Slashdot Mirror
Sewage To Be Turned Into H
Anonymous Howard writes "The New Scientist website reports in this article that British scientists are working on a more efficient way to convert sewage and other wet waste into hydrogen fuel. It sounds fairly promising."
Isn't hydrogen an abundant element? One of the primary uses they cite is fuel cells. Fuel cells are closed systems, and the expensive part is recharging a cell and not filling it in the first place. Besides, hydrogen has so many other drawbacks due to its low molecular weight, that the main problem isn't getting hydrogen it is using it.
Believe nothing -- Buddha
Pretty interesting. This bodes well for the future of recycling, too...
This flies in the face of science.
Does anyone think hydrogen is going to be accepted by the public as a fuel anytime soon?
Seems to me that the oil companies need only roll out that old Hindenberg film everytime to clinch this one.
The article said that previous approaches were only 20% efficient and this is twice as good.
I wish they said how efficiency is defined. If they mean it takes 1 KWh of energy to extract hydrogen that produces 0.4 KWh when it's burned, then this is really uninspiring unless the input is just plain heat, in which case it's about as good as an electric power plant.
The report isn't about being able to profitably use sewage to gain energy, it's about putting energy into waste to get hydrogen. Much like desalinating seawater will give you fresh water at a high cost, processing sewage will get you refined hydrogen at cost - though now it's cheaper to get the hydrogen than before.
So there's no {1. Get sewage, 2. ??? 3. Profit}-finishing steps yet, it just possibly costs less than it used to.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
This is not the best idea
The way I understand it, this process just reforms biogas into hydrogen. Biogas is mostly methane (CH4; ie natural gas). When you burn methane, the only pollution is one molecule of CO2.
Now, reforming methane produces the exact same amount of pollution as burning it. You break it up into 2 molecules hydrogen, and two oxygen atoms bond to the Carbon. You got two molecules of hydrogen and one of CO2, which is the exact same amount of pollution as when you burn it.
Reformation is:
CH4 + 02 --> H2 H2 CO2
Reformed methane pollutes more than burned methane. This is because reforming it and then putting it into a fuel cell is much less efficient than just burning it. I think we are looking for a high-tech solution when one is not needed.
I also don't think biogas production is such a good idea. (I am all for producing methane from places that would otherwise vent it off, however, like sewage plants and cattle yards.)
If you have comercial biogas plants, like ones proposed that use seaweed, they would pollute much more than natural gas, as well as taking up more land than natural gas wells. Biogas has a lot of sulfides and such in it. I might also remind you that CH4 is ten times as bad a greenhouse gas as C02. So any gas that escaped from these plants would contribute to global warming(if global warming is caused by us. Most scientists think it isn't). So It's better just to stick with cheap, clean natural gas, or better yet, nuclear power.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
(if global warming is caused by us. Most scientists think it isn't)
So nearly every government in the world (except for the USA, naturally, with corrupt Bush) has signed up to the Kyoto treaty because most scientists think we have no effect on global warming? Aren't you a little divorced from reality?
So It's better just to stick with cheap, clean natural gas, or better yet, nuclear power.
Why shift our whole infrastructure to a resource that will run out such as natural gas? There are a multitude of ways of extracting the hydrogen for our fuel cells, these scientists are working out a way for the medium-term to prop up production and not a be-all and end-all solution.
Nuclear has a lot of potential, but more money needs to be put into research in ways of making the waste inert, rather than cutting research funding because nuclear is no longer 'trendy'.
Phillip.
http://www.FutureEnergies.com/
Property for sale in Nice, France
It's already been done, and has been used successfully. some details can be found here.
Good thing it's intended for astronauts. I'd imagine it's hard to get volunteers to drink the results.