HYDROGEN HERE!

Captain

Captain

Final Approach
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Please discuss. I'm interested and want to know more. Please provide facts and theories and don't forget links. Show me what's possible.

Thanks in advance,
 
It's been around for a while.


260px-Hindenburg_burning.jpg



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster
 
There was the acid gen, then the cocaine gen, now it's the hydro gen.

(Ref: in order; Timothy Leary, Steven Tyler, Willie Nelson)
 
Look at stocks:

PLUG, BLDP and the Hydrogen funds that are being set up!
 
those companies are starting to commercialize hydrogen. PLUG focuses on the forklift industry, which is valued at $20B, while BLDP has been working on components and buses.

Hydrogen fuel cell technology is not new, however, it has finally become economical to mass produce.
 
Hydrogen is a means of energy transport, not a source of energy. As a means of transport, it's not a particularly good one. H2 gas is very low density, the molecules are teeny, and it has to be pressurized to a very high level to make fuel tanks of a reasonable size. I believe that the carmakers who are experimenting with this are looking at pressures around 10,000 psi. At those pressures, some steels are subject to hydrogen embrittlement and can't be used.

There's no current infrastructure for the stuff either. I don't see the appeal of H2 as fuel.
 
Hydrogen makes up more of the universe than anything else.
 
Overall, it's a silly idea. Currently the only economic reasonable source of large quantities of H2 is from natural gas. You might as well use the natural gas directly as fuel and avoid all the cost of the conversion plus the difficulty storing / moving H2. This also means that the argument that H2 is the fuel we will use when we run out of oil/gas is silly because we make it from oil/gas. (Oh, by the way, I used to work in a plant that did exactly that.) Then there is the "the only exhaust is water" which of course, ignores the cost / exhaust / pollution of extracting the H2 from whatever. And the claim that Hydrogen is the most abundant... means what? Sure there is lots around, but purd near all of it is tied up in water or other molecules. You still need lots of energy to extract it. Just like Aluminum. You probably have a lot of aluminum tied up in the soil in your back yard. Good luck making an airplane out of it.

Now, if nuclear fusion ever becomes an economic reality, and if it gives us electricity at the cost that fission was supposed to (but never did), then it would be easy to generate H2 at low cost from water. But, the problem here isn't generating the H2, it's finding the magic source for nearly free electricity.

But, once you have nearly free electricity, there are a lot of things you could do without having to mess with the whole H2 nonsense.
 
PaulS said:
Carbon Jeff, what about carbon?
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There is roughly 100,000 times more hydrogen in the universe than carbon, by mass.

However, carbon can be mined. Hydrogen must be made. And on earth, it's all tied up in water, so it takes the same amount of energy to make it (at a minimum) as it will give out. It ain't a fuel.
 
MAKG1 said:
There is roughly 100,000 times more hydrogen in the universe than carbon, by mass.

However, carbon can be mined. Hydrogen must be made. And on earth, it's all tied up in water, so it takes the same amount of energy to make it (at a minimum) as it will give out. It ain't a fuel.
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I didn't know that about carbon vs hydrogen in the universe, what about on earth?...... but I do know that it takes more energy to make it than it will give out and that doesn't include compressing it to a more useful volume......
 
FormerHangie said:
Hydrogen is a means of energy transport, not a source of energy. As a means of transport, it's not a particularly good one.
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Agreed. Of the carbon neutral means of energy transport, NH3 is one better alternative. Combustion of ammonia yields products already in the atmosphere that should not affect the climate:

4 NH3 + 3 O2 -> 2 N2 + 6 H2O

Down side is about half the energy density of carbon fuels, but really a lot better than most of the other alternatives, especially molecular hydrogen.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Agreed. Of the carbon neutral means of energy transport, NH3 is one better alternative. Combustion of ammonia yields products already in the atmosphere that should not affect the climate:

4 NH3 + 3 O2 -> 2 N2 + 6 H2O

Down side is about half the energy density of carbon fuels, but really a lot better than most of the other alternatives, especially molecular hydrogen.
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Don't know much about making ammonia Jim, except that it occurs naturally, is it really readily combustible??
 
PaulS said:
Don't know much about making ammonia Jim, except that it occurs naturally, is it really readily combustible??
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Lots of stuff on the net on the subject - search using keywords "ammonia economy".
 
