Fuel Cell Powered Scooter

!Freeky2BGeeky writes "In an article by Fuel Cell Works, Samsung Engineering announced that they've developed a Hydrogen-based scooter which can go 140Km on 6 liters of hydrogen. The downside? The process that produces the hydrogen uses a component in short supply."

Comments

Well, liberate the hell out of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Tibet or something. If they got all the sodium-borate we need to drive around on our scooters, lucky for them.

Re:Well, liberate the hell out of them

[CountBrass]

Bullys don't take on countries that can and will fight back.

Re:Well, liberate the hell out of them

[yobbo]

Liberate them from who? China?

Oh man, this is going to be sweet!

Re:Well, liberate the hell out of them

[Anonymous Coward]

But bullies do know that the plural of bully is bullies. Thank you.

Re:Well, liberate the hell out of them

[SEWilco]

Is this a job for a hydrogen bomb?

Re:Well, liberate the hell out of them

[fireboy1919]

Are you saying that the US is a bully for "picking on" Afghanistan and Iraq, both of whom have a history of fighting back (and starting fights), or that China is a bully for it's hold on Tibet, since Tibet doesn't?

Re:Well, liberate the hell out of them

[Anonymous Coward]

america is suxor and you know it

go china or india, nuke usa of the planet :D

uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.

well, we know where Bush will be sending the troops to next year.

mods: it's a joke

Re:uh oh

[halowolf]

mods: it's a joke

I'm sorry all humour is forfeit from a joke when you explain that it is one.

Re:uh oh

[novakyu]

I'm sorry all humour is forfeit from a joke when you explain that it is one.

And somehow, he still managed to get modded down, Troll, -1, rather than up, Funny, +1. :)

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry all humour is forfeit from a joke when you explain that it is one.

the point was to explain to the moderators that it was a joke so they wouldn't moderate it as troll or flamebait, obviously it didn't help.

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

well, we know where Bush will be sending the troops to next year.

Do you mean to secure the worlds sodium borate supply, or to prevent this source being used?

Re:uh oh

[ggvaidya]

mods: it's a joke

We'll see ... (giving America a dirty look ...)

Re:uh oh

[foniksonik]

Don't worry, as long as China has a lock on Tibet it's not a problem... I mean G.W.'s father did spew all over that Chinese consulate guy, I mean that's a bond that can't be broken... remember in junior high when your best friend beat you up or you stood up to him? Throwing up on someone is the same thing... total bonding...

Bam!

Re:uh oh

[WalksOnDirt]

Borax is a sodium borate, and it's cheap enough to throw away with the waste water when we wash clothes. While there is not a lot of borates in the world, there are several highly concentrated deposits that are easy to mine.

It's be obvious to experts for a long time that we may end up regretting using up so much of our borate deposits washing clothes, but given a free market economy and the time value of money, no one has found a way to stop it.

Re:uh oh

[rjshields]

he point was to explain to the moderators that it was a joke

One would think that people would know the difference between a joke and a bona-fide troll.

Most people can when something is meant to be funny, but it apparently some people have no sense of humour and need to be told.

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

surely to 'protect the world's resources of sod-borate from terrorists', & then sell the mining contract on to...**insert campaign contributor, ol' school buddy, family friend here**

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a Japanese person Bush Senior vomited on. And not a consulate guy. It was the freakin' prime minister.

Re:uh oh

[justanyone]

No, not quite. It was the JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER, not "some chinese consulate guy". Can you imagine if situations were reversed what we would think?

See here for details: http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=11911 or here:
http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0202/23/cg.00.h tml

"HUNT: Welcome back. And now for the CAPITAL GANG classic. About 10 years ago, the first President Bush went to Japan to try to discuss economic problems. At a state dinner in Tokyo, he vomited on the Japanese prime minister and then fainted."

Re:uh oh

[satans_advocate]

911 Commission Says: Iraq Was Not Involved

Cheney Says: 911 Commission are Liars

Re:uh oh

[foniksonik]

If I could I mod this +1 Informative.. alas, all I can do is say "touche"

s'okay, details wrong but it would have totally been stupid to refer to a japanese guy in a post about china... oh well, I thought is was kinda funny, so did someone else... nothing wrong with more laughter in the world.

Re:uh oh

[Capt. Zapp]

Do you mean to secure the worlds sodium borate supply, or to prevent this source being used?

You speak as if there's a difference.

hmm...

[NightDragon]

What happens when lightning strikes it? Does it explode in a big fireball as radio reporters scream "oh the humanity!"?

Re:hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when lightning strikes it? Does it explode in a big fireball as radio reporters scream "oh the humanity!"?

yes, i'm sure all these drivers will be going out with a big metal flag pole connected to their scooters. :)

Re:hmm...

[Trackster]

Oh the humanity of the Ford Pinto and '80s GM light trucks.

Re:hmm...

[sik0fewl]

Yes

Re:hmm...

[bombadillo]

What happens when lightning strikes it? Does it explode in a big fireball as radio reporters scream "oh the humanity!"?

Oh you just made a bad Slashdot faux paux. Prepare to be bombarded with information regarding the Hindenburg's frame actually being the problem. You had to bring up the ole Hindenburg. Prepare for the Karma whoring and google linking to begin.

Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Bruce Perens]

There are lots of ways to make hydrogen. Probably the best is to electrolyze it from water using electricity provided by solar power or another clean means of power.

I suspect that an internal-combustion engine such as one already used in production motorcycles could be tuned to burn a hydrogen mix, and that 6 liters (at what pressure? liquid?) for that mileage is not really news. Indeed, there may not be much new science here and the release mostly propoganda.

Bruce

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

The primary feat of this machine is the way the hydrogen is stored on board. For that they use sodium borohydride, which is in short supply.

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[C10H14N2]

The Shell station by my house already sells hydrogen at the pumps.

http://www.csnews.com/csnews/reports_analysis/fe at ure_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000717936

Where do I order one of these again?

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Bruce Perens]

The release says the sodium borate is used to produce, not store, the hydrogen, but you might be right. Sort of like a carbide lamp, then. What else comes from the reaction?

Bruce

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[AMABITxS]

sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas, i think

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for clarification. Quote: The newly-developed technology uses a water-based solution of sodium borohydride, made from sodium borate, to produce hydrogen gas.

That means they put the hydrogen "into" sodium borate, creating sodium borohydride. A catalytic reaction on board the vehicle then "produces" the hydrogen. Stanford has a nice PDF on using sodium borohydride for hydrogen storage.

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Realistic_Dragon]

The press release says "The development and testing of the hydrogen-powered scooter shows that South Korea's technology is on a par with that of the world," which is totally accurate.... ...it's just the rest of the world isn't that hot at paying for real R&D either :\

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice link, dipshit, it doesn't work...

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Shambhu]

... and that 6 liters (at what pressure? liquid?) ...

The article seems to say 6 liters of 'water-based solution of sodium borohydride' not of pure hydrogen. So I guess the question would be, what concentration?

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Shambhu]

It does if you remove the space that the lameness filter inserts. Ofc, if it was a link ,then it wouldn't happen.

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[NanoGator]

"The primary feat of this machine is the way the hydrogen is stored on board. For that they use sodium borohydride, which is in short supply."

Still, it beats my scooter running on proto-matter...

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Shambhu]

suspect that an internal-combustion engine such as one already used in production motorcycles could be tuned to burn a hydrogen mix, and that 6 liters (at what pressure? liquid?) for that mileage is not really news.

Aside from the question of measuring the fuel, I do think that a hybrid fuel (hydrogen/gasoline) IC engined car might be a better way forward than a electric/gasoline hybrid. I don't have a link, but according to Consumer Reports, the actual mileage of the Toyota Prius is much less than its EPA rating. And one of the concerns facing the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell cars is the lack of infrastrure (the other is the technology itself and the cost thereof). So with a hybrid fuel vehicle, you could foster the development of the distribution network while waiting for the technology to catch up.

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[LoRdTAW]

"Probably the best is to electrolyze it from water using electricity provided by solar power or another clean means of power"

That method requires allot of power to produce a decent useable amount of hydrogen, plus you have to have a collection system that can bottle the gas under high pressure. That would require an interesting compressor setup.
It looks like the sodium borohydride mixture is onboard the scooter and produces the hydrogen on the spot. The only thing is that sodium borohydride is nasty shit; here is what google pulls up on the first hit: http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/s3146.htm

I like the warning: DANGER! CORROSIVE. CAUSES BURNS TO ANY AREA OF CONTACT. HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED, INHALED OR ABSORBED THROUGH SKIN. FLAMMABLE SOLID. DANGEROUS WHEN WET.

On a whole it sounds cool though.

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

They use a water-based solution, so the fuel is actually a non-flammable liquid. Regarding the chemical properties, regular fossil fuel is not that nice a substance either.

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[gl4ss]

where does that hydrogen come from?

(as it happens that it's cheapest currently, in most places, to make it using oil, it kind of destroys the whole point of it..)

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Phanatic1a]

Probably the best is to electrolyze it from water using electricity provided by solar power or another clean means of power.

That's probably the most expensive means possible.

Steven Den Beste provides some good numbers on this use-solar-power-to-crack-water suggestion:

In 1998, the State of California consumed 13.496 billion gallons of gasoline. A gallon of gasoline yields about 130 million joules. So when you do all the math, you end up with about 1.755 * 1018 joules, which is an impressively large number.

