More nonsense: Hydrogen for an alternate energy source

[Bimmerman]

I would say the first best hurdle to overcome in improving fuel efficiency actually isn't the hybrid design, because it is significantly more expensive than standard cars; it's the split-cycle engine. This design incorporates a very cheap means to store potential energy as compressed air instead of electricity. This could eliminate the batteries altogether and potentially increase fuel efficiency of gasoline from the standard maximum of 25% to in excess of 30%. It is also a very simple change for a very significant improvement in engine design.

 

http://www.symscape.com/blog/split_cycle_engine

 

I think this is the most logical first step in the sequence of events to switching from oil to another fuel source. In that time, battery and alternate sources would have time to improve as well. It is still in its infancy, but it has not been made as big a deal as hybrid or even ethanol fuels.

 

While I agree with you (now, after a good bit of reading up on it....Split cycle was featured this year at the SAE world congress, so it is getting press among industry folks), I wouldn't say the standard four stroke otto motor has reached its zenith.

 

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/09/update-on-fords-new-bobcat-ethanol-injected-turbocharged-v8/

 

This engine.....my god. It is absurdly more fuel efficient and powerful than a modern diesel! And it's a gas engine. See, Ford at least can do things right! I do agree that hybrids are a waste of time, and that further R&D on powertrains is needed to reduce fuel consumption and emissions without sacrificing any or much power and driveability. BMW is a global leader in this, due to their efficient dynamics program. The only problem is that the "efficient dynamics" cars are...well.. slow. This Ford motor promises stupid hooliganism in high spec motors with amazing economy and low emissions. Sounds like a win-win to me. It is a prototype in the R&D phase, so don't jump on me for that. It does have Ford's engineering team and resources behind it though, and from what I've read, this is going to be a game-changing motor even if it only lives in trucks.

 

Split cycle, I'm sure, will be looked into, but consider how much manufacturers have invested in conventional motors....how could they rationally justify investing the billions it will take to bring the split cycle to a level of manufacturability, durability, and power/emissions to be introduced in a car? I have no doubt they will, I just don't see it happening at the moment considering how badly all manufacturers are hurting. The engine would have to be significantly better at power/displacement, driveability (torque band in essence), emissions, fuel consumption, packaging, and weight than a comparable gasoline/diesel motor, let alone this new Bobcat motor that really extends the gasoline four stroke motor efficiency range.

 

I honestly see the split cycle becoming like the Wankel Rotary: developed in earnest by one manufacturer to be competitive with conventional motors. I don't really see it taking off by everyone for decades at the minimum. Remember that car models are planned at least 7 years before they hit market, and you realize why it takes so long for manufacturers to react to the quick swinging sword of public opinion (see SUV dumping for perfect example, see Prius success, see retro Mustang and how long it took to get a Camaro and Challenger).

[Darth_Yuthura]

I saw the site presented, but I could not get the gist of what the design improves upon.

 

The major benefit to the split-cycle engine is the means to store compressed air. That takes the place of a battery in allowing the benefits of a hybrid vehicle at a significantly reduced cost. That compressed air tank could also serve to improve the engine's maximum power for a short span of time, as the engine could rely solely upon the compressed air and leave the valves of the compression cylinders open. The ability to separate the function of the power cylinders from the compression cylinders opens a wide range of possibilities for the engine to operate.

 

This is a function of the SC that is not exactly emphasized, because the fuel efficiency often is what's focused upon. Is there anything about that Ford engine that operates to store potential energy as compressed air or something like that? I just don't know what makes it different from other engines.

[Bimmerman]

I saw the site presented, but I could not get the gist of what the design improves upon.

 

The major benefit to the split-cycle engine is the means to store compressed air. That takes the place of a battery in allowing the benefits of a hybrid vehicle at a significantly reduced cost. That compressed air tank could also serve to improve the engine's maximum power for a short span of time, as the engine could rely solely upon the compressed air and leave the valves of the compression cylinders open. The ability to separate the function of the power cylinders from the compression cylinders opens a wide range of possibilities for the engine to operate.

 

This is a function of the SC that is not exactly emphasized, because the fuel efficiency often is what's focused upon. Is there anything about that Ford engine that operates to store potential energy as compressed air or something like that? I just don't know what makes it different from other engines.

 

No, the Ford doesn't store energy in any form. It is simply a conventional motor with turbochargers (increases the volumetric efficiency of the motor...uses waste exhaust energy to compress air to add power, economy, and torque....free power, as it were), that then has a secondary fuel system, ethanol, directly injected into the cylinders themselves. Most engines, have gasoline injected into the intake manifold before the intake valves. This engine has both; it is what you would get if you could somehow make a "FlexFuel" E85 idiotic engine run simultaneously on both gasoline and ethanol.

 

The key difference is that in this Ford motor, the ethanol is not intended to be a fuel for combustion but rather to dramatically lower the air temperatures which allows for much higher boost supplied by the turbochargers without damaging the engine. E85 is well known among the tuning crowd for allowing very high levels of boost (compression supplied by the turbo above atmospheric pressure, commonly given in bar or psi) compared to gasoline motors without damage. There's a bit of chemistry and science that goes into it, but E85 runs much cooler.

 

Since it does not have anywhere close to the energy potential of gasoline, using it as the fuel in this motor would have no effect. Combining the two to dramatically lower air temperatures, increase boost, and vastly improve combustion (the most important point) is what makes this motor so special; it's never been done before. Direct injection for just gasoline causes problems, but synchronizing and tuning for direct and port (pre-valves, in the manifold) is incredibly complex. A motor like this requires precise metering of both gasoline and ethanol in order to avoid leaning (air to fuel ratio too much in favor of air) to the point of engine damage. This engine uses the ethanol only as a coolant as it were, not a fuel...I'd imagine it as having an every few thousand mile refill distance for the ethanol tank.

 

I have run ethanol emissions tests on cars simply converted from gasoline to ethanol. While the fuel consumption rises dramatically, the emissions of NOx, CO, CO2, HC, and other bits are much much lower than a comparable gas motor. The injection of ethanol in this motor gives the same emissions benefits as a pure ethanol motor due to the air/fuel ratio; the key to emissions is achieving as close to a certain value air/fuel ratio as possible. Ethanol fuel allows you to run a drastically different A/F ratio than gasoline, on account of the cooling property of the fuel and the much higher octane rating (octane rating != energy content. Simply put, it's a measure of combustion).

 

This is why it is such a revolutionary motor. All the benefits of gasoline power and availability, turbocharging fuel consumption and powerband, and the emissions of an ethanol car to go with it, on par with or lower than a diesel. Diesels have lower emissions than gas motors for certain species (I know I'll get flak on that). Diesel emissions are higher for particulate matter and COx particles. The Ford Bobcat has low particulates due to gasoline, and lower CO and CO2 due to again, gasoline and ethanol combination. It really is a win-win.

 

As for the power/torque possibilities discussed in the article, that is a result of the higher boost levels allowed by the ethanol injection, and, I'd imagine, lower motor compression. That part is also amazing: much lower emissions and fuel consumption, much higher power and torque.

[JediAthos]

http://gas2.org/2009/07/13/students-build-hydrogen-vehicle-that-gets-1336-mpg/

 

Perhaps not a direct contribution to the discussion at hand...mostly because I have little knowledge of the topic, but when I saw this article I thought of you guys

[Bimmerman]

http://gas2.org/2009/07/13/students-build-hydrogen-vehicle-that-gets-1336-mpg/

 

Perhaps not a direct contribution to the discussion at hand...mostly because I have little knowledge of the topic, but when I saw this article I thought of you guys

 

Cool stuff there.

 

Shell has just opened a few H2 refuelling stations in NYC, JFK Airport, and in the Bronx..... i.e. the infrastructure is growing!

 

Link

[Darth_Yuthura]

We should be less concerned with the expansion of this hydrogen infrastructure and more concerned with correcting flaws within the currently existing infrastructure.

