Large Scale Central

What you don't want to see at a nuclear plant:

General Discussion
#21

Last response, because I really hate derailing the Japan/Nuke Disaster thread…

I am in NO way saying that a person will gain a miles/dollar benefit via the change over to hydrogen. I am simply saying, that hydrogen is the right ENVIRONMENTAL choice for a PORTABLE FUEL SOURCE. No, cracking water to make fuel for a powerplant… thats just plain ridiculous. I just beleive that when you do a cost-factor analysis, one would find that an internal-combustion hydrogen car will get the farthest for the cheapest cost, when ALL non-infrastructure costs are factored in: IC is an established technology, simple to create, simple to maintain. If designed right, one MIGHT be able to design the engine on the oxygen rich side so that no O2 sensor and related technological headaches are involved. No more catalytic converters. As a general principal, owning a hydro-IC car would not cost any more to own than a gasoline car. Having said that, the key would be that you could buy energy at the same price… ie, a gallon with 1000btus of hydrogen costs the same as the pint of gasoline with 1000btus. (numbers made-up to explain point)

IF, ever down the road, a pound of exotic battery technology can carry more propulsive energy than a pound of hydrogen, THEN h2 technology could be phased out. But I don’t see that happening in the next hundred years… or at least before we develop transporter technology… or the world ends, whichever comes first.

Questions:

What happens when you burn the hydrogen in your vehicle? It combines with O2 to make water. So net increase/decrease in O2 is zero.
okay I’ll grant you, it was a sales pitch… pure tree-hugger, feel-good-BS

O2 would just be concentrated a little more around the cracking station, and a little less where you burn the H2 back into water.
As opposed to the concentration of radium near the exhaust stacks of a coal-fired power plant?

Your 9V battery water cracking/launching experiment makes it sound as though you are getting a lot of free energy somewhere.
No… the battery has to be manufactured, charged, packaged, transported, sold & installed… and then disposed of. Where is the free energy?

Is energy created, conserved or lost in the process of cracking water, turning the gaseous H2 into liquid, pumping it into a car’s (thermos bottle) tank, then burning it back to water? Conserved… Energy is like matter, it can be neither created nor destroyed… simple physics

You have all the money needed for a complete overhaul of the electrical grid, plus you are a genius like Nikola Tesla was. In what way would you change our present electrical grid? A complete rebuild with high-voltage, triple-redundant trunks to all major towns… something not likely to have a tree branch knock out an entire quadrant of the grid on the continent.

You said, “But the primary need for extended mileage/gallon was to reduce the pollutants created by driving.” Now here, all this time, I thought that I wanted an increase in my car’s mpg because it made driving cheaper ! Man, I must have gone to the wrong school.
No, the government doesn’t give a hoot about your wallet… just making nicie-nicie with the international treehuggers.

Helium sneaks out of a balloon between the atoms that make up the rubber.

At what rate do you lose hydrogen with the car just parked? (evaporation, control valve leakage, leakage between atoms.)
Point taken. I do not know… however, will you let your car sit that long?

So is the future with Fuel Cells/electric motors or Internal combustion engines?
personal belief? IC-engines tied to electric motors, just like diesel-electric locomotives

What do you do if you run out of gas and you’re not at the cracking station?
What do you do if you run out of gas and you aren’t at a gasoline dispensing station?

What keeps your car from acting like your 2 liter bottle if there is an H2 leak under the hood and you hit the starter?
And if there is a buildup of gasoline vapors under the hood?

Sincerely,
Joe Satnik

Just as sincerely,
-J.D.

#22
Jason Gallaway said:
SNIP What do you do if you run out of gas and you aren't at a gasoline dispensing station?
I swap over to LPG. :P

Well!! actually, I only use gasoline as the back up to LPG, so it is the other way around. :wink:

#23

Jason, Hydrogen is a gas. ANY gas is harder to contain than a liquid. Hydrogen is also a very small basic atom. So it can and does escape from many kinds of enclosures much more easily than a huge long string liquid hydrocarbon. When it escapes (leaks) and mixes with air and finds a spark it also tends to combust rather rapidly - as in big boom. — Like those we have witnessed in Japan. Flammable liquids such as gasoline are harder to ignite and tend to burn the vapors, which form on the surface. Yes, concentrated gasoline vapors can and do go boom too. But a pesky fire is much more likely. Generally speaking fires, even very large or very stubborn ones, can be - and usually are - put out. Those big booms tend to do what they want and leave you to pick up all the itty bitty pieces…

It’s also summat easier to outrun a fire. No matter what they show in the movies.

