Alternative or Sustainable fuels - another gone west

L J Donelson

L J Donelson

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Jun 6, 2021
Messages
352
Location
KHUA
Display Name
Display name:
L J Donelson
I found this interesting. Not much sticktoitiveness, but Universal Hydrogen did get a flight in before saying bye.

Quoting from the article:
"Universal Hydrogen apparently won’t get the chance to fly its plane again. Last week, the Los Angeles–based company informed shareholders that Universal Hydrogen is shutting down, having burned through the $100 million it raised from investors, The Seattle Times first reported. The company’s backers included GE Aviation, American Airlines, and the venture capital arms of Airbus, JetBlue, and Toyota."

Perhaps I am amazed that someone can burn through $100M and get one 15-min flight, or have that many companies backing you and still fail.

Look for a good deal on a slightly used, and now non-standard Dash-8!
 
L J Donelson said:
I found this interesting. Not much sticktoitiveness, but Universal Hydrogen did get a flight in before saying bye.

Quoting from the article:
"Universal Hydrogen apparently won’t get the chance to fly its plane again. Last week, the Los Angeles–based company informed shareholders that Universal Hydrogen is shutting down, having burned through the $100 million it raised from investors, The Seattle Times first reported. The company’s backers included GE Aviation, American Airlines, and the venture capital arms of Airbus, JetBlue, and Toyota."

Perhaps I am amazed that someone can burn through $100M and get one 15-min flight, or have that many companies backing you and still fail.

Look for a good deal on a slightly used, and now non-standard Dash-8!
Click to expand...
It's good work if you can get it.
 
L J Donelson said:
Perhaps I am amazed that someone can burn through $100M and get one 15-min flight, or have that many companies backing you and still fail.

Look for a good deal on a slightly used, and now non-standard Dash-8!
Click to expand...
I wonder how much the principles got paid?

A lot of these endeavors sound like the plot of "The Producers." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462/

Designed to fail, but pay out big bucks to a few people.
 
Someone else will pick up the torch, as long as new investors keep ignoring the fact that there are no hydrogen wells...
 
Dana said:
Someone else will pick up the torch, as long as new investors keep ignoring the fact that there are no hydrogen wells...
Click to expand...

sure there are... it's just that the hydrogen is tied up with O2.
 
Dana said:
Someone else will pick up the torch, as long as new investors keep ignoring the fact that there are no hydrogen wells...
Click to expand...
Actually, 99% of hydrogen production in the world comes from a treatment process with methane (natural gas) which does come from wells. The other 1% includes electrolysis, and various low-yield bio methods.
 
But when you take hydrogen out of hydrocarbons, guess what's left. There is no free lunch.
 
Mikey52 said:
But when you take hydrogen out of hydrocarbons, guess what's left. There is no free lunch.
Click to expand...
Well, see, you use that for super pure graphite and solve the graphite supply problem for EV battery makers.

Heck, I was just reading an article about that this morning, only that guy was (is) going to do it all from coal. He just needs a couple hundred mil more in VC money.
 
Domenick said:
Actually, 99% of hydrogen production in the world comes from a treatment process with methane (natural gas) which does come from wells. The other 1% includes electrolysis, and various low-yield bio methods.
Click to expand...
Which makes the highly touted hydrogen revolution a bit problematic. It's just the latest Shiny Object.
 
The whole point of the hydrogen economy is to extract hydrogen from water so that energy production and consumption stays within the hydrologic cycle. This requires using non-fossil-fuel sources of affordable, abundant electricity. That means things like nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, etc.
 
chemgeek said:
The whole point of the hydrogen economy is to extract hydrogen from water so that energy production and consumption stays within the hydrologic cycle. This requires using non-fossil-fuel sources of affordable, abundant electricity. That means things like nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, etc.
Click to expand...
Do the math on that. It doesn’t pan out.

The better, more efficient approach is bio-diesel and synthetic fuels with processing plants powered by renewables. Let the sun do the work for you putting energy into the process, rather then using a bunch of energy to crack molecules apart, then having to use more energy to compress the H2 gas enough to be viable for distribution.
 
It’s about economics IMHO, not efficiency.

Whatever might replace oil has to be cheaper and as/or more reliable and usable as oil. Which means it also has to be as/or more energy dense and transportable.

When someone figures it out that product won’t need taxpayer money to survive. If it needs taxpayer money to survive, it’s not a real solution.
 
WDD said:
It’s about economics IMHO, not efficiency.

Whatever might replace oil has to be cheaper and as/or more reliable and usable as oil. Which means it also has to be as/or more energy dense and transportable.
Click to expand...
100% correct - but in the end efficiency drives the economics, and density is part of the efficiency output.