 

 

The Scuderi engine can be applied to the diesel engine as well. This is a more logical step than the electric hybrid because it should cost virtually the same as a traditional engine while barely changing the design of the engine. You have virtually the same components, so factory production, repair shops, and mechanics should be able to adapt a radically more efficient engine design with minimal problems. While this other engine design maybe more intriguing, it only applies to gasoline fuel.

 

I also had been investigating the potential of reducing the waste generated by the power grid and found that it is not as simple to do as simply tapping the excess energy. Almost 30% of all electricity produced by US power plants is wasted, or that US demands equal two thirds of what is outputted each day. Much of this happens because of peak demand during the day and reduced demand at night. The idea behind the electric hybrid is to increase demand for electricity during the night, when the rates are low; and that would reduce the fuel we'd use for transportation at virtually no cost. At the same time, the peak demands could be handled by cars plugged into the grid and acting as small power plants; owners getting paid for what their car generates. This could potentially make the power grid more efficient by taking a flaw and making two more significant improvements by switching to electric hybrids.

 

Of course all that is just IN THEORY. In practice, the idea of creating a grid where individual cars would be able to act as power plants wouldn't work unless the majority of people contribute with electric hybrids. And the economic scale you would have to expect for batteries to make a contribution would have to be enormous. Americans don't have unlimited budgets, so any theory where plug-in hybrids would have a significant impact on the power grid is not likely to happen.

 

In regards to the 'hydrogen' alternative, I've consulted with someone who would know about this and he says that you cannot really fix a flaw in a system by increasing demand during off-peak hours. You could buy cheap electricity at night, but it would only work to a limited extent. Once you push hydrogen production past a certain point, you would have to increase the production of the power plant... despite the grid's load not exceeding the plant's capacity. Hydrogen may be cheap when you produce it in small quantities, but when it becomes an increasingly dominant source of energy demand, it will cause the price of electricity to increase because power plants would be forced to output more to meet the demand.

 

There is justification for hydrogen being able to make solar and wind power more reliable. As electricity must be used when it is produced, any excess energy produced by wind turbines cannot make up for days when there is a shortage. With a system to convert excess electricity into some form of potential energy, you can increase the reliability of these renewable sources. What, oh what would be the best method to store excess electricity that would otherwise go to waste?

 

Hydrogen... is not the best, nor the only way to do this. It would make more sense to pump groundwater into a reservoir and use a dam for hydroelectricity, compressing air into underground cavities are very efficient methods of harnessing potential energy on a massive scale with a minimal cost compared to hydrogen production and using hydrogen to augment the power grid.

[Darth_Yuthura]

There is actually another solution that's even better than hydrogen in almost every way, but the Scuderi engine only represented half of it. In my last post, I addressed ways to store excess electricity from off-peak hours in cheaper ways than hydrogen. One means was to pump compressed air underground... why not just use compressed air altogether?

 

The beauty of the Scurderi engine was a much cheaper method of storing potential energy than batteries. Compressed air at 12,000 PSI doesn't have the same energy density as hydrogen or even gasoline, but it allows for a fairly quick means to recharge a vehicle's tank, and it is much more efficient than hydrogen.

 

The greatest thing about compressed air is that it can be used in much the same way as burning gasoline within the cylinders of an engine. You can use both sources of energy in the same engine... compressed air directly driving the pistons, or just burn traditional gasoline. This would actually be the next best step in moving beyond fossil fuels.

 

During off-peak hours, you can use an air compressor to recharge your car at home using cheaper electricity. If industrial-grade compressors and storage tanks were installed at gas stations, the recharge time would compare to hydrogen. Otherwise home-recharge times would be the same as electricity. If gasoline stations don't instal terminals for hydrogen or compressed air, then regular gasoline would do just as well for hybrid compressed-air/gasoline vehicles.

 

The costs of the cars also are projected to compare to that of gasoline engines... it's virtually the same technology with some modifications. That combined with the higher efficiency of storing potential energy as compressed air makes this a much better solution than hydrogen or batteries.

[Bimmerman]

There is actually another solution that's even better than hydrogen in almost every way, but the Scuderi engine only represented half of it. In my last post, I addressed ways to store excess electricity from off-peak hours in cheaper ways than hydrogen. One means was to pump compressed air underground... why not just use compressed air altogether?

 

The beauty of the Scurderi engine was a much cheaper method of storing potential energy than batteries. Compressed air at 12,000 PSI doesn't have the same energy density as hydrogen or even gasoline, but it allows for a fairly quick means to recharge a vehicle's tank, and it is much more efficient than hydrogen.

 

The greatest thing about compressed air is that it can be used in much the same way as burning gasoline within the cylinders of an engine. You can use both sources of energy in the same engine... compressed air directly driving the pistons, or just burn traditional gasoline. This would actually be the next best step in moving beyond fossil fuels.

 

During off-peak hours, you can use an air compressor to recharge your car at home using cheaper electricity. If industrial-grade compressors and storage tanks were installed at gas stations, the recharge time would compare to hydrogen. Otherwise home-recharge times would be the same as electricity. If gasoline stations don't instal terminals for hydrogen or compressed air, then regular gasoline would do just as well for hybrid compressed-air/gasoline vehicles.

 

The costs of the cars also are projected to compare to that of gasoline engines... it's virtually the same technology with some modifications. That combined with the higher efficiency of storing potential energy as compressed air makes this a much better solution than hydrogen or batteries.

 

I don't want to beat a dead horse deader, so I'll keep this short and succinct.

 

Efficiency: You keep touting this as the end-all, be-all metric by which prospective vehicle technologies should be measured. Real engineers in the field don't hold ultimate efficiency in such high regard, as it is only part of what makes a viable product. <Snipped> -- j7

 

Hydrogen: not a storage medium of potential electrical energy for off-peak or whatever. It is a fuel. A battery or capacitor stores electrical energy. Hydrogen and gasoline are fuels that require a chemical combustion reaction to create heat and expanding gases to create power, or in the case of hydrogen, it requires a catalyzed reaction to give off electrons during the formation of water from H2 and O2, these electrons cause a current, and electrical motor magic happens. Saying hydrogen is analogous to a battery is wrong...and not just because of the wide variety of applications, fuel cell, combustion, and otherwise.

 

Compressed air: while yes, it is simpler, the issue then becomes that of being able to store enough air at a constant enough pressure to give a usable range. Pressurizing (yes, mozilla thinks it's a word....odd) every five miles is useless. Similarly, filling the tank will provide a the rated 12 ksi for only a short time. As the air in the tank is depleted, the pressure drops, and with the pressure dropping, so does the power output of the engine, and with the lower power output, so rises the consumed air (as it has to work harder for a given load), and the tank is depleted faster.

 

Try this with a pneumatic Lego tank. Pressurize it, then see how many cycles the air tank will run a cylinder for at full speed and power, then see how quick and sharp the drop off becomes. That's what I'm talking about; the air tank would need to compensate for the dropping pressure by reducing effective volume or by raising the tank temperature. All of this is easily done, it just needs to be part of the thought process.

 

Also, Tata motors has had a compressed air powered car in mass production for a few years now. This isn't a new idea by any means. Again, range is the issue. Also, your home air compressor will not provide 12 ksi (12000psi). That's industrial strength, and would only be found at dedicated fueling stations. This idealized vision of a home recharging/pressurizing station is nothing but a rosy ideal. Noone will seriously consider an electric or air powered car if it is restricted to a limited range around its home station i.e. if it cannot be refueled elsewhere. Otherwise, you will end up with a very expensive limited range car (expensive considering its limited utility), and a separate "antiquated" "evil" "planet hating" "prius-driver-conniption-fit-giving" gasoline or diesel car, probably in SUV guise.

 

Why would anyone spend $10-20k on a car that can go 40 miles, in the name of efficiency, and also need to spend another $30k on a car to actually be used outside of the urban commute, when a $30k car that runs on old reliable technology and has no range restrictions is both cheaper initially and down the road?

 

I agree that it is an infinitely better idea than relying on/wishing for/pining lustfully for electric cars, or even better than hydrogen cars, but the air engines aren't nearly as developed as gasoline engines, let alone hydrogen powered cars of either internal combustion or fuel cell smugfest flavors.