First responders have enough to worry about at accident scenes without wondering if they’re gonna get blowed up, too.

Fix those pesky little problems and the one about it costing more to make than the energy you get back out of it, and then Hydrogen might be a good fuel. Meanwhile, some sort of combustible liquid made from garbage and algae would probably be a better solution.

#24

Alright… since you derailed your own thread, I’ll respond. :-p

Mik said:
Jason, Hydrogen is a gas. ANY gas is harder to contain than a liquid. Hydrogen is also a very small basic atom. So it can and does escape from many kinds of enclosures much more easily than a huge long string liquid hydrocarbon. When it escapes (leaks) and mixes with air and finds a spark it also tends to combust rather rapidly - as in big boom. --- Like those we have witnessed in Japan. Flammable liquids such as gasoline are harder to ignite and tend to burn the vapors, which form on the surface. Yes, concentrated gasoline vapors can and do go boom too. But a pesky fire is much more likely. Generally speaking fires, even very large or very stubborn ones, can be - and usually are - put out. Those big booms tend to do what they want and leave you to pick up all the itty bitty pieces....
Okay, I agree with what you say, but not entirely with what is implied. 1st, there is a MAJOR difference between a 12gal, 1000psi charged hydrogen fuel tank, and the MAJOR production of hydrogen gas created by pouring raw water into a thermonuclear reactor on the verge/in the process of melting down. While I do conceed the fact that H2 gas will migrate through a steel tank, I do not believe it will do so to the rate that you seem to think. I fully expect that ANY gas migrating through the tank walls will be so small in quantity that natural wind currents will be vastly sufficient to dissipate the gas below a critical accumulation.
Quote:
It's also summat easier to outrun a fire. No matter what they show in the movies.

First responders have enough to worry about at accident scenes without wondering if they’re gonna get blowed up, too.


What, you’ve never seen a tv show or newscast that shows first responders avoiding a wreck because the car is on fire and there is a chance the gas tank has/will rupture? Youtube it and see if you can find a video of a car blowing with a gasoline tank. I suspect it will be just as explosive. I will grant that there ARE difficulties to investigate and research. I just don’t think they are anywhere near as uncontrollably dangerous as people seem to think.

Quote:
Fix those pesky little problems and the one about it costing more to make than the energy you get back out of it, and then Hydrogen might be a good fuel. Meanwhile, some sort of combustible liquid made from garbage and algae would probably be a better solution.
You keep adding monetary cost as a factor. I am NOT. I am looking at a purely environmental cost. While water vapor IS a greenhouse gas, it IS manageable far easier than CO2. While trees and plants are nature's way of scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere, we have been clearing forests and greenery as long as we have been dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Nature has an easy way of removing water vapor.... clouds and then rain. As the concentration of water vapor rises, so will cloud formation, and varily rain. Liquid water can be contained.

As for bio fuels… that is a possibility, but you still run into the fact of pumping CO2 into the air… no matter how you clean exhaust, simple chemistry shows that CO2 is the result of pure carbon combustion.

#25

Jason, you are overlooking what can happen from a rupture- through corrosion or impact, not just migration. AND it takes a lot smaller spark to ignite the hydrogen than to kindle a liquid gasoline leak. Gonna mandate folks replace the hydrogen tank every 2 years? There’s another pretty big cost for you to ignore.

If you overlook/ignore the ECONOMIC cost you’re doomed to failure before you even start. People whinge about taxes and gasoline being too high now.

Let’s see… No nukes, no coal, no dams, no petrol, no solar in the desert where there is sun, no wind turbines on the pretty coast or mountains where there is wind, no deep gas extraction, no cutting trees… tax the crap out of other industries to subsidize ‘green’ technologies that are not and may never be viable, outlaw the rest. Basically, no nuthin but starve in the dark, and you wonder why folks don’t embrace it more?

