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Ethanol

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Hydrogen will be the fuel of the future. But the problem is where it will come from. Most methods presented today use a process that starts with natural gas or coal gas. Processes that generate a lot of CO2.

To avoid CO2 production, solar and electrolysis would work, or nuclear and electrolysis or high heat from gas cooled reactors.

But for now, I believe we should be using natural gas for transpiration and nuclear for electrical power generation.
 
The primary reason H2 HASN'T been further along as a fuel is exactly that: Hindenberg Syndrome... people are "afraid" of it. Much like "electricity". Liquid fuel, gasoline particularly, is MUCH more dangerous than hydrogen.
 
Like Jerry Lee sang, "GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!"

I was watching a show last week about some new concepts for energy production and storage.

One of the new ideas was for a method of producing H2 as it is needed using a plate coated with some custom designed bacteria that produced a metal catalyst coating. Similar to the way some sea shells make their pearl type coating. The prototype seemed to work quite well.

Another concept they were showing was for a new type of ion batteries made from some custom designed bacteria. Very much lighter, hugely faster charge rate and discharge rate, much more efficient, and easier to make. In one demonstration they lowered a wire frame with a special film on it into a tank of bacteria of one polarity and the bacteria actually placed themselves on the film. Then they placed the film in another tank with the opposite charge and that bacteria placed themselves on the other side of the film making the battery. Pretty incredible stuff.
 
From corn, to hydrogen to God forbid: Germs!

I am willing to suffer the slings and arrows in order
to free us the bondage of the middle eastern
countries.

As for the present gravitation toward ethanol, to the
naysayers, I would ask you to reflect a moment on
our country's progress from specifc places in
time as follows, for example:

The first computer used in my industry cost
$18,000. It's size required a ten by ten room in
order to house it. The size of the disc containing
data was approximately 30 inches by 30 inches.
It's speed was extremely slow by today's standards.

Now, the computers we buy have holding cacpacities
far greater than that one did, to say the least, faster,
not to mention a decent desk top can be had for
respectfully under $1,000.

Remember when going onto the internet was a dial-up
proposition only? Slow???? Picture the skeleton
at keyboard with verbiage: Waiting for customer
support to call me back.

So we begin with ethanol, and I hope we make just
as great the strides as with computers in order to
free us from the grips of foreign nations we support
as their radical criminal factions use our money to
plot to kill us and they respond to them as if neutered.

Beyond that, I don't have much personal experience with
the stuff....yet.
 
TR6oldtimer said:
But the problem is where it will come from.
Click to expand...
Exactly ! H2 is not a net source of energy; at best it is a rather inefficient energy storage medium. The energy itself has to come from somewhere else, then have some lost converting it to hydrogen (generally quite a bit), then more lost when the hydrogen is converted back to energy.

BTW, if you watch the film taken of the Hindenburg disaster, you'll see that it didn't "explode" but rather burned fairly gracefully. Any car crash in the movies is a much more violent explosion (not that I'm claiming they are realistic either, of course /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif )
Some sources claim the fire was actually started by static discharge to the highly flammable (and conductive) skin, rather than the hydrogen.
 
Has anyone championing the 'Hydrogen as out future fuel' really thought about the ramifications of water vapor as the only emission? Considering that water vapor has a far greater effect on climate than CO?

Other than that... this is getting awfully close to religious/political discussion. Time to be wary.
 
swift6 said:
Has anyone championing the 'Hydrogen as out future fuel' really thought about the ramifications of water vapor as the only emission? Considering that water vapor has a far greater effect on climate than CO?

Other than that... this is getting awfully close to religious/political discussion. Time to be wary.
Click to expand...

Ah, yes but it condenses and falls from the sky as snow or rain, thus producing a cooling affect on the surface.

As far as using H2, the only advantage I see, other then to get off imported oil, is if it's production and use does not generate new CO2 otherwise lets go with coal.....
 
2wrench said:
So we begin with ethanol, and I hope we make just as great the strides as with computers
Click to expand...

I wouldn't expect the same strides with ethanol as with computers. There was a lot of room for changes in size, speed and cost before hitting any "laws of nature" limits. For ethanol, there are limits on how much energy it takes to produce it. Those limits are set by the laws of thermodynamics and you aren't getting around those. There may be some improvements in efficiency but it isn't going to change by factors of 1000 every few years like computers. You can use wood chips, etc. to feed bugs and make ethanol in a fermenter. But first there are chemical processes conducted in typical reactors to make the wood chips suitable for the genetically engineered bugs to eat. You get ethanol in a fermenter but it is mixed with half-eaten wood chips and lots of bugs. Separating the ethanol from that and from all the water takes several more steps in a chemical plant. All of that takes energy - in addition to that required to get the wood chips or whatever to the ethanol plant to begin with. It isn't a free ride. The Fed's have funded half a dozen or so different technologies for such conversions. It remains to be seen if any of those will turn out to be economically feasible.

Bryan
 
A commitment to explore change is good enough for
me.

I met a nice man from India. Came to the United States
wanting to become a citizen. I asked him why?

He said: For that good old fashioned: Yankee Engineering.

He's an investor of sorts.

Much like cars and mechanics, I'm not as sophisticated
re the ins and outs; I only know where I'd like to
see us go. Whether we arrive by bus; train; boat or
plane...I just wanna see us get there. And if our
present vehicles are just not cutting it....well,
I say more is lost by indecision than by wrong decision.

