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Creating Hydrogen With (Very) Hot Water
carbonman writes "NYTimes is reporting that a public-private research team will announce on Monday that they have discovered a new technique to produce pure hydrogen that is far more efficient than conventional methods. The advance could be a significant development in attempts to realize the dream of the hydrogen economy in taking gasoline-powered vehicles off the road, and without releasing carbon dioxide emissions that are linked to climate change. It does, however, require the use of advanced high-temperature nuclear reactors, none of which have been built on a production scale before."
swiftstream adds a link to the same story at the no-reg Indianapolis Star, and summarizes the method as "electrolysis of very, very hot water."
Don't they mean steam?
Is it just me or water can't be very very hot? At about 100 degrees Celcius, it vaporize... are they doing electrolysis on hot vapor? If so, can their tech be called Vaporware? :)
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Why not put the nuclear power plant way out in the boonies (i.e., no one's back yard) and run pipelines to where hydrogen is needed?
I have nothing against nuclear power, until efficient solar power comes along, as long as the nuclear power minefield can be navigated.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
...perfect for espresso machines.
One would be better to invent mini-nuclear reactors than introduce yet another step in the creation, storage, and use of energy.
I suggest you read Slashdot
I think the reality is that there are so many unecissary regulations in the states, that nuclear power is impossible - and likely will be for a long time. I myself wish I had enough money to buy a ship and put a nuclear reactor on it out in international waters and sell safe and simple hydrogen back to the mainland. It would also be a cool way to reach the next generation of liberty - I mean we haven't really seen any new methods implemented to improve individual freedom and liberty (especially economic) in government in nearly 200 years. I wish I could start a nation at sea.
So...how long before there's a lawsuit resulting from a scalding burn while at the drive-thru fill up?
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yay! so we can still say our cars only put water in the air... but making the hydrogen results in nuclear waste. I see no irony here at all.
Currently, the only viable use for hydrogen is as a combustion fuel - i.e., burning it with oxygen to form water. As such, hydrogen is (currently) more of a storage technology than an actual source of energy.
Using hydrogen for fusion would be great, and once we could do that, part of the energy generated by the fusion reactor could be put back into the electrolysis of water (very, very hot, or otherwise).
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Once you've got the nuclear reactor in your car, why bother with all this hydrogen business? You've got all the energy you need from the reactor itself.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Does that mean they will be showing their privates in public? Are there any females on this public-private team? If so, then I am there for the 'unveiling'!
I had so many unwanted daemons on my machine, I had to hire a priest to cast them all out.
It has been known for some time that blowing hot steam across coke results in hydrogen, which is how most commercial hydrogen is made.
Here's the reaction
Will not allow technology like this.
Because when its hot, it uses less energy to do the electrolysis. RTFA. Currently it takes 3-4 times the energy to do the electrolysis than you get out by putting the hydrogen and oxygen back together.
I thought of this when someone first told me about fuel cells. To anyone familiar with conventional thermal cycles and the basics of thermodynamics, the approach is obvious. Thermal cycles take advantage of thermal energy gradients. That such a potential could be exploited with fuel cells seems to be an obvious extention. Hot water is easier to separate than cold water, duh! So you heat the water up, separate it and then combine it in a cold fuel cell. The difference is energy you can use but the devil is in the details. It seems easier than using a turbine but you'd want one of those too if you can't extract all of the heat in electrolysis.
I'm glad someone is finally working on it. People are so slow. I expect the petroleum and coal industries to step in and kill it before anyone can use it.
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> In fact how is this make more pure hydrogen? there isnt another gas in distilled water and when the gasses seperate, they did not come in contact with any outside objects.
The goal isn't to make purer hydrogen, it's to produce hydrogen using less energy.
The article doesn't state why it has to be a nuke reactor, only that the thing requires 300 megawatts to produce 2.5KGs of Hydrogen. What if it were 300mW from a hydro dam or some other source, would that work?
Or is it somemehow tied into the hot water system of a nuke powered steam turbine?
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
to provide enough H2 to replace our use of gasoline for personal transportation, according to google (about 1.18B gallons/year). While there are certainly some risks to mitigate with nuclear power, such an H2 infrastructure could be built in the near future. Once done, the nuclear portion could be replaced by whatever better power source comes next (He3 fusion, perhaps), without requiring any changes to the infrastructure. Mark
... as there seems to be a requirement for the FORBIDDEN TECHNOLOGY. So much for that idea. Anyways, there will never be a lack of hydocarbons so who needs an alternative? We just have to make hydrocarbon use cleaner and more efficient.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
http://jlnlabs.online.fr/cfr/index.htm
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Currently the simplest method of using hyrdogen to POWER A CAR which is the subject at hand, is to inject it into the fuel line and BURN it in the engine.
Until we are using entirely electric cars, hydrogen as used in cars IS a combustion fuel.
Well, if we can actually get fusion power to work then we can burn hydrogen to get the power to separate hydrogen for use in fuel cells. That really would be ironic...and no long term, dangerous nuclear waste either.
The key word here is 'efficient'. The researchers claim to have come up with a way to seperate hydrogen and oxygen from water that is significantly more efficient thant elctrolisis.
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So if it uses less energy, could we manage to do this with less energy than what's produced from combustion when you ignite the H's in an atmosphere filled with O's?
I assume you also have touched a cup of microwaved H2o and had it instantly boil over on your hand.
It's an interesting apparent contridiction because the water seems already hot enough to boil, yet it does't until the container is moved.
Anyone care to explain why this is?
You just made some drug lords VERY happy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Imagine this. A plant that society actually produces that is useful That is, it can not only create extremely hot water that will create hydrogen from the nuclear reactions but also use the heat byproducts to create electrical energy to serve out to the public. In the future, I see power solely from nuclear power plants with a yield of electricity and power for our electric and/or hydrogen powered vehicles.
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...but instead producing toxic and radioactive waste for which we still have no long term storage solution.
The radioactive material we put in reactors is toxic and radioactive BEFORE we put it in the reactor, it's just in your backyard instead of a holding tank or mountain.
If you remove all the CO2 prducing energy sources you reduce the amound of 'Green House' gasses that trap heat on the Earth and replace those emmisions with H20, would that not create more clouds causing energy to be reflected from the Earth and therefore cause 'Global Cooling'?
I don't understand why this parent comment 10938663 post is rated -1 offtopic at this time.
I think talking about nuclear power at sea selling hydrogen back to the mainland has everything to do with this post even if people don't like the political overtones. Some of the followups are also rated down. Does someone have an agenda or what?
Hmm, nuclear reactions? Isn't the point to get hydrogen to be used with fusion(w/ helium3) without any byproducts? If you need to start using nuclear reactions, this still isn't a 'great' way to get hydrogen. I still believe using solarpanels and using electrolysis for getting hydrogen is still the best way. No CO2, no nuclear waste... Well that's just my opinion...
Fusion of helium-3 would be divine. Pity there isn't much here on Earth. (The moon is another matter.) It also usually costs hundred of dollars per litre. Bear in mind that there are several other reaction paths to fusion that don't require He-3. They aren't as ideal - just more practical.
Solar panels have their place, but they're never going to produce the amount of hydrogen needed for even a single nation's infrastructure. Even if solar panels were much more efficient, electrolysis itself isn't very energy efficient.