Another option, and enviro folks HAVE discussed it, is to kill off about 1/3 of the world’s population. A human sacrifice to the great goddess Gaia? But funny thing, I haven’t heard many of them volunteering to be the ones culled themselves.

Create a product/process that is superior, AND as cheap or cheaper, than what is in place, and you’ll have folks flocking to switch to it. If it costs 4x as much, I think you’ll find most folks will choose to buy food and keep a roof over their heads, instead. Short sighted? Maybe. Selfish? Maybe. Living in the real world… yup.

#26

I’ll take my solar any day. I sure like those $1.80 electric bills.

#27

Mik:

I have designed and operated small and large semiconductor wafer processing facilities for well over 45 years. Many of the processes for turning silicon into a computer chip employ hydrogen as the process carrier gas. I can absolutely confirm that the loss of hydrogen from storage is of very low consequence. Yes, balloons lose their hydrogen fairly rapidly, but they are made from permeable materials. Industrial and commercial hydrogen receivers (tanks) are typically made from very high strength steels. Permeability losses are negligible. The possibility of fire or explosion from such losses are also very low.

Jason:

There is a much larger impediment to the concept that we will be refueling from a gaseous or liquid hydrogen source on the corner: Where are you going to get the hydrogen? And, how are you going to store and handle the hydrogen?

You seem to think that we can just put a simple electrolysis unit on the corner and have a virtually unlimited supply of a high energy, low pollution fuel. That is definitely not the case.

First, reserves of elemental or atomic hydrogen do not exist in nature. Naturally occurring materials like oil, natural gas, wood, etc., are fuels. Hydrogen is not a fuel, nor is it a naturally occurring energy source. It is a carrier of energy, similar to electricity, and like electricity, it must be produced from other materials. There are currently several available processes for refining hydrogen. Most of them use fossil fuels such as natural gas, oil, coal, or other hydrocarbon material as the feed stock. A very small amount of hydrogen is derived from electrolysis.

That is because it takes MORE ENERGY to separate the hydrogen by the electrolysis of water than the energy that is contained in the hydrogen that is generated. As you pointed out, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. That means the extra energy (in this case, electricity) required to dissociate water to produce hydrogen needs to be supplied from an electric generator using a fuel supply. Forgetting economics, that still means electric generation by the use of a ‘fuel’ such as oil, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, solar, wind, or other sources. That electricity needs to be supplied in large amounts with the attendant transmission lines and losses. The electrolysis process requires DC, so there are further losses in the large rectifiers required.

You also ignore the fact that hydrogen has a very low energy content per unit volume at atmospheric pressure and temperature. It will require significant energy to compress the hydrogen to something like the 2,000 to 3,000 psi that will be required to provide a car range beyond a couple of blocks. Liquid hydrogen is another choice, but large amounts of energy are required to cool the hydrogen to below the –423 °F boiling point. Whether the ‘hydrogen fuel’ put into a car is a high pressure gas, or an extremely cold liquid, it will take a large, heavy containment vessel to provide a reasonably safe operating system with an acceptable range. That makes the car heavier, meaning that it will have a higher specific energy consumption.

Also, handling high pressure and / or cryogenic flammable materials requires special equipment and specialized training. I have developed and administered programs for handling of hydrogen and other difficult materials. Believe me, the average driver is not going to hookup, leak test and purge the required high pressure / cryogenic refueling hose. Just one more economic and energy cost associated with switching to hydrogen as a common fuel source.

Once again, I encourage you to do a little more research on the subject.

THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH!!

Happy RRing,

Jerry

#28

Jerry, I wasn’t the one worried about migration.

I am going to ask: How many have inspected their water heaters lately? How many have checked the fuel tank of their vehicle for rust or damage lately? The brake lines? Even tested the GFI in their bathroom? How many REALLY expect folks to take any better care of a high pressure hydrogen tank? Stuff gets ignored until it leaks or fails. Many industries are no better than the average householder on this.

THAT was my point.