 

 

wow, that was longer than I thought it'd be. Off to bed.

[Darth_Yuthura]

Efficiency: You keep touting this as the end-all, be-all metric by which prospective vehicle technologies should be measured. Real engineers in the field don't hold ultimate efficiency in such high regard, as it is only part of what makes a viable product.

 

Well I CAN tell you that if something gets an efficiency bad enough, then all the surround sound, seat warmers, and GPS devices you can install won't compensate for that. I'm not emphasizing ultimate efficiency and forgetting performance and versatility. I AM emphasizing that the efficiency of hydrogen breaks its macroeconomic and environmental viability in this case.

 

Real engineers in the field don't hold ultimate efficiency in such high regard, as it is only part of what makes a viable product... but they know that it will kill the product if it's bad enough.

 

Hydrogen: not a storage medium of potential electrical energy for off-peak or whatever. It is a fuel. A battery or capacitor stores electrical energy. Hydrogen and gasoline are fuels that require a chemical combustion reaction to create heat and expanding gases to create power, or in the case of hydrogen, it requires a catalyzed reaction to give off electrons during the formation of water from H2 and O2, these electrons cause a current, and electrical motor magic happens. Saying hydrogen is analogous to a battery is wrong...and not just because of the wide variety of applications, fuel cell, combustion, and otherwise.

 

If you worked in this field, then are you deliberately neglecting the critical element as to where the energy in hydrogen fuel originates? It is a fuel, yes; but it is secondary source of energy, meaning that it depends upon a primary source to be produced. Oil and natural gas are photosynthetic energy that have been stored underground millions of years ago that was converted to chemical energy. Oil, nuclear energy, hydroelectric, coal... these are PRIMARY sources of energy whereas hydrogen is a secondary source. There is no potential energy in water, which is why you depend upon a primary source to strip the hydrogen atoms away from the oxygen.

 

If you're going to burn natural gas in order to produce hydrogen for a hydrogen-powered vehicle, you might as well skip that step and burn the natural gas directly in a vehicle that uses natural gas.

 

Also, Tata motors has had a compressed air powered car in mass production for a few years now. This isn't a new idea by any means. Again, range is the issue. Also, your home air compressor will not provide 12 ksi (12000psi). That's industrial strength, and would only be found at dedicated fueling stations. This idealized vision of a home recharging/pressurizing station is nothing but a rosy ideal. Noone will seriously consider an electric or air powered car if it is restricted to a limited range around its home station i.e. if it cannot be refueled elsewhere. Otherwise, you will end up with a very expensive limited range car (expensive considering its limited utility), and a separate "antiquated" "evil" "planet hating" "prius-driver-conniption-fit-giving" gasoline or diesel car, probably in SUV guise.

 

Why would anyone spend $10-20k on a car that can go 40 miles, in the name of efficiency, and also need to spend another $30k on a car to actually be used outside of the urban commute, when a $30k car that runs on old reliable technology and has no range restrictions is both cheaper initially and down the road?

 

??????

 

I'm sorry, you lost me at 'limited range.' That might apply to an electric car, but not a hybrid compressed air/gasoline vehicle. That's when the gasoline aspect of the engine comes into play. This kind of engine has all the qualities of your precious hydrogen vehicle with many fewer drawbacks.

 

How much are hydrogen vehicles to manufacture? Still that high? Well your point with costs/restrictions is moot if you wish to suggest something that is less versatile and more expensive. It's not efficiency, but versatility that makes the Scuderi engine and Tata vehicles more desirable than hydrogen.

[Bimmerman]

Well I CAN tell you that if something gets an efficiency bad enough, then all the surround sound, seat warmers, and GPS devices you can install won't compensate for that. I'm not emphasizing ultimate efficiency and forgetting performance and versatility. I AM emphasizing that the efficiency of hydrogen breaks its macroeconomic and environmental viability in this case.

 

Real engineers in the field don't hold ultimate efficiency in such high regard, as it is only part of what makes a viable product... but they know that it will kill the product if it's bad enough.

 

You'd really be surprised on efficiencies. The Hummer caters to a particular buyer. So does a Prius. So does an M3 (ironically more efficient around a racetrack than a Prius at the same speeds). So does a Bugatti Veyron, which gets 2mpg at top speed and averages in the single digits.

 

What you need to accept is that efficiency is part of the package the buyer desires. A hybrid buyer wants max economy and range. A performance car buyer wants horsepower and really doesn't consider fuel economy as important. A truck buyer wants ultimate utility, and fuel economy as an afterthought.

 

I'm not going to keep arguing the economic point. Back and forth through multiple pages we've been debating that, and anyone interested in the topic can draw their own conclusions. We'll sum it down to this: you hate what hydrogen cars represent, and think they make no economic sense. I advocate hydrogen cars, and believe they make economic sense.

 

 

I thought you said you worked in this field. If you do, then you're deliberately neglecting a critical element here: where does the energy in hydrogen originate? It is a fuel, yes; but it is a fuel that depends upon another source of energy to be produced. Oil and natural gas are photosynthetic energy stored underground from millions of years ago. There is no potential energy from hydrogen stored in water.

 

Yes, I work in this field. It's 2am and I'm hardly eloquent when I'm tired.

 

What you also don't realize, as I've noted before numerous times, is that crude oil and natural gas both require refinement before they are suitable for combustion. Pouring crude oil into your car will sieze the motor. Thus, they require refinement that depends upon another source of energy. So, again, hydrogen can be treated identically to gasoline and natural gas. Hydrogen needs processing to be usable, so does gasoline and natural gas.

 

Also, for what I only wish was the last time: electrolysis of water is hardly the only method for obtaining hydrogen gas!!! I have said that, Jae has said that, you ignore that. It would be as if I claimed the only way to get gasoline would be to mine oil shale in Canada. It's the most expensive, most inefficient, most resource consuming, and most economically nonviable method possible.

 

If you're going to burn natural gas in order to produce hydrogen for a hydrogen-powered vehicle, you might as well skip that step and burn the natural gas directly in a vehicle that uses natural gas.

If you're going to use coal to power the refineries to process gasoline from crude oil for a gasoline powered vehicle, you might as well skip that step and burn the coal directly in a vehicle that uses coal.

 

See what I did there?

 

Also, many buses in my town run on natural gas....

 

??????

 

I'm sorry, you lost me at 'limited range.' That might apply to an electric car, but not a hybrid compressed air/gasoline vehicle. That's when the gasoline aspect of the engine comes into play. This kind of engine has all the qualities of your precious hydrogen vehicle with many fewer drawbacks.

 

That wasn't so much directed at compressed air cars (although it is a concern, less so if there's a gasoline engine to act as compressor or alternate drivetrain) as electric cars.

 

Re- "precious" My my, aren't we snarky? You bump an old thread and take offense when I defend my position? Wonderful.

 

In any case, hybrid air compressor/gasoline cars do not have nearly all the same qualities. For one, added weight. Fortwo (play on words, you get a cookie if you get it), emissions. Hydrogen cars create H20 and are statistically able to clean the air of NOx, CH4, THC, NMHC, and other pollutants as they drive in combustion, fuel cell simply created H20 and emits waste H2 and O2. Gasoline cars don't, although modern SULEV cars can statistically give emissions results indistinguishable from zero for certain species. There's a fun fact for you!

 

How much are hydrogen vehicles to manufacture? Still that high? Well your point with costs/restrictions is moot if you wish to suggest something that is less versatile and more expensive. It's not efficiency, but versatility that makes the Scuderi engine and Tata vehicles more desirable than hydrogen.

 

....because I want to divulge trade secrets and get sued. Great idea!

 

The costs are high for the production of FUEL CELL hydrogen cars. Hydrogen COMBUSTION vehicles are built on the regular assembly line with minimal added cost, as the engine is simply a modified gasoline engine. It's less than you think, but not practical or feasible cost wise on financial loss classes like compacts, subcompacts, midsize. The costs are partially absorbed by the profit margin in luxury class vehicles, hence why the 7 is BMW's platform.