(As an aside, I was pleasantly suprised to run across an article about using good old Stirling engines & an array of mirrors to generate power from the sun - at higer efficiencies than panels and at costs comparable to fossil fuels. Have a read)
Now, on to the point of the story. Basically, some of the Generation IV nuclear reactor designs* can be used to produce lots of hydrogen, more or less as a byproduct of their operation. (Because of the extreme temperatures) So the fact that you've suddenly got the means for a hydrogen economy is a side-benefit.
Gen. IV reactor designs are cleaner, safer, more efficient, and generally smaller than their clunky old (current) counterparts. Yes, they are still fission. And while MOX reactors (which compose some of the designs) have questions about fuel reuse, a bona fide fusion reactor can be used to re-enrich spent fission fuel. (ie, blanket of uranium around reaction chamber, etc.) Fusion lets you make fission clean, or as close to it as possible.
Why is that important? Because no one is going to initially drop the trillion or so dollars to build the first commercially viable fusion reactor, when and if one is ever designed. ITER itself will be just a stepping stone, if it ever actually gets built. In the mean time, we'll still be fissioning away...
*Because of irrational fear and paranoia in the USA, most commercial reactors are Generation I or II. Not much has changed since the 70s. Nuclear can be dangerous, but it generally isn't and needn't be. It's debatable whether government run power plants would be any better, but it scares the hell out of me that our reactors in the USA are run as cheaply as they can possibly get away with. Capitalism is great, but you just can't try to undercut safety.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
If you were being serious about that statement your stupidity is showing. Hydrogen is less explosive than gasoline, and unless you can heat it to a temperature of a few million degrees or so you won't see hydrogen exploding like at bikini atol.
BTW most of the people who died on the Hindenburg were burned by DIESEL FUEL, not hydrogen! (or they were killed by the sudden stop at then end of a fall).
English is easier said than done.
Of course there is no "creation" of energy
Nuclear reactors convert mass into energy. So there is less mass in the universe and there is more energy.
You don't "create" energy, but you are "unpacking" a lot of energy and transforming it in heat, a lot of heat.
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This one won't fly with the tin foil hat crowd who are convinced that the only reason we don't have a hydrogen economy today is because of the evil conspiracy of greedy oil companies.
Now that there is a viable means of producing hydrogen, they'll have to retreat to the real fringe of the 'Free Energy' devices. I can hear it now: The CIA wants oil or nukes. The CIA will fight and kill to prevent any sort of clean alternative.
So this is a way to sell poisonous nuclear reactors, by using the efficiency of H2 energy storage/retrieval. These reactors still create radioactive waste, which is not only poisonous, but a geopolitical crisis. And factoring in the energy to build these reactors reduces their efficiency. How about biomass reactors that generate hydrogen from agricultural waste, which are neither radioactive nor wasteful?
--
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Yeah, I prefer my gasoline bomb. Also I'm sure the hoarde (HURD?) of nerds can tell you all about the Hindenburg and the skin and combustion and pressure and all sorts of neat things that I have no idea about.
English is easier said than done.
As opposed to the 15-20 gallons of extremely flamable liquid fuel you carry about without too many problems?
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Good Doctor Frink, I'm interested in your advanced hyperbolic topology degrees. Do you sell those in Redmond?
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Good point. However, this still produces less energy than it uses, which was the distinction I was making from fusion. OK, I know, currently fusion also falls into this category, but you know what I mean. Regardless of how hydrogen is used as a fuel (combustion or not), it currently is best viewed as an energy storage device.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Generation IV Nuclear Reactors
Very high-temperature gas reactors. These are graphite-moderated, helium-cooled reactors, based on substantial experience . The core can be built of prismatic blocks such as the Japanese HTTR and the GTMHR under development by General Atomics and others in Russia, or it may be pebble bed such as the Chinese HTR-10 and the PBMR under development in South Africa, with international partners. Outlet temperature of 1000C enables thermochemical hydrogen production via an intermediate heat exchanger, with electricity cogeneration, or direct high-efficiency driving of a gas turbine (Brayton cycle). There is some flexibility in fuels, but no recycle. Modules of 600 MW thermal are envisaged
This isn't really correct - although pretty much all the power reactors in the USA are water cooled (primarily due to the Navy's interest is nuclear propulsion), there are plenty of gas cooled reactors elsewhere. Most of our (Britain's) nuclear generating capacity is from either AGR (Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors) or Magnox (named after the Mg-alloy fuel can) reactors, both of which use carbon dioxide as the coolant.
So, the technology may be new to the USA, but there's are wealth of knowledge on designing and running these reactors elsewhere in the world.
Oh yes, they're arguably quite a bit safer than PWRs as well!
The product of hydrogen combustion is water. If this is released into the environment, then we're dealing with another greenhouse gas (water vapor).
Yeah, let's link to radio or television.
Whenever I see someone cite "cost" as a major hurdle to this kind of investment I just shake my head. What you actually mean is "short-sightedness", since the cost of not doing something like this is never represented properly. Someone needs to put a dollar figure on what the total destruction of our environment (ie the planet), and the impact on human health, of car exhaust/smog/fossil fuels truly is.
I think that if these costs were factored into the equation, the money involved in building a few nukes to power a clean, H2O-exhausting economy would be MINISCULE by comparison.
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
I assume you also have touched a cup of microwaved H2o and had it instantly boil over on your hand.
It's an interesting apparent contridiction because the water seems already hot enough to boil, yet it does't until the container is moved.
Anyone care to explain why this is?
To vaporize, water needs something to form a steam bubble around. Coffee grounds, sugar, or ridges on a metal pot will work for this. But, if you heat up pure water in a smooth ceramic cup in the microwave, there isn't anything to induce it to form steam. Thus, when you spoon that instant coffee in, it explodes.
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What would be far more influential in building the hydrogen economy is solar powered electralysis made cheap. I've heard about some prototypes, but I think they're currently far more than your average gas station can afford. Local production would have to be the intermediate solution that bridges between a concept and widespread adoption.
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Though not as bad as CO2, water vapor is also a greenhouse gas.
While I agree that nuclear power is dangerous, and the waste products are a long term issue, many people (myself included) view it as the lesser of two evils.
Ignore, for a moment, advanced passive power generation and fusion power. What do we have now to power our civilization? Fossil fuels and nuclear energy. If we could reduce our power consumption, or rely more on existing passive generators (like solar and hydro), then we would need less actively generated power. We could never reduce our power requirements to zero without our civilization collapsing (see Dyson's theories, as well as conservation of energy and thermodynamics). This means that we're still stuck with waste products, nuclear or otherwise.
Given only those two choices, I choose nuclear. I recognize the risks and long term hazards of it, but it is still a better alternative to climate change and air pollution. Moreover, in the long term, fossil fuels will run out far sooner than fissile fuel. My hope is that we get working fusion power, and alternative energy sources, but in the meantime nuke plants are the better route.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
...perfect for espresso machines.
True, caffeine's totally potent when it's radioactive...
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
Following on the heels of this announcement, I'm dismayed with the press-conference style of scientific announcement. Advancements should hit the journals for peer-review first, even if they are a government funded project, and then move on to the press-conference. I hand myself a large plate of salt whenever "scientists" hold a press-conference.
