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)"

Comments

How does it come out?

[BiAthlon]

Ok, so I read the article and it's fairly light. The question I have is how do we get the hydrogen back out?

Re:How does it come out?

[dsginter]

The question I have is how do we get the hydrogen back out?

The linked article calls the stuff "AMMINEX" which sounds like yet another ammonia hydrogen storage scheme. I won't comment on their implementation but others have failed here.

The next problem facing hydrogen as an energy carrier (NOTE - never use the term "energy source" when referring to hydrogen because it only carries energy that has to come from somewhere else) is the fuel cell, which requires costly noble metal catalysts (i.e. - platinum). The whole electrolysis process is highly alkaline so conventional metals are quickly fouled.

Re:How does it come out?

[Vengeance]

Of course, some technologies, such as the hydrogen engines BMW is planning to release shortly, are basically conventional internal combustion designs optimized to use hydrogen as a fuel. These avoid the problems which can arise trying to make small, efficient and reliable fuel cells.

Re:How does it come out?

[RingDev]

Actually there is new technology in the fuel cell market that uses a significantly cheaper polimer based panels. But internal combustion is still an option.

Also, even if we are getting hydrogen by using energy created at centralized coal processing plants we are still creating less polution then everyone running gas. And with distributed power generation on the rise, people could be creating their own hydrogen by using excess power generated by solar roofing during the day.

-Rick

Re:How does it come out?

[AndersOSU]

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.

Re:How does it come out?

[Bohnanza]

Dihydrogen monoxide is one of the most dangerous substances known to science!

Re:How does it come out?

[jnik]

Yes, water is a greenhouse gas. What the OP doesn't mention, however, is that the water lines are already saturated in Earth's atmosphere--adding more water to the atmosphere won't increase the greenhouse effect one bit.

Re:How does it come out?

[Ryan Amos]

You answered your own question there. The hydrogen economy is *not* uneconomical, but the fossil fuel based method of making it is. Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum distillates, natural gas, etc.) will run out. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but probably in our immediate offspring's lives. They will become scarce in our lifetime, and very expensive. When this happens, economics takes hold and the cheapest solution appropriate for a global scale will be used.

Nuclear power is a short-term solution. It's pretty clean, nuclear reactors are safe (at least far safer than gasoline refineries; if you live on the southeast side of Houston, you know what I mean.) We'll eventually figure out how to make fusion work, I think it's only a matter of time. But the nuclear/hydrogen combo is pretty clean compared to the double whammy of coal/gasoline. And soon to be much cheaper in comparison.

Re:How does it come out?

[quantum bit]

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?

Well, sorry for the tree huggers, but right now nuclear is the ONLY power source that we have that can produce enough energy to get us off fossil fuels and is viable in the long term.

Solar is too inefficient with current technologies. Wind doesn't produce enough power. Hydro is limited by location and not very scalable because of it. Geothermal is interesting but doesn't really produce much power. In order to maintain our current way of life we're going to need a massive amount of energy.

Breeder reactors (and even more traditional designs) are actually more environmentally friendly than coal plants, but scare people and can in theory be misued to produce EEEEVIL nuc-u-lar weapons.

Re:How does it come out?

[Phronesis]

even if we are getting hydrogen by using energy created at centralized coal processing plants we are still creating less polution then everyone running gas.

How do you figure this? Coal is more carbon-intensive than gasoline, so burning coal to produce hydrogen puts more CO2 into the air than burning the equivalent amount of gasoline.

Coal also produced more sulfur and mercury emissions than gasoline and creates toxic and caustic ash that must be disposed of.

Finally, coal mines cause more environmental damage, especially via acid runoff, than oil wells.

Re:How does it come out?

[quantum bit]

Well, on a geologic scale, gasoline and even crude oil is just an energy carrier. Plant life millions of years ago used sunlight to bond simple organic molecules into more complex ones which eventually became hydrocarbons -- effectively storing up large amounts of solar energy into a liquid form.

Re:How does it come out?