For today, aside from nuclear sources you’re not going to get more energy dense than a fluid hydrocarbon fuel. The challenge, then, is to sort out the best way to source those fuels when the cost of fossil fuel extraction becomes unsustainable, and/or when we decide that we no longer want to release sequestered hydrocarbons from those fossil fuels.

It’s not a matter of if, it’s a question of when.
 
StraightnLevel said:
100% correct - but in the end efficiency drives the economics.
Click to expand...
Business and cost efficiency drive success. Maybe not energy efficiency however. It all depends on the cost.

If I spend a huge amount of money on a high efficiency furnace that has a 20 year pay back, I’ll be money ahead with a less efficient furnace. I exaggerate in that example to try and explain my POV.
 
My hunch is nuclear - maybe next generation thorium, etc - is what can provide energy that can be converted to something as dense and cheap and oil.

But hey, what do I know. IOW - please don’t move all of your IRAs into “Bob’s Thorium Mining Stock”
 
WDD said:
My hunch is nuclear - maybe next generation thorium, etc - is what can provide energy that can be converted to something as dense and cheap and oil.

But hey, what do I know. IOW - please don’t move all of your IRAs into “Bob’s Thorium Mining Stock”
Click to expand...
What about Bill's thorium reactor stock?

www.powermag.com

Bill Gates' TerraPower Ready to Build New U.S. Nuclear Power Plant

A group established by Microsoft founder Bill Gates is preparing to begin construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants in June, according to
www.powermag.com www.powermag.com
 
WDD said:
My hunch is nuclear - maybe next generation thorium, etc - is what can provide energy that can be converted to something as dense and cheap and oil.

But hey, what do I know. IOW - please don’t move all of your IRAs into “Bob’s Thorium Mining Stock”
Click to expand...

hey
 
StraightnLevel said:
Do the math on that. It doesn’t pan out.

The better, more efficient approach is bio-diesel and synthetic fuels with processing plants powered by renewables. Let the sun do the work for you putting energy into the process, rather then using a bunch of energy to crack molecules apart, then having to use more energy to compress the H2 gas enough to be viable for distribution.
Click to expand...

www.triplepundit.com

Scientists Invent Hydrogen-Sucking Sponge For Fuel Cell EVs

www.triplepundit.com

Bob Lazaro used a first-generation H2 sponge in his United Nuclear demonstrator vehicles. The issue with Lazaro's first-gen H2 sponge was it relied on a rare earth element. Rubidium or palladium I think, making it rather expensive. Current H2 sponges have purposely looked to solutions with common elements such as the examples above using aluminum and lithium.

Lazaro had another good idea, home charging stations--solar powered hydrogen production systems. He built a prototype. This approach will likely be resisted by energy companies because it decentralizes energy production. This is unlike EV home charging which plugs into the grid supplied by a local centralized company.

EVs stalled until battery technology kind of caught up. The same will be true for hydrogen. Better, cheaper, and more efficient H2 sponges will be developed unless politics gets in the way.

One can use solar power to crack water as easily as you can use the sun to drive an industrial process to turn biomass into fuel.
 
I hear a lot these days about sodium batteries, which seem to promise lower costs for storage. Any thoughts on whether those make storage and transport of solar power more feasible?
 
Domenick said:
www.triplepundit.com

Scientists Invent Hydrogen-Sucking Sponge For Fuel Cell EVs

www.triplepundit.com

Bob Lazaro used a first-generation H2 sponge in his United Nuclear demonstrator vehicles. The issue with Lazaro's first-gen H2 sponge was it relied on a rare earth element. Rubidium or palladium I think, making it rather expensive. Current H2 sponges have purposely looked to solutions with common elements such as the examples above using aluminum and lithium.

Lazaro had another good idea, home charging stations--solar powered hydrogen production systems. He built a prototype. This approach will likely be resisted by energy companies because it decentralizes energy production. This is unlike EV home charging which plugs into the grid supplied by a local centralized company.
Click to expand...
The trouble with the decentralized approach is that it costs WAY too much per kWh of energy produced. Once you get to factory-scale and combine with local wind, it starts to make sense, but even then it's a whole lot less expensive and more efficient to build at scale and route the energy through the grid.

Small-scale (i.e., rooftop) solar is the most expensive energy source on the planet. It cannot be economically justified without massive government subsidies. In contrast, utility-scale solar and wind are the least expensive energy sources available today. Similarly, home-scale energy storage costs about 5x as much per kWh of capacity as utility scale storage costs (Page 20 in the below link).

The real problem with this subject is that the politicians don't match policy to the science and data that is available. If they did, they would immediately remove every penny of subsidy for small-scale solar and divert it to construction of large-scale wind, solar, and grid-scale storage.