Basically, yes.
This system works on the heat production to heat the water. So hydro or wind wouldn't work efficiently. Other systems that use the steam cycle to power turbines probably would.
Using a hydrocarbon based power plant would be defeating the purpose, besides, there's more efficient methods of making hydrogen from hydrocarbonds than even hot water electrolysis.
The mirror type solar power plant might work too, but they cost an order of magnitude more to make per megawatt than a nuclear plant. And they're not manintenance free once built.
I don't read AC A human right
At very high temperatures, such as 1000C, you can actually crack water into H2 and O2. This would be the most efficient design because it doesn't require using electricity, just the heat generated from the reaction.
This would require a new design of a nuclear reactor though but maybe it's the next step after this high temperature electrolysis method.
It's only dirty if the radioactive waste stays here on earth. The cost of launching payloads into space is getting ever cheeper with new technologies and commercial interest. This will only get better over time. What with relatively low cost ion drives available now, it's feasible that radioactive waste shot into space can be put into a slow speed trajectory aimed away from us and into the Sun. Eventually the Sun's gravity will take over and finish the job off.
Sure this will all still cost money, but there's bound to be a break even point between the cost of a space launch and the cost of long term storage and clean up bills. And that can't be very far away.
Interesting... This would be even more efficient in solar or cogeneration applications, where a solar furnace or waste heat from the generation plant could be used to heat the electrolytic vessel.
Do some basic research into simple chemistry before making comments like this, please. When two molecules of water is turned into two molecules of hydrogen with an input of energy, a molecule of oxygen will also be formed, which will be released into the air. The hydrogen fuel will then be combined with oxygen to produced energy, and water forms as a by-product, with no net loss in water or energy (aside from losses in inefficient conversion processes and inability to utilize energies released).
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I don't understand why this hydrogen production method requires the unobtainium of a high-temperature nuclear reactor - it sounds like the breakthrough is in the electrolysis method. Couldn't this be applied to (say) a solar furnace?
Which will condense and fall as rain, flowing into rivers and drains, and back out to sea again completing the circle.
Where is your problem again?
Sounds like the same technique should work with solar energy, both the heating and the electrolysis.
And, when you have a space-shuttle style accident, you spread nuclear wastes over most of South Texas. Thanks, but I'll take Yucca Mountain.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
I'd bet my left kidney it is the smallest molecule in the universe. I mean, there ain't much else smaller that one of the hydrogens in H2 could bond to 'cept more hydrogen. ::eye roll::
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Nuclear companies have nuclear power reactors to put out hydrogen (as a byproduct) ready and good to go, and have had them ready for quite some time. The hold up, in America, is that people are afraid of Nuclear Power, but in a few years as coal rises in cost (it will this winter for example--the cost of the coal has tripled on the East Coast of the U.S., but not the West Coast), there will be a demand for new reactors. However, the reactors that are desired are high energy steam generators, which are NOT the hydrogen power byproduct generators.
The reason being is because they are still fine tuning these hydrogen byproduct generators to not waste so much energy actually creating the hydrogen (costs energy to split from the other molecules, such as H2O), which is a big concern for the power companies, as they want to maximize profit and that means not wasting energy. Sure, you have the hydrogen eventually, but a lot of the energy is just lost in the conversion process.
The radioactive material we put in reactors is toxic and radioactive BEFORE we put it in the reactor, it's just in your backyard instead of a holding tank or mountain.
Honest to god, sometimes I wonder about the feasibility of just liquidating the waste and spraying it, very dilutely, over, say, half of Utah. And I mean it, really spread it out, hundreds of square miles.
Because, as you get at, it already is really spread out. The danger comes when we concentrate it.
Yeah, I know it seems kooky at first, but seriously, think about it a bit. It probably isn't as crazy as it sounds. It may still be crazy, but not as crazy as it sounds.
(The only real counter I have is that by having it all on the surface it might wash away and collect somewhere. But what if we buried a diluted pound of it six feet underground, spread across thousands of square miles?)
Consider it a thought experiment. I am not seriously proposing this. But it is worth considering.
(Remember, there's nothing magically bad about radioactivity...)
Hydrogen has about 120MJ/kg of energy (lower heat value). They're saying that it either makes 300 MW of electricity or 2.5 kg/sec of hydrogen, which would imply 100% efficiency for electricty->hydrogen (2.5 kg/sec is the same as 300MW).
I wonder if they're just making up numbers, as 100% efficiency seems unreasonable good.
1) you need to produce the coke
2) you need to do something with the carbon monoxide
3) you need to heat the water to > 1000 C directly (not as a side effect of some other process, as in the articles' nuclear reactor)
Are the energy/material costs of 1, 2 and 3 close to or not much greater than the costs of operating a nuclear reactor and dealing with the cooling reduction placed on it by the hydrogen producing process?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
very high temperatures hybdogen gas nuclear reactors What could possibly go wrong
Pressure.
Your head a splode
Though you sound more like a troll.... A H2 powered car outputs water as its main byproduct.. ( aside from the energy of course )
So as long as we dont split more water then exists on the planet, and stop all consumption of the H2, at any one time, we are fine.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Remember, life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease. If you wait for the perfect solution before you do anything then you will never do anything.
Now, perhaps I missed the part of your post where you offered some real alternatives to the existing carbon based fuels?
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
An oil pipeline would make a much more impressive explosion than a burst H2 transport. (primarily because H2 dissapates _very_ rapidly).
I think hydrogen is safer w.r.t. terrorists/industrial accidents.
Unfortunately we don't have an inexpensive way to get it from hither to thither.
It might be that we have to go to intermediary carriers, like methane or something.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Well, the radioactivity is increased by fissioning the fuel. By chain reacting the stuff you've sped up the nuclear reactions, even after the fuel has been removed from the core. So the net radiation in the environment _would_ increase (temporarily - this would cool in time to background levels).
But in terms of "ideal" waste disposal, why go to all that trouble? Most of the nastier waste products can still be used as fuel (after reprocessing). Even the ones that can't be used up could be safely amassed deep underground and used to power something very like a geothermal generator. We could bury the stuff in a geological subdcution zone, and simply wait.
Even in terms of final disposal using modern technology, burying the waste far below the water table in a geologically stable region would do the trick. After all, as long as it goes _down_, and doesn't find its way back up, it hardly matters how concentrated it is. Place the waste "dump" at a subduction zone with a geothermal generator, and you've got waste containment, power generation and eventual disposal by geological means. Best of all worlds.
Spraying the stuff around would work, but you'd never get people to agree on where to spray it. Even ignoring the environmentalists, no one would want to be anywhere near the hypothetical dumping zone. NIMBY and all that.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Fuel cells can't be used by existing vehicles, so no, they aren't viable anytime in the near future.
Existing vehicles COULD be converted for a couple hundred bucks in the shop to use hydrogen if it were readily available. That makes hydrogen as a combustion fuel viable now.
On the other hand, this possibility is never mentioned by the mainstream media. That tells me that the oil companies have bought radio silence on this issue. It also tells me that if someone did try to make it happen, there would be ten pounds of red tape slapped on the issue immediately. This would also require the gas stations to offer hydrogen and almost all gas stations are owned by oil companies.