One anti-solar-power advocacy site gives the "yearly average" solar power density in Albuquerque as 240 watts per m2. (That appears to be a 24-hour average; another site says that it's 700 watts in daylight.) Then presuming that southern California is similar, each square meter of mirrors would be struck by 7.573 billion joules per year.

So if you assume 100% conversion, you'd need 231.7 million square meters of collection mirrors to make this work. 231 square kilometers.

But it isn't going to be 100% efficient. That's impossible, and it isn't going to be remotely close to that. The mirrors won't reflect perfectly and some of the sunlight will heat the metal instead of reflecting. The conversion process into hydrogen will be extremely inefficient. If you get 10%, you'll be doing really well.

So we're talking about paving 2300 square kilometers of California desert with mirrors. That's a strip 13 kilometers wide stretching from San Diego to Los Angeles. It's an area twice the size of San Francisco.

That's a hell of a lot of metal! It ain't gonna be cheap. The capital expense involved would be mammoth. Just clearing an area that large would cost a fortune; paving it with manufactured goods will cost a fortune. And something that big would take decades to build.

Figure each mirror at 10 square meters, and you're talking about 23 million motor mounts. If you figure an average 5 year lifespan, then you're going to replace more than 4 million of them per year.

Read the rest of it. Nuclear? Sure. But solar's just not feasible for this kind of scale.

Re:Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[C10H14N2]

That's true, since Shell is a petrol company, I'm sure they are extracting it from the refining of gasoline.

However, it still does solve the tailpipe emissions problem and if widely adopted would solve the fossil-fuel dependency problem since while you can get hydrogen from petroleum, you don't have to.

It's either the infrasture....

[novakyu]

...or simply supply of fuel.

From the article: The newly-developed technology uses a water-based solution of sodium borohydride, made from sodium borate, to produce hydrogen gas.

The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.

So, other than the fact that it produces less pollution (I would hesitate to say less "green gas", though since vapor is a green gas) it has no advantage over gasoline powered scooter.

In fact, have we yet seen any viable hydrogen-powered vehicle? I thought most models/prototypes we have so far were less energy efficient than gasoline powered cars (even with infrastructure to provide hydrogen nation-,world-wide, we have to have a way of generating them, and electrolysis is simply not the most efficient way (and certainly less so than internal combustion) way to get hydrogen).

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[Bruce Perens]

The problem is not efficiency, it's storage. Liquid hydrogen lives in a dewar at cryogenic temperatures and high pressure, and will outgas right through the walls of its container. The most effective storage strategy might be to synthesize a liquid fuel with the hydrogen and then burn that.

Efficiency is not as important as the fact the fuel won't be depleted and burns cleanly. There is lots of energy in inconvenient places like deserts, if you can figure out how to make the fuel there and ship it elsewhere, it's a win.

Bruce

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[novakyu]

The problem is not efficiency, it's storage.

While storage is definitely a big issue that has to be addressed, that's not the first problem. Question is, where do we hydrogen to get started?

"From water (i.e. H2O)" someone might say, but H2O has less energy than H2. So, where do we get that energy to make hydrogen out of water? So far, the only way we have perhaps to mass-produce hydrogen is by electrolysis--using electricity, majority of which comes from fossil fuels.

So, as the situation is now, using hydrogen fuel isn't any more environment-friendly than burning coal to run your car.

Of course, there's the whole alternative energy view, like using photovoltaic cells or wind to generate electricity, but I'm not sure if they are any more cost effective, considering the installation cost (we don't have an infrastructure big enough to support mass-consumption), maintainance, and reliability (or lack thereof).

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article, "the vehicle can travel three times farther than a scooter powered by a nickel-cadmium cell" so apparently the other advantage is that it will go 3 times further than a single cell of Ni cad, so 1.2 volts or so and they didn't specify a mAH or AH rating so it is either producing approx 1.4 AH for a single D cell NiCad which is 1.4 * 1.2 = 1.68 watts multiplied by 3 so 5.04 Watts or just barely more than I transmit on the 2 meter band, for 6 litres which seems pretty pathetic, or they really meant to say NiCad Battery, or they have strapped a really large cell to the side of a scooter

Of course, my math is also wrong that is why it is posted anonymously. :)

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem IS storage. Today, many hydro-electric dams run nowhere near capacity during off-peak hours. These dams could be running full throttle 24/7 if the electrical energy could be stored in liquified or compressed hydrogen created thru electrolysis. The 24/7 assumes that the reservoir levels do not get too low between rainfalls. The electricty used to create the hydrogen would be pretty much free because it would be created with the water that would otherwise have been released without passing thru the generators. Unfortunately, it is not easy to store so much hydrogen safely.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[laughingcoyote]

And calls to question why they don't just use banks of Ni-MH batteries, which have about double the capacity of Ni-Cd, are not considered environmentally hazardous, and use widely-available materials. They're also already in widescale production.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[Shambhu]

None of these alternative technologies have even a significant fraction of the investment that internal combustion and petroleum technologies have. You can't build an ecological dream car with off-the-shelf components right now. I think we all know that.

But every time someone finds a new angle (whether or not this is the case here) or some new refinement, we get just a little bit closer.

Going back to the storage issue, if we're lucky someone will figure out these storage matrix thingies that were mentioned here a while back. Who was it that was working on them? Dupont? I think it used some kind of silicon matrix with an internal surface area in the square meters per gram range. Although I could be halucinating. Again.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[Anonymous Coward]

>>And calls to question why they don't just use banks of Ni-MH batteries Time to re-fill/re-charge.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[orzetto]

I thought most models/prototypes we have so far were less energy efficient than gasoline powered cars

Fortunately you thought wrong. The real roadblock is the price of fuel cells, which everybody expects to plummet once mass-production is commenced (today most production is pretty much manual), and of course the missing infrastructure.

electrolysis is simply not the most efficient way

Hard to substantiate. Current efficiencies in electrolysis processes rank up to 90% energy efficiency. This is however the "reported" one, which might be away from the standard operating point of equipment; 80% and 94% are reported here. Compare with the 20-30% of internal combustion engines, which does normally not account for dead time in queues, where some gas is being consumed, which does not happen in fuel cells as there are no major moving parts to keep spinning.

Of course there are other considerations than just efficiency, as usability of current distribution networks (which favours the use of liquid fuels as methanol, formic acid), presence of existing technologies (reforming of natural gas, oil and hydrocarbons in general).

Remark: efficiency is often given (faultily) as the ratio of Work obtained / Available enthalpy ("W/Delta_H"), which is BS: Gibbs' free energy should be used, "W/Delta_G". This causes electrolysis processes to look a bit better than they atually are, since the reaction enthalpy is ca. 286 kJ/mol, while the Gibbs' free energy is less, about 237 kJ/mol. Therefore, we actually need a minimum of 237 kJ to split a mole of water. Don't be surprised when someone will claim "over 100% efficiency in electrolysis", because that is well possible if you use the enthalpy definition.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[justzisguy]

The cost of modern fuel cells can be reduced through mass production, but the cost of the platinum membrane is still prohibitively high. Until the amount of platinum can be reduced, fuel cells will never be able to compete with other energy storage devices.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[rossdee]

I come from a country where the majority of electric generation was hydro. They would run at full capacity apart from times that they were down for maintenance on the turbiones or generators. (Or when it was a dry winter and the lake levels were low.) About the only time that water would spill over the top of the dam would be when the flow of the river exceeded the capacity of the dam .

However using wind power to create H2 would be a good idea.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[bigsmelly]

Electrical Storage:
Hydrogen conversion is at presenly only 65% efficent versus 85% for a hydro storage system

http://www.electricitystorage.org/tech/technologie s_technologies_pumpedhydro.htm

and

http://www.electricitystorage.org/tech/technologie s_technologies_flywheels.htm

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04 /marine/tech_storage.htm

http://www.jet.efda.org/pages/focus/004power/

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04 /wind/content/storage%20available.html

http://www.geocities.com/dfradella/homepage.htm

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[angel'o'sphere]

Hydrogen Fuelcells don't use/have a platinum membran.

angel'o'sphere

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[localman]

I'm beginning to think that hydrogen is not the best "fuel of the future". Storing it just seems to be a big problem. What about less sexy options like biodiesel? Couldn't that be turned into a renewable energy source far more easily?

Cheers.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[Dr. Evil]

As others have said, hydrogen is not an energy source, it was never intended to be.

What it does do is localize the pollution into areas where it can be controlled. You can burn coal in your car, but you probably won't be investing in new scrubbers for the exhaust. Now if your old clunker burned hydrogen, it would be very difficult for you to find a way to cause it to pollute... all the while, the hydrogen producing plant invests in the latest technologies. They can burn coal, use off-peak energy from nuclear, set up solar generators, wind, hydro, burn biodiesel or ethanol, or adapt to any new technology which comes along, all without changing distribution or the engine in your old hydrogen clunker.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[Phaedra]

Actually, liquid hydrogen is stored at cryogenic temperature and atmospheric pressure. Gaseous hydrogen is stored at ambient temperature but high pressure. But you are right, the stuff is hard as hell to contain and will outgas through and/or embrittle many materials.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[heptapod]

As others have said, hydrogen is not an energy source, it was never intended to be.

