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."

Comments

Seriously, folks...

[00_NOP]

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.

Re:Because hydrogen is diatomic

[spike hay]

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.