[mrdelayer]

I'm volunteering at the National Hydrogen Association annual hydrogen conference and expo this week. (Need some community service hours before I can graduate, but that's another story.)

They are showing off a lot of really cool, promising stuff, from different methods of hydrogen production to all the neat cars. (I got to drive a Toyota fuel cell hybrid SUV, and rode in a BMW Hydrogen 7. That was fun.)

So what're everyone else's thoughts on hydrogen? I think it is a promising source of energy in a world that relies too much on oil, coal, and natural gas.

 

[Thelonious Monk]

what happens after we deplete all the universe's hydrogen? what then???

ok ok. hydrogen is a very good potential source of fuel; coal would last us a while, but a clean-coal power plant isn't that easy to pull off IIRC.

 

[braillediver]

Where and how do you get the energy for Hydrogen Production? Would it possibly use oil, coal, and natural gas which you are trying to not use?

What are the global implications of vastly increasing the amount of hydrogen in the atmosphere? It's going to leak. It's a small active molecule that will leak from every vehicle.

My biggest concern is most of our problems stem from us trying to solve problems. In the long run the original problem was less of a problem than the solution.


Now if we were talking Methane Hydrates from the deep ocean- fire ice. Something that is naturally produced I could get into it. Hydrogen isn't the solution in my mind.


Mitch

 

[mrdelayer]

Haha, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. If we managed to use all of it, bad things would happen.

Clean coal is never going to happen, ever. Period. Solar and nuclear are really the best bets for power plants, and the sulfur-iodine cycle for hydrogen production looks really promising. (It uses sulfur dioxide, iodine, and the temperature changes caused by various chemical reactions to split 2H2O into 2H2 and O2. The chemical reagents can be reused and you really only need to find a heat source.)

And a leaky hydrogen tank would be bad. Which is why they've engineered them to not leak. (Just try not to get into a crash. Hindenberg, anyone?)

Even if we were to release a large amount of hydrogen into the atmosphere (which I, for one, think is very unlikely), it would just float away, considering it is considerably less dense than air. Sure beats CO2 and all those other lovely things you get in gasoline or diesel exhaust.

 

[Born2bwire]

Hydrogen is not an energy source, it is a means of transporting energy. We are beginning to approach a point in civilization where we are going to be unable to mine/drill for energy sources. While hydrogen can be a great means of transporting energy in the same way as hydrocarbons, we now need to solve the problem of creating the energy needed to process the hydrogen. We may be able to do this using electricity from coal, nuclear, oil, etc. or refine it from sources like natural gas, however this will not alleviate our current energy problems and will only last in the short term. What we really need to do is find a way to generate our energy needs via efficient renewable sources or find the pipedream of fusion.

 

[mrdelayer]

When it's what's making my car go, it's the source of energy for that car. Now you're just arguing semantics.

Hydrogen cars, while not the end-all, be-all, solution for all our problems some would like you to believe they are, are a good solution in the meantime. Solar, geothermal, wind, hydroelectricity are all viable solutions for renewable energy. And nuclear works and works well, nonrenewability and all.

 

[Lazarus Short]

Hydrogen, now that jogs my memory. I recall that Christopher Dunn, in his book "The Giza Power Plant," does a brillant back-engineering job on the Great Pyramid. You will not believe it unless you have followed his argument/theory from the beginning. In a nutshell, the GP was a MASER, producing gobs of microwave energy from the environment, with only the need to generate a HYDROGEN atmosphere within the pyramid's chambers. Is that too far out there?

BTW, his book is worth a read just for the chapter covering advanced Egyptian MACHINING of ultra-hard stone [you can't cut granite with copper chisels or saws].

Laz

 

[Elec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrdelayer /img/forum/go_quote.gif When it's what's making my car go, it's the source of energy for that car. Now you're just arguing semantics. Hydrogen cars, while not the end-all, be-all, solution for all our problems some would like you to believe they are, are a good solution in the meantime. Solar, geothermal, wind, hydroelectricity are all viable solutions for renewable energy. And nuclear works and works well, nonrenewability and all.

Hydrogen really ISN'T a source of energy, unless someone says "Here, have some hydrogen!" or you find a hydrogen "mine" or something. It has to be produced from something else in a process that consumes energy. As a result, hydrogen is more of a storage mechanism, like a battery. When you burn the hydrogen or react it in a fuel cell, you get back (some) of the energy you used to separate the hydrogen in the first place. One of the holy grails of hydrogen is a production mechanism which uses little or no energy. Say, a nanoscale filter or something that you could pour water through and get hydrogen and oxygen gas out the other side.

You can use nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, solar to produce hydrogen, but you're really just taking that energy and storing it up in the hydrogen for transport or later use.

 

[Lazarus Short]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elec /img/forum/go_quote.gif You can use nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, solar to produce hydrogen, but you're really just taking that energy and storing it up in the hydrogen for transport or later use.

Hydrogen could still be very useful in that role.

Laz

 

[mrdelayer]

Technically, the energy was always there. It just wasn't in a usable form when attached to oxygen. There is plenty of water on Earth (fine, there's your source, though by arguing over the fact that it's a storage mechanism for energy you're missing the point altogether), and the sulfur-iodine cycle is a promising method of obtaining the hydrogen from it. And you can always sell the oxygen to old people or something.