Tell that to the rest of the universe! Stupid, wasteful fusion-powered stars.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[heptapod]

How could biodiesel be a renewable, sustainable source of energy? Ethanol is not sustainable, what would make biodiesel stand out?
"Ethanol does not provide energy security for the future. It is not a renewable energy source, is costly in terms of production and subsidies, and its production causes serious environmental degradation." According to one study, To fuel one car with ethanol for one year means that nearly 7-times more cropland would be required to fuel one car than is needed to feed one American (USDA, 1996)"
At best these are stop-gap measures meant to be used in the niches of transportation.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[orzetto]

but the cost of the platinum membrane is still prohibitively high

Indeed true, platinum is expensive. But, as reported in Larminie & Dicks, "Fuel Cell Systems Explained" (a standard textbook in fuel cell technology), the main cost of a fuel cell is surprisingly not the platinum catalyst on the polymer membrane, but the bipolar plates. These must seal hydrogen from coming into contact with air, provide cooling channels, and be tortuous enough to generate enough turbulence in the stream so that diffusion slowdown is minimised.

In short, bipolar plates require an awful load of machining, and good materials too since they work with a gas like hydrogen, which can embrittle welds.

On the other hand, platinum reserves are not enough to substitute the world's car fleet with fuel-cell powered vehicles using current technology. This should not be a big roadblock as new technologies are being experimented with. I mean, when the first T model was released, people still rode horses for some time anyway.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[mr_exit]

In New Zealand most of our power comes from hydo and geothermal (and is topped up by coal)

At night they have so much extra power that they reverse the turbines in some of the hydro dams, and pump the water back up the hill, they can then use it again later.

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[Anonymous Coward]

A little exaggerated, don't you think - or are you forgetting the conservation measures over the last couple of years of empty lakes?

Re:It's either the infrasture....

[localman]

Um, the article you link to seems to imply that it could be a renewable energy source. Yes: it would require some form mass farming on a scale far larger than what we do today. But considering farming is basically processing water and sunlight into plant matter... well, it seems theoretically possible. I mean, compared to our current fuel which takes millions of years to produce (and comes from plant matter anyways), this can be produced more or less in real time, which seems like a possible advantage.

All I'm wondering is if biodiesel will be less trouble to implement than hydrogen. Hydrogen isn't as easy to handle or as readily available. Ironic, being that it's the most common element in the universe, but that's how it is, no? Biodiesel wins on both those counts. And I think, unlike hydrogen, the net energy gain is higher... i.e. a biodiesel fuel based economy could create enough to power itself (by stealing from the sun, of course). Or maybe I'm wrong on that?

Hydrogen is basically a fuel transport mechanism, not a fuel source. And as a transport mechanism, it ain't that hot. No pun intended ;)

Cheers.

Really slow already

[FluffyPanda]

Text:

Samsung Engineering Develops Hydrogen Scooter

Publication Date:18-November-2004
Source:Asia Pulse
SEOUL- Samsung Engineering Co. (KSE:028050) said Thursday it has conducted a successful test-ride of a hydrogen-powered motorcycle.

The scooter, the result of a project sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, can run up to 140 kilometers on 6 liters of hydrogen fuel, it said.

The newly-developed technology uses a water-based solution of sodium borohydride, made from sodium borate, to produce hydrogen gas.

The company explained that on 6 liters of hydrogen fuel, the vehicle can travel three times farther than a scooter powered by a nickel-cadmium cell, saying that the technology can also be applied in automobiles, laptop computers and mobile phones.

The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.

"The development and testing of the hydrogen-powered scooter shows that South Korea's technology is on a par with that of the world," said Yu Yong-ho, president of Samsung Engineering's R&D center.

Re:Really slow already

[FluffyPanda]

the technology can also be applied in automobiles, laptop computers and mobile phones

I certainly don't fancy the idea of having my laptop powered by hydrogen.

Can you immagine? You arrive at a meeting with a customer.

"Hi, my laptop's nearly dead, do you mind if I hook it up to your hydrogen tap?"

Re:Really slow already

[Anonymous Coward]

... can run up to 140 kilometers ...

Ah, km. I was wondering why the slashduh story was talking about Kelvinmetres or something, Km.

And you call yourselves nerds!?

short supply

[YouHaveSnail]

The downside? The process that produces the hydrogen uses a component in short supply.

Let me guess: that component is a renewable, non-polluting source of energy?

Guess I'd better go RTFA.

Re:not a first post

[logistic]

Isn't sodium borate the conjugate base of boric acid, which is roach poison...

A roach poison powered scooter!

Seriously, I wonder if the breakdown product could be recycled by conversion back to sodium borate. It would then take more energy to recharge then you get out of it. Getting us back once again to the problem of electric electric vehicles moving the pollution generation to a different site (the electrical generation plant) rather than point of use.

Ride a bike and use your legs, remember them?

[phrasebook]

Bicycles are the most beautiful machines on the face of the earth. Ride one today!

Re:Ride a bike and use your legs, remember them?

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that...

Re:Ride a bike and use your legs, remember them?

[Anonymous Coward]

But not much good for traveling 100 miles with 200lbs of computer equipment.

Re:Ride a bike and use your legs, remember them?

[Gil-galad55]

Clearly you don't live in Cambridge. Bicylces are a menace and must be terminated with extreme prejudice!

I kid a bit, of course, but it seriously is a problem in places like Cambridge. Right outside of my college (in city centre, mind you!), the road narrows to one lane. Buses drive through there like madmen, and very frequently cyclists come right up on the footpath at breakneck speed. Very dangerous for all involved. I fully advocate bikes in city, because they are by far the most efficient and potentially the fastest form of transportation. But there needs to be infrastructure for it to be safe. The Netherlands, with their extensive bike lanes, is a good example.

The good thing about bikes in Cambridge is how badass you look cycling along in an academic gown whilst puffing a pipe. Badass, badass, badass.

Re:Ride a bike and use your legs, remember them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see, in real units that's something like 160 km and 100 kg.

Why would a bike with a cart "not be much good" for doing that? Are you a paraplegic?

Re:Ride a bike and use your legs, remember them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of COURSE. Obviously, everyone travels 100 miles a day hauling loads and loads of equipment. There is never, ever a case when it's just you, going down to the store on a nice sunny afternoon for a loaf of bread.

How could we be so stupid as to think that because there is one instance recently when you had to haul a bunch of stuff, that that is not the case everywhere, everytime.

Quite clearly, the bike is totally useless for any type of transportation. Thank you for clarifying that!

SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE

[ndevice]

sodium borohydride doesn't look like a very nice chemical

Re:SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE

[SteveAstro]

Try inhaling gasoline, or leaving THAT on yourskin for any extended period.

Steve

Re:SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE

[wertarbyte]

Lab Protective Equip: GOGGLES & SHIELD; LAB COAT & APRON; VENT HOOD; PROPER GLOVES; CLASS B EXTINGUISHER

This will look funny at the gas station. Get it today, your fancy new Scooter and a funky new dress.

Re:SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE

[squoozer]

Mod or teach the world some chemistry. hmmm teach some chemistry I think.

When it comes to chemicals please please please don't think have a knee jerk reaction and claim that all chemicals are evil and sent by satan himself.

Everything around you is a chemical so to say you are scared of chemicals is pretty stupid. Further more to say a chemical is bad or nasty is pretty silly as you are attributing a bunch of atoms a human personality.

Sodium Borohydride is a faily commonly used chemical and for the most part it is completely safe. There are no really special handling requirements (for lab scale use) although if memory serves it's generally best not to get it wet but even then it's generally only a fairly quck reaction. I'm not saying that you can eat the stuff just correctly managed it's safe.

There are a few really dangerous chemicals such as nerve gasses that require very special treatment and you really don't want to be messing with them but most chemicals are quite inert.

To give you some perspective have a look at the MSDS data for cadmium. You no doubt use NiCad batteries and I think you will be somewaht shocked. Do you have a mercury thermometer. That mercury is dangerous stuff. How about metholated spirit. If it was a toss up between eating 1g of sodium borohydride or drinking 1ml of meths I would probably go with the sodium borohydride and yet you probably splash meths about.

Ok that's enough chemistry for one day.

Re:Sodium Borohydride

[relaxmax]

...a Perdue chemistry prof...

I'm sure you're very perdu (french for 'lost') when it comes to spelling Purdue!

Re:SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE

[Idarubicin]

Yep, it's a good thing that we're using a nice, safe fuel.

Wait...a low flashpoint isn't dangerous is it? And worrying about exposure to benzene, toluene, and various additives would just be silly....

We only think of gasoline as 'safe' because we've been handling it for so long. Familiarity breeds contempt, I guess. If you go behind the scenes, there's actually a tremendous amount of effort expended in terms of regulation and engineering that protects us from the hazards (mostly flammability, but also ground contamination) of storing and using gasoline.

Re:SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE

[fireboy1919]

Look at your keyboard for a moment.

Right next to the "right-shift" (to the left of it) is a very special key. Try hitting "shift" and that key, and you'll see what it does.

Your output should look like this:
?

Did you see it? There - I used it with a sentence for you. Use it to end a sentence whenever you ask questions in a post. That's why it's called the question mark, because it ends a question. Note that rhetorical questions also count as questions, and should also have a question mark.

Okay, that's enough basic grammar for one day.

Re:SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE

[Vellmont]

Hmm.. the linked page in the parent does make the chemical look like it's more dangerous than say gasoline. Starting on fire when exposed to water is concerning.

Your comparisons to mercury thermometers are interesting, but it's the amount of the substance that can be a problem. If there was some product that contained a pound of mercury, I'd be a little concerned about its safety. This substance may be safe at lab quantites, but how much of it would you need to power a golf cart? If you're transporting mass quantities of the stuff around and storing it in filling stations is that a concern? How do you deal with a fire when water only makes it react more?