Thanks for the comments. I am surrounded by guys
far smarter than me, I think, and for that, I feel
fortunate.

Take care,
 
The idea is to find a better alternative to an ever diminishing fuel supply, for our mobility and energy. Our continuance. Corn ain't a good answer. Bio fuels in general are NOT an answer. The required effort to get useable BTU's from any biomass is an upside-down equation. As for water being more damaging than CO2, that is just, well... the planet is over 2/3 water already. Consider that a lucky thing for us. Water is 2/3 Hydrogen BTW: H-O-H, not H2O. WE're 3/4 water. The ONLY reason not to develop the infrastructure to extract/transfer/use it is: it's not "economically" viable just now. We'll see as dinosaur poop and other fossil derivatives can no longer sustain the level of consumption just how "dangerous" hydrogen really is. I hope we don't try to go the route of "growing" our next power source: Sheer folly lies down that path, it's a diminishing returns proposition. The sun has managed kinda well for a FEW BILLION years on hydrogen, it seems to keep us in a nice balance so far. Instead of running to shove our heads under school desks in fear of it, we should be insisting it be more rigorously pursued as an answer to burning llama leavin's or whatever the latest "fad" fuel is. The most abundant element in the UNIVERSE is starin' us in the face. It powers SUNS, ferheavensake. What part of this is so obscure it can't be seen or understood? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wall.gif
 
DrEntropy said:
It powers SUNS, ferheavensake. What part of this is so obscure it can't be seen or understood? /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wall.gif
Click to expand...

Exactly. Nuclear power is the answer. The sun is powered by nuclear fusion. We haven't worked out how to make fusion work (except for bombs) so for now we'll have to just settle for fission reactions. So maybe we should say plutonium is the answer instead of hydrogen.

Bryan
 
DrEntropy said:
It powers SUNS, ferheavensake.
Click to expand...
Ah, now you're talking hydrogen fusion, rather than burning. A good solution methinks, if we can just figure out how to get the power from the sun to here. But the sun is just about the right distance for a fusion reactor IMO; putting one where we can run a cord to it doesn't seem like such a good idea to me. Maybe you'd like to have one in your backyard, but NIMBY.
 
NIMBY.....will I find that in the acronym list
on the net?

I'm gonna remember that one, either way.
NIMBY, I like it.
 
I ain't lookin' to put a 'MrFusion' in every car. Nor would I think Plutonium to be ANYTHING like a "portable" fuel. That stuff really IS toxic. Makes the idea of a cell full of liquid Hydrogen seem like a party favor comparatively. I'm talkin' burn the H2 directly. For cars. Power plants are a totally diff'rent ichthy vessel.

Nuclear power plants for generating electricity are the answer for the grid. And I ~HAD~ one in my backyard. Another where I live now (for all practical purpose). We're on a steady path to destructive self-deprivation with all this NIMBY stuff. It galls me to say this, but the French got it down to a practical system: design ONE plant and replicate that. Standardise. Safe, efficient, clean.

We gotta do ~something~ to move forward. "Green" ain't the answer. Can't be done practically on the scale necessary. Short-term, DRILL and build/reactivate refineries. Long term it'll BE a move to hydrogen... buy stock in whichever outfit is SECOND to develop the transition.
 
2wrench said:
I am willing to suffer the slings and arrows in order
to free us the bondage of the middle eastern
countries.
Click to expand...

I agree in principle -- get off the oil habit and IMHO switch to electricity (solar, nuclear or whatever) but I have to make one tiny point: The US doesn't really get much oil from the Middle East. I study this kind of thing for a living, and most Middle East oil goes to Europe and Japan. We get ours mostly from places like Venezuela and Mexico, in addition to the amount we still produce ourselves. Still, crude oil is a thoroughly fungible (I love that word) commodity, so it doesn't really matter exactly which of the few producers we pay. Total world supply and total world demand set the price. OPEC seems totally unable to increase their production to meet demand now that China and India are ramping in, so things are going to get a LOT worse from here on out, absent a world economic slowdown. As far as ethanol, I can't see how burning the fertility of our farm soil is going to be the long-term answer to energy production. It looks like solar/nuclear or nothing to me. I'm about to put my TR7 back together after 15+ years off the road and I'm seriously thinking about making it into a plug-in electric commuter car. At my local electric utility rates a trip to work and back should cost me about a quarter, based on off-peak nighttime rates.

-SteveR
76 TR7 (original owner)
 
DrEntropy said:
I'm talkin' burn the H2 directly.
Click to expand...

I rather thought so. But the real question is how do you get the hydrogen? Yes, it's in water but you can't put water in a glass and have H2 come leaping out. You have to have an energy source. Then you can use that energy to make H2. With a fuel cell, you can then get SOME of that energy back (you can't get it all - you only get some).

So, what energy source are you going to use to make the H2? Electricity from coal, natural gas, nuclear reactors, what? Solar is a fine idea as long as you don't need very much H2 but our current demand is going to make that a problem. Likewise with wind, etc.

Bryan
 
With current methods we're not "there" yet, but more efficient methods of electrolysis are coming along rapidly. The ~real~ problem is storage and transfer, particularly at the consumer's point. As with any 'emerging' technology it'll be developed and improved as time and demand dictate.

You think this to be over-confident? I kinda look at it from the perspective of atlatls and flint spear tips... Improvement is market driven, demand driven, it's up to some of us to figure out how to work out the details. But that seems to be a human strong point so-far. Some clever folk will show up with a bow pretty soon. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
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