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Hydrogen Stored in Safe High Density Pellets
sunbeam60 writes "A group of scientists are going to present their breakthrough in hydrogen storage this Wednesday. In contrast to previous storage mechanisms, this method binds hydrogen to a pellet which is completely safe to handle at room temperature. While bound in this medium no hydrogen loss occurs, enabling hydrogen to be stored cheaply for indefinite periods. When needed, the extraction of hydrogen is relatively simple. The pellets exceed all criteria set by the US Department of Energy for 2015, enabling a car to drive more than 500 km on a 50 L tank (13 MJ/l)"
I think that the catalyst problem is more solvable than the more fundamental problem of hydrogen source. It bothers me to no end when people tout hydrogen fuel as pollution free. It's not. You only move the source of pollution away from the highly visible tail pipe.
There are two sources of hydrogen, electrolyzing water, and stripping it from hydrocarbons. Both of these sources suffer severe drawbacks.
Electrolyzing water is short sighted at best. The second law of thermodynamics (which we obey in this house!) dictates that it will always take more energy to get the free hydrogen that you can ever get back in a fuel cell. This means that it will take a LOT of power to supply a hydrogen economy which means new power plants, which means burning more natural gas and coal. The single best leveragabile solution to a hydrogen economy is new nuclear power plants... Wait isn't nuclear bad? At least that's what the majority of the public thinks so it won't happen. The tree huggers of this world like to think that we can supply hydrogen with windmills, solar, and tidal power. Now while these alternate energy sources certainly merit investment we are a looong way from being able to produce anywhere near the energy needed to supply millions of autos with hydrogen.
The other option is, well ironic. We need fuel cells to free ourselves from foreign oil. So we'll get the hydrogen from hydrocarbons. We'll call them hydrocarbons, so that Susie Homemaker won't immediately pick up on the problem that hydrocarbons are foreign oil. Sure it can be more efficient from wellhead to power, which is undeniable a good thing. The problem is that if it works it will reinvigorate the commuter culture here in America, which will exacerbate the problem.
In conclusion the hydrogen economy is uneconomical, and will never happen. But then again the same is true of ethanol-blended fuel, so we can always prop it up on free government subsidies.
[...] dictates that it will always take more energy to get the free hydrogen that you can ever get back in a fuel cell
You are correct. The reason it is economically viable is that the human race has at least two virtually unlimited supplies of the very energy we need to break the hydrogen loose and today they go unused in any real capacity. That energy source is either solar or nuclear. Other sources could be viable as well eventually, such as geothermal.
The issue is that we need an energy storage and transportation method that works within our current tech development. Using hydrogen for portable power and electricity for stationary power is feasible as long as we can use an energy source that is plentiful and currently underutilized. Hence, solar or nuclear are the only real possible solutions right now. Solar would be best, considering the Earth receives 5000 times as much solar energy as we currently use in oil equivalents. Nuclear fusion might be a good alternative but I withhold making any concrete statements until we manage to get our first commercial reactor going. Modern nuclear fission reactors are perfectly feasible and safe as long as we manage to keep them out of the hands of terrorists (Note: The US has ZERO modern designs in operation -- we still use highly dangerous designs from the 50's and 60's).
So, in the sense that it takes more energy to break apart hydrogen than you get back from recombining the hydrogen, you are right. But it is practical to use hydrogen as an energy carrier because there is so much under utilized energy sources at our disposal, sources that do not make very good portable energy supplies by themselves.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Solar is too inefficient with current technologies.
Although, depending on how you think of it, we've been using stored solar energy all alone. AFAIK, the best solar cells available are plant cells. Using solar energy and storing it in hydrocarbons. When the plants are fossilized, we get fossil fuels.
The question in my mind is, can we simply bypass the 'fossilization" requirement. Wired had an article about one possibility a while back.
I got 1,100 km on my 55L tank just this weekend. What's the trick?
Diesel. Jetta. And my fuel was 30% cheaper than regular unleaded. And I filled up with 20% Bio-Diesel blend before my trip.