[VernonNemitz]

That's BAD! Total energy efficiency, if internal combustion is used, is horrible:
The figures I have to work with are:
50% conversion efficiency of fuel energy to electricity in large power plant.
66% conversion efficiency of electrolysis to make hydrogen.
66% conversion efficiency of making electricity in fuel cell.
95% conversion efficiency of electricity to motive power.
35% conversion efficiency of internal combustion to motive power.
SO: Total efficiency of a direct-burning fossil-fuel car is 35%
Total efficiency of fuel cell car is computed as 50% x 66% x 66% x 95%, or about 21%
Total efficiency of a hydrogen internal combustion car is 50% x 66% x 35% or about 12%.

Re:How does it come out?

[wild_berry]

I prefer to use hydrogen hydroxide. It's less harmful, but still has the kick I need.

Re:How does it come out?

[It doesn't come easy]

[...] 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.

Re:How does it come out?

[LurkerXXX]

You only move the source of pollution away from the highly visible tail pipe.

Correct, but it is much easier to put a large scrubber system on a Hydrogen 'factory' than it is to put that scrubber system on a car. The factory scrubbing can be much more complete and it makes less weight for the car to drag around.

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...

Or Solar, or wind, or wave. All of those can be mounted nicely on a piece of land but not very well on a vehicle.

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.

You don't have to produce enough from those source to supply *all* the cars. Just producing enough for a decent percentage of cars would go a long way toward reducing carbon emissions. Every bit of reduction is good, it doesn't have to be total. Eventually folks may come around to using pebble-bed fission if fusion doesn't pan out.

Re:How does it come out?

[pecko666]

Hey, and what percentage is the energy required for converting earth oil into fossil-fuel ? You need lots of energy for that ! So your 35 is pretty close to 16 I think.

Re:How does it come out?

[Phanatic1a]

If you have a way to generate the hydrogen that's cheap enough, you don't care about that inefficiency. Heck, the efficiency of a gasoline-powered IC car is about 12%, but people don't care, are are only beginning to care about the inefficiency now that gas is as expensive as it is.

To make hydrogen meaningful, you need a way to generate large quantities of it cheaply, which basically means using nuclear power as your primary means of generating electricity. I mean, sure, you could get it by cracking hydrocarbons, but since your goal is to get away from needing hydrocarbons, that doesn't help much. And if you use nuclear power as your primary means of generating electricity, you can make enough hydrogen that 12% efficiency from an IC engine is just fine.

Re:How does it come out?

[patently obvious nam]

Whats the efficiency of making hydrogen at a nuclear power plant where otherwise wasted hi temperatures and electricity (you can't turn off the reator at night) are used to gennerate essentially free hydrogen? And how do we factor the cost of refinery pollution and oil spills (I'll take a hydrogen spill, thank you.) While I agree that a fuel cell is bettr than a ICE, I would be interested in anythng that speeds the conversion to a hydrogen economy.

Re:How does it come out?

[cev]

While you're at it, you can add the same factor for converting earth oil/coal into fossil fuel for the power plant. It's a wash.

CV

Re:How does it come out?

[shotfeel]

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.

Re:How does it come out?

[MxTxL]

Recall your middle school physics classes where they taught you the difference in kinetic energy and potential energy. Kinetic energy is the energy of movement and potential energy is the kinetic energy something could have if it were released. For example, a rock falling has kinetic energy... but a rock perched on the edge of the table has potential energy. You give something potential energy by lifting it up.

With hydrogen we are talking about chemical energy. It's kind of like potential energy except that the potential is the element's potential to form chemical bonds with other elements. With raw Hydrogen, the potential is H's potential to grab a buddy and form a bond with O to make H20. Doing this releases energy in the form of heat which will drive the motors.

Now the energy carrier part: To reverse the process you have to insert energy into the water to get the H2 to break it's bond with the oxygen. This energy has to come from somewhere.... THAT is really the energy source. (well, sort of.... oil is just an energy carrier as well.... the sun was the original energy source in that regard).

And the problem: You lose energy in the form of heat at every step in this transaction. When we are burning fossil fuels, we are fortunate that the main energy loss happened without us millions of years ago. So to us, it's a net energy gain. (even though it's a terrible, terrible waste of energy that hit the earth millions of years ago... i forget the numbers, but one gallon of gas has an obscene amount solar energy that went into it). With hydrogen, we have to put the energy in right now. Not really practical unless we can come up with a great source of energy. (nukes are the only feasable way... but good luck with that)

Re:How does it come out?

