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Widespread Use of Hydrogen May Hurt Ozone Layer
Saeger writes "The AP has a story about a CalTech study which has found that the Hydrogen Economy may deplete the ozone layer by 'as much as 8 percent' on the assumption that '10 percent to 20 percent of the hydrogen would leak from pipelines, storage facilities, processing plants and fuel cells in cars and at power plants.'" CalTech's press release has more information.
The Cal Tech study seems to be a little extreme:
Maybe it's just because IANAES (I am not an environmental scientist) but how is this any worse than the crap that comes out of our fossil fuel based economy as it is?
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at least most major cities will be intact and not underwater.
This hydrogen pollution especially occurs when the hydrogen is mixed in a 2:1 ratio with oxygen.
Right.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
This shouldn't be too hard to deal with.
All we need to keep this problem in check is an oversized Zippo in orbit right near the ozone layer.
Activate it every Fourth of July for one helluva fireworks show.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
All-in-all, I think they'll reduce the leakage before H2 becomes practical...
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Does this mean we need an alternative fuel for an alternative fuel?
I was under the impression that the "hydrogen-based economy" would actually transport its energy around in a more easily handled form, e.g. methanol which can be trucked around and handled more easily than pure hydrogen.
To me, this paper appears to be saying: "If the hydrogen economy is based around this arbitrary and unworkable assumption we made, bad things would happen!" Well, okay...
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The greater the size of our population grows, the less buffer we will have between us and the environment. The greater our numbers climb into the billions and finally trillions, the greater the effects our slightest alteration to the environment will create. One person with a campfire is nothing, 100 million people with campfires and you start to get some serious pollution. One person hiking through the woods is nothing, thousands of people visiting a national forest every year is like throwing a 40,000 person concert there.
Its our numbers, not the action that destroys our environment.
No matter what we do, we will pollute and destroy.
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It is indeed very hard to prevent hydrogen leaks (the small molecule goes straight through even slightly porous metal) and it is difficult to detect, except when you get up to a couple of percent when a very small spark can cause a very interesting experience (like the roof being embedded in the car park.) On the other hand, that's the reason why a lot of work has to go into preventing gross leaks.
The same problem existed with the original town gas, which was practically odorless (CO + hydrogen + nitrogen) and of course the solution was to put in an odorous tracer gas. I am sure that with modern sensor technology a suitable tracer could be found that would be detectable in even minute quantities
Given that in the past we've been cavalier about low BP compounds and their ill effects - benzene in gas, CFCs, - it would be really good if this time governments and environmental scientists got their act together in advance. Leakage is not a reason not to use hydrogen, any more than the possibility of a leak is a reason not to put in plumbing. It's just a potential problem to be prevented.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
This really applies if you treat it like Oil with centralized production, pipelines to sub-stations, etc.
The reason this article might not reflect what actually happens is that hydrogen production might be done on a decentralized local scale. There's no technological reason you can't make hydrogen gas AT the fill station or home, it's just a matter of the economy of scale. Initially, you might see factories extracting hydrogen for shipment, but the logical next step would be to have extraction facilities at the fill stations that crack water. It's not feasible right now because the easiest way for a small operation to make hydrogen is by electrically seperating the hydrogen from water, but there are other catalytic or new tech (insert trek speak here) ways that could get it to a point where you have a box the size of an airconditioner that takes water in one end, and pumps compressed hydrogen out the other.
Also, the article doesn't take into account another likely source of hydrogen that might be used, and that's natural gas. There are already devices that crack natural gas catalytically to extract the hydrogen for use in fuel cells, so it's conceivable that until the technology reaches the 'gas station hydrogen extraction' level, we might all be using CNG for our fuel cells. Since CNG has big fat molecules, it won't leak like hydrogen.
Soooo... while the article is interesting, the problems it describes can be overcome and probably would need to be to make it economical in the first place.
The other problem is that the ozone hole is repairing itself while the paper calculates problems in I believe 2060 - but uses the existing ozone levels. The amount of hydrogen needed to have the effects the authors discuss thus takes place many decades after the type of ozone hole analyzed.
There were a few other problems as well. (A perhaps overly optimistic estimate of when hyrdogen would be the dominant energy transmission method, for instance)
If the hydrogen is produced by Methane reformation, there is a carbon that's lost during that process which would most likely be released into the atmosphere. Contributing even more to global warming.
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What would Yossarian do?
1. leakage of 20% a figure based on world wide natural gas industry which includes places like the Russia, and other former eastern block countries with notoriously poor maintenance records. actual leakage from modern hydrogen systems is of the order of 2%
2. article assumes 100% hydrogen based economy by 2050. the most optimistic estimates put hydrogen use at 30% by 2050.
looks like they are off by a factor of 30 minimum.
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You have to get the hydrogen from some energy-intensive process anyway. Either you are refactoring fossil fuels, or using nuclear to split water, or some other energy intensive process. Sure, you could use solar to do some of that, but you could use solar to charge electric cars too--if you want to turn the entire Desert Southwest into one giant panel farm. Of course, solar hurts the environment too. Yep, you heard me. That giant panel farm alters the "albedo" aka reflectivity of the Earth, which changes weather patterns. Nevermind that the shade would also alter the desert ecosystem.
What we should be doing is encouraging advanced modular hybrid technology. Idling and braking waste huge quantities of fuel. With modular hybrid systems (think, multiple small engines you can lift out of your car and swap like video cards) we would encourage innovation in conversion efficiency and alternative fuels. Also, drill ANWR. Yep, that's right. Drill the SOB. Send the environmentalists to the Middle East and see if they can persuade them to stop pumping for a change.