I guess what I'm getting at is concern for this chemical don't really sound all that unwarranted. We're not used to dealing with chemicals that start on fire when exposed to water.

mymymy

[djupedal]

Sort of kicks the technological crap out of the old-fashioned battery powered Segway, eh?

Classic!

[Lord Kano]

I get a first post with a failed first post joke.

Man, I want to play cards with you.

LK

Chrysler beat 'em to it 3 years ago!

[Kevin Burtch]

Scooter?
Chrysler made a minivan that used the exact same chemicals and principles 3 years ago.

The interesting part is, in all of the articles I've seen about the Chrysler implimentation, they state that the largest reserves are in the western US... removing our dependence on foreign oil. This is the first time I've seen Tibet mentioned as the primary source of the chemical.

Re:Chrysler beat 'em to it 3 years ago!

[pyat]

It won't necessarily make much difference to oil dependency. You still have to find a way to get energy. The described technolgy just presents a possible new way to move that energy around conveniently. So while it might displace gasoline as a way to store energy in your car, where you get the energy from is a whole other problem.

But... can sodium borate be produced?

[PornMaster]

If we can produce sodium borate from other energy sources... I don't think the problem we have currently is one of limited energy production, but one of energy transmission... if we could beam microwaves from satellites to convert solar energy to something more portable... wouldn't we be set?

Re:But... can sodium borate be produced?

[Anonymous Coward]

The spent fuel can be re-hydrated. Cost is the question.

Re:But... can sodium borate be produced?

[PornMaster]

Well, it would be nifty if instead of gas stations simply distributing fuel, if they could reprocess it... do some kind of fuel tank exchange program, like they do with propane tank exchanges for barbecue grills, but instead of refilling the exchanged tanks with propane, rehydrating sodium borate from another energy source, be it electricity from the grid, solar panels, or some clean burning fuel... perhaps ethanol?

Sodium hydroxide?

[Bruce Perens]

That's lye.

Sodium Borohydride

[boatboy]

I'm not a chemistry buff, but this lecture from a Perdue chemistry prof describes the discovery of sodium borohydride, the compound used to generate hydrogen for this thing.

Acetylene powered scooter?

[Zog The Undeniable]

The method of producing hydrogen kind of reminds me of the way acetylene lamps used to work; dripping water onto calcium carbide releases the gas. No environmental benefits though, since you release CO2 when you make the carbide *and* when you burn the acetylene, which (being highly unsaturated) has a high carbon content and is far dirtier than gasoline. Acetylene has a notoriously smoky flame unless you burn it in pure oxygen, as in an oxy-acetylene torch.

Re:Acetylene powered scooter?

[orzetto]

From my organic chemistry lectures I remember that acetylene (more properly "ethyne") is unstable. Kick it (or make an accident with a car running on it) strong enough, and it will dissociate into gaseous hydrogen (whose pressure will probably breach any tank), and carbon, liberating a whopping 211 kJ/mol in Gibbs free energy; hydrogen combustion with oxygen, as a comparison, is 237 (and it comes in cascade with the previous).

Re:Acetylene powered scooter?

[kfg]

The method of producing hydrogen kind of reminds me of the way acetylene lamps used to work

Still work. You can buy one at many camping supply stores, as a lot of people find it more convienient to carry a tin of calcium carbide around than a tank of kerosene or a bunch of batteries.

And they're fun to light. Pop!

I've got a lovely old brass one, but most of the newer ones are made out of plastic, which is lighter and doesn't want polishing.

KFG

Hydrogen from Sodium Borohydrate.... Patents ?.

[Gopal.V]

Would this be affected by the patent on catalysed reaction to produce hydrogen (using a sodium borohydrate solution ?).

The fuel source itself is not very newsworthy. It was around in early 2000 as well (named the Millenium Cell. Of course, it does not explode unlike the CNG powered ones. Recently (1-2 month) back we had a blaze up near our office when a Truck rear-ended a gas powered car (it's very common these days) and the gas tank ruptured, exploded and threw the car's rear door about 3 feet into truck's engine (breaking through 1/2 inch metal sheet). Thankfully only the driver was in the car and he was saved by the rear seat from the explosion.

This is not a viable alternative. But, Hey .. it was done because some guy said "We CAN". And that's reason enough :)

Re:Hydrogen from Sodium Borohydrate.... Patents ?.

[Gopal.V]

I'm replying to myself

Once the hydrogen is released the liquid instead contains Sodium Borate, and can be reprocessed to a Sodium Borohydrate solution. Hydrogen is stored in this liquid in densities ranging from 4%-7% (by weight) depending on the formulation.

This makes for reusable fuel.

From the Millenium cell. Now *THIS* sounds interesting. The one thing I need to check is how fast it can be recharged (etc..) and how good is the energy releasing capacity.

We might have stations which accept a Used bottle and return a charged one for a fee. Kinda like getting a charged battery from a station every 50-60 miles :)

Re:Hydrogen from Sodium Borohydrate.... Patents ?.

[The_Dougster]

From what I could gather, the regeneration process involves electrolyzing the molten salts. This is not an easy or convenient process and has tons of problems, but it is doable on an industrial basis.

This chemical, Sodium Borohyrdate, is right up there with Sodium Hydride and Lithium Aluminum Hydride insamuch as it is a tremendously powerfull base. This stuff makes industrial strength liquid Drano look like water, and the only nice thing about the Boron compound is that it "supposedly" requires the presence of a catalyst before it explodes, ostensibly making it much more friendly to use. NaH and LiAlH are extremely dangerous and are used in organic synthesis, for example to turn something like vegetable oil directly into something like octane. Reactions are carried out in an ice water bath and in very small amounts.

In all practicality, this chemical is probably a bit too dangerous for public energy storage and transmission. Consider if your car ran on concentrated Nitric Acid instead of gasoline... its a similar scenario. Calcuim Carbide (produces Acetylene) is probably a lot safer than this stuff IMO.

Just like Hydrazine and Dinitrogen Pentoxide, theoretically they make an awesome medium for energy storage; however, untrained people really shouldn't be allowed in the same building as that stuff.

Fuel-cell powered!

[Skadet]

*loads up on D batteries*

What? that's not the fuel cell?

*loads up on carbohydrates*

What'd you say? Not that one either?

Crap. Time to RTFA i guess...

You are not the first to ask the question, and...

[orzetto]

Someone has worked on it; there is a whole PhD thesis to answer your questions! (1.3 MB pdf)

Hydrogen is not the answer

[little1973]

Hydrogen is an energy carrier and not an energy source. Currently, hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels or natural gas. Electrolyzing hydrogen from water is very expensive. We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.

Biodiesel looks more promising. There are some algae which contains 50% oil. Here's a link:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alg e.html

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[kfg]

We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.

In other words, it wouldn't be a hydrogen economy at all, but a solar economy, and I'd cheer for that.

Ra, Ra, Ra!

KFG

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[ceeam]

Why don't we have more alcohol - ethanol or methanol - based cars? I believe in Brazil they have (had?) more than 50% of those? I mean - bio-matter (woods etc) to fuel conversion cycle can be decades or even months which take the tree or plant to grow and days for wood to be processed instead of hundreds of thousands of years for them to rot underground. Also - less polution when burned AFAIK.

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[bdeclerc]

Ah, but the Sun generates its energy mostly from... Hydrogen fusion, so we're back to a hydrogen economy (although by that reasoning, we're already in a hydrogen economy, even the Uranium we're using in our nuclear power plants was originally formed in stars which started as big blobs of mostly hydrogen)

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[FleaPlus]

Hydrogen is an energy carrier and not an energy source.

Yup.

We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.

And/or wind, nuclear, geothermal, etc. The point is that using hydrogen as an energy carrier allows us to more fully transition to non-fossil energy sources.

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[Pxtl]

Yeah - you'd think a forum full of programmers could understand the appeal of applying Once And Only Once to infrastructure.

Oh wait, I forgot that this was a forum full of _bad_ programmers.

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[k98sven]

Currently, hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels or natural gas. Electrolyzing hydrogen from water is very expensive. We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.

The key word there is currently.

What's current now isn't what matters when you're talking about future technology. Using hydrocarbons or electrolysis in combination with solid-state solar panels to produce hydrogen is the current situation. It's not where things are going...

Which is namely to the production of efficient catalysts which can produce hydrogen gas directly from sunlight. Google for 'artifical photosynthesis', and you'll find quite a large amount of research being done all over the world on this subject, with all kinds of different approaches.
(From solid-state to organic chemistry to biochem)

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[oliverthered]

You did, before prohibition.
One for the car, and one for me, one for the car and one for me. not the best drink driving campain.

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[ScrewMaster]

Actually, solar-powered electrolysis is only one way ... thermal dissociation of water molecules works too. And building a solar reflector farm is relatively low-tech compared to really high-efficiency solar cells which we don't have yet anyway. All you need is a very high temperature and you get hydrogen and oxygen. Not too sure about how you'd separate the two safely though once you've broken the molecular bonds. Sounds dangerous anyway.

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[pH7.0]

"We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start."

If we have efficient solar panels, we should replace all those fossil fuels power plants first,
and then replace those nuclear power plants.
Hydrogen still have storage problems to solve.

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[njh]

Can you explain why we need very efficient solar panels? (currently the state of the art is around 25% efficient, so you mean for say 3* more power per square meter?) Doesn't seem very convincing.