[mysticgoat]

The advantage is that the atmosphere can only hold a limited amount. When there's too much of it, it precipitates out of the atmosphere (unlike CO2).

And that precipitate is known as "cloud", which is one of the most efficient reflectors of solar energy on the planet.

Figuring out whether the net effect would cause an increase global warming or lead to a big chill is about like stepping into the middle of the debate about the safety of hydric acid (aka hydrogen monoxide).

Re:How does it come out?

[quantum bit]

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.

Funny, I just made a similar comment in another thread. Slashdot nexus :)

The question in my mind is, can we simply bypass the 'fossilization" requirement.

Isn't that basically the concept of biodiesel?

Re:How does it come out?

[NardofDoom]

Which do you think is easier: Controlling emissions on a few dozen coal burning power plants or controlling emissions on a few hundred million automobiles?

Not to mention the fact that any source of electricity can be used to create hydrogen, and wind power is cheaper over 20 years megawatt-for-megawatt than coal. (Google it.)

Re:How does it come out?

[Malc]

You're comparing apples to oranges. How much energy does it take to get petrol to the pump?

Consider the oil sands in Alberta. (They give Canada the second largest proven oil reserves in the world.) It takes a huge amount of energy to extract the oil from these sands (through boiling). It costs about $10 to extract a barrel of oil from them, compared with $2 to pump it in Saudi Arabia. So here I've given two examples that suggest the cost of getting oil, and I haven't even mentioned transportation and refining.

Re:How does it come out?

[Martin Blank]

You question rben's education, and then post that?

First of all, water is the major greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Equilibrium is kept in the atmosphere by precipitation of the vapor into rain, snow, etc. Water added through evaporation or fuel burning goes through the same cycle.

Second, in terms of energy efficiency, the power stations are FAR more efficient than automobiles. If we're able to tap the energy from those stations for use in vehicles through electric cars, hydrogen cells, or some other method, it will be better than the localized burning of fuels in cars and trucks.

You might also want to check into your CO2 sources; according to the DoE, about 56% of the CO2 generated by the US comes from coal and natural gas, and last time I checked, there weren't too many people lining up their cars for lumps of carbon. Petroleum counts for almost all of the rest, and most of that is used in transportation.

Thirdly, you clearly are years out of date on population growth. While energy growth is continuing to grow, population growth is slowing, and significantly so. Ten years ago, a population of twelve billion was predicted for 2050, with little end in sight. Now the world population is expected to peak at about nine billion between 2050 and 2070, and then to start falling. In 1990, the total fertility rate of the world was 3.4 children per woman; today it's about 2.6, and in 2025 it's predicted to decline to 2.3. Measure that against a replacement rate of about 2.1. Japan and several European nations are already facing potential crises over their population rates, which have reached replacement rate or lower, and are continuing to drop.

You should check your own facts before you go criticizing others.

Re:How does it come out?

[googly eyes]

But your efficiency calculations do not include the use of solar power for hydrogen production.
Sure solar is ineficient, but the solutions that are almost available now remove #'s 1 and 2 on your list, and beyond the price of the cells it is virtually free.

So by your formula - solar production of hydrogen burned directly in a combustion engine, is almost equal to burning fossil fuels.

United Nuclear is developing a system that uses solar panels to produce the hydrogen via electrolysis - 8 - 2' x 4' panels is all you need for 1 car.
http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/

There is also a company based in England that has a direct solar to hydrogen panel that flows water through the cell and produces hydrogen.
http://www.hydrogensolar.com/basics.html

So please revise your calculations and factor in that the fossil fuel to hydrogen option is not the only viable option.

Re:How does it come out?

[Golias]

Very well put.

The only advantage to electric vehicles is that they open up the possiblity of using alternate enery sources, such as Solar and nuclear power, which currently would not allow you to mount the original power plant on the car itself.

You don't gain any efficiency at all. Not everybody is aware of that fact.

Re:How does it come out?

[Phisbut]

While you're at it, you can add the same factor for converting earth oil/coal into fossil fuel for the power plant.

Not all power plants use oil/coal/fossil fuel. Hydroelectricity, wind power, solar power, nuclear power... the whole point of all this is to allow *other* sources of power into a car.

Re:How does it come out?