 

The Tata car exists. The Scuderi does not in automotive production, nor outside of a lab and probably a few experimental prototypes. The Scuderi engine will not catch on until Gasoline motors are fully R&D'd out. As is, with the advent of variable valve timing, variable valve lift, direct injection, and future technologies too numerous to list, the gasoline engine is anything but dead.

 

While the Scuderi is a good idea, it will take a lot more than that to be widely accepted. It needs to demonstrate economic viability, justify the cost difference by enhanced performance, lower consumption, and lower emissions, along with lower weight, and it needs to demonstrate as good or better reliability, durability, and packaging. It also needs to justify the cost of switching to this motor design instead of implementing newer technologies on a gas motor that change the performance metrics as desireably but have no tangible effect on the other ones.

 

There have been lots of good ideas in the past, and not all get built for many of the above reasons.

[Darth_Yuthura]

If you're going to use coal to power the refineries to process gasoline from crude oil for a gasoline powered vehicle, you might as well skip that step and burn the coal directly in a vehicle that uses coal.

 

See what I did there?

 

No, I don't see what you're getting at. Oil is a primary source of energy and although you must refine it, you get more from the exchange from the gasoline and diesel fuels than what you spent on the refining process.

 

Hydrogen is a secondary source of energy, which means that all its potential energy originated from a primary source. And you would find that every joule of hydrogen energy required three joules of energy from a primary source. That is a 66% net loss.

 

Also, for what I only wish was the last time: electrolysis of water is hardly the only method for obtaining hydrogen gas!!! I have said that, Jae has said that, you ignore that. It would be as if I claimed the only way to get gasoline would be to mine oil shale in Canada. It's the most expensive, most inefficient, most resource consuming, and most economically nonviable method possible.

 

Alright, then what percentage of the hydrogen produced came from sources other than water? Is there enough of a supply that you could reasonably assume you will have enough to provide for all US vehicles indefinitely? Most of the best sources you mentioned were not very abundant. Probably we could expect them to provide for only a small fraction of all US automobiles.

 

In any case, hybrid air compressor/gasoline cars do not have nearly all the same qualities. For one, added weight. Fortwo (play on words, you get a cookie if you get it), emissions. Hydrogen cars create H20 and are statistically able to clean the air of NOx, CH4, THC, NMHC, and other pollutants as they drive in combustion, fuel cell simply created H20 and emits waste H2 and O2. Gasoline cars don't, although modern SULEV cars can statistically give emissions results indistinguishable from zero for certain species. There's a fun fact for you!

 

Hello! Hydrogen fuel depends on a primary source of energy! You forgot to mention that! Electric cars aren't emission-free either, but hydrogen cars are even worse. That MIGHT win against gasoline cars, but is anything but clean. The only clean hydrogen-fueled cars are those who's fuel was produced by a clean PRIMARY source, such as solar. Given as they only represent 1% of US energy production...

 

--------

 

I see that I'm not going to convince you otherwise. You have a stake in this, so I'll just assume you know of the issues I'm talking about. I won't hold it against you, but would rather that you not undermine what I bring up when they are indeed valid points. You can glorify hydrogen as much as you want, but don't proclaim it to be a primary source of energy because it's not.

[Darth Avlectus]

*Looks at above posts*

 

I wonder...are some forgetting electrolysis and other means to obtain hydrogen (and similar brown's gasses) are an inefficient process? That the ratio of energy gained from such processes are <1 to 1?

 

 

(This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

 

It's extremely feasible and was developed a long long time ago.

 

 

The fact that people think that it's some sort of scam is absurd. Do research.

 

"Stanley Meyer died suddenly on 21 March 1998 after dining at a restaurant. An autopsy report by the Franklin County, Ohio coroner concluded that Meyer had died of a cerebral aneurysm, but conspiracy theorists insist that he was poisoned to suppress the technology, and that oil companies and the United States government were involved in his death"

 

Boldened for emphasis. I think that is why your posts were ignored by everyone else. http://www.HappyMileage.com is a commercial source. This is contrary to what research guidelines will tell you to gather information from.

 

Mind you I am not saying you don't have something, just that most people who are for reals in research and otherwise will snort at the credibility of your sources given by virtue of what they are. I'm afraid the Government got to it and covered this one up well enough, so you won't get anywhere with this. Not without unearthing something more. Sorry. (I had the same frustrations in high school doing research for my senior project!!!)

 

I'm not bashing your sources, honest. What I am doing is trying to get you to realize that this story has holes in it that people have already seen. Things which shoot its own credibility in the foot.

 

Question: IS this story verifiable? Even if something is true, the proof that it is true is in the verification of it. (Example: This is one of the big problems of proving God actually exists)

 

Am I making any sense to you?

 

At the source material, it seems the guy in the report is pouring in water which would imply electrolysis for hydrogen or brown's gases. Though this has been pointed out by others already in this thread, I'll explain it again:

 

Look up Electrolysis from chemistry books. Plain english: You will basically find that the pure gasses it produces yield less energy than it took to produce it in the first place.

 

Brown's gasses is a similar process to electrolysis from my understanding, but it uses chemicals instead of electricity...(Someone care to jump in???)

 

Anyway, so this guy you see was pouring water into some kind of converter stage to make it a gas. It is an electrolysis process. Electrolysis is hardly a big secret.

 

What is more is that it was inefficient to begin with, so if it is economical it is only ideally about the same (at best) as gasoline. However, the equivalent use combustion wise will use up MORE of this new gas FASTER than gasoline. Look it up, and you will see (even on mythbusters) that this is true.

 

Also another thing I'm seeing wrong with the story: it refers to the engine as a "fuel cell"--a Fuel Cell is very similar to a battery. (Look it up.) Fuel Cells do their work electrically, not in combustion. So this engine in the story is not really a fuel cell. They don't even have their facts straight.

 

What this story is doing is mixing the two up. You have it talking about burning (combusting) the gas like it does to gasoline AND recombining the hydrogen with the oxygen like a fuel cell.

 

However, that cannot happen. If you separate the hydrogen and the oxygen, and burn the hydrogen before recombining the hydrogen back with the oxygen, do you really think the end product is going to be water like you began with now that you have altered its chemical composition? I didn't think so.

 

Combustion: there is no recombination process--it just makes carbon like gasoline. Burns it all away almost exactly the same.

 

The Fuel Cell: is the one that DOES recombine the oxygen molecule with the hydrogen after separation. However, there is no combustion because this is purely a chemical process to produce electricity.

 

Back to the story: It had a purely electrolysis thing going on. While, yes, it DOES work, it DOES NOT hold up against gasoline, performance wise. It burns much, much faster for the same performance.

 

I guess nobody likes my post. psh

 

Also, we can even run cars on air!

 

(This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

 

But will the oil companies let that happen?

 

Again, CNN--A mainstream media news outlet as a research source? You'll understand if I think maybe you ought to look somewhere else besides the news? Or go out and verify the story for yourself--ask questions, name names, refer to the story, formulate your own critical reasoning and questions for an interview, and check the data and facts.

 

I believe that DY and primarily Bimmerman were addressing that above as an integrated part of designs for newly developed products. Please read the above posts.

 

@ Bimmerman: Hey, you were addressing using ethanol. I don't want to put a kink in your hose, BUT, this use of ethanol has actually had an adverse effect on prices for corn. It has increased the consumption level for ethanol, so it follows that we need more of its base product (corn) to produce the ethanol. Unfortunately this takes form the corn crops faster and is causing the prices to go up. So this adverse effect is something to be seriously considered and not taken lightly.

 

However, I think it is absolutely great that we are coming out with such grand improvements nonetheless.

[Darth_Yuthura]

@ Bimmerman: Hey, you were addressing using ethanol. I don't want to put a kink in your hose, BUT, this use of ethanol has actually had an adverse effect on prices for corn. It has increased the consumption level for ethanol, so it follows that we need more of its base product (corn) to produce the ethanol. Unfortunately this takes form the corn crops faster and is causing the prices to go up. So this adverse effect is something to be seriously considered and not taken lightly.