MAKG1 said:
There is roughly 100,000 times more hydrogen in the universe than carbon, by mass.

However, carbon can be mined. Hydrogen must be made. And on earth, it's all tied up in water, so it takes the same amount of energy to make it (at a minimum) as it will give out. It ain't a fuel.
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Please don't tell Henning that, I enjoy his rants.:rofl:
 
Geico266 said:
Please don't tell Henning that, I enjoy his rants.:rofl:
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It'll go the same way as his nuclear submarine rants...he used to claim that the US Navy could power the entire country, then someone ran the numbers and showed that the entire fleet might handle a small city. Suddenly he stopped ranting as soon as the numbers were run that disproved his hypothesis.
 
“Right now, the way we get hydrogen primarily is from reforming gas. That's not an ideal source of hydrogen...The other problem is, if it's for transportation, we don't have a good storage mechanism yet. What else? The fuel cells aren't there yet, and the distribution infrastructure isn't there yet. In order to get significant deployment, you need four significant technological breakthroughs. If you need four miracles, that's unlikely. Saints only need three miracles.” -- Physics nobel prize winner Steven Chu.
 
kyleb said:
People who don't understand physics and chemistry don't like this answer. It must be wrong.

Here's an excellent read on the numbers that make the "Hydrogen Economy" impractical...

http://entropyproduction.blogspot.com/2006/07/hydrogens-death-knell.html
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What people who don't know how our grid works, it is only about 30-40% efficient in the use of the energy it produces due to 'off peak' charging of the grid. The big plants are only efficient if you can use all they produce, otherwise the electricity and the energy used to produce it is wasted. It would probably take 5 years of growing the hydrogen consumption market before we had to add any electric production capacity through efficiency increase by using and storing all the electricity that isn't immediately consumed, allowing the plants to run full load 24/7 and sell all they produce.
 
"Hydrogen is the fuel of the future - and always will be" - Unknown

It's impossible to store, it needs insane power to make, it has terrible efficiency in fuel cells etc. Unless you're burning it in a rocket directly, it has very little future.

When I read that Toyota is abandoning electric propulsion and putting all their eggs into a hydrogen fuel cell car future, that's when I know Toyota won't be the biggest car manufacturer for much longer. The car they're introducing next year looks like sh*t, has a range less than the Tesla Model S and can only be refilled in one single place in the greater Los Angeles area to a cost that's higher than gas. What's wrong with these people? Do they want to lose money on purpose?
 
Henning said:
What people who don't know how our grid works, it is only about 30-40% efficient in the use of the energy it produces due to 'off peak' charging of the grid. The big plants are only efficient if you can use all they produce, otherwise the electricity and the energy used to produce it is wasted. It would probably take 5 years of growing the hydrogen consumption market before we had to add any electric production capacity through efficiency increase by using and storing all the electricity that isn't immediately consumed, allowing the plants to run full load 24/7 and sell all they produce.
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The big plants produce 24/7. Those are the nuke plants followed by the coal plants. The natural gas turbine plants are easy to throttle, so they are used for surge capacity.

The grid IS efficient and does not store electricity.

What is the purpose of Hydrogen in the energy economy? It is similar to, but worse than Ethanol in that it requires much more energy to produce than it can return.
 
Just saw an article in this week's Science about producing H2 from highly efficient photovoltaic cells. I still think its vaporware.
 
steingar said:
Just saw an article in this week's Science about producing H2 from highly efficient photovoltaic cells. I still think its vaporware.
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If the energy source is a photovoltaic cell, then the energy produced is electricity. Electricity is most efficiently stored in a battery, using that electricity to produce hydrogen and them passing it through a fuel cell to produce electricity is expensive and inefficient.
 
Dav8or said:
There is a never ending supply, it can be made anywhere and the byproduct of it's consumption is pure water and nothing more. Why does that not seem appealing?
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That bolded part is great.

Problem is the energy input to create it, which usually has byproducts beyond "pure water".
 
Dav8or said:
There is a never ending supply, it can be made anywhere and the byproduct of it's consumption is pure water and nothing more. Why does that not seem appealing?
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Because it requires more energy to produce than it supply's. That is not appealing.
 