Just once I'd like to see our leadership encourage conservation and local production.
Republicans need to pull their heads out of their posteriors and realize that conservation!=anti business. Democrats need to do the same thing and realize that production!=destruction.
I'm not optimistic that any of this will happen anytime soon. It makes too much sense.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Of course, this is ignoring the fact that gasoline is actually worse than hydrogen about this. Also, the H2 will probably disapate into the atmosphere too fast to get to any sort of useful concentration. Remember, that while (2H2 + O2 -> 2H20 + energy) if there isn't much of the H2 in one place, there isn't going to be much energy. This is why H2 is usually held in ballons before it is used, its just not useful while its spaying out of the wine bottle. It just disapates way too fast.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Can't we have a radiation shield for the Earth which is a little more reliable? A few CFCs, a little hydrogen, and it's disappearing all over the place. Bad design. Someone should have considered these possibilities before installing it. If I installed a firewall which was this delicate, I'd be canned.
Of course, IPv6 will probably fix all this.
Another key question is how the residence time of H2 in the stratosphere compares to the residence time of CO2 in the troposphere. If H2 has a significantly shorter residence time than the 120 year residence time of anthropogenic CO2, then it would be a good choice to switch to H2 today and then replace H2 with another alternative at a future date, since the H2 would drop back to its natural level faster than CO2 would. If H2 has a longer residence time in the stratosphere, then the best choice might be to stick with CO2 emissions.
Second, it's *extremely* explosive. The cost of leaking even a small part of the amount you're moving is death in a fiery inferno.
Actually, this statement is a little off. It is a common perception however. Gasoline is a far worse substance to handle or deal with than Hydrogen. Gasoline can stick to you, spill, and it can explode as well.
Ironically, the destruction of the Hindenburg, which is the famous example of the dangers of Hydrogen was not as bad as people imagine, the majority of the problem was that the skin of the ship was rocket fuel. The gas, while it was burning ferociously, can be seen to be floating up and away from the ship itself. The most interesting thing about the Hindenburg disaster is that only 35 of the 97 passengers died. If Hydrogen was a heavier than air gas, this would not have been the case.
Since Hydrogen rises very fast, if you have a leak, it immediately seeks to escape out into the air. Not so with gasoline, which will form a dangerous pool on the ground. Movies such as "Chain Reaction" (ARRRGHHH!!!) perpetuate the "risk" that hydrogen poses. Given the choice, being involved in a gasoline leak (pools on ground) or Hydrogen (rapidly floats up into sky, or celing in an enclosed environment) I would choose being around Hydrogen as I could hit the deck, and have the gas float up and away from me.
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...and with Hydrogen, which is expensive, you can bet your last dollar that the infrastructure in place will not tolerate even 2% leakage. Companies will not have the tolerance for leaking Hydrogen like they currently do with fossil fuels, which are cheap and easily replaceable.
No matter what, it has side-effects.
Nuclear: radiation poisening risk
Coal: dust causes cancer
Gas: Kills ozone layer
Hydrogen: Kills ozone layer
Windmills: Throw off earth's equitorial tilt and ice tossed from blades stabs children playing in thier backyards and the humming sounds keep people awake at night, turning them into postal killers.
Oxen (pulling carts): Poop causes mathane, which pollutes and spreads fly-borne desease.
Staying home and jacking off: Blindness
There's no way out. Lets just pollute the fscking planet and be done with it.
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Gee, where to start with a statement like this? fossil fules are cheap and easily replaceable while hydrogen is not? Costs will depend on how it is produced, but hydrogen is certainly easily replaceable, far more so than fossil fules. What's more, leak a fossil fuel and you have polution and cleanup issues; leak hydrogen and it just goes up and destroys the ozone layer but leaves no trace at the point of the leak.
Infrastructure will not tolerate it? Why do they tolerate leaks of fossil fuel? But more importantly, much of the leak is likely to be at the end-users point, mostly the hydrogen run cars and SUVs. The infrastructure will not only tolerate that, but will likely cut corners so much that they greatly contribute to it. Will they add extra cost and weight to avoid the loss? Hardly likely in view of all past history.
But it's also important to realize that some of that gas is simply going to get away. Ever work with containment of hydrogen and helium? The damn stuff is tiny . It leaks right out through solid metal containers. Thick walled tanks, of course, hold it better than devices that have to have complex design and seals designed to retain the gas, but fuel cells and similar devices are going to leak, by the very nature of the gas they are working with. The small nature of the hydrogen atom, particularly when it's electron slips off into a metal, is exactly why fuel cells can work; the lone protron is able to pass through the fuel cell barrier. You're not going to be able to work with such tiny atoms and not have a significant loss in conditions that are reasonable for a car.
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It takes MORE, I repeat MORE energy to manufacture the hydrogen than the hydrogen returns.
Err, that's called thermodynamics. It happens to apply to every energy storage mechanism which exists. Your plant biomass idea is really just a glorified solar-energy collector, which is why it appears to involve an energy surplus. But I could do the same thing by using some (albeit, highly efficient) solar cells to crack hydrogen into water. It's the SAME THING! The difference is in how you collect the energy and the form in which it's stored.
Incidentally, I suspect your idea doesn't actually generate an energy surplus. Or did you think you could harvest the plant material and convert it into ethanol without expending any energy?
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