I think the only real issue is actually using the stuff we already have. I expect that if solar panels were being installed in megawatt installations across cities the price would fall quite quickly.

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[little1973]

Can you explain why we need very efficient solar panels? (currently the state of the art is around 25% efficient, so you mean for say 3* more power per square meter?) Doesn't seem very convincing.

The smaller the territory on which there are solar panels the smaller the maintenance cost. This is just one reason. Also, there are losses when you transfer the power to the end user.

AFAIK, solar panels make DC which you have to convert to AC. Then there is loss when you transmit this energy via power lines, etc.

If you use the DC to electolyze hydrogen there is a loss in the electrolysis process. Electrolysis is about 80%-90% efficient. Then you have to store the hydrogen either in gas from or in liquid form. Both has energy requirements. Then you have to transfer this hydrogen to the end user which is the transporting cost.

So, in the end, the end user will receive about 10%-15% out of the 25% produced by the solar panels. Because these losses are fixed losses, if you make a solar panel which is 75% efficient the end user will receive 40%-50% out of the 75%.

Finally, there are not enough raw materials (mostly silicon) on Earth to make enough solar panels which are only 25% efficient to cover the energy needs of Earth.

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[njh]

Most of your arguments are of the form "If they were efficient they would be cheaper." That isn't really answering my question as to why they are no suitable now.

Lets see:

"The smaller the territory on which there are solar panels the smaller the maintenance cost."

Sure, but the maintenance of solar panels is already far less than any other form of energy, that's why they are used in self-contained RPS and satelites.

"Also, there are losses when you transfer the power to the end user."

This one is a puzzler, I can't see how that is even slightly relevant. You get losses when you move electricity around no matter how it is generated.

"AFAIK, solar panels make DC which you have to convert to AC. Then there is loss when you transmit this energy via power lines, etc."

Actually, it more efficient to transmit DC, but in any case the preferred method for generating large scale solar power would be to have a small inverter on each panel. The whole thing would be manufactured ready to install, with a 240VAC plug ready to connect to existing systems. (This is here and now)

"If you use the DC to electolyze hydrogen there is a loss in the electrolysis process...."

Totally irrelevant. Incidently, you can electrolyze more 100% H from water if you supply heat to the process. This heat can be waste heat. Recent experiments have even converted sunlight directly to hydrogen in a single step.

"So, in the end, the end user will receive about 10%-15% out of the 25% produced by the solar panels... "

Compared with coal with a solar efficiency of what, 0.001%? Even if you discount the construction of a coal power station, and give the coal away for free, brown coal electricity in Victoria still costs about 1c/kW, which is damn close to the expected return on a solar panel.

"Finally, there are not enough raw materials (mostly silicon) on Earth to make enough solar panels which are only 25% efficient to cover the energy needs of Earth."

This one is insane. Wikipedia gives silicon as 25% of the Earth's crust. We have enough silicon to cover the earth entirely in solar panels (even enough dopants!) and still make scarcely a dent in the available silicon. If you are so concerned about wasting silicon, perhaps you should sell your computer?

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[little1973]

Here's the answer why PV cells are not economically feasible.

http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D87.RE.Ch.2PV.ht ml

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[little1973]

Here's the answer why PV cells are not economically feasible.

http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D87.RE.Ch.2PV.ht ml

Re:Hydrogen is not the answer

[njh]

That article isn't "The Answer", it is merely one person's attempt to put numerical values on the current cost of things.

The problem is, you (and the quoted article) are talking about the correct thing to do if you were a small player in a big market, say a company trying to work out how to pay for running its computers and lights this year. In that case I agree that PV is probably not a great plan (unless you expect some other gain from it, such as publicity, or it would mitigate the cost of putting in new wiring).

What I am talking about is if you were a major player, such as a multinational or a government. In that case your purchasing habits will affect the market. If PV cells became something you could paint on every surface for comparable cost to exterior paint, then PV would save money. If PV cells could be incorporated into the tinting in windows and offset the airconditioning bills twice then PVs would save money. Remember that when large scale uses of technology happen, the economics change dramatically (I can fly from Australia to Europe for a few weeks of income - because the aeroplane industry got big).

I expect that you drive and probably own a car. Yet there are numerous articles showing that a bike is the better economic choice. Similarly, bricks are one of the most expensive housing materials, yet I bet your house is made of bricks. Basic costing analysis cannot cover all of the externalised costs with a technology, and that article made very little attempt to measure the externalised costs of coal over PV.

Seriously, 87km^2 isn't a very large area. I expect that Melbourne alone would have that much roof area. Energy demand patterns can change if the pricing changes. We don't need to implement a pure PV energy system to make a difference.

So stop being wrongly cynical and try to think in Keynesian terms of changing the economics to achieve wothwhile goals.

great!

[Dr.Opveter]

..the vehicle can travel three times farther than a scooter powered by a nickel-cadmium cell, saying that the technology can also be applied in automobiles, laptop computers and mobile phones.

That's a great achievement, except that it can not be applied in automobiles, laptop computers and mobile phones because there's just not enough sodium borohydride in the entire world to produce enough fuel for this to work on a large scale.
Did they know this at development or did the question where all this sodium borohydride would have to come from pop up later?

Re:great!

[orzetto]

there's just not enough sodium borohydride in the entire world to produce enough fuel for this to work on a large scale.

The question is not that important. Sodium borohydride (NaBH4) is made up of sodium (quite common, as in sodium chloride), hydrogen (common too) and boron is fairly common too, according to this link. The fact you don't find steel, carbon fiber or many modern materials in nature does not mean it is a problem. NaBH4 is supposed to be a carrier of energy, not a source: it is converted to sodium borate during use, and this is later regenerated to sodium borohydride.

Re:great!

[Dibblah]

[sarcasm]Yeah. Because you can't manufacture more.[/sarcasm]
Sodium Borohydride is not broken down by the process - It's just a storage medium.

Re:great!

[Dr.Opveter]

I see, thanks for explaining. The article is bringing up the lack of natural resources of sodium borohydride why? I guess the current annual global production of sodium borohydride wouldn't be enough with 10,000 tons then.

Re:great!

[orzetto]

The article is bringing up the lack of natural resources of sodium borohydride why?

Well, I may lack respect, but I think the journalist does not know the difference between an atom (cannot produce) and a chemical compound (can produce given the blocks).

I don't really know what NaBH4 is mainly used for today, but I know it is a quite powerful reduction catalyst in organic chemistry (another one being LiAlH4, even more reactive). My organic chemistry professor used to tell the tale of the chemical plant of Cormano (north of Milan) where they didn't handle one of these hydrides properly, and "whose remains you can see when driving on the Tangenziale".

Anyway, the chemical industry is very flexible; during WWII, Japan made fuel out of rubber, which they had plenty of since they controlled the Dutch Indies, and America made rubber out of fuel at the same time. So, if this system should be adopted, production would probably catch up fairly quick since this is no new or exotic chemical.

Ooh, fun!

[mrchaotica]

It's not just flammable, it's corrosive and water-reactive too! : D

Boron as a fuel,

[tonywestonuk]

So, can we not manufacture sodium-Borate, from Sodium, and Boron?... So, after doing a few Googles in search of the answer, I came across this page, that isn't entirely unrelated

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mqolson/papertwo.ht ml

This is about using Boron itself, as a fuel. Apparently, Boron will burn, however, by-products of burning is just Boron - Oxide, which can be turned back to boron. The energy density of this process is > gasoline.... Tony.

Re:Boron as a fuel,

[hengist]

IIRC the XB-70 Valkyrie used boron hydride as fuel to achieve Mach 3+ cruising speed. Energy density of the fuel was said to be twice that of hydrocarbon fuels.

Re:Boron as a fuel,

[zmollusc]

IIRC the XB-70 Valkyrie was going to use a boron (although aluminium was mooted) based powder as fuel but it was more trouble than it was worth and it instead used 'ordinary' engines and fuel.

Re:Boron as a fuel,

[DamienNightbane]

The page says that one of boron's advantages is that it requires pure oxygen to burn, and thus won't ignite in our atmosphere. Doesn't that imply that a vehicle using boron as a fuel would require it's own supply of pure oxygen to run?

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't pure oxygen tend to make things explode? I think that any safety advantage provided by the non-flamability of boron would be negated by the explosion inducing properties of pure oxygen.

Re:Boron as a fuel,

[ankhank]

Should be "boron as a heat source" -- no mention of an engine. Kind of like a liquid-oxygen and pellet-fuel stove, but powering an automobile?

Hmmm. Well, this IS an English Composition class exercise, after all.

Maybe the boron-fusion-powered car will be more practical.

Re:Boron as a fuel,

[njh]

The air is 22% Oxygen. It is quite simple to extract the oxygen out of the air (many diesel engines use oxygen membranes to reduce particulate emmisions).

RTFA.

Re:samsung ahead of the game.

[My_Dirty_Facist_Ass]

".... all of a sudden the middle-east oil producing countries seem less significant. their road to ruin has begun...."

Hahahahaha...hahahahahahahaha!!! haHahahah!!HA ahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Oh..hahaha! hahahah!..oh god hahahahaha!....oh oh oh...oh....oh...ha...oh no...oh ......hhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha! ahhhhh! hahahahahahahahahaha hahahaha!!!!

oh stop, oh hahahahahaha, please! it's too much!!! hhahahaha...hahaha...hahaha!!! hahaha!!!