Personally, I would rather run electrolysis in my house: plug the Hydrogen car into wall. Then I won't have to go to the gas station anymore.
The question is of course one of efficiency, how efficiently can a reactor turn water into hydrogen and how much does it cost to build and maintain the infrastructure to carry around hydrogen in a safe manner, vs. the cost of lossy transmission lines and then cost of hydrolysis.
The other advantage would be that if the goal is to produce electricity rather than hydrogen, the cost of electricity will go down too.
As one who hates going to the gas station, I'm all for hydrolysis at the home.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
Has everyone forgotten the Three Mile Island and Hindenburg accidents?
Hmm... an incident (TMI) that happened over a quarter century ago? Another that happened 67 years ago? We've come a long way since these incidents. That's what progress is all about; living and learnign and USING this new knowledge for a better system.
And how is the hydrogen fuel to be transported?
With the use of the Texaco Ovonic Hydrogen Systems metal hydride containment units. It creates a stable form of hydrogen. The US DoT has already approved the system.
I'm afraid we'd be inviting disaster and a sitting target for terrorists.
These same circumstances exist today. We're not creating a new hazard.
(nucular for Dubya types)
This is a fairly wise remark from someone who seems to have posted before they sat and really given any thought on the subject. This is what's called a knee jerk reaction.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
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BMW make a dual-fuel 750iL which runs on either hydrogen or petrol. Apparently you can go and buy one in Germany but the only Hydrogen station is in Munich(?) (http://www.bmwworld.com/models/745h.htm or google for more details.)
Before anybody gets stressed about the potential for explosion, the H2 is stored as a liquid at atmospheric pressure in a container that is very, very well insulated to keep it cool. Something like the equivalent of 12 feet of styrofoam IIRC.
IMHO this is the way of the future. It's a real internal combustion engine so you can REV it. Yeah! Also it is compatible with regular gasoline for the short term, its only emissions are water (and a bit of NOx I guess) and there are no stupid, expensive, toxic fuelcell catalysts to replace.
sustainable living
At the levels of CO2 that we're putting into the atmosphere today, it's likely that biological sinks could reduce CO2 to preindustrial levels in about 200 years, but if we continue to burn fossil fuels for the next two centuries, the biological and short-term chemical sinks will have been saturated.
Based on what we know about the slow (geological) sinks, it could well take on the order of a few million years to get back to preindustrial levels of CO2 from the levels we expect if we burn up all the known coal reserves (estimated at around 250 years from now at current rates of consumption).
Therefore, I am much more concerned with CO2 emissions than with nuclear waste.
I doubt that a reactor will put out enough fuel to cover a city, or even two gas stations for that matter.
There's an estimated 360 million gallons of gasoline consumed daily in the US. This plant will produce 400,000 kilos. This may not be enough for a truly large city but it's more than you think it is. It's certainly more than two gas stations worth. To put it into a bit more of a prospective; a gas tanker (semi truck type) holds 9,000 gallons of gas.
We're gonna need a bigger source than that if we want to use hydrogen.
Sure, it's not a singular solution but fuel creation today isn't a singular solution either. It's actually encouraging that we're going to have so many potential sources. If we weren't so reliant on our current sources of oil we'd probably not be in the situation we're in today. Also consider that in all reality fuel cell is a long way off. Is it still going to take a kilo of hydrogen to produce the same energy as a gallon of gas? doubtful. And this plant, if it takes off, will be modified and output will likely be increased.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.htm l?tw=wn_tophead_7
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 - Researchers at a government nuclear laboratory and a ceramics company in Salt Lake City say they have found a way to produce pure hydrogen with far less energy than other methods, raising the possibility of using nuclear power to indirectly wean the transportation system from its dependence on oil.
The development would move the country closer to the Energy Department's goal of a "hydrogen economy," in which hydrogen would be created through a variety of means, and would be consumed by devices called fuel cells, to make electricity to run cars and for other purposes. Experts cite three big roadblocks to a hydrogen economy: manufacturing hydrogen cleanly and at low cost, finding a way to ship it and store it on the vehicles that use it, and reducing the astronomical price of fuel cells.
"This is a breakthrough in the first part," said J. Stephen Herring, a consulting engineer at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, which plans to announce the development on Monday with Cerametec Inc. of Salt Lake City.
The developers also said the hydrogen could be used by oil companies to stretch oil supplies even without solving the fuel cell and transportation problems.
Mr. Herring said the experimental work showed the "highest-known production rate of hydrogen by high-temperature electrolysis."
But the plan requires the building of a new kind of nuclear reactor, at a time when the United States is not even building conventional reactors. And the cost estimates are uncertain.
The heart of the plan is an improvement on the most convenient way to make hydrogen, which is to run electric current through water, splitting the H2O molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. This process, called electrolysis, now has a drawback: if the electricity comes from coal, which is the biggest source of power in this country, then the energy value of the ingredients - the amount of energy given off when the fuel is burned - is three and a half to four times larger than the energy value of the product. Also, carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions increase when the additional coal is burned.
Hydrogen can also be made by mixing steam with natural gas and breaking apart both molecules, but the price of natural gas is rising rapidly.
The new method involves running electricity through water that has a very high temperature. As the water molecule breaks up, a ceramic sieve separates the oxygen from the hydrogen. The resulting hydrogen has about half the energy value of the energy put into the process, the developers say. Such losses may be acceptable, or even desirable, because hydrogen for a nuclear reactor can be substituted for oil, which is imported and expensive, and because the basic fuel, uranium, is plentiful.
The idea is to build a reactor that would heat the cooling medium in the nuclear core, in this case helium gas, to about 1,000 degrees Celsius, or more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The existing generation of reactors, used exclusively for electric generation, use water for cooling and heat it to only about 300 degrees Celsius.
The hot gas would be used two ways. It would spin a turbine to make electricity, which could be run through the water being separated. And it would heat that water, to 800 degrees Celsius. But if electricity demand on the power grid ran extremely high, the hydrogen production could easily be shut down for a few hours, and all of the energy could be converted to electricity, designers say.
The goal is to create a reactor that could produce about 300 megawatts of electricity for the grid, enough to run about 300,000 window air-conditioners, or produce about 2.5 kilos of hydrogen per second. When burned, a kilo of hydrogen has about the same energy value as a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline. But fuel cells, which work without burning, get about twice as much work out of each unit of fuel. So if used in automotive fuel cells, the reactor might replace more than 400,000 gallons of gasoline per
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I live in Ireland, you insensitive clod! It only stops raining one day a year and you want to take that away too? ;)
Even a tiny nuclear reactor contains more radioactive material than the Hiroshima bomb. Blowing one up with a truckload of conventional explosives may not kill a lot of people, but surely will contaminate a large area for a long time.
One of the "problems" with so called dirty-bombs fashioned from reactor material is that you really can't kill a lot of people. The effect will be mostly psychological.
Thankfully, the material inside anything but a research reactor is very low enrichment. Say 3-10% at most. To make a real Nuke, you need 85-95% enrichment. And a pretty sophisticated bomb design - you can't just pack it with TNT and hope.
So what are we left with?
