NASA Reports Vast Hydrogen Reserves in Earth's Crust

Garin writes: "The Vancouver Sun is reporting that NASA scientists have discovered vast quantities of hydrogen stored in the Earth's crust while they were trying to explain the presence of living bacteria. Could this be the beginning of the end for our dependence on oil? I hope so."

Comments

How bout ethanol?

[jjv411]

Why wait for hydrogen to relieve the dependence on foreign oil. In the states there are thousands of farmers who cannot afford to eat. Why haven't ethanol powered automobiles showed themselves? Corn products seem like a great way to help improve the economy by helping out the farmers, providing new jobs, and lowering the dependence on petrol? What gives? Why are there no ethanol cars?

Re:Could it be?

[ergo98]

Offtopic, but there's something that's been bothering me for wa while: Perpetually the US Administration talks about reducing the dependence on foreign oil, promoting the opening up of the Alaskan Wildlife Refuges for drilling, and basically writing a blank environmental cheque for oil companies to sign. All of this is done under the pretense of being patriotic by reducing the countries strategic vulnerabilities (namely having a primary energy source externally controlled). Yet this is the same administration (I'm not talking about one particular party, or even one make-up of politicians, but I mean government momentum on a whole) that continually refuses to enforce basic fuel efficiency (NOT conservation. There's a difference between conservation and efficiency) directives. I don't have the metrics (nor have I ever looked), but the highways are full of grossly inefficient vehicles (not just large vehicles, either, but additionally inefficient small vehicles. The Chevrolet Cavalier is some ~25% less efficient than most comparably sized competitors). If people want to feel patriotic, they should forsake getting that new Expedition and buy themselves a Dodge Neon or a Toyota Corolla : You're doing a great service to your country.

Re:Oxygen crisis in 3000

[mamba-mamba]

Don't worry about oxygen. As others have pointed out, we have been engaging in "destroying" oxygen for many many years already, and there is still plenty of it. This is true for a reason:

Plants liberate O2 during photosynthesis.

In fact, the single biggest and most important biological and geological change in Earth's history was probably when plants first began to spew oxygen which, at the time, must have been HIGHLY TOXIC to most life forms. Prior to that time, almost everything on Earth was in an (electrochemically) reduced state. Over some geological period of time, everything converted to an oxidized state. Most organisms must have become extinct or relegated to marginal environments when this happened.

However, eventually a new class of organisms arose which was able to take advantage of the new, oxygenated environment with the use of aerobic respiration. The rest, as they say, is history.

MM
--

Nitpicking details

[hey!]

Detail #1:Getting it out for less energy than it will yield will be tough.

There's probably hundreds of times the earth's mass of methane in Jupiter, but that doesn't make it a viable energy source.

Detail #2: Water is a potent greenhouse gas.

Any New Englander knows that it's usually a good twenty degrees warmer in the winter when you have a good cloud cover. Of course, burning gasoline generates water too, so it's a win as a gasoline replacement. However, it is not an energy source that is limitless in the sense it can be used in any amount with no consequences.

Who cares? Hydrogen is a sucky fuel anyway

[WolfWithoutAClause]

There's lots of problems with hydrogen:

a) its energy density is pitiful (about 1/14 IRC of gasoline, so you'd have to have a tank 14x bigger)

b) its best stored in liquified form for maximum energy density (liquid hydrogen needs incredibly high insulation values, and tends to freeze things solid, or condenses oxygen- trust me, either is very bad, and its density still sucks- check out the Space Shuttle main tank, its enormous!)

c) alternatively you store it in a pressurised tank. Pressurised tanks are heavy as heck. Or you can use a rare earth catalyst to store it in. However, the overall weight is about the same if you do so, TOO HIGH. So big deal.

d) Hydrogen can go bang (in an enclosed space the explosion can be awesome). Sure, gasoline does that too. However hydogen leaks out much more easily.

e) Hydrogen embrittles many kinds of metals, once that has occured the metal fails catastrophically.

f) Hydrogen escapes from just about any container; the molecule is just too small to keep in in most cases; still you can control it in most cases, but it's awkward.

All in all, hydrogen is at best a waste of space and at worst a waste of time. Yeah, so it doesn't make any CO2. So what? We've got this handy recycling system called plants. Please go out and grow some, so I can carry on burning my hydrocarbons ;-)

Re:Oxygen crisis in 3000

[wytcld]

Further studies showed that atmosphere with extra carbon dioxide only results in increased plant yields if the soil is also enriched beyond the normal soils - the plants in place are already evolved for maximum efficiency of carbon dioxide use given the current fertility of the natural soils. So you can get a boost in plant growth if you fertilize - which requires vast amounts of oil and results in serious downstream pollution; but as far as, say, forests go, you get virtually no gain from extra atmospheric carbon dioxide.