Oh my god! It's too funny! Hahaha! Thank you for that joke, hadn't heard than one in a while! Cracks me up! hahahahahahahaha....Hahahahahaha! Hahahaha!

Hahahahahaha!

Re:Km? liters?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a dummy! lol

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

So, my bicycle...

[Anonymous Coward]

can go 140 km on about 6 L of Coke.

Re:So, my bicycle...

[malfunct]

I'm afraid if you do the calculations there are not enough calories in the 6L of Coke to actually propel your body that far. Humans, while being truely amazing machines, are not terribly energy effcient from what I understand.

Yes I know this was a joke, but I've seen many posts saying that bicycles are great machines and forget that thier source of propulsion is probably not as effcient as a gasoline engine.

The solution to the energy crisis is less humans.

Re:So, my bicycle...

[tap]

You understand wrong, see this If you could drink gas, you would get over 1,000 miles per gallon on a bicycle.

If cars could eat big macs, it would take about 2.46 to go a mile.

A human on a bicycle is the most efficient means of active transportation in existence, including machines and animals. The only way to get more efficient is to float and let water or air currents take you where they will.

Re:So, my bicycle...

[jeephistorian]

No, you misunderstood. He meant the powder version of Coke....he also failed to mention that he covers the 140km in about 30 minutes.

________________

Re:So, my bicycle...

[k98sven]

I'm afraid if you do the calculations there are not enough calories in the 6L of Coke to actually propel your body that far. Humans, while being truely amazing machines, are not terribly energy effcient from what I understand.

Let's see Calories in Coke seems to be about 440 calories per liter. That'd be 2640 calories in 6 liters.
At a moderate pace, you spend about
560 calories per hour bicycling at 13 mph. So that's about 3770 calories.

So, about 8.5 liters of Coke. Probably not as far off as you'd think.

Yes I know this was a joke, but I've seen many posts saying that bicycles are great machines and forget that thier source of propulsion is probably not as effcient as a gasoline engine.

That's very much a half-truth. The human body, and all living things, really, are very efficient energy-wise.
It isn't that efficient when you look at the 'big picture', e.g. we don't manage to absorb all the energy in the food we consume (which might actually be a good thing, given what people eat nowadays). Also, we're not terrifically great at turning that energy into mechanical work.

So, by analogy to an automobile, we have a leaky gas tank and a crappy transmission and tires, but the actual engine is very efficient. Because we don't do combustion. We use miniature fuel cells called mitochondriae in our cells to do the work.

But besides that.. you're forgetting that unlike combustion engines, our fuel is renewable (if anything is).

Re:So, my bicycle...

[Anonymous Coward]

You got the economy model?

Or are you using non-ethanol mixed coke?

Re:So, my bicycle...

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet we do a pretty darn good job of absorbing sucrose solution ( Coca Cola ) though...

Don't think that's accurate

[SimianOverlord]

The sodium borate is being used somewhat like an enzyme, in that it facilitates a reaction but remains ultimately unchanged. It can be reconverted back into sodium borohydrate. So a fuel cell of this type doesn't need any extra sodium borate once created. And thankfully doesn't make any sodium hydroxide, which is a pretty nasty chemical.

See here.

Anyway, fuel cells will make cities better places by removing gasoline fumes, but when you consider they have to use conventional power sources ie nuclear/coal/natural gas/oil power to ultimately charge, their environmental credentials don't look so great. Still, it could make a great difference to the pleasantness of city life; I've noticed an afternoon in London gives me black bogies all day.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points right now! This deserves to be (Score:Eleventy Billion, HILARIOUS)

But why did Sarah select this particular book...

[Sai Babu]

You guys really need to read the referenced URL! It's some really interesting history on WW2 atomic bomb chemistry and Sodium Borohydride

Where the hell are my mod points. Karma says I should have some. Please mod parent UP!

Sodium Borohydride was used by the signal corps during WW2 for filling antenna lofting balloons.

Fuel Cell Powered?

[ceeam]

Did not RTFA (nor am I going to), but is there conversion to electicity somewhere? If so - is it really needed once you got hydrogen? Wouldn't it be more effective just to burn it? And if there's no electricity involved (which I suspect) then WTF "fuel cell" is doing in the article title? Let's not broaden the terms or you can call your car's engine a "fuel cell".

Re:Fuel Cell Powered?

[Chirs]

It's more efficient to use a fuel cell to turn hydrogen directly into electricity than to burn it.

Dangerous when wet!

[mrmeval]

Sodium Borohydrate is pretty nasty stuff. http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/s3146.htm

Domain issues

[antic]

I wonder if they realise that their site title and footer mention fuelcellworks.com which is domain-parked and not working. Maybe they're confused?

Finnish company had a fuelcell scooter for a while

[Xx13]

Finnish compnay Hydrocell, (their web site is not very informative, unfortunately) has an elecrtic scooter for sale. They sell nickle based fuel cells, and metal-hydide hydrogen tanks, which, they claim, upon agreement, can be refilled almost on any gas station. Fuel cell plus the tank weigh about 20 kilos, and give their scooter a range of about 200 km. They sell the fuel cells separtely as well, at about 1K eur. (same as in the scooter)

Not impressing

[Pervertus]

140km per 6 liters means 23.3 kilometers/liter. Even the Smart car, mentioned here, does better (60 MPG, which is 24.14km per liter). And Smart doesn't require a nearly-depleted energy source (yet).

Well, actually...

[pewterfish]

Hmm, IIRC the Hindenberg fire wasnt originally related to the hydrogen lift-gas at all, but rather to the aluminium powder coating on the outer hull. The hydrogen fire wasn't good news, but all the burning related to that was up above the ship (heat an hydrogen both rise, y'know). The bad stuff on the ground was mainly falling debris and burning bits of hull.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster http://www.clean-air.org/hindenberg.htm

Re:Well, actually...

[b-baggins]

No, it started as a Hydrogen fire, the heat of which ignited the aluminum and other elements of the dirigible. This was the conclusion of the original investigators in both the U.S. and Germany after the incident.

It followed the same pattern as a GoodYear dirigible hydrogen fire in Chicago a few years earlier that killed several hundred people on the ground.

The only person questioning it is some kook NASA hydrogen economy zealot who also proproses a massive coverup among both the German and American governments to suppress "the truth."

Yet another example of how wikipedia is a totally unreliable source for anything.

Re:Well, actually...

[6800]

In addition to the previous reply to this, the fact that heat rises isn't the whole story at all. Yes hot air rises (include yours which has rose to 2), radient heat goes in all directions and I expect there was a plentiful supply, probably plenty to cause ignition of cumbustables below the hydrogen supply. In addition, a portion of baloon structure that contained hydrogen might actually fall under some conditions such as most has escaped and the weight of the remaining container pulls it downward.

Re:Well, actually...

[orasio]

At least the other guy posted some source.
Wikipedia might be bad, but if you have something to back up your view, you can improve the article.

Re:Well, actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

Argument against the incendiary paint theory: http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/zf/LZ129fire.pd f

Re:Well, actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another example of how wikipedia is a totally unreliable source for anything.

Yes, that's right... independent information baad... corporate media goooood... now lets all turn off our brains and soak up some good ol' FOX News.

Lots of ways, not many that are efficient

[beaststwo]

The Law of Conservation of Energy says that you have to put at least as much energy into creating your fuel as you will derive from it. Whether you directly apply that energy (electrolysis) or nature's done it for you (sodium borate), you can't break the law.

There are lots of clean methods of creating power for electrolysis, but each have scalability problems. For example, I remember reading a while back that the global electricity load was around 64 Terawatts. To generate that load using alternative energy sources, here are the implications:

-Biomass requires using 85% of the world's arable land to grow crops to burn (not to eat).
-Solar, at current efficiencies requires covering almost all of the world's landmasses with solar panels (so much for growing crops).
-There's not enough suitable land on the planet to generate this much power using Wind turbines.

The list goes on and on. So until we can find more scalable clean energy, we'll just be living with oil, coal, and nuclear. Not pretty, but practical for the short term (which is all most humans care about anyway!).

Re:Lots of ways, not many that are efficient

[jabuzz]

The area of the Sahara alone is 9,000,000 square km or 9e12 square metres. The average energy per square metre on the earths surface is around 1kW. If we allow our solar panel to be 25% efficient that makes for 2250 Terawatts of electricity. That means we only need to cover 3% of the Sahara to meet total world electricity requirements today. This is forgetting deserts in the Middle East, Austrialia, North and South America and Asia.

All these figures where Googled in 5 minutes. That also turned up a link that suggests that researches at MIT have a multiband gap material in the lab that would be 50% efficient!

Looks to me like we could easily meet current total world energy demand several times over using just solar power alone. We have not started on other renewable sources such as geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal, wave and wind, which would only add to the total power generation capacity.

Looks to me like you have brought into what can only be described as the propoganda that renewable won't and cannot work. Ten minutes ago I had no idea whether this calculation would show solar was viable or not. Clearly it is.

Also on the 25% efficient we can get 336 Terrawatt from the Australian desert, and no need to talk to any politically unstable Arab countries either. You can also get 225 Terrawatt from the subtropical deserts in North America alone. I make the total potential energy output from the worlds subtropical deserts a staggering 3766 Terawatts with 25% efficency. If the guys at MIT can increase that to 50%, then that is 117 times current total world electricity demand. How much power do you think we need?

Admittedly these are back of the envelope calculations using quickly Googled figures. However they would have to be several orders of magnitude out to make to the point invalid. However this does not seem likely to me.

