. (minus the efficiency of the heat exchanger, which is in the
high 90's)
We actually had one of those heat exchangers in my lab, but we were
using it for an oxygen preheating application for combustion. It had to
be made out of some exotic alloy, to heat O2 to 1200 F. Sad thing is,
someone paid to have it built, and we installed it in the lab, but the
project stalled and I don't think we even used it once.
This is assuming Hydrogen IC engines. As soon as you go to fuel cells,
the total efficiency goes way up over IC engines, so all the byproducts
go way down. I'll have to call another friend for info on fuel cell
efficiency. (Three of my coworkers who were laid off the same time I was
went to FuelCell Energy Inc. in Danbury).
Next question would be how soon all this is likely to be feasible in
actual cars that are competitive with gasoline-powered cars.
"Dong Jin Kim, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company, said:
"Hyundai is dedicated to developing commercially viable, zero-emission
vehicles and our agreement with UTC Fuel Cells brings us one step closer
to our goal. By 2004, Hyundai will be testing and evaluating the
performance of fuel cell vehicles in fleet applications, allowing us to
further refine the application of fuel cells for every-day transportation.""
"Hyundai expects to make fuel cell vehicles available to US fleet
operators as early as next year, with limited consumer availability
planned for 2010."
http://www.carpages.co.uk/hyundai/hyundai_hydrogen_fuel_cell_vehicle_24_07_03.asp?switched=on&echo=164812993
Hypothetically cool.
<snip>
Perhaps carbonated water is not the best CO2 sink, at least as an end
product. I wonder if there's another. Wood, of course, but that takes
lots of time and space. CaCO3?
But vegetation does take up a lot of space. I think that's exactly why
the carbonated water for irrigation makes sense. As I understand it, the
point is to deliver the water in such a way that it gives up the CO2
locally within cover of vegetation, which takes it up quickly before it
moves up into the general atmosphere. I think some people have simply
spiked the air with CO2 in close proximity to plants and compared growth
rates. I think this actually started without giving a thought to CO2
sequestration, simply for the growth benefit, but it has since seen as
killing two birds with one stone.
But will it work in the volumes needed for a hydrogen economy? Can
plants fix all the carbon generated?
I don't know. But again, if it's better than no sequestration at all,
it's worth a try. For that matter, it it turns out to offer no
sequestration, but provides an agricultural benefit, it's still worth doing.
Glenn Arnold
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Hydrogen |
01 Dec 2004 06:18:32 PM |
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On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 02:54:44 +0000 (UTC), Glenn Arnold
<oldnoah@att.net> wrote:
Mike wrote:
"Bob Pease" <robertjp@askmeinapost.com> wrote in message
news:coh7nd$bnf@dispatch.concentric.net...
"Gary Bohn" <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns95B0C8585D8B6GaryBohn@130.133.1.4...
AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncqn8mg.d1.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:23:12 +0000 (UTC),
Gary Bohn <garybohn@REMOVETHISaccesscomm.ca> wrote:
maff91@yahoo.com (maff) wrote in
news:18510aff.0411290320.4279c678@posting.google.com:
Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28hydrogen.html
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Researchers say they have found a way to produce hydrogen with far
less energy than other methods, a development that would move the
country closer to the goal of a "hydrogen economy."
<snip>
Now there's an idea. Make everybody's cars into little mobile
hydrogen bombs. Let the terrorists come and attack then. We'll blow
them all to hell.
It can't be any worse than having cars as mobile environment
destroyers, rendering air quality so bad in places that some folks
can't breathe, while simultaneously dumping billions of dollars into
currupt regimes who then turn around and fund the terrorists.
Whoa there Aaron. I was making a funny. You know me, I couldn't be
serious if my life depended on it. Besides I think hydrogen powered
vehicles would be great and have thought so for 30 some years.
I'm not sure that everyone reading these XPed ngs understands that the
amount of energy you get from burning hydrogen is not the same as what you
would get from a fusion reaction.
In the case of burning hydrogen in automobiles, the hydrogen, even IF
produced from fossil fuels, would give up to 10 times as much energy as
putting the same amount of fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine,
and
give almost no pollution.
This is why hybrid cars are at least a stopgap solution ..
My option would be batteries charged by solar power. but I don't want to
spend a dollar per mile for fuel and pay 50 kilobux for a monster machine
with two tons of batteries that had to be charged half of the time anyway.
I think it's sad that we don't have the research and development
priorities
set up to get nuclear and solar power down to a p;ace where they can be
marketed competitively with fossil fuels.
Bob Pease
The simple solution is to use alcohol to fuel the cells. Hydrogen is a blind
alley; it's far too volatile for Joe Public to be trusted to handle and can
lead to minor explosions within the fuel cells too. Just producing it leads
to a huge cloud of pollution from the generating plant, which in the US
would be powered by coal or some other fossil fuel. On the other hand
alcohol can be produced from the fermentation of waste foodstuffs, corn
husks etc and distilled very efficiently indeed in purpose-built stills
featuring "stripper" stages. Experience with the type of still used to
produce liquor is deceiving; they are much less efficient. A still which is
built to produce fuel-alcohol produces a much higher yield in a single pass
than a traditional one can in 3x passes through it. Even the residual mash
can be used for cattle feed.
Another promising fuel for fuel cells is vegetable oil.
The only reason so many auto-makers and oil companies in the USA have
committed to Hydrogen is
because it is absorbing all the human energy which might otherwise be
devoted to the search for more realistic alternatives to petroil and
wrapping them up in a journey to certain failure. Your legislators are also
a party to this.
With alcohol it's all so simple.
Without huge 4WD PSU's it's even simpler.
Smartcar, fuel cell, an electric motor in each wheel and a use for all those
millions of tons of corn husks that the Illinois Board of Corn Control are
eager to dispose of.....
Mike.
The problem with corn based fuels is that the fertilizer required to
grow the corn requires petroleum to make. For two calories of corn it
takes 1 calorie of petroleum energy. Corn is cheap only as long as
petroleum stays cheap. Growing corn without fertilizer will quickly
deplete the soil of nutrients.
Petroleum or *any energy?
Then grow hemp, which leaves the soil in good shape with little or no
ferts. Also has a better yield.
BTW industrial hydrogen production uses steam and methane over a
catalyst bed, yeilding H2 and CO2 with very little else. Where | |