 

[rb67]

I like the idea of hydrogen as a transportation energy source.

A lot of people against hydrogen mention that you still need the energy to extract it from H2O or some other source. Much of this is from fossil fuel burning power plants. While initially it seems as if you are just putting in another step in the energy equation, one must realize one important difference.

The fossil fuels will be burned only at the power plants, thus the resulting pollution can be sequestered or disposed of in an environmental fashion. This includes CO2 sequestering which may be a viable technology should our government ever put the funds into it. Now compare this with burning fossil fuels in automobiles. In this case, you have large amounts of fossil fuels and all their associated nasty waste going into the environment practically unregulated. This, in my opinion is far worse than using fossil fuel at specific locations to produce clean fuel for all locations.

Utilizing H2 will also allow us to reduce overall CO2 emissions if we begin non-fossil fuel based energy programs. In my opinion nuclear energy is the best and most viable route. Solar is too expensive and inefficient. Wind has the same pitfalls, and hydro has issues as well as questionable production capacity.

Current nuclear technology in the United States results in needless amounts of long life waste. This is because we are basically burning U235 mixed with U238 instead of breeding new fuel. We also are not reprocessing our fuel. Fortunately, there has been a new approval by congress to work on a new UREX fuel processing program for the US. However, no funding has been appropriated to the research and departments for the development of such a program......

Anyways, over the long term, switching to a thorium (th-232)/U-233 based fuel cycle would drastically reduce waste and give us a very good long term solution. Currently, India is the only country to be using this process.

Sorry to get off topic...

Anyways, I think H2 would be a great solution for issues we see with transportation energy sources. However, we definitely need to upgrade and develop better primary energy sources if we intend to do so. In my opinion, nuclear energy is the most viable, cleanest route in the interim before newer energy methods are developed.

 

[Davesrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Born2bwire /img/forum/go_quote.gif We may be able to do this using electricity from coal, nuclear, oil, etc. or refine it from sources like natural gas, however this will not alleviate our current energy problems and will only last in the short term. What we really need to do is find a way to generate our energy needs via efficient renewable sources or find the pipedream of fusion.

Bingo! mrdelayer, it's not semantics to ask "where do we get hydrogen"? This fundamental question has not been answered by those dismissing current alternative fuels in favor of something that is at least 20 years in the future. Basic science tells us that the best source of hydrogen is in water. It's very simple to extract hydrogen....but unfortunately it takes electricity to do that (electrolysis). Currently we can use renewable resources like solar, geothermal, etc etc. But imagine if the whole country were only running on hydrogen fuel cells. That places a lot of demand in obtaining more hydrogen. This country is anti-nuclear, and we have large coal mines. Guess what natural resource we're most likely to use in producing enough hydrogen? Coal is a worst greenhouse gas emmiter then gasoline....so I can't see how it would help with emmisions given our current technologies.

*edit*

Quote:

Originally Posted by rb67 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The fossil fuels will be burned only at the power plants, thus the resulting pollution can be sequestered or disposed of in an environmental fashion. This includes CO2 sequestering which may be a viable technology should our government ever put the funds into it. Now compare this with burning fossil fuels in automobiles. In this case, you have large amounts of fossil fuels and all their associated nasty waste going into the environment practically unregulated. This, in my opinion is far worse than using fossil fuel at specific locations to produce clean fuel for all locations.

This seems like opitimistic thinking.....common, if a company is going to be unregulated, it's going to pollute. The same applies to coal burning power plants.
I've never really found an answer as to how current coal burning power plants are being regulated: as it's known that coal burning produces more greenhouse gases then gasoline. I'm just thinking out loud here to show how all of this is pretty complicated. It'll be a lot easier when we invent fusion!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by rb67 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Current nuclear technology in the United States results in needless amounts of long life waste. This is because we are basically burning U235 mixed with U238 instead of breeding new fuel. We also are not reprocessing our fuel. Fortunately, there has been a new approval by congress to work on a new UREX fuel processing program for the US. However, no funding has been appropriated to the research and departments for the development of such a program......

This is very true.....other countries that rely on nuclear power have new reprocessing plants. We haven't been reprocessing since 1977: after a presidential directive to suspend reprossesing because of fears of weapons grade plutonium being made. I think nuclear could have a potential if we were to commit to safe reprocessing of its radioactive bi products. It seems like it's the only large scale power source that does not produce air pollution.

 

[Jimmysilvers]

Quote:

what happens after we deplete all the universe's hydrogen? what then???

lol this will actually happen in few billion billion billion billion billion years or so, once all the hydrogen has been converted into other elements.

Then the universe will be very very dark once all the stars have died.

 

[SayNoToPistons]

Unless they start making hydrogen pure (fast) sport cars, i will say no to hydrogen

. Oh yeah, they have to be easily modified too!

 

[colonelkernel8]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braillediver /img/forum/go_quote.gif What are the global implications of vastly increasing the amount of hydrogen in the atmosphere? It's going to leak. It's a small active molecule that will leak from every vehicle.

Hydrogen is so light weight that it simply escapes the earth's atmosphere. No problems there. Besides, seeing as hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, I don't think it has caused any problems in the past because it doesn't bond with anything in the upper atmosphere.