THE Hydrogen Thread (merged) Part 2

peak · Tar Sands Joined: Aug 21, 2005 Posts: 80

less expensive to use but can you pump it out from the ground??
Just stop reading those articles that tell you one side of the story and are misleading.
It costs less to use the chemical but it probably costs more to make.

Aedo · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 23, 2005 Posts: 173

Hydrazine was used in the ME163 rocket plane in WWII. One of its main problems though was how corrosive and toxic it is - service personnel and pilots needed to wear serious protective clothing.

dooberheim

Ammonia is a similar fuel (hydrazine is to ammonia as ethylene is to methane), and while it is a gas, is easy to liquify at room temperature. It makes a lot of oxides of nitrogen when you burn it in an internal combustion engine though, but so would hydrazine.

DK
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Kingcoal

Every time you consider a new fuel for anything, you have to consider the volume of consumption. Can we produce billions of barrels of it each and every day indefinitely?
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mattduke · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 1333

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Regarding carbon sequestration: "We needed a new way of thinking," Dr. Fan says. So he and his colleagues thought "eggshells." They are mostly calcium carbonate, a mineral that soaks up CO2. They are also abundant and cheap. Last September, the team reported it had successfully tested a process using eggshells to remove CO2 efficiently."
Meanwhile Bruce Logan and Shaoan Cheng at Pennsylvania State University have shown how bacteria can produce hydrogen from biomass efficiently. They built an electrolysis cell using naturally occurring bacteria and acetic acid (i.e., vinegar). The bacteria eat the acid and produce electrons and protons, which together make up hydrogen atoms. Add a little electricity from an outside source, and hydrogen gas bubbles up.

Hydrogen has to be transported and made readily available if it is to become a widely used fuel. Jerry Woodall at Purdue University in West Lafaytte, Ind. thinks aluminum can do the job. He described the scheme at a university symposium last May. It uses pellets of an alloy of aluminum and gallium.
When water hits the pellets, aluminum, which reacts strongly with oxygen, releases hydrogen from the hydrogen-oxygen (H2O) water molecule. Aluminum usually forms a skin that protects it from oxygen. Gallium inhibits that skin formation.

"The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you need when you need it," noted Dr. Woodall. Such a hydrogen generator could be small enough to fuel a lawn mower.
Woodall explained that much development is needed to make this hydrogen scheme practical. Meanwhile, the fact that research engineers are demonstrating such outside-the-box ideas in their laboratories indicates that the hydrogen economy may emerge in unexpected ways. The Christian Science Monitor

malcomatic_51 · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 24, 2005 Posts: 185 Location: UK

It sounds very like the way bicycle lights were fired by water dripping on carbinate - before batteries came a long.
This is SO Victorian!
By the way, aluminium takes a lot of energy to produce.
I think the answer is, yes, I did enjoy it as much as you did.
Thanks.

bonehead

I read something about this process,it is for real.The used aluminum turns into an "alumina" that can be recycled back to aluminum using very little energy that solar can provide.But,just like everything else in a free market economy,will it be commercially viable?Will there be a sense of urgency about doing it?Will there be the willpower to do it?Only time will tell.
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Gimme some demand destruction.

lorenzo · Fission Joined: Jan 01, 2005 Posts: 2163

Let's do a little quiz! 3 questions:
1. Which of the following production and utilization pathways is the most efficient way of producing and using hydrogen on a well-to-wheel basis?
2. And which is the cleanest (lowest CO2 eq emissions per kilometer) on the same basis?
3. Finally, which pathway offers the best of both worlds: the most efficient and cleanest of all the pathways?

Take into consideration that the total WTW energy requirement (MJ /km) for both Gasoline and Diesel fuel used in current ICEs is very low: around 220 MJ/100km. Very few of the hydrogen production and utilization pathways presented below beat this.
Likewise, the the total WTW GHG emissions (g CO2eq / km) are low for the traditional fossil fuels; again, very few hydrogen production and utilization pathways beat them.
So which one is most efficient, cleanest and presents the best overall picture? There *is* a clear winner, so the smarties amongst you will find it:

So what do you think?
The answer will be provided here shortly; it comes from a very authoritative study on the total WTW efficiency and GHG profile of over 70 current and future fuel and propulsion combinations.
I'm curious for your answers!

PS: forgot to add: solar photovoltaic and solar thermal were not taken into account in the study, because they're not very clean in themselves (around 100 g COeq per kWh), not very efficient and above all, mind-bogglingly expensive. So solar hydrogen was left out by the researchers as it will never be a realistic way to produce hydrogen.
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Andy · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 16, 2004 Posts: 519

I suspect your answer will be Compressed H2 in a FC vehicle from wood but that is not scalable lorenzo!!!
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For ionizing radiation “…the human epidemiological evidence establishes—by any reasonable standard of proof—that there is no safe dose or dose-rate…the safe-dose hypothesis is not merely implausible—it is disproven.” Dr. J.W. Gofman 4

Olorin · Coal Joined: Aug 16, 2007 Posts: 12

From what you are offering I would choose:
Compressed H2 ex wood, in a FC.
But why limit yourself to wood?

In my opinion hydrogen from (fast growing) biomass (like miscanthus) is the clear winner in countries where there is an existing infrastructure (the natural gas pipelines). You can start without fuel cells but they would increase efficiency dramatically and they are getting cheaper because of new catalysts and increasing mass production.

http://www.bio-wasserstoff.de/pdf/Brussels2007_slides.pdf

gnm

You can't just run hydrogen through a NG line. It would still take a lot of retrofitting.
Oh, and its a good thing compressing H2 doesn't require any energy right? Rolling Eyes

And boy are those fool cell cars cheap.... Rolling Eyes

-G
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Kingcoal

Just when we thought we were safe, another thread from lorenzo! What happened to biofuels, weren’t you the big champion of that? As gnm correctly pointed out, H requires an entirely new infrastructure be built. Forget that, it's too expensive already. H is the lightest, smallest element in the universe. H will not be held prisoner; to it, every solid material looks like swiss cheese. Ever wonder why a helium balloon deflates even though it was it is securely sealed? Helium only is a little bigger than hydrogen and it sees the balloon as a fine canvas bag, it simply leaks straight through the plastic. H is even smaller and iron pipes, especially the fittings, are porous. To make a long story short, H will leak out of the infrastructure like crazy.

In my opinion, the best alternative to the ICE is a battery powered electric motor. With a battery powered car, infrastructure is more a matter of convenience than necessity since all homes have electric service. Forget the rest, they just aren't scaleable up to the level required.
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lorenzo · Fission Joined: Jan 01, 2005 Posts: 2163

basil_hayden

Dezakin · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Feb 09, 2005 Posts: 1360

Today its easily water shift reaction on coal to more coal in a fischer-tropsh reactor to get synthetic diesel fuel.
Or natural gas reformation to do hydrogen upgrade of heavy crude.

In the future someday it'll be nuclear thermochemical run over coal to get synthetic diesel.
Someday further it'll be nuclear thermochemical run over CO2 and cobalt catalysts to do the same thing.
Diesel fuel forever.