If you just blow the thing up: really, really deadly stuff (like radioactive Xenon, etc) has a short half-life or otherwise quickly clears out. What you're left to deal with are several chunks of uranium. They're harmful, but only localy. The area can be closed off and decontaminated. Few people will die.
If you want a much bigger disbursion: You have to first grind the nasty stuff down into a fine powder. Very risky to do for a terrorist, even with lots of fancy equipment that likely wouldn't have. When you blow it up, it spreads the dust over a much larger area. The downside is that the dose to any indiviual is going to be much lower. You'll make some people sick, sure, but you won't kill many people.
This is all Good For Us(tm).
A much greater threat is theft of radioisotopes from hospitals, etc, which are relatively unguarded. Nothing like putting "deadly radioisotopes" in a town's water supply to comepletely freak out the general populace.
Which is what they* want.
*insert your favorite evil terrorist group here.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
One of the problems with hydrogen cars is the availability of hydrogen stations. The easier it is to generate hydrogen, the more likely adoption will be.
Also, this is expensive enough that consumers won't have their own; as such, a company (shell, or whatever) can sell to stations in cells, or tanks. This can be taxed, regulated, and still allow the energy companies to stay in business. Not that it's perhaps the best thing, but it's less likely to have the government fearing loss of tax money, or energy companies trying to shoot it down.
What about huge space-based mirrors (not the glass kind) reflecting sunlight down to a small area on earth where it could be converted to electricity...this can also be used for regular electrolysis or heating up the H2O for heated electrolysis. They are developing space sails for ships...probably can be adapted to become mirrors?
I'm curious to read the real press release on Monday because the article doesn't have enough information to really judge the merits of the idea.
First of all, the temperature at which the process runs is very important. If you reach a high enough temperature, you don't even need electricity, the water will break up on its own. However, in addition to forming hydrogen, it will form other radicals which will rapidly corrode your system. This has been demonstrated with solar concentrators.
Second, as people have pointed out, running at high temperatures will also require running at high pressures. But generally, electrolysis of water doesn't like high pressures much since one molecule of water takes up less space than 1.5 molecules of H2 and O2. It would be nice to know what the equilibrium concentrations are at their operating temperature and pressure.
Third, if the process is as simple as electrolysis of hot water, then there isn't any reason why it requires a nuclear reactor. A solar concentrator would be sufficient. However, it might not be as cost effective. If they're relying on waste heat from a nuclear reactor to make the process cheaper, I would want to know why this process is better than just using the energy to power a steam turbine.
Your post is mostly correct, but I don't recall having to heat my lighter to a few million degrees before detonating vials of the stuff in chemistry class.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
There was a risk of a hydrogen gas explosion inside the containment at Three Mile Island when the core melted there -- the dissociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen with high enough temperatures is no surprise.
Except maybe to a patent examiner?
Radioactive Thanks for playing!
You can perform the same trick the other direction. If you carefully cool a cup of water using the right container, you can get it a fair amount below 0C at normal pressure. Throw in a grain of salt, and the whole thing violently freezes, sometimes shattering the container.
Phase changes just require some sort of trigger, often a tiny bit of turbulent flow around a sharp corner, scratch, or any local disturbance. The further the fluid is above or below its expected boiling or freezing point, the more unstable the situation is and the smaller the trigger needed.
With standard household stuff, superheating or supercooling water by 5C-10C is doable. The shattered glass trick is tougher because you need to supercool water about 15C-20C to get sufficiently violent freezing. When the fridge compressor is running, it usually generates enough vibration to trigger the phase change before the water is cold enough.
If this is released into the environment, then we're dealing with another greenhouse gas (water vapor).
It is far worse than one would imagine. You can read more about the dangers here about the byproduct of hydrogen combustion. Truly sobering....were they to put these in automobiles, they would generate a key component of acid rain.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I heard they designed a car engine which could run off of silly conspiracy theories, but the Boy Scouts and Knights Templars suppressed it.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
>> Moreover, in the long term, fossil fuels will run out far sooner than fissile fuel.
>Where do you get your figures from?
I've run into various estimates on fuel reserves (quick google seach turned up all sorts of contradictory ones), and I'm not sure which to trust. What I do know is that we can build breeder reactors to get more fuel, and we can use Thorium fuel (which we don't use now). We cannot extend our fossil fuel supply, and I would much prefer we stop using them anyway (at least as fuel). If we need combustable hydrocarbons, we should invest in biodiesel for the long term.
>> see Dyson's theories, as well as conservation of energy and thermodynamics
>You think using solar and wind energy will contribute more heat than using nuclear or fossil fuel?
No. The theory in question (source of the famous "Dyson sphere" concept) stated that at no point in history has any human society reduced its requirements for power except by collapsing. Whether that power is provided by human or animal muscles, chemical combustion or nuclear fission/fusion, the energy input required increases, indefinitily. What that means for us is that, in all probability, we will never lower our net power consumption. We could maintain our present levels for a long time by conservation, but at some stage we would need a means of active power generation (like coal or nuclear).
Passive power generation requires an abundant source of otherwise untapped energy. Solar, wind and hydro, for instance, make perfect sense in some places. We cannot rely on those means of generation everywhere, however, and tranporting the power from its place of generation would itself require more power. The net amount of energy available to the earth on a day to day basis is finite, and we probably can only ever tap a fraction of it with any degree of effeciency, barring the construction of a Dyson sphere.
Thermodynamics in this context has more to do with moving energy than it does with waste heat.
>There are many choices to choose from renewable energy. Why discount them because they're not widely used?
On this, I agree. But you'll note that I specified power sources _presently_ available in my original post, not sources still under development or yet to be proven effective. I was only comparing fission to fossil fuels and established passive power (ie, hydro). Otherwise I would advocate fusion, since it would replace nuclear power with a cleaner alternative. Fusion and advanced alternative energy are still a ways off, and even then they aren't magic bullets.
>> While I agree that nuclear power is dangerous, and the waste products are a long term issue, many people (myself included) view it as the lesser of two evils
>Which waste products are you referring to? I'll bet you're referring to spent fuel. Thus, if you live near one of these places, I'd love to hear your support for nuclear fission.
Spent fuel rods, contaminated equipment, decommisioned reactor cores; all of the above. We can contain those waste products, whereas the waste from burning coal and oil is _already_ loose in the environment. And for the record, coal plants release far more radioisotopes that were previously trapped in the coal than a nuclear plant does (since the nuke plant keeps its' waste indoors).
As for storage, why simply stow the stuff when it can be used up? The fuel rods can be reprocessed (and are, outside the US), the nastiest shit is generally short lived, and the rest can be buried beneath the water table, or in a subduction zone.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
"The Thermal Conversion Process, or TCP, mimics the earth's natural geothermal process by using water, heat and pressure."
http://69.18.157.103/what/index.asp
So, rather than risk the issues with Nuclear power; using a TCP facility to clean up a chemical waste dump and bring oils and hydrogen to the local populace. Note: not included in their website but in other articles, the size of their facilities can either be huge or small, small being something which can be fitted on the back of an 18 wheeler.
I don't know how large the facility would need to be to safely deal with the heats necassary for making hydrogen, but we may be looking at a "Light industrial complex." answer.