Re:Lots of ways, not many that are efficient

[CnlPepper]

Solar power and wind power have other problems associated with them that make them difficult to forsee as a replacement to current power generation methods. The problem is the stability of the power supply, they are not continuous generators of power - solar in particular. Solar power does not produce energy when it is most needed - at night, also it is affected by cloud etc.. This means that to be reasonably sure of a decent supply of energy (during the day anyway) you need at least 4 times the capacity of solar power then coal, oil, nuclear etc...

The only way solar power + wind can be reliable is if they are backed up with energy storage plants. The only realistic energy storage currently is pumped hydoelectric plants, but these are few and far between due to their difficult requirements - a huge source of fresh water and suitable geology to support a large reservoir. Hydrogen electrolysis as a method of storing power is currently very inefficient, but development should hopefully improve it to a state where it can be routinely used.

Re:Lots of ways, not many that are efficient

[jabuzz]

It would not matter if the hydrogen electrolysis is not teribbly efficient, or needing four times the amount of solar power. If you looked at the calculations 3% coverage of the Sahara desert is all you need for the total *WORLD* electricity supply. There are many other deserts, the total potential world supply from solar from just sub tropical deserts at 25% efficiency is over 100 times current world electricity consumption.

The point you missed is that renewable is perfectly capable of supply the demand, with ample left over to provide sufficient hydrogen for us all to drive in electric vehicles.

Re:Lots of ways, not many that are efficient

[sfm]

"64 Tera-watts of Solar, at current efficiencies requires covering almost all of the world's landmasses with solar panels"

Not nearly that bad.....
If you assume 10% solar efficiency and 8 hours per day (average) of sunlight, the area for 64 Tera-Watt generation in solar panels is about 1/5 the area of the USA (about what you would get if you combined Alaska and Texas.... not that either of those states wish to be mentioned in the same sentence). Still, this is not practical, just not as bad as the original poster stated.

Just my $0.02

Re:Lots of ways, not many that are efficient

[jeffry_smith]

Some slight corrections (OK, major corrections).
1. The solar max may be about 1 KW / m2, but that's straight down at noon on a good day. Correct for the sun (lose 50% due to night, of the remainder, divide by 1.414, giving 353.5 watts/ m2. Subtract more for clouds. Now remember that those deserts are NOT devoid of life. Subtract for that, subtract for space for maintenance (solid covering doesn't work), you quickly find it's not near what most people think. Oh, and those solar panels are currently expensive to produce (and take energy). Oh, and most are closer to 10-15% efficiency (25% is the top stuff that's grossly expensive for those space missions that need that level of efficiency).

This is not to say we shouldn't use solar, and but better would be in space.

Re:Lots of ways, not many that are efficient

[jabuzz]

I was being conservative, it is significantly more than 1kW/m2. I am not sure I understand the division by root two, but I would point out that the panels can be angled.

The Sahara which is the size of the USA only has a population the same as the county of Norfolk in England, if need be the population can move. If the wildlife is disrupted so be it (better than the potential problems of global warming). I don't care about the cost of 25%, because I am sure the price would drop dramatically if I order several million square kilometers. There are other options besides photovoltaics and as I pointed out there is 50% efficient panels in the lab.

What's wrong is that the money is not being invested in say solar to overcome the minor obsticals to a potentially clean power source. Compared to the costs of building *one* nuclear power station, that is shear lunacy.

Re:Lots of ways, not many that are efficient

[CnlPepper]

It does matter economically how efficient the conversion is. The senario you present could happen but economically it would not be very viable due to the huge investment needed.

Any images?

[Barumpus]

Does anyone know of a location to se what this thing looks like? I am curious due to various regulations about "scooters". For example, if this was a moped style scooter it would have a quite different effect then if it was one of those "little metal plates with 2 wheels a motor and handle bars" like you buy at your area department store for you kids. In Florida where I live, the moped style is street usable while the second "recreational" style would be pointless. The second version can not be driven on public streets or sidewalks, only on private property. also, even though it has be used on private property, you still have to hold a valid Fl driver's license to ride one. That would make it somewhat pointless to have.

Re:Any images?

[animaal]

> you still have to hold a valid Fl driver's license to ride one

A Formula One license? Hell, those scooters must be fast!

Re:Any images?

[ScrewMaster]

The more I read the news, the more pointless things appear to be associated with Florida. But, yeah, the term scooter isn't too specific, but "motor scooter" (such as a Vespa) generally means a conventional two-wheeled fully-motorized design with a seat. Mopeds are a different category all together, in that they have a motor and pedals.

and the really funny thing is

[ishmaelflood]

that the type of cost benefit analysis for which Ford was pilloried by the juries, is exactly how safety decisions are made across many industries today.

Ironic, heh?

just ride

[bicycleguy]

Hard to beat the efficiency and simple elegance of the human powered bicycle.....

Re:SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE vs methyl alcohol...

[innerweb]

Okay, so we are really talking about the difference about may be fatal Methyl Alcohol (CH3OH) and may cause serious damage Sodium Borohydride (BNaH4). Hmm, kind of a silly thing. Neither of these chemicals ought to be in the common persons hands (the same people who bring you hot coffee lawsuits and ride around in the back of pickup trucks.)

People do enough damage to themselves and the world with the current harvest of dangerous consumer products. Gasoline included. Now, if you are trading a lesser evil for a greater evil, that is a step in the right direction sometimes. Sometimes it prevents a much lesser evil or a non-evil from being selected instead (like cure in medicine vs manage, which do you think is normally selected in the current business models?)

In the end, I do not see the need for a focus on distance per unit. I see the focus as being cost per unit (pollution, money) and cost per distance achieved (again, pollution money). If the cost is cheap enough to travel a certain distance on a fuel, then it is cheap enough to double or triple the size or the fuel storage system. Other issues may enter into play, such as consumer safety, but those would be addressed (as they always have been) by consumer protection actions (laws and standards).

InnerWeb

How about a minivan?

[Anonymous Coward]

It evidently exists here. An undated article, annoyingly enough.

Honda and Plug Power's Home Energy System-2 and

[dammy]

Honda has their own fuel cell scooter: http://world.honda.com/news/2004/2040824_03.html and is working Plug Power on a Home Energy System http://world.honda.com/news/2004/4041116_b.html using natural gas.

Dammy

Re:Boron as a fuel, What the heck?

[Ralconte]

Sodium Borate is in short supply? Borax? A common industrial chemical? A rock mined in the US and Chile? Boy, some journalist didn't bother to do a google search. Maybe someone wants to return interest in Tibet's problems with China. You'd figure it was exciting enough that South Korea is developing advanced engines, while North Korea can't feed its own people.

20 Mule team

[Anonymous Coward]

Borax is sodium borate. There's a whole dried lakebed of this stuff out west. Of course the pupfish might have the same effect on production that spotted owls did on wood harvesting.

20 years ago

[HermanAB]

I had a moped that could go 140km on 1 litre of petrol. How is this progress? I now have to put a 10kg, steel hydrogen tank on my old moped?

Hydrogen

[static0verdrive]

Even Fuel-cell cars and buses have been out for a while. (I've heard of about 3 fuel-cell buses running in Vancouver).

Obvious oil company agenda aside, I believe the lack of success in fuel-cell powered transportation is due largly to there being no truly safe way to carry the hydrogen around with you. You're basically driving a bomb that's touchier than current IC cars with gas tanks (not to mention an empty gas tank is more explosive than a full one, whereas in the hydrogen's case, BOOOM!)

I did read somewhere that "they" are making titanium casing for hydrogen storage, but can it be enough? Gives new meaning to the term "car-bomb"...

Re:Hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen those Ballard fuel cell buses in Vancouver, behind a tow truck!

Re:Hydrogen

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, and consider the terrorist potential of a hydrogen-powered vehicle. I find it interesting (and not a little hypocritical) that our current Administraton wants us to move towards a "hydrogen economy" where every car on the road is capable of convenient mass-murder. Yet, at the same time we aren't allowed to carry toothpicks aboard an airliner.

I also read that hydrogen combustion can produce pollutants such as nitrous oxide which is formed by exposing air to high temperatures. At least, that's what some DOE Web site said: I'm not a chemist so I'm just spouting what I read.

Re:Hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

OOOOOHhhh the tarrorists are coming for you!

Give me a goddamn break pal. 1 incident, 3 years ago does not make a valid concern. Sure, it gets lots of play in america -- who only EXPORTS terror -- and you people are shitting your pants begging for daddy to help.

grow the hell up pal. turn your television off and read some foreign press. there is *no* concern of terrorism in america. sure, it can happen, but if your *scared* about it, your a facking moran.

Short supply?

[kyhwana]

"The process that produces the hydrogen uses a component in short supply."

What, water or electricity? These are in short supply all of a sudden?

If it's hydrogen powered, why can't they produce the hydrogen the normal way, instead of using sodium borohydride?

Re:Short supply?

[Anonymous Coward]

Electrolysis? Why not simply use the electricty to charge batteries directly? Hydrogen is an unnecessary energy storage medium, it makes no sense, not to mention significant energy losses in the process!

Re:Short supply?

[marcushnk]

RTFA.

From the article: The newly-developed technology uses a water-based solution of sodium borohydride, made from sodium borate, to produce hydrogen gas.

The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.

The Greens would go nuts if you did that!