#29

Jerry… I stated several times, I am NOT saying that its a free lunch. You keep using that phrase. I DO understand that it takes energy to crack the water.
What I AM saying is that as a means to provide a MOBILE energy source, that does not add carbon to the environment, hydrogen is the only means that can supply a replenishable source of energy for vehicles.

As for the increased weight factoring into the mileage of the car, I point out that hybrids have a large additional weight point. So do pure electric cars, which have approximately a 100mile range. With that range, once you have dead batteries, what do you do? At least with hydrogen, at 90miles, you can pull into the fuel station and get a 1000psi charge of hydrogen.

Worried about dangers with hydrogen? FINE, have placards on all hydrogen cars. First Responders will KNOW what that means.

Look guys, I KNOW there are difficulties. But as a people we HAVE to accept the fact that we have a single decision to make… keep going the way we are and figure the earth will be uninhabitable eventually or takes steps and try to recover the damage we have done as a species to our home. I don’t know when the point of no return is, or even care. Just the fact that it will happen is enough to make me realize we need to change our ways.

One factor that makes me REALLY want to change over is OPEC.

#30

I read an interesting interview with a noted technology investor who says that for any alternative energy solution to be viable it has to be able to stand on it’s own feet in seven years or it’s doomed. Solar, wind, bio-mass, etc are all currently heavily government subsidized and will probably have to continue to be propped up for many, many years. So it seems to me that the role of government should be to fund high level research rather than subsidize technologies that may never be able to compete.

But it also seems obvious that we’ve got to acknowledge that we really are going to run out of oil sooner or later, and it’s probably going to be sooner rather than later. Viable alternative energy solutions are probably a long way off and will be found by armies of PhD’s and not by clever folks fooling around trying to improving on current technologies. I think the most promising short term solution is to improve the way we use energy. And that implies that we may have to make changes in our lifestyle. For example - does it make any sense for an older couple to live in a 5000 sq. ft house and have two Hummers parked in the garage, just because they can afford it? Or for one person to drive to work and back alone every day in a 300 HP car, again, because he can afford it? I guess the answer to that involves ethics rather than economics.

#31

I’m gonna wait for the flux capacitor. :stuck_out_tongue:

#32

Putting the infrastructure in place for any new technology is the problem.

Natural Gas is cheap and readily available domestically. Gasoline engines can be converted. Unfortunately, the conversion hardware has to be EPA certified,
specific to both the engine model as well as vehicle model. And, of course, the filling stations would have to be built.
Burns so much cleaner than gasoline and usually hovers around $1 a gallon around here.
Of course, as use increases, the price will too. But this will likely occur switching to Electric/Battery also. Much of the increased need for power would likely
be met by Natural Gas fired plants.

So the push is for electric. Despite it’s many deficiencies, it has the most vast distribution network already in place.
Ralph

#33

With N.Gas… there is the issue with fracking…won’t affect me directly but there’s some interesting stuff out there on it F@#$in’ up the water. I liked the guy who could set the water on fire as it came out of his tap.

#34

Where things stand at the moment…
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/15/japanese-nuclear-panic-rises-agency-says-radiation-leaking-atmosphere/

Worse than TMI, better than Chernoble… says a lot, don’t it?

#35

And hopefully I won’t glow in the dark!

#36

When all the figures are figured and the toll counted, Chernobyl increased the cancer risk among those in the area by… 1%.

Incredible, eh?

#37

I guess that depends on who’s doin the figurin :wink:
It’s estimated the land surrounding Chernobyl will be uninhabitable for 20,000 years.
Ralph

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_nuclearchernobyl;_ylt=AkcsmNGiqKLLBVwA0mbovgms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNqY2pyY2NlBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwMzE2L2FzX2phcGFuX2VhcnRocXVha2UEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwMxBHBvcwM4BHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNzcGVjaWFscmVwb3I-

#38
Jason Gallaway said:
Jerry... I stated several times, I am NOT saying that its a free lunch. You keep using that phrase. I DO understand that it takes energy to crack the water.
I am not citing economics when I write "There is no free lunch." Just so you understand, "THERE IS NO FREE ENERGY." Is that better?
Jason Gallaway said:
What I AM saying is that as a means to provide a MOBILE energy source, that does not add carbon to the environment, hydrogen is the only means that can supply a replenishable source of energy for vehicles.
Hydrogen is probably one of the worst choices for ". . . a MOBILE energy source . . ." The energy required to refine hydrogen, even from hydrocarbon fuels is between 1.5 and 2 times the potential energy content of the resulting hydrogen. The resulting energy fraction is significantly less for hydrogen refined by electrolysis.