 

Thank-you. The adverse effects of using ethanol are not going to be very apparent on a small scale, but if it were to become the next source of automobile fuels for the US; they will be much more apparent. This may apply to virtually any gasoline substitute, but the more inefficient the process to generate the fuel; the less viable it would be.

 

Butterball was able to convert a waste product of theirs into a form of energy, which was very viable for them. But only because they turned something they would otherwise have to dispose of into a usable product. It works for them, but it can't be mass produced. There is only so much vegetable oil, turkey guts, and other organic waste products that could be converted to a form of fuel. These are only viable sources of energy because they come from waste products, but if you measured the costs that were required to grow the corn and make the canola oil; they wouldn't be as viable as fuels as they would for other purposes.

 

 

Look up Electrolysis from chemistry books. Plain english: You will basically find that the pure gasses it produces yield less energy than it took to produce it in the first place.

 

What is more is that it was inefficient to begin with, so if it is economical it is only ideally about the same (at best) as gasoline. However, the equivalent use combustion wise will use up MORE of this new gas FASTER than gasoline. Look it up, and you will see (even on mythbusters) that this is true.

 

Thank-you. The US is eventually going to have to convert from using petroleum-based fuels to using nuclear, wind, solar, and (yeah I said it already) coal. The question is how would you be able to use these energies for cars. This is why you may choose to use a secondary energy source, but you will pay a penalty every time to change energy from one form to another. The best solution is to find the simplest way with the fewest steps in converting electricity to a form of potential energy that can be stored rather than wasted.

 

You can produce hydrogen cheap right now, but the more demand you place on the power grid, the less viable the fuel becomes. Like ethanol raising the price of corn, hydrogen will have adverse effects on the prices of primary sources of energy.

 

However, that cannot happen. If you separate the hydrogen and the oxygen, and burn the hydrogen before recombining the hydrogen back with the oxygen, do you really think the end product is going to be water like you began with now that you have altered its chemical composition? I didn't think so.

 

That would be right. It doesn't happen in the combustion process, or even the hydrolysis process, but wherever the primary energy originated. If you used electricity that was generated by coal, then you must take into account the harmful gases that were generated in order to produce that electricity. You will find that more harmful gases are released even from burning natural gas and converting it to hydrogen than what you generate from a diesel engine of the same capacity.

[Bimmerman]

*Looks at above posts*

 

I wonder...are some forgetting electrolysis and other means to obtain hydrogen (and similar brown's gasses) are an inefficient process? That the ratio of energy gained from such processes are <1 to 1?

 

Nope, that's been addressed. Aside from base electrolysis, all have acceptable efficiencies. Lots of Math warning.

 

Currently, according to wikipedia, the top seventeen oil reserves account for approximately 1,243 billion barrels of oil (1.243 x 10^9 barrels). According to wikipedia again, approximately 46% of a standard barrel of oil ends up as gasoline.

 

So, 1.243x10^9 barrels * 46% * (42 US gallons / 1 standard barrel) = 2.40*10^10 gallons of gasoline available. Multiplying this by the density of gasoline, and converting to kilograms (SOURCE), yields:

 

2.4x10^10 US gallons * 6.073 lb/US gal * 1 kg/2.2046 lbs = 6.62x10^10 kg of gasoline.

 

Now here comes the fun part.

 

Last year, the US alone produced 9 million tons of Hydrogen gas by steam reforming of fossil fuels (SOURCE 1 SOURCE 2), NOT electrolysis. Few people use electrolysis.

 

That 9 million US tons is equivalent to:

 

9x10^6 * 2000 lbs/US ton * 1 kg / 2.2046 lbs = 8.165x10^9 kg of H2 produced last year via a process that is between 65 and 85% efficient depending on which source you believe. Can we please, finally, put the electrolysis falsehood to rest?

 

I keep saying that electrolysis is rarely used in industrial situations. What do you know, I was right! Read the first paragraph!

 

Quote for the lazy:

Electrolysis of water is the decomposition of water (H2O) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen gas (H2) due to an electric current being passed through the water. This electrolytic process is rarely used in industrial applications since hydrogen can be produced more affordably from fossil fuels.

 

Now can we put that lie to rest? D_Y, stop clinging to blatant falsehoods, kthnxbai.

 

Now, why did I convert both gasoline reserves and industrial hydrogen production in mass? Our current gasoline reserves are only a single order of magnitude higher than the yearly output of industrial hydrogen (mostly for the production of ammonia for fertilizer) in the United States alone. Our reserves should last for decades if not centuries. We can easily, cheaply, and conveniently switch to hydrogen gas for a fuel source, the logistical hurdle is converting the cars and filling stations, not the fuel demand nor the power consumption issue, D_Y. I'm a big believer in hard numbers and facts, as they're much more reliable than rhetoric.

 

Furthermore, this is simply production of hydrogen from other sources. It is possible to reclaim it from the atmosphere. More math:

 

Hydrogen is present as H2 in concentrations of 0.55ppmv (parts per million by volume) in our atmosphere. SOURCE A single hydrogen has a molecular weight of 1.0079 g/mol (SOURCE), so H2 has a molecular weight of double that, or 2.0158 g/mol. To calculate the mass pecentage, we use the molecular weight and ppmv according to the below formula (SOURCE)

 

(MW / MW_AIR) * ppmv = ppmm

 

plugging in our numbers, and using the MW_AIR given in the linked source as 29 g/mol, we get:

 

[ (2.0158 g/mol )/ 29 g/mol ]* 0.55 ppmv = 0.0382 ppmm, or 0.00000382 % of air by mass. This seems tiny, but when multiplied by the mass of the atmosphere (SOURCE), we get an astronomically huge amount of H2 as a Primary Fuel

 

Formula:

Mass Percent * Atmospheric mass = H2 mass

0.00000382 % * 5.1480*10^18 kg = 1.968x10^13 kg of H2 naturally occuring in our atmosphere. This is more, consequentially, than the mass of crude oil that has ever existed on the planet. Hence, I am absolutely correct when I say hydrogen is a primary fuel.

 

Now, when you multiply the mass of hydrogen and gasoline with the energy output per kilogram, you begin to understand why hydrogen is a far better fuel than gasoline or oil could ever pretend to be.

 

Mass of hydrogen from last year: 8.165x10^9 kg H2

Mass of hydrogen in atmosphere: 1.968x10^13 kg H2

Mass of gasoline left in world: 6.62x10^10 kg Gasoline

 

Now, energy content per mass (SOURCE):

 

Hydrogen: 121 MJ/kg

87 octane Gasoline (91 RON): 44.4 MJ/kg

Ethanol: 31.1 MJ/kg (GTA:SWcity, this is why ethanol frankly sucks as a fuel)

 

Now, simple multiplication:

 

Last year H2: 8.165x10^9 kg * 121 MJ/kg = 9.8797x10^11 MJ of energy

Atmospheric H2: 1.968x10^13 kg * 121 MJ/kg = 2.38x10^15 MJ

Total gasoline available: 6.62x10^10 kg * 44.4 MJ/kg = 2.94 x 10^12 MJ

 

Now, take a good look at those numbers. The energy from last year's H2 crop is 33.6 % of the total amount of energy available in our gasoline reserves. Frankly....that's an astonishing amount of energy.

 

I believe that DY and primarily Bimmerman were addressing that above as an integrated part of designs for newly developed products. Please read the above posts.

 

Yup. That's the perspective I was addressing, using it as part of a complete system.

 

@ Bimmerman: Hey, you were addressing using ethanol. I don't want to put a kink in your hose, BUT, this use of ethanol has actually had an adverse effect on prices for corn. It has increased the consumption level for ethanol, so it follows that we need more of its base product (corn) to produce the ethanol. Unfortunately this takes form the corn crops faster and is causing the prices to go up. So this adverse effect is something to be seriously considered and not taken lightly.

 

However, I think it is absolutely great that we are coming out with such grand improvements nonetheless.

