Nucular Hydrogen Economy

Mark Baard writes "The hydrogen economy will at least in part be based on nukes. The DOE will build a pilot high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), which theoretically can co-generate electricity and hydrogen, side by side, inside a cheap modular unit."

Comments

Revival of a Program

[JJ]

This is really a revival of a program that Clinton zeroed out the funding for in 1992. Supposedly, (I had friends working on it) Al detested the thought of anything nuclear.

Re:Revival of a Program

[cheesybagel]

And I would like to know why leftists are so blindingly anti-nuclear. I am left oriented yet I think using nuclear energy is perfectly fine.

Consider the amount of dioxins and radioactivity produced by a coal plant. Is that better?

Some people put granite in their houses. It is radioactive but people do not seem to care. The Sun emits radioactivity. In fact if it was not for radioactivity we probably would not even be here because evolution would have been slower!

The fact is humans tolerate a certain amount of radiation. Regarding Plutonium being poisonous do you know Caffeine is more poisonous than Plutonium? Think about it next time you have a cup of Coffee or drink Jolt.

Nagasaki was nuked with Plutonium and people live there now. A nuclear plant meltdown makes way less radiation than any nuclear weapon.

There are nuclear plant designs which are inherently safer. They shutdown automatically without outside control when there is a problem.

If we actually recycled nuclear fuel there would be less or even zero waste. But due to some peaceniks with fear of proliferation we do not and the waste is piling up.

I am politically left oriented and, yes, green. I think we should spend more money on renewables. I think we should introduce measures to reduce CO and CO2. I think we should ban single-hulled oil tankers and if possible reduce oil consumption.

Being against nuclear power of any form whatsoever is blindingly dumb and I am glad people are starting to smart up.

Nobody wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard but no one wants a water treatment plant in their backyard either. Maybe you would prefer we went back to the time honoured tradition of dumping untreated sewers directly on the river?

Re:Revival of a Program

[lommer]

"The fact is humans tolerate a certain amount of radiation. Regarding Plutonium being poisonous do you know Caffeine is more poisonous than Plutonium? Think about it next time you have a cup of Coffee or drink Jolt."

Whoa, I just went to do some googling to prove you stupid but all I could come up with are this, this, and this. These give the LD50 data for both of these substances. LD50 means the lethal dose that kills 50% of a given population within 30 days (given in milligrams of substance per kilogram of body mass).

Caffeine has an LD50 of 57-260 mg/kg, while plutonium has an LD50 similar to that of pantothenic acid which is up to 10 g/kg (if taken orally) or 820 mg/kg (if injected). Caffeine is clearly more toxic than plutonium according to this! I still don't quite believe this, so can someone come up with better numbers or a good reason why this isn't the case?

Where do you think H2 comes from?

[adoll]

I'm aware of two economic methods of generating H2. The least economic is from cracking water using electricity (the topic of this article). The most economic is by cracking natural gas - this is the method used by everybody I know of in the chemical industry.

Natural gas, mostly methane (CH3) is reacted with steam (H2O) such that CH3 + 2H2O = CO2 + 3.5H2

So, when somebody says he wants a hydrogen powered vehicle, what he really means is he wants a natural gas powered vehicle.

-AD

Re:Where do you think H2 comes from?

[cheezus_es_lard]

The problem with that is that it leaves us dependant on natural gas as our hydrogen source. Once again, perishable fuel that is in limited supply on our planet. The co-generating reactor eliminates dependancy on the fossil fuels, however it brings in a different ball of wax: nuclear fuels and the people that hate them.

Personally, I would be perfectly happy with nuclear power of the types that are being discussed today: small scale, small risk. Running 10 small reactors instead of 1 large light-water reactor means less centralized risk and so on. I could stand behind something like that alot easier than three mile island.

$0.02 deposited.

mark baard is a whore

[Anonymous Coward]

the real question is, when will mark baard stop posting his own stories to slashdot? a search indicates this is not the first time he's done this.

observe...

submitter: Mark Baard

url: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0322/baard.php

the story:
It's Nucular
by Mark Baard
May 28 - June 3, 2003

Re:Importance of research and computer modeling

[BWJones]

I should clarify an earlier point. The amount of radioactivity produced by this plant equal to the Three Mile Island release is happening every day.

Re:Coal powered car?

[Rolo Tomasi]

And if you use solar power to electrolyse water, you have a solar powered car. The point is to create an infrastructure where you're not dependent on the type of energy - it makes no difference for your hydrogen powered car if the hydrogen was created by using coal, nuclear, solar or wind power, cow methane, or your mom pedaling on a stationary bike. You can always use the cleanest or cheapest or most readily available (depending on what your priorities are) way to create your hydrogen. With current cars, you're limited to crude oil, from which gasoline is created.

Look at the economies of scale though

[jabber01]

Yes, the energy required to get equal portions of H2 is less when dealing with methane. But consider the cost of this energy, and of the source of hydrogen.

Also, yes, the startup costs for the process are greater for the nuclear route, since building a reactor is more costly than building an equivalent methane processing chemical plant.

However, on the grand scale needed to provide hydrogen as a significant fuel source to the nation, the cost of the source of the hydrogen will be significantly greater than the cost of production.

With the nuclear route, the bulk of the costs is up-front, and semi-annual for nuclear fuel. With the chemical route, the costs are linear, and grow in proportion to production.

Water is infinitely cheaper, and more abundant, than natural gas.

Consider also the cost of the infrastructure needed to transport the source of the hydrogen. Gas pipelines are more expensive, and more dangerous, than water pipes. And you only need the pipelines when you can't drill for water. But you can, almost anywhere.

Re:Gee...imagine that!

[ibbey]

I thought Bush was supposed to be in bed with the oil companies.

It would be more accurate to say that Bush is in bed with the energy comapnies. Enron was the most famous example of a company non-oil energy company (though they certainly had oil related holdings) that basically bought GWB the election. Most large companies in the energy industry are diversified, so if they have oil holdings, thay likely have nuclear holdings as well.

If you had read the article, you would know that it isn't critical of Hydrogen power, it's critical of the Bush plan to create the hydrogen. If you can't do that cleanly & safely (something the nuclear industry's record suggests they can't do), then what's the point of switching to hydrogen in the first place? The only group that will benefit from this plan is the energy industry who will get billions of dollars of free money for so called "R&D".

Finally, as for the spelling of "nucular" in the title... Get the joke, people! It's a rather obvious parody of GWB & his well known inability to pronounce nuclear. Just because there's an apparent error in slashdot, doesn't mean that you should immediately post pointing it out. Perhaps if you spent thirty seconds thinking about it, you'd see that it was intentional.