Keyword in the grandparent post is: Bikini Atoll.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Never said those wouldn't work. By "passive" power, I mean power sources that harness energy in the environment and convert it to electricity (ie hydro - running water).
:-)
But I'm Canadian. Can you imagine trying to build solar plants in Nova Scotia? Or costal power in Alberta?
This actually illustrates my point nicely; you're Austrailian, and Austrailia has numerous passive energy sources to tap. We do too (in Ontario and Quebec, most of the power is hyrdo), but they're all very regional (as, undoubtably, are yours). We will need centralized, active (ie fuel using) power, no matter what steps are taken towards conservation. The same applies throuhgout most of the developed world.
Given any possible technology to fill that role, I'd pick fusion. Lacking fusion, and leaving only fossil fuels and nuclear, I'd pick nuclear as the lesser evil. I'm all for alternative energy using passive means of generation. But, I'm a realist about our power requirements and our present ability to meet them. We should put money into alternative energy projects, and fusion power, and more effecient technology like hybrid cars. But until we get there, I'm pro nuclear for pragmatic reasons.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
I think Bubble fusion is the best hope of making fusion .
.
feasible for the entire planet
Toroid mag-coil hot plasma fusion is just too costly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_fusion
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
No, you're not the only one who's worried, but you also don't have a clue. TMI was 25 years ago, presumably we've learned a few things about nuclear power since then. Also let's look at what happened at TMI, there was an accident, and the reactor containment worked. End of story.
As for the Hindenburg, puhleeeze, could you pull your frickin head out of your ass for one frickin second here? Firstly do you have any natural gas powered appliances in your house (stove, dryer, gas fireplace, furnace)? If you do then you might be shocked to know that they burn methane gas, which is made largely of gasp hydrogen. Has your house exploded yet? No? OK. Let's also look at the fact that recent analyses (you can find one here) have shown that while the hydrogen in the Hindenburg contributed to the fire the proximate cause was the doping on the dirigible's fabric skin, which was composed of aluminum, iron oxide and cellulose nitrate, all of which are flammable. Hell, NASA has been handling liquid hydrogen for nearly 50 years, how many rockets have they had explode because of an accident with it? Not any that I can think of (the Challenger went down because the Solid Rocket Boosters, which contain aluminum powder similar to that used to coat the skin of the Hindenburg, burned through).
Finally, if you want to see some really nasty and horrific burns just head down to your local hospital burn ward and check out the guys who have burned themselves with gasoline. That's right, gasoline, that stuff you pump into your car every day is really, really, really flammable and nasty and if you get some burning gasoline on your skin you're pretty much guaranteed at least a second degree burn, if not worse. Yet despite this we manage to fuel millions of cars which drive millions of miles every day without having too many flaming wrecks along our roads and highways.
As for the threat from terrorism we've already seen what terrorists can do. Did we stop flying airplanes? No, we just put largely ineffective security measures in place. But if a terrorist ever tries to hijack a plane with a box cutter again he's going to find himself head first up to his shoulders in that blue liquid they put in the airplane toilets while hordes of angry passengers pound that box cutter right up his ass. Terrorism is a risk, but it really pisses me off how many people just throw it up as an excuse not to do something rather than as a risk that needs to be taken into account as part of the overall cost / benefit analysis of a specific action.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
The sender is wrong with this process being "electrolyzing", electrolyzing is process of turning hydrogen and oxygen into water, and in doing so creates electricity, done with technology called fuel cells.
Using carbon electrodes with water to create hydrogen that feeds fuel cells has, and is being done by some universities in America and even by NASA as a pollutant free alternative to powering low current lab devices.
The carbon in those electrodes has to come from somewhere. It is NOT a renewable resource or anywhere close to a renewable energy source
According to this site
"Carbon is one of the most abundant elements found on earth" which is what the sender stated not "renewable".
This "miracle device" makes use of a very old concept, and there is much work going on with coal gasification, and no need for the use of electricity. Very useful and legitimate, and it is by no means on the "fringe", just don't tout it as something that it isn't!!!
I'm not aware of some of the new technologies being looked into by energy board but I've seen a car powered from the process of using carbon electrodes and water to create hydrogen and it's works, not only that it didn't cost much to do. It might not be the most efficient technology to power high current devices but if it can power a car, why isn't it being used to power cars?
Poor spelling in the article immediately suggested "crackpot," but I knew something was really loopy when I got to the part about replacing your gas tank with a plastic water tank. At least the water can't catch fire in an accident. :-)
Moderators, attention please!
"A worthy cause has never been harmed by the truth" - Gandhi
Toss it over the side onto the Greenpeace zodiacs?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
when you spoon that instant coffee in, it explodes
instant explosion upon spooning eh?
sounds like most guys on slashdot.
-judging another only defines yourself
Also of note, you can superheat pure deionized water, since the only reason (in most cases) that water boils at all is because of impurities in the water itself. I believe they tested this on Myth Busters, superheating pure water in a microwave and then dropping in a spoon for an instant boiling water explosion.
Actually, my point about thermodynamics had to do with the viability of alternative energy in terms of local generation of power.
To clarify: distributed solar is a good idea, along the lines of solar shingles and hot water heating. But it will only alleviate the pressure on the grid, and even then it will only work in places where sunlight can be relied upon. Tidal and hydro will work, where tides and rivers allow. Geothermal will work where existing vents are present. Centralized passive power in general is a good idea, where conditions allow.
None of these methods are in question, and none requires complicated technology. But how would you deal with a location that lacked accessible passive power to tap? Or an area that used far more power than it could ever draw from the environment? How would you deal with vehicle power requirements? Transporting that power via, say, a non-nuclear, non-oil, hydrogen economy would be grossly inefficient. Not only are you dealing with transport costs, which apply to fossil fuels too, you're dealing with producing the stuff in the first place. Transmitting the energy over power lines makes little sense if the producer and consumer aren't even on the same continent. We need power plants that can be built to specification anywhere, and such plants invariable burn some sort of fuel.
I don't buy the argument that waste heat from fission or fusion will be a global issue; the amount of heat energy released in the past fifty years by nuclear weapons tests was greater than the amount of heat leaked from power plants. I also don't think that fusion or fission using fuel has any bearing on them being non-renewable. I doubt we could seriously dent the quantities of fissile material available to us before we get fusion operational, and calling fusion non-renewable when it uses _hydrogen_ isotopes is like calling solar energy non-renewable because the sun will eventually burn out.
We both agree that nuclear energy is hazardous and renewables are a good approach to getting humanity off the fossil fuel and nuke teat. But I'm saying that until we can rely on those energy sources, plus fusion power, we'll need to accept either nuclear or coal. And nuclear plants, while nasty in many respects, are the lesser evil, hands down. This isn't a matter of solar, hydro et al not being any good; it's a matter of them being good enough.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Welcome to your new Hot Electrolysis System. With proper care and maintenance your systems will give you years of trouble free hydrogen production. Follow these instructions carefully:
...super compress the water..
1) Connect water pipes
2) Take a nuclear reactor (not included) and...
At this point you start to wonder how efficient
3)
At this point you realize you're going to be fired because you bought your company an impractical dud..