 

I agree with you. I do not advocate for pure ethanol fueled cars. The technology I was referencing uses extremely small quantities of pure ethanol (small like the tank needs refilling every 15k miles or so small) as a method to supercool and condense the intake air charge, not as a fuel. As a fuel, it only makes sense with forced induction, and even so it barely does. Ethanol's the crack the politicians love feeding to gullible voters.

 

@D_Y-- I think I've addressed nearly every point you made in your post with the scientific analysis above. If not, well, sorry, but I have to run. I will address your post when I have more time if I need to, but please read the sources I conveniently linked to.

[Darth_Yuthura]

Last year, the US alone produced 9 million tons of Hydrogen gas by steam reforming of fossil fuels (SOURCE 1 SOURCE 2), NOT electrolysis. Few people use electrolysis.

 

That 9 million US tons is equivalent to:

 

9x10^6 * 2000 lbs/US ton * 1 kg / 2.2046 lbs = 8.165x10^9 kg of H2 produced last year via a process that is between 65 and 85% efficient depending on which source you believe. Can we please, finally, put the electrolysis falsehood to rest?

 

Okay so this process will still have us depending upon foreign oil? I don't understand what the benefits are to this. If you were aiming to disprove the electrolysis issue, then I would admit this does that.

 

NOW this opens up a wide range of new issues in regards to using this method. Here are some drawbacks that were listed in one of your sources:

 

"-The reforming reaction takes place at high temperatures, making it slow to start up and requiring costly high temperature materials.

-Sulfur compounds present in the fuel poison certain catalysts, making it difficult to run this type of system from ordinary gasoline. Some new technologies have overcome this challenge, however, with sulfur-tolerant catalysts.

-Low temperature polymer fuel cell membranes can be poisoned by the carbon monoxide (CO) produced by the reactor, making it necessary to include complex CO-removal systems. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and Molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC) do not have this problem, but operate at higher temperatures, slowing start-up time, and requiring costly materials and bulky insulation.

-The thermodynamic efficiency of the process is between 70% and 85% (LHV basis) depending on the purity of the hydrogen product.

-The biggest problem for reformer based systems remains the fuel cell itself, in terms of both cost and durability. The catalyst used in the common polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cell, the device most likely to be used in transportation roles, is very sensitive to any leftover carbon monoxide in the fuel, which some reformers do not completely remove. The anode catalyst is poisoned by the carbon monoxide and the fuel cells performance degrades.

-The catalyst in low temperature fuel cells is based on platinum, and is hence very expensive. A typical automotive fuel cell stack prototype (100kW) contains 20-30g of platinum metal in the form of nano-particles supported on carbon black."

 

Okay, a mouthful of issues all at once.

 

This is the cheapest method and does much better than electrolysis in terms of efficiency, but with this method still comes the dependency on petroleum-based fuel sources. Isn't hydrogen supposed to free us of our dependency?

 

This is riddled with complications that weigh in hydrogen's benefit one way, but then adds lots of complications elsewhere. This process is NOT any better than gasoline in regards to the environment. It still requires fuel cells and not combustion. Fuel cells require platinum, which makes these hydrogen-powered cars way too expensive. Lots of toxic byproducts that contaminate equipment.

 

9x10^6 * 2000 lbs/US ton * 1 kg / 2.2046 lbs = 8.165x10^9 kg of H2 produced last year via a process that is between 65 and 85% efficient depending on which source you believe. Can we please, finally, put the electrolysis falsehood to rest?

 

I keep saying that electrolysis is rarely used in industrial situations. What do you know, I was right!

 

Okay... so why didn't you just say so in the first place? You should have mentioned that you were talking about all the benefits of each method used for producing and using hydrogen and then disregarding the drawbacks of each.

 

You claimed that these hydrogen fuels are clean... no they are not through the fossil fuel reformation process. Your own sources say they COULD capture the CO2 in the process and keep it from being released into the atmosphere, but they don't.

 

You also mention that hydrogen is economic and competitive with gasoline... well if you were to confine the CO2 and put it into the ground, that would increase the cost of hydrogen. I don't have a source to give numbers, but I heard that such processes of 'carbon capture' have proven to be oppressively expensive.

 

Your own source couldn't verify that hydrogen w/out carbon capture would generate half the output of CO2. Joseph J. Romm made a compelling argument that hydrogen may at best be able to act as a substitute for fossil fuels, but that the issues are in regard to the expensive infrastructure required. Therefore, even if hydrogen was 'just as good as gasoline' through this process, it makes no sense to build the infrastructure which will collapse as quickly as the supplies of petroleum.

 

The hydrolysis process is really the only reliable means of producing the fuel once gasoline is gone. If you wish for a fuel that will be available 100 years from now, it must originate from a process that doesn't depend upon petroleum.

 

[ (2.0158 g/mol )/ 29 g/mol ]* 0.55 ppmv = 0.0382 ppmm, or 0.00000382 % of air by mass. This seems tiny, but when multiplied by the mass of the atmosphere (SOURCE), we get an astronomically huge amount of H2 as a Primary Fuel

 

Formula:

Mass Percent * Atmospheric mass = H2 mass

0.00000382 % * 5.1480*10^18 kg = 1.968x10^13 kg of H2 naturally occuring in our atmosphere. This is more, consequentially, than the mass of crude oil that has ever existed on the planet. Hence, I am absolutely correct when I say hydrogen is a primary fuel.

 

Yeah, and do you realize that there is enough deuterium in the oceans that you could theoretically get the equivalent energy of a barrel of oil for each gallon of seawater? That is assuming that you've siphoned the isotope from each gallon of water and injected it into a fusion reactor.

 

Although there is a lot of raw hydrogen gas in the atmosphere, it is not concentrated in places where you can easily extract it from other elements. Because we don't have stations that collect those those stray H2 elements from the atmosphere, then you can't exactly claim it to be a primary source of energy, can you?

 

You say we get an astronomically huge amount of primary energy? No, we HAVE an astronomical amount of primary energy, but we can't collect it; then it essentially is not usable. No, you are NOT absolutely correct.

 

I will admit that hydrogen that was extracted from a fossil fuel might constitute a primary source, as it was extracted from petroleum. However this is essentially energy that had already been captured millions of years ago, but altered into a different form of chemical energy. This still leaves it dependent upon another primary source.

 

Now can we put that lie to rest? D_Y, stop clinging to blatant falsehoods, kthnxbai.

 

Which lie? If you are referring to me spouting off about hydrolysis being the only way to produce hydrogen, then I will admit that to be wrong. Now that I see you are backing steam reforming, that still does not change the fact that hydrogen fuel is a secondary source of energy. Only steam reforming isn't a permanent solution if all oil gets depleted, or if coal is going to be rejected all the time.

 

-------

 

I realize that I'm likely frustrating a lot of people with this continued thread. I remain unconvinced that the benefits of hydrogen outweigh the sacrifice that comes with it. I know that petroleum won't last forever, but the worst thing is to transition to something that won't last indefinitely and will only increase energy demands. Our focus should be more for a sustainable primary source first... then we can worry about the secondary source upon which to use for vehicles.

 

With that, I'm signing off this thread.

[Bimmerman]

Okay so this process will still have us depending upon foreign oil? I don't understand what the benefits are to this. If you were aiming to disprove the electrolysis issue, then I would admit this does that.

That was the point. This process doesn't remove our need for petroleum, no, but look at the massive amount of H2 gas generated from not a whole lot of petroleum. If most of the cars run on H2, the amount of petroleum being consumed daily will fall exponentially even accounting for the added demand. Plus...methane's a common naturally occurring hydrocarbon. Not in the same quantities as petroleum, but it occurs (not talking about farts). This reduced need for gasoline and diesel will allow our current reserves to last significantly longer until another technology can be suitably developed. Or until we're dead, either way....doesn't matter much.

 

NOW this opens up a wide range of new issues in regards to using this method. Here are some drawbacks that were listed in one of your sources:

 

"-The reforming reaction takes place at high temperatures, making it slow to start up and requiring costly high temperature materials.