FormerHangie said:
There's no current infrastructure for the stuff either. I don't see the appeal of H2 as fuel.
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The appeal is easy to see, as long as you don't let pesky facts cloud your vision. I still have hopes that some private entity can develop a process to harness hydrogen in a safe, clean and efficient manner. And if they do, they should be allowed to make a fortune off of it. A huge fortune. If they fail, they should eat their losses themselves without taxpayer bailout. That is the whole theory behind risk/reward. As a society, we seem to have lost confidence in that concept.
 
JOhnH said:
The appeal is easy to see, as long as you don't let pesky facts cloud your vision. I still have hopes that some private entity can develop a process to harness hydrogen in a safe, clean and efficient manner. And if they do, they should be allowed to make a fortune off of it. A huge fortune. If they fail, they should eat their losses themselves without taxpayer bailout. That is the whole theory behind risk/reward. As a society, we seem to have lost confidence in that concept.
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That surely is not the case with ethanol the taxpayers really have gotten a good screwing on that bad idea. It's important to realize that for much of " risk-reward" the government has been involved in much of the risk, including the internet itself. The government involvement in the space race provided endless improvements in our lives. Same for new drugs, usually researched thru grants to university's, etc. on and on. Profits are usually privatized, losses socialized. Been that way a long time. Especially on Wall Street, ie: 2008. Pesky facts indeed!
 
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FormerHangie said:
Electricity is most efficiently stored in a battery...
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Since when??! Batteries are terribly inefficient at storing energy. Huge losses going in and coming out. Capacitors are much, much better, only they can't hold that charge very long. No, the best way to store electrical energy is by mechanical means such as pumped hydro, or flywheels, but they aren't very portable.

Maybe some day batteries will get better and that will be a great day, but for now they are pretty terrible. The good news is, there is a tremendous amount of brain power working this problem all over the world right now. The bad news is, it seems to be a very tough nut to crack.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
Because it requires more energy to produce than it supply's. That is not appealing.
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If you have a solar plant that sits and does nothing but make hydrogen from free solar energy, who cares how much energy it takes? Oh no!!! some of the Sun's rays will be wasted!!! Hydrogen is just a means of transporting energy that has the nice by product of pure water.

I never said hydrogen is practical at this point in time, just that it does have appeal. Sorry if you can't see it.
 
I did recently watch a video that was about Fission. In it the point was made that they are now at least getting more energy out of it than they put into it. As trends continue it'll become economically viable and coupled with H2 production could be just the thing.

As an aside, I recently flew past that new solar facility SW of Vegas. Three bright (hurt to look at) spots on the desert.
 
H2 is just an energy storage medium, that's all. Personally I like batteries better, but I can see the merit for cars.

Break ahead fusion (they've been using fission to get energy for about 50 years, its called nuclear power) will solve quite a few problems, since its energy generation from the most common substance in the universe. Whether that will operate to the degree needed for power generation I doubt, though I have to admit I doubted break even fusion, which was achieved experimentally this year.
 
Dav8or said:
If you have a solar plant that sits and does nothing but make hydrogen from free solar energy, who cares how much energy it takes? Oh no!!! some of the Sun's rays will be wasted!!! Hydrogen is just a means of transporting energy that has the nice by product of pure water.

I never said hydrogen is practical at this point in time, just that it does have appeal. Sorry if you can't see it.
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You need to make it, then you need to compress it. That requires a lot of energy. So your 5 kwh $100,000 hydrogen plant will produce enough energy to run your expensive hydrogen car for an hour each week..... nice...
 
Captain said:
I did recently watch a video that was about Fission. In it the point was made that they are now at least getting more energy out of it than they put into it. As trends continue it'll become economically viable and coupled with H2 production could be just the thing.

As an aside, I recently flew past that new solar facility SW of Vegas. Three bright (hurt to look at) spots on the desert.
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There are two problems with that.

1. Fission is a conventional nuclear plant, and break-even occurred in the early 30s.

2. Fusion consumes hydrogen. Generally, rare isotopes. It produces helium, which is utterly useless for energy production. And fusion break-even was accomplished at the cost of bombarding everything with neutrons, a very, very dirty way to go. Lots of radioactive waste involved in D-T fusion, well beyond that from D-D.

I was in the field 30 years ago. If you believe the stuff we were saying then, there should be at least one terawatt plant operating by now.
 
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