No I'm not being serious.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Yeah, I know, the ocean is salt water, not fresh water. But, if you are super-heating the water with a nuclear reactor, it'll seperate from the salt anyhow. Just have to clean the salt (and other dissolved minerals/metals) that accumulates in the evaporator out periodically (daily?), and, probably, dump most of the salt back into the ocean (not directly though - use it for road salt or table salt or whatever - it'll get back to the ocean eventually).
.
So, what's the problem? I don't think there's any shortage of water in the ocean. .
And before anyone goes on a rant about making the oceans gradually more and more (or maybe less and less) concentrated by this process, remember that 1) the water will eventually go back in the ocean as rain, and 2) The salt will probably end up back in the ocean eventually, also. As for the minerals, I doubt the oceans will miss the small amounts of minerals we pull out, and I suspect we will find them usefull.
polar h20 molecules are flipped or spun as the microwave passes by them. because the em field emparts energy into the molecules, they can contain enough energy to phase shift. Think about covering a gym floor with basket balls so that none are touching. Then somehow make every ball spin at 10000 rpm. At first the balls would continue to sit on the floor spinning really fast. They have a ton of energy, but are still floor balls. Then a single ball is nudged into it's neighbor. Suddenly a chain reaction would happen with basketballs flying everywhere as the spin energy is converted into movement energy.
same thing happens in a microwave to h20, or any other free floating polar molecule. h20 just happen to absorb the microwave em very efficiently.
I'm well aware of that ;)
Why do you think that I hate coal power so much?
I don't read AC A human right
Question: So then why doesn't this indivdual go to a more 'enlightened' nation to sell his wares? Perhaps one which has no interest in the oil economy, other than being dependent on energy imports, such as Japan? I'm sure that they would be happy to rid themselves of the need to import all of their energy.
Answer: Perhaps because the invention is crap?
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
I actually superheated a cup of coffee once in a microwave. I went to stir in some sweetner and it instantly boiled. About 3/4ths the coffee went all over the stove.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
I'm surprised that this gets no attention.
Abiogenic petroleum
modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins
But knowing that they said it was better, that makes it better. right?
The difference is how much energy is involved per unit of water that is separated. Present technology (such as exercised in the chemistry class) is prohibitively inefficient when scaled up. And, hence, not cost-effective.
Not to mention that 70% of our power these days is from coal-burning plants so we're really not reducing pollution any at all, just changing the source.
All they're really trying to do here is make the separation process more energy efficient and scalable...
Sounds great! Can we start building it today? Next Year? Next ten years?
I don't read AC A human right
Nuclear energy is risky for the environment, but more traditional energy sources cost so much that it drives nations into wars. What if we'd say "okay, let's take the risk of building nuclear power plants everywhere so that we stop all fighting for the rare safer source." Would the total damages be reduced after all ?
Couldn't you pump something that didn't pick up quite so much shit and have a big head exchange at the top to heat the water.
That would solve one of the problems.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I understand that hydrogen Zepplins have become much safe since the hindenbutg... :)
Seriously, since it is a lighter that air gas could you not just use collapsable lighter than air transports that get trucked back to the generator after they deliver it? Why muck around with pipelines...
Just, I don't know, just too appropriate for the comment...
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Normally I'd use it to make "instant iced coffee"... so I started to pour it into a cup. It poured out as a liquid and started piling up in a column of ice. VERY odd visual effect - it looked like something CG happening in real life. I called over some coworkers, and they thought it was one of the coolest things they had seen. It looked a bit like a "dribble castle", for those who have made them at the beach.
We tried to reproduce it later, but it never happened again.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
- The USA used about 99 quadrillion BTU (quads) of total energy in 2003.
- The USA also has approximately 110,000 square kilometers of impervious area in the form of roofs and pavement, roughly enough to cover Ohio.
- Assuming 700 W/m^2 peak incoming sunlight over 6 hours on the average day, 365 days/year, that is (700/1054.4*3600*6*365*1.10e11) = 576 quads.
Obviously, solar energy is capable of supplying current US needs even at 20% efficiency. The reasons we're nowhere near to running the country with it are:- Solar energy cannot be scheduled; it is not available at night or through clouds.
- That requires storage technologies in addition to capture and conversion.
- Conversion of solar energy to anything except heat is quite a bit less efficient than most other sources (though this may change).
While it is all but certain that we will develop the technology to power the nation using solar energy (it's physically possible and we already have hints about most of the technology) nuclear is going to be cheaper for some time.Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I currently work in the refining business. Refineries consume a LOT of hydrogen to remove sulpher, and to convert parts of the crude oil stream into more valuable/usefull products. Hydrogen usage has gone up by quite a bit in order to produce cleaner fuels. You don't need a "hydrogen" based transport system to be able to use cheap sources of hydrogen in the energy business. Currently, most hydrogen comes from natural gas, and sometimes coke. With a non hydrocarbon source of hydrogen a lot more hydrocarbons could be converted into the liquid fuel that our society really wants. Commercial non hydrocarbon hydrogen sources changes the economics quite a bit since many hydrocarbon based fuels tend to have price correlation. Natural gas, and hence hydrogen prices, move roughly in step with oil prices. Breaking this relationship for the refinery business would be a HUGE change. For instance, Fuel oil, mostly a waste product these days, could be shifted into diesel or gasoline. Coal, Natural Gas, and other hydrocarbons not suited for liquid fuel usage could be far mor easily converted into other products. Further, a refinery is an energy HOG it requires a lot of steam and electricity to function. Much of that is produced with "extra" waste products. A close reactor that could supply, hydrogen, electricity, and steam to a facility would allow for great output per barrel (since less is used for fuel) and lower operating costs. Given cheap plentiful hydrogen a HUGE range of things could be converted into liquid fuels. This could change things in ways many other posters have not quite thought of. Basically, a more efficent usage of current hydrocarbons without having to make a massive new investment in capital.
I think you're vastly underestimating the difficulty in homogenously distributing waste over that large an area.
Yes and no. Compared to the difficulty of guaranteeing that someone, somewhere, over the course of the next ten thousand years won't be even the slightest bit adversely affected to the 100% level that people seem to be demanding, it might not be so bad. People have already demonstrated they are willing to spread the risk; each and every one of us, even as we read, are breathing in a little radioactive material that used to live in coal, after all.
If we could drop that 100% down to something more reasonable I'd totally agree with you. But perfection is damned expensive.
(It's usually infinitely expensive, but in this case there are perfect alternatives that aren't infinitely expensive. One that may be cost effective is waiting until we have a space elevator and flinging it all into the sun. IIRC the far end exceeds the escape velocity for the solar system so literally flinging things into the sun is feasible. Anything else, of course, won't do... just flinging it out of the solar system will have people worried that the radioactivity boogieman will magically fly back and crash into them.
Oh, who am I kidding? Such a plan would be blocked by a new coalition of SOS (Save Our Sun!), a misguided group of environmentalists who want to preserve the pristine purity of the Sun (What if there is life on the Sun, after all?), and a bunch of brave environmentalist types whose science education is straight out of the 80s... the 1880s... who are afraid the Sun would suddenly start shooting dangerous radiation out. Yes, start shooting it out, because of course the hellfire nuclear fusion inferno that converts tons of matter to energy per second was otherwise, up to the point we meddling humans got involved, as fuzzy and cute and natural as a puppy, or cobra venom.