Please take the time to understand that the amount of energy required to refine hydrogen at production levels that would be required to run our automobiles will require several times the amount of hydrocarbon fuels and feed stock as compared to current consumption. Again, hydrogen does not exist in nature. It must be refined at a very high energy cost. Please consider where that energy will come from.

And that does not include the costs (in energy) for either compressing or liquifying the hydrogen. Add to that the complexity of the entire fuel storage and delivery system, and it winds up being a very difficult path.

Jason Gallaway said:
As for the increased weight factoring into the mileage of the car, I point out that hybrids have a large additional weight point. So do pure electric cars, which have approximately a 100mile range. With that range, once you have dead batteries, what do you do? At least with hydrogen, at 90miles, you can pull into the fuel station and get a 1000psi charge of hydrogen.
Since an internal combustion reciprocating engine's specific fuel consumption using hydrogen is over 3.5 times that of the same engine on gasoline or diesel, you are probably not going to get 90 miles unless you have a very large hydrogen tank. And to think that you will refuel your hydrogen vehicle using hydrogen at a pressure of only 1000 psi is just wishful thinking.
Jason Gallaway said:
Worried about dangers with hydrogen? FINE, have placards on all hydrogen cars. First Responders will KNOW what that means.
Actually, the possibility of an accident causing an explosion due to a rupture of the fuel system is probably one of the lower concerns when it comes to using hydrogen as a fuel. In my 45 year experience with a wide variety of hydrogen and hydrogen driven processes, I have seen very few catastrophic failures. And, those failures were mostly caused by human error in the design or manufacture of some system component. Hydrogen, if properly handled, is a relatively safe fuel gas. It does have the disadvantage of requiring pressurization to do any useful work, and that pressurization comes with its own set of dangers. Still, lots safer than a nuclear reactor in the neighborhood.

My much higher concern is for the fact that you are proposing the equivalent of a small refinery on every street corner. Remember, it takes something between 3 1/2 and 4 times the volume of hydrogen to do the work of a gallon of hydrocarbon fuel. Refining such large volumes of hydrogen, whether from hydrocarbon feed stock or from water requires a significant industrial process. I would estimate that the minimum plant site would occupy something like a one block area to produce any kind of usable volume. Do you honestly believe that every neighborhood will line up for the noise, congestion, and necessary 24 hour operation of such a facility?

Another operation and safety concern: Do you really think we will be able to train the average housewife in the operation of a high pressure cryogenic liquid delivery system? Our hydrogen storage and use installations employ highly skilled technicians for the operation, maintenance and delivery systems. And, they are not faced with hooking up to a variety of brands of receivers that have an even wider variety of maintenance adherence.

Jason Gallaway said:
Look guys, I KNOW there are difficulties. But as a people we HAVE to accept the fact that we have a single decision to make... keep going the way we are and figure the earth will be uninhabitable eventually or takes steps and try to recover the damage we have done as a species to our home. I don't know when the point of no return is, or even care. Just the fact that it will happen is enough to make me realize we need to change our ways.
Jason: On that point we are near agreement. The major difficulty is in approaching the problems with a response that makes sense from the technical, energy, human and economic sides. Jumping on a single very difficult to implement and operate solution, with poor net energy conversion factors, such as is the case for 'hydrogen on every street corner,' is at best misdirected.
Jason Gallaway said:
One factor that makes me REALLY want to change over is OPEC.
At least you didn't suggest that George Bush is responsible! :) :) :)

Happy RRing,

Jerry

#39

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608

#40

I don’t know if the following is biased for political reasons or not but it backs up an article in the Age newspaper today.
I am only the messenger.

http://www.blindbatnews.com/2011/03/history-of-lies-about-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plants-tepco-ge/995