1721052818444.png

 
AlleyCat67 said:
I hear a lot these days about sodium batteries, which seem to promise lower costs for storage. Any thoughts on whether those make storage and transport of solar power more feasible?
Click to expand...
At grid scale, they may eventually make sense in places where you aren't worried about footprint. Sodium batteries have the potential to be less expensive than lithium-based options, but their energy density is not great - they are a lot larger and heavier than Li-ion.

That said, we're years away from anything resembling wide-scale use - the very first test site just started up in May:

www.notebookcheck.net

First sodium-ion battery storage station at grid level opens with cells that can be charged in 12 minutes

Clean electricity generation paired with the first grid-level sodium battery energy storage system can bring costs down to just $0.028 per kWh. The 10 MWh storage capacity is executed with sodium-ion cells that can be charged in just 12 minutes.
www.notebookcheck.net www.notebookcheck.net
 
a problem with centralized energy generation (and distribution) is the complexity, fragility, and vulnerabilities of the overall system.
 
StraightnLevel said:
Do the math on that. It doesn’t pan out.

The better, more efficient approach is bio-diesel and synthetic fuels with processing plants powered by renewables. Let the sun do the work for you putting energy into the process, rather then using a bunch of energy to crack molecules apart, then having to use more energy to compress the H2 gas enough to be viable for distribution.
Click to expand...
It's not a math issue. It's an economic issue. Ultimately, solar is the source of energy for all "renewable" fuels. (That includes hydro, tidal, and wind power.) Whether you use natural or artificial photosynthesis, or solar-generated electricity, that's the only route to "renewable" fuels. Nuclear is a long-term, on-demand, but ultimately non-renewable energy adjunct that does not contribute to global CO2 levels, but it has its own environmental issues.
 
By the time we run out of nuclear fission fuel in a million years (I exaggerate) we’ll be onto something else.

If a replacement solution includes economically cheap renewables, fine.

If it has nothing to do with solar panels and windmills, that’s fine as well.
 
StraightnLevel said:
The trouble with the decentralized approach is that it costs WAY too much per kWh of energy produced. Once you get to factory-scale and combine with local wind, it starts to make sense, but even then it's a whole lot less expensive and more efficient to build at scale and route the energy through the grid.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Homeowners make many decision other reasons rather than cost. There are real and perceived advantages for a homeowner to decide to own the means of their own power production. If the H2 technology was mature, I'd gladly buy into a home electrolysis station.

If I was an industry that relied on electricity for my manufacturing, and my utility began shutting down gas and oil power plants to replace with vast stretches of wind and solar "farms," I'd strongly consider moving my operation to someplace still committed to the cheapest and most reliable power production technology.

StraightnLevel said:
Small-scale (i.e., rooftop) solar is the most expensive energy source on the planet. It cannot be economically justified without massive government subsidies. In contrast, utility-scale solar and wind are the least expensive energy sources available today. Similarly, home-scale energy storage costs about 5x as much per kWh of capacity as utility scale storage costs (Page 20 in the below link).
Click to expand...
And yet federal and state governments still heavily subsidize rooftop solar. It's a political decision. Which is what many governments do. They rarely do ANYTHING for rational reasons. They do things to get reelected and pander to their backers, friendly media, and most importantly their financiers. I point toward the most recent and destructive lesson still fresh in all our memories--COVID-19.

Here is my "solution." Instead of waiting for massive battery technology to mature, so intermittent wind and solar produced power can be stored, we drill. Convert any remaining coal and oil plants to high-efficiency clean natural gas. Wait for fusion technology to mature. In the meantime, we do not cripple our economy chasing a dream that we can run an industrial society on sunlight and wind.
 
WDD said:
By the time we run out of nuclear fission fuel in a million years (I exaggerate) we’ll be onto something else.

If a replacement solution includes economically cheap renewables, fine.

If it has nothing to do with solar panels and windmills, that’s fine as well.
Click to expand...
There are fertile alternative fission technologies that we have not yet implemented, such as thorium cycle (U-233) reactors which offer significant advantages over U-235, and do not figure into nuclear weapons development. Even in an environment where there are abundant, renewable, intermittent energy sources, having high-capacity, on-demand sources is going to be important. The problem with intermittent renewables is energy storage. Pumping water uphill probably has the least environmental impact, but is not universally practicable.
 
chemgeek said:
...The problem with intermittent renewables is energy storage. Pumping water uphill probably has the least environmental impact, but is not universally practicable.
Click to expand...
Greenies will scream about damage to the watershed. When was the last NEW hydroelectric facility built in the US? Imagine trying to build Grand Coulee or Hoover Dam today. Never happen. Endless lawsuits from "environmentalists" over the inadequate environmental impact study, EPA dragging its feet on permits, indigenous lawsuits, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top