-Sulfur compounds present in the fuel poison certain catalysts, making it difficult to run this type of system from ordinary gasoline. Some new technologies have overcome this challenge, however, with sulfur-tolerant catalysts.

-Low temperature polymer fuel cell membranes can be poisoned by the carbon monoxide (CO) produced by the reactor, making it necessary to include complex CO-removal systems. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and Molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC) do not have this problem, but operate at higher temperatures, slowing start-up time, and requiring costly materials and bulky insulation.

-The thermodynamic efficiency of the process is between 70% and 85% (LHV basis) depending on the purity of the hydrogen product.

-The biggest problem for reformer based systems remains the fuel cell itself, in terms of both cost and durability. The catalyst used in the common polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cell, the device most likely to be used in transportation roles, is very sensitive to any leftover carbon monoxide in the fuel, which some reformers do not completely remove. The anode catalyst is poisoned by the carbon monoxide and the fuel cells performance degrades.

-The catalyst in low temperature fuel cells is based on platinum, and is hence very expensive. A typical automotive fuel cell stack prototype (100kW) contains 20-30g of platinum metal in the form of nano-particles supported on carbon black."

 

Okay, a mouthful of issues all at once.

 

Yes, those are many issues. HOWEVER, those deal with the idea of miniaturizing the reformation process to run in parallel with a fuel cell, or example in a car. Those are not industrial scale issues, as not only do you benefit from economies of scale, but you also are simply producing, not fuel cells. A lot of what you listed (from the source) are fuel-cell specific, and the ones that aren't, are for miniaturization. The reformation process has been studied and developed since 1923, so the industrial aspect of it is well known and its issues have been thoroughly worked out.

 

If you are just producing hydrogen, for consumption elsewhere, it makes a whole lot more sense.

 

This is the cheapest method and does much better than electrolysis in terms of efficiency, but with this method still comes the dependency on petroleum-based fuel sources. Isn't hydrogen supposed to free us of our dependency?

Yes, but you can't wean instantly. See my first paragraph about the reducing demand. It doesn't alleviate our need, but goes a looooong way to reducing it to not nearly as much of a factor. For the record, asphalt, plastics, and lubricants, among other things, are also dependent on crude oil, so......hydrogen can only do so much. The species used for reformation aren't what is normally used in cars or much of anything else for that matter.

 

This is riddled with complications that weigh in hydrogen's benefit one way, but then adds lots of complications elsewhere. This process is NOT any better than gasoline in regards to the environment. It still requires fuel cells and not combustion. Fuel cells require platinum, which makes these hydrogen-powered cars way too expensive. Lots of toxic byproducts that contaminate equipment.

 

I know, right? There's no silver bullet. If there was, someone would be a gazillionaire right now. It hardly needs fuel cells instead of combustion though, the gas itself doesn't care where it gets used, fuel cell or combustion engine. Remember, the issues listed in the source are for the implementation of miniaturized reformation in tandem with a mobile fuel cell, instead of industrial scale "factory" for lack of better wording.

 

Also...you do realize that your vehicle catalytic converter is covered in platinum, right?

 

 

 

Okay... so why didn't you just say so in the first place? You should have mentioned that you were talking about all the benefits of each method used for producing and using hydrogen and then disregarding the drawbacks of each.

 

I'm not going to say again the issues with the issues list above, I think I've explained that. I'm not glossing over the disadvantages of any of these methods, I am simply stating which is the current favored method and why. I'm more than happy to debate pros and cons, as without debate innovation doesn't happen (though this is an internet forum, but still).

 

You claimed that these hydrogen fuels are clean... no they are not through the fossil fuel reformation process. Your own sources say they COULD capture the CO2 in the process and keep it from being released into the atmosphere, but they don't.

 

Nothing is truly clean, not even electric. The only clean method is walking. The rest are simply variations of clean. Compared to gasoline cars, as one of those sources say, the end emissions are half that of a comparable gasoline emission. Not as good as electric, no, but at the present time, it's a very welcome drop and a very significant decrease.

 

Well, I'd imagine it's because it costs a lot of money to capture the CO2 and/or the technological requirements or regulatory punishments aren't keeping up. I have no idea. I think that if there's a regulation that requires them to keep and capture the CO2, then they would. Still, the CO2 released is much less than gasoline car emissions for similar energy use (same kg of H2 vs same kg of Gasoline). Nothing's perfect. Should they capture it? Definitely. Not my fault they don't. Same goes for power plants for electric cars...the majority of the gases from the smokestacks is now CO2. Same argument can be made there.

 

You also mention that hydrogen is economic and competitive with gasoline... well if you were to confine the CO2 and put it into the ground, that would increase the cost of hydrogen. I don't have a source to give numbers, but I heard that such processes of 'carbon capture' have proven to be oppressively expensive.

 

Yes, I imagine so. I also think that's why the CO2 capture isn't used at the present time. Still, think back to the Honda Clarity FCX I posted about earlier. Even if the cost of a kg of H2 doubles or triples from its current value ($2.70/kg I saw on wikipedia, or the $5.00/kg from the Top Gear video), it's still comparable to drive the same miles with the hydrogen car.

 

Quick and dirty numbers. Assuming a tripling of H2 cost, 72 miles/kg, 270 mile range (equals 3.75kg needed). For gas, take 25mpg avg car, traveling same 270 miles. This requires 10.8 gallons.

 

H2 @ $2.70/kg * 3 = $8.10 / kg. 270mi / ($8.10/kg * 3.75kg) = 8.89 mi/$

H2 @ $5.00/kg * 3 = $15.00 / kg. 270mi / ($15.00/kg * 3.75kg) = 4.80 mi/$

 

Gas @ $2.50/gal. 270mi / ($2.50/gal * 10.8 gallons) = 10 mi/$ (what is the current cost of gas in the states anyway? I paid $1.15 for 91 octane last time I filled up)

 

Keeping our miles traveled constant, our H2 cost of $8.10 constant, and our gasoline cost constant, we can calculate an equivalent mpg rating for the higher H2 cost of 22.225mpg. So it's not terribly far off. Not as good a prospect as it was, but considering the cleaner emissions, it's not a horrendous prospect.

 

Your own source couldn't verify that hydrogen w/out carbon capture would generate half the output of CO2. Joseph J. Romm made a compelling argument that hydrogen may at best be able to act as a substitute for fossil fuels, but that the issues are in regard to the expensive infrastructure required. Therefore, even if hydrogen was 'just as good as gasoline' through this process, it makes no sense to build the infrastructure which will collapse as quickly as the supplies of petroleum.

 

There is a very large debate going on about this very issue. It depends who you ask, what metric they measure by, and it all ends up being a lot of conjecture. Again, see my words on reduced demand on petroleum at the top.

 

 

The hydrolysis process is really the only reliable means of producing the fuel once gasoline is gone. If you wish for a fuel that will be available 100 years from now, it must originate from a process that doesn't depend upon petroleum. [/qutoe]

 

Eh....not so much. Electrolysis is one option, but I didn't list all the others. There are other methods of obtaining H2 from water without hydrolysis/electrolysis, which are more efficient. SOURCE

 

If we begin to rely more on steam reformation to produce hydrogen, in the near term we will end up increasing our demand for petroleum products. Once more and more cars are sold with hydrogen engines or fuel cells though, the overall demand for crude oil for vehicle transportation will fall rather markedly. Keep in mind that oil has many many more uses than just in cars, so we will never really wean ourselves off it without significant alternative technologies for plastics, asphalt, tires, rubber, lubricants, etc. Hydrogen just allows for it to last longer.

 

 

Yeah, and do you realize that there is enough deuterium in the oceans that you could theoretically get the equivalent energy of a barrel of oil for each gallon of seawater? That is assuming that you've siphoned the isotope from each gallon of water and injected it into a fusion reactor.

