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?

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: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.