[6800]

Man if you covered the dessert in East California with solar panels, it would be bad news. Think about the rattle snakes, spiders cacti that would not be able to survive due to all the shade. The dessert gives up it's heat rapidly now but even faster when only the panels are getting solar heated (yes they get heated by the sun too!). Heck the weather would change. For all I know it might become more cloudy (just a wild guess as another example result).

Re:The Greens would go nuts if you did that!

[Anonymous Coward]

What? So if we had solar panels, my dessert would give up heat instead of taking it in, and my ice cream wouldn't melt? Learn to spell, dumbass.

Sounds just like ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the spice of Dune!

Moonshine.

[oliverthered]

Before prohibition farms used to run on moonshine, it's easy to produce, is green and doesn't have any nasty biproducts.

liberation ain't free

[Doc Ruby]

300Mt of NaBH (however it's spelled), is 600Tg (ignoring those tricky molality functions by saying NaBH hydrous solution weighs 2x water), or 300BL. At 140Km:6L (24Km:L), that's 7.2E12Km. Americans drive 3.7E12Km:y, so that's 2 years of driving. Even if we scoot 100x less than we drive, we're only 5% of the world's population, and other countries are more scooter-ready than the US. This fuel would go up in smoke right away, and we'd have another Iraq biting our tit for the rest of our lives.

Re:liberation ain't free

[LilGuy]

I have no idea what you said for the most part, but it sure looks like YOU know what you're talkin about..

Re:liberation ain't free

[Doc Ruby]

Not really - I ignored those tricky molality functions, and there could actually be enough fuel for centuries of scooting. But at least I know we shouldn't be invading China to free Tibet for its hydrogen deposits, which will just destroy the country. Capiche?

Re:liberation ain't free

[Anonymous Coward]

Sodium borate is the "depleted" form. Water and hydrogen is "added" to form a water based sodium borohydrate solution. This is then used as fuel in the scooter, where it is separated in a catalytic reaction, resulting in hydrogen and the original sodium borate, solved in water, to be used again. IOW, it is a refillable energy container, not an energy source.

Re:liberation ain't free

[Doc Ruby]

Interesting - how many grams of sodium borate are dissolved in 1L of the hydrous/"complete" solution (the tricky molality function)? And just how superior is sodium borate as the carrier, rather than a more mundane (abundant) material?

Re:liberation ain't free

[Anonymous Coward]

This should answer your questions.

Short supply?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be that borax is in short supply in asian countries, but I think the US is the largest supplier of borates(including borax) in the world.

"While sodium-boro-hydride will strike some as an unusual fuel for an automobile, it has the advantages of the other fuels that have been proposed for fuel cell vehicles, without the significant disadvantages," said Thomas Moore, Vice President at DaimlerChrysler's Liberty & Technical Affairs research and development group. Mr. Moore believes that the most important unresolved issue with the fuel cell vehicles is not the fuel cell, but the fuel itself. Sodium boro-hydride is safe; it can be handled in dry form. It is nontoxic and nonflammable. It is available in large supplies in the United States; in fact, the U.S. has
the largest source of borax reserves in the
world. Infrastructure issues are less challenging than with other fuels proposed for fuel cell vehicles. The weight-energy storage is almost equivalent to gasoline; this means it generates about the same amount of energy per gallon of fuel as gasoline. In addition, three environmental benefits are: 1) no hydrocarbons are contributing to greenhouse gas buildup; 2) no smog-forming compounds are produced, and 3) the fuel itself can be recycled.

Re:not a first post

[ScrewMaster]

Well, moving the pollution generation to a few central locations would make it easier to remove pollutants, rather than trying to keep millions of independent pollution sources (cars) under control. However, it just lowers the overall efficiency of the system since you have to deal with transmission losses, losses in the vehicle's energy storage (batteries, whatever) and drive train. Not to mention that the United States power grid would probably collapse if too many people tried to jack in their electric cars at night.

The petroleum economy is open loop: people talk about "discovering" new reserves but we're simply using stored energy (really, using up our capital.) We need to really "discover" a power source capable of running a worldwide industrial economy without poisoning everyone or melting our polar ice caps. At this point in time, the only energy source we have that even comes close is nuclear fission. Maybe we'll eventually come up with a working fusion technology but that's years off. We can sustain an atomic powered economy for a long time if we do it right, and keep the remaining petroleum reserves for use in industrial and manufacturing processes rather than burning them in cars.

'Looks' a lot safer than gasoline

[MCRocker]

Darn, I was just about to believe my eyes when I saw the video (sorry Real Video), which featured a lighter being held to a petrie dish of the feul. Other reading suggests that this stuff, while not entirely benign, is much safer than gasoline. It's a good thing the parent warns of the, otherwise, unapparent dangers ;)

Re:not a first post

[logistic]

The effciency thing is what I was trying to allude to.

For the time being a huge fraction of our electricity is generated via coal and oil!

I agree transmission losses and however lossy the conversion into "fuel" is you can get a net increase in pollution. Yes now coal plants have scubbers and you can the output from a few large sources better fossil fuels still generate waste.

Fission particularly the neglected breeder technologies are much cleaner I agree, but we're still in a polical climate where they are not accepable.

The real issue that we in the industrialized world have to face is that our lifestyle especially in the US is not sustainable with the current per capita energy consumption. That's what makes the current refusal to seriously look at effciency technologies negligant. No amount of solar, wind, or nuclear is going to bail us out of overconsumption with continued exponential world population growth.

Scooters? What about bikes?

[Ehwaz003]

The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.

Well, instead of driving around on scooters, why do you people start realising that there is a good healthy (*gasp*) to get around town or the country...
It's a bike! Yes, it never needs sodium borate/fuelcells/solar energy/fusion or compact nuclear reactor cores. Bikes use devices that are called LEGS. You never need to refuel them once in a while and they don't cause meltdowns.

Oh yeah, and it keeps you fit. Riding with a bike to work is an excellent outdoor fitness which doesn't even cost you a yearly subscription or special equipment and trainers (like some fitness centers do) and it is as effective for your health as running your *ss off and even having to pay for it each year!

And why do some people think that your country leaders will start fighting a war in the countries who happend to have tons of sodium borate when there are plenty of alternatives worked out right now. But then again, you will start fighting a war to possess those alternatives as well...

Aprilia and Honda had already done it

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Aprilia and Honda had done it in the past (Aprilia+Manhattan Scientifics even in 2002). So this isn't new stuff ;)

Re:not a first post

[ScrewMaster]

Virtually all of our power is fossil fueled. No argument, however one thing I can say is that political climates are subject to change. Put it this way, at least in America we're free to distort facts and reality in such a way that we can look with disdain on nuclear power. Free, I say, because we've traditionally had inexpensive fossil fuels for our power production and really don't see any need to change. Admittedly, the nuclear industry (and government regulators) in the U.S. simply failed to provide any kind of national agenda for standardizing nuclear facilities and policing their operation so it's probably just as well that we stayed away for the time being. However, I can quite confidently state that when the situation reaches the point where frequent widespread rolling blackouts start happening (such as happened in California) and gasoline reaches ten bucks a gallon our "principled" objections to nuclear power will disappear overnight. When lifestyle and principle collide: lifestyle wins every time. However, I also agree with you that we should be looking for a solution before that happens.

If there is any one single thing a high-technology, heavily industrialized civilization needs it is a reliable, energy-dense solution to power production. Nuclear is the ONLY technology we have that stands a chance of providing what we need. Notice that China is investing heavily in atomic power and plans to use it for most of their electrical requirements, India will surely follow, so like it or not it's going to be a nuclear-powered world. That will ease our dependence upon petroleum but even so, you're right that machines that don't throw eighty percent or more of their energy input out as waste heat are going to be necessary.

I got reamed in another thread for pointing out that Carnot-cycle engines are a big part of the problem (some physics majors flamed me for calling the Otto cycle "inefficient" ... I guess it's all relative.) Look at a gallon of gasoline: something like the energy equivalent of a hundred sticks of dynamite. On the average, some 90% of that energy is used to heat the air surrounding the vehicle, not to propel the vehicle. IF we could just come up with a drive train that is inexpensive enough to be popular yet is, say 50% efficient we could end our dependence upon foreign oil.

Re:Acetylene powered scooter? Uh, no.

[ankhank]

Some mixture proportions of acetylene and air will explode spontaneously.

Every welding shop I know has on its bulletin board a picture of the remains of a customer's car, with all the windows out and sometimes the roof peeled back, along with:

WARNING: acetylene should _never_ be transported, or stored, in a building or automobile -- only in an open truck bed or storage yard. Good ventilation is not enough, in this case, for safety.

That's why it's generated, rather than provided as a compressed gas, for use in miner's lamps, for example -- the _dry_ calcium carbide is safe, and so is the water. Combine them, one drop of water at a time, and you get a slow and controlled production of hydrated lime plus acetylene gas.

Kids, don't try this at home. Go out in the yard.

Remember, disposal of the lime is an issue.

Other fuel-cell projects ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aprilia has also produced a number of hydrogen fuel-cell powered scooter prototypes. A recent one is here: http://www.pureenergysystems.com/news/2004/06/22/6 90025ApriliaAtlanticFuelCellScooter/

Re:Finnish company had a fuelcell scooter for a wh

[SubtleNuance]

Can you find a link for the scooter? Ive managed to find hydrocell, but nothing on their scooter.

I wonder if a small scale solar powered water eletrolizer could supply a fuel source for such transportation?

Re:20 Mule Team Powered Scooter

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, just had to say it.