[mycelia]

What about using bacteria to release hydrogen from biomass?
http://news.com.com/Fuel+cell+pulls+hydrogen+out+o f+bacteria/2100-1008_3-5683881.html

Re:How does it come out?

[Grab]

Because you need energy to separate the "H2" from the "O". With a 100% efficiency system, you could convert H20 to H2 + O, then use a fuel cell or whatever to generate electricity/heat/motion, and you'll get back precisely the energy in electricity/heat/motion that you used to separate "H2" from "O" initially. In fact the world sucks, so you're actually at some crappy low percentage.

The only benefit from using hydrogen is that this conversion process can be done somewhere outside your town so the emissions in town are clean. Same thing with electric vehicles. So what we need is some way of storing lots of potential energy in a car, which means you need high-density batteries for pure electric, or high-density hydrogen storage for fuel cell. Hydrogen is currently looking more likely. Initial versions just used high-pressure tanks, but that needs all sorts of high pressure pumps and heavy tanks. Trouble is that molecules in a gas in a confined space will naturally want to jump about (it's what creates gas pressure), so that's a pain.

The latest approach is to stash molecules of H2 in the gaps between molecules in various fancy compounds, kind of like dropping marbles into a tube (you may have heard of carbon nanotubes being used for it, which almost exactly mimics that analogy). Being "slotted in place" allows more H2 storage without the high pressure tank. And that seems to be what this one is about.

Grab.

Re:How does it come out?

[Itchy Rich]

While you're at it, you can add the same factor for converting earth oil/coal into fossil fuel for the power plant. It's a wash.

Industrial-scale processes for this sort of things are more efficient than automobile-scale processes.

For example, in the largest diesel engines (as used in tankers etc.) efficiency can reach around 60%.

Re:How does it come out?

[mOdQuArK!]

Making mobile tanks to safely store high-pressure hydrogen gas in sufficient quantities to equal the energy-density of current hydrocarbon-based fuels is a non-trivial engineering challenge.

In addition, since hydrogen gas has such a small molecule, unless it's chemically bonded to something, it tends to leak through just about every kind of substance that can be used to contain it.

If you come up with a safe, cheap way of storing hydrogen at the energy-densities of existing fuels, then you have found the Holy Grail of energy distribution.

Re:How does it come out?

[Phanatic1a]

While nuclear power is cheap if you measure it in cost per KWH, it's only cheaper if you ignore the health costs.

What health costs? Nuclear power in the US has killed how many people? I think 3, if you cound the SL-1 accident, which wasn't a civilian plant. Certainly under 100. In contrast, something like 50-100,000 people die each year in the US alone because of air pollution. A lot of that's due to indoor pollution, but much of it's because of all the crud fossil fuel plants spit into the air.

Take all the nuclear waste, and dump it right to the bottom of an abyssal trench in plain steel drums, and the health costs would be vastly lower than those caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Per megawatt-hour, nuclear plants release *much* less radioactive material into the atmosphere than coal plants do; those spit out plenty of thorium and uranium, and that's not even mentioning the heavy metals and particulates that cause real damage and kill real people.

The fear about nuclear waste is nothing more than FUD. Volumetrically, we're talking about incredibly tiny quantities of waste. It's really a non-issue, except for the political hysteria.

Solar/wind/hydroelectric? Not practical for generating all the electricity we use right now, let alone all we'd need to use if we want a hydrogen economy. If you want to cut out burning coal and gas, nuclear is the only option.

Re:How does it come out?

[Phanatic1a]

The one major drawback to nuclear energy is the long term disposal and maintanance of the radioactive waste.

Right now, there are coal plants around the globe that are merrily spewing radioisotopes into the atmosphere; some coal has levels of uranium of 10ppm, and even higher levels of thorium, and just the amount of uranium the US has spat into the atmosphere since the 1930s could have, if fissioned instead, provided the entire present-day electrical demand of the entire United Kingdom for centuries. Seriously, I'm not joking. Since 1937, in the course of burning coal the US has dumped 145,000 tons of uranium into the atmosphere. That's 10,440 tons of U-235, which fissions to produce about 17.6 kilotons/kilogram. Fission all that, you get 193 petawatt-hours, which is the current electrical demand of the entire UK for 500 years.

That's real radioactivity, that causes real illness and kills real people. So why