Pardon my bitterness here; even in this supposed bastion of intelligence that is Slashdot (and I'm not being terribly sarcastic here, I would expect the average Slashdotter to have an above average understanding of space issues) I can count on one hand the commenters that have a clue about big numbers.)
From the biodiesel page at the University of New Hampshire:
For information on better energy alternatives, check the above URL or the one in my sig.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Something similar happened to me. I put a Coke bottle in the freezer, and when I tried to drink from the bottle, the moment it hit my lips, it started to freeze.Except it didn't freeze solid, it became sort of slush.
nop, first writer is correct, Electrolysing is the correct word.
It means approximatly electro-splitting, and is applicable whenever electricity is used to reduce a molecule into something smaller.
Ernest J.W. ter Kuile
Is there some way of tapping into the heat generated under tin foil hats?
Try a search on SEGS and Sandia. You don't need sterlings. Sterlings are great and they look cool with sunflower reflectors, but more conventional designs work great right now today here in California. Each of the newer SEGS units is 90MW and they use conventional steam turbines and trough reflectors. Nothing fancy. George Bush Sr. had nothing but praise for them because they were totally for profit and private and on a scale that no backyard solar freak could afford.
The intriguing thing about the SEGS literature, which is abundant, is that you find that they really didn't know what to expect when they started and were typically surprised by the amount of heat they had generated.
Which brings us to this Slashdot topic. SEGS uses elongated troughs, but using hemispheric dishes, or sunflowers as they are known, creates enormous point heat. After all, you're focusing the energy of a vast nuclear fusion reaction. In fact, the heat is often compared to that created in nuclear reactions for the obvious reason that it literally IS the direct result of fusion in the Sun.
So, why not try this same experiment with a, say thirty meter, sunflower?
Solar thermal and geothermal potentially put wind and PV and even hydro to shame and yet the surface has only been scratched because they involve such large scale projects there has to be a critical mass of political will.
It's time for the Perculator!
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
They find a method that is more efficient and produces less Co2, but produces nuclear waste instead.
I'd sooner have the Co2 thanks, at least we can try and deal with that, nobody seems to know what to do about nuclear waste other than bury it. In fact research is being done into burying Co2.
"I still believe using solarpanels and using electrolysis for getting hydrogen is still the best way. No CO2, no nuclear waste..."
I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that solar panels contain as much radioactive waste as does nuclear fission when you talk about similar amounts of electrical generation. Further, electrolysis is less effective than this method...that's why they developed this method. Solar panels also produce considerable non-radioactive waste, as solar panels are usually built from highly poisonous materials. Further, electrolysis is a two step process in this context: first, you create the electricity; second, you use the electricity to separate out the hydrogen.
Geothermal would be a better alternative here. Like nuclear, it produces hot water on the way to electrical generation. This process would probably still work with similar efficiency with geothermal heating the water.
Leave the solar panels for electricity generation to power air conditioners.
Eliminate no, but what if that technology could reduce accidents/contamination
to lower levels than our current methods of energy generation?
I think we could replace dirty coal with not perfect but better nuclear
if we put the money and research into it.
I don't think, Therefore I'm not.
Here's a nice Sandia link that makes it absolutely clear that even a small-scale solar thermal installation can produce temperatures comparable to those in "nuclear explosions" the article here is only talking about 2000C. This solar furnace is used to test the "failure thresholds of high temperature ceramic and refractory materials." So why in the hell is a nuclear power plant the only option to produce the heat they need to use with their fancy ceramic filter? No doubt the solar furnace in that photo produces temperatures far in excess of what their ceramic filter can even tolerate.
I think you can supercool a beer: there is a point where you take it from the icebox, and it is liquid; you then open the cap, and it instantly freezes to a sludge, dripping all over the carpet in the process.
Actually that would be 216,000 kilos per day, not 400,000.
Sorry. I've misquoted the article. The plants output would be equivalent to 400,000 gallons a day, not kilos of hydrogen.
They've got a lot of modifications to make.
And a lot of ground is being gained. In the face of other fuel technologies, fuel cell has been making advancements at a gallops pace.
To get a 1,000 mile range, a tractor trailer running on diesel needs to store 168 gallons of diesel fuel. But, to run on hydrogen stored at 250 atmospheres, to get the same range would require 2,360 gallons of hydrogen.
Gallon for gallon, Hydrogen doesn't store that much energy.
Could you quote a URL on this? It just seems that the numbers between the article in question and your numbers are exactly the same.
In any case, if fuel cell becomes the dominant transportation technology it's not going to happen overnight. A single plant may produce enough to fill the majority of fuel cell needs for sometime.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
It was produced by piping hot steam through a metal can containing red hot coal. The steam that went in one end came out as H2 + CO and CO2
The reaction was: 2H2O + C => CO + H2 + H2O => CO2 + 2H2
But since CO burns as nicely in a stove as H2, the reaction was set up not to go to completion so that a one to one mixture of H2 and CO was produced via H2O + C => CO + H2
This is the origin of the idea of committing suicide by putting your head in the oven ( like the Tom Petty song ). A mixture of CO and H2 was quite deadly and probably painless to breathe.
The sad part is that if you add lengthy descriptions of the people involved, you've just described "science journalism".
I had something cool like this happen to me. I put a couple of bottles of Smirnoff Ice in the freezer to cool them dowm, but forgot about them overnight. The next morning, one of the bottles was frozen solid, but the other still appeared to be liquid. I turned the bottle over to confirm that it was, the bubble moved to the bottom of the bottle. Bu the time the bubble rose back to the top, the entire bottle froze. Coolest thing Id ever seen. Plus it woudl make a great ad for Smirnoff Ice.
The microwave source in a home oven has a frequency roughly one order of magnitude too low for rotational resonance, IIRC. But dielectric heating does come into play.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
IIRC there was one all U-235 implosion bomb early on.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Let's see.. Maybe gasoline is used because of it's energy density?
Well we could change the laws of physics if the reality doesn't fit our emotional wants and desires. Just write your congressman.
Gasoline 9000 Wh/l 13,500 Wh/Kg
LNG 7216 Wh/l 12,100 Wh/Kg
Propane 6600 Wh/l 13,900 Wh/Kg
Ethanol 6100 WH/l 7,850 Wh/Kg
Liquid H2 2600 Wh/l 39,000* Wh/Kg
150 Bar H2 405 WH/l 39,000* Wh/Kg
Lithium 250 Wh/l 350 Wh/Kg
Flywheel 210 Wh/l 120 Wh/Kg
Liquid N2 65 Wh/l 55 Wh/Kg
Lead Acid 40 Wh/l 25 Wh/Kg
Compr Air 17 Wh/l 34 Wh/Kg
STP H2 2.7 Wh/l 39,000* Wh/Kg
I'm not saying it's a huge downside, but it can be if managed incorrectly. If hyrdrogen in the atmosphere is converted to water, then the relative density of water vapor goes up.
:-)
It's humid enough in Florida, dammit!
"So then why doesn't this indivdual go to a more 'enlightened' nation to sell his wares? Perhaps one which has no interest in the oil economy, other than being dependent on energy imports, such as Japan?"
Of course you know this already exists in Japan?