 

Oh yes, I realize how ridiculous that comparison was. I made it just to make a point, I have no illusions on how ridiculously impossible it is to get anywhere near that amount of H2 out of the atmosphere. Some is easily reclaimable, but only a small tiny fraction. That said, even 0.0000001% of 2x10^13 is 2 million kg. Not a lot, but H2 is a naturally occurring element and a renewable resource. Still, yes, I mostly made that point as I wanted to know how much existed.

 

 

Although there is a lot of raw hydrogen gas in the atmosphere, it is not concentrated in places where you can easily extract it from other elements. Because we don't have stations that collect those those stray H2 elements from the atmosphere, then you can't exactly claim it to be a primary source of energy, can you?

See above.

 

 

You say we get an astronomically huge amount of primary energy? No, we HAVE an astronomical amount of primary energy, but we can't collect it; then it essentially is not usable.

Again, see above.

No, you are NOT absolutely correct.

I am from the point of view that it is a naturally occurring primary fuel. There are massive amounts of oil projected to lie under the sea floor in areas we can't get to with current technology, in much the same way as an abundance of atmospheric H2 is out of our reach. Doesn't mean I'm wrong, or that it's not a primary fuel. Plus, there are other places H2 exists in its elemental gas form than just in the atmosphere, such as from bacteria or algae.

 

 

I will admit that hydrogen that was extracted from a fossil fuel might constitute a primary source, as it was extracted from petroleum. However this is essentially energy that had already been captured millions of years ago, but altered into a different form of chemical energy. This still leaves it dependent upon another primary source.

Yes, but is the need to process the petroleum to extract hydrogen any different really than processing it to extract gasoline? I never said it would not be dependent on another source, as gasoline is as well (electric power, petroleum for the both, etc etc).

 

 

 

 

Which lie? If you are referring to me spouting off about hydrolysis being the only way to produce hydrogen, then I will admit that to be wrong. Now that I see you are backing steam reforming, that still does not change the fact that hydrogen fuel is a secondary source of energy. Only steam reforming isn't a permanent solution if all oil gets depleted, or if coal is going to be rejected all the time.

 

The hydrolysis bit is what I was referring to. Now that it's apparent that you didn't know that it isn't used in nearly the same scale you had thought, I realize that it wasn't intentional hardheadedness. I apologize for the offense.

 

I'm not really backing steam reformation any more than biological hydrogen production from water (read my source above). I'm just showing that there are other options. The way I see it, hydrogen (atmospheric excepted) and gasoline are both secondary sources, as they must have processing done to their raw form to be usable. Coal isn't going anywhere soon, and liquefying coal to produce hydrocarbon molecules/solution to create hydrogen is an interesting prospect.

 

The plain truth is that there are a few natural resources that we simply cannot economically feasibly replace such as coal and petroleum, not just because of cars. Hydrogen and electric cars have the potential to eliminate the need for vehicle petroleum fuel distillates like gasoline and diesel, but they do nothing for the other uses of petroleum.

 

Furthermore, until electric car technology evolves to the point of addressing the range and utility issues, hydrogen cars are a much better alternative. Electric is the best ultimate option....but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Nor, for that matter, for wide scale hydrogen adoption.

[machievelli]

Back in 1976, a book entitled colonies in space was published. The author, a NASA geek commented that at that time, it would cost only 186 billion dollars to build a series of solar collector satelllites that would be able to collect energy and transmit it down for use. He also pointed out that a standard power plant operates more efficiently if you don't have to cycle between high demand usage and low demand.

 

The technology was there in the 70s, and is still here in the next millennia. However the social engineers and anti-space lobby, along with the greens shot it down for get this; the possibility of military applications.

 

You see, the electricity would be beamed down to areas that have little or no weather interference, using microwaves in the KA-KU band. These frequencies are already in use by satellite communications and such TV companies as directv and dish network.

 

The greens fought it because the largest area with the necessary conditions is the deserts of the southwest. The beam would be tightly focused, and the 'military' application would be if you tightened that focus even more into a maser beam so if the government, decided to attack somone, they merely tighten focus, aim and shoot.

 

The social engineers just don't want to spend money where it's 'wasted', because they can increase welfare spending if it is kept here.

 

Using modern dollars, the entire system including habitats in orbit and the moon for materials would cost less than a trillion dollars. About what the US paid for the Ronald Reagan

[ForeverNight]

And less than the projected health care reform costs.... I like this idea even more!

[machievelli]

And less than the projected health care reform costs.... I like this idea even more!

 

The thing that it's detractors ignore, is this; that cost is a once off start up costs for two stations, one a space sation (Or building the International station to about twice it's present size) and one on the moon to mine materials such as titanium, which is higher in concentration there than on Earth.

 

This includes all of the vehicles necessary to make that trip and return with processed material.

 

It also includes the personnel necessary to operate the bases in question, and technicians needed to assemble the geosynchronous satellites to collect and deliver the power, and the ground stations necessary to transmit it.

 

But it doesn't stop there. The initial satellites would transfer power from ground stations in one country to another, so none of the present power stations need to be shut down; they would merely take the electricity from say the Tokyo megaplex and transfer it to say Europe when the usage drops in Tokyo. This has already been tested and the power loss is about 6%, comparable with transmitting power from Los Angeles to New York.

 

And once it is set up it doesn't need massive amounts of maintenance. From that point on power is as free as you can make it, since the sun will butn for maybe a few hundred million years yet, and with cheap power, the cost of converting to hydrogen fuel dops, as dos the price.

 

As an aside, the most stupid idea I heard regarding hydrogen as a fuel was a company patenting a way to make it from existing hydrocarbons. In other words, coal and oil.

[Bimmerman]

As an aside, the most stupid idea I heard regarding hydrogen as a fuel was a company patenting a way to make it from existing hydrocarbons. In other words, coal and oil.

 

This is actually quite widespread and is the primary technology for the manufacturing of industrial hydrogen. It's much more efficient when compared against electrolysis. It's not a stupid idea for industrial use, but when you use hydrocarbon reformation to create vehicle fuels it gets a bit pointless as you lose energy.

 

However: the most common hydrocarbon used in this process is CH4, or normal methane. This gas is unsuitable for vehicle fuel use and is simply marked for industrial applications anyway (i.e. production of Ammonia and Hydrogen).....so saying that the technology reduces coal and oil to hydrogen is a massive misnomer.

[Bimmerman]

Also, as far as the solar satellites go, a far simpler solution is to use the same sun-bathed areas as collectors instead of receivers. Simple sterling engines, using water vapor as the working fluid and an array of mirrors to vaporize said water, can be made cost effectively at ~$1k with current tech for a station of ~2 m^2. Multiply a lot of those together and you make an astonishingly large amount of power, all without the need for fancy satellites, control systems, possible weaponization, etc, and at extremely low cost relative to $186B in 1980s dollars (i.e. trillions in today's). However, it's so simple that it gets overlooked: the most elegant and best solution is often the simplest and crudest, not the fanciest and highest-tech.

[Tommycat]

Actually when I went to Elementary <mumble> years ago. I went to Sky Harbor Elementary. The whole school ran on solar power. I heard they gutted all that though... It was cheap.. so cheap that it attracted low income families to a new neighborhood...

[machievelli]

Also, as far as the solar satellites go, a far simpler solution is to use the same sun-bathed areas as collectors instead of receivers. Simple sterling engines, using water vapor as the working fluid and an array of mirrors to vaporize said water, can be made cost effectively at ~$1k with current tech for a station of ~2 m^2. Multiply a lot of those together and you make an astonishingly large amount of power, all without the need for fancy satellites, control systems, possible weaponization, etc, and at extremely low cost relative to $186B in 1980s dollars (i.e. trillions in today's). However, it's so simple that it gets overlooked: the most elegant and best solution is often the simplest and crudest, not the fanciest and highest-tech.

 

Back in the 70s and 80s the Us Government proved the argument, and failed in getting it done for one of the same reasons I enumerated. The Sierra club among others allowed them only a test plant, fighting the required bills that would have let such engines to be used. The rectennas I am talking about for satellite transmission on the ground would take up less than a 10th the space, and would run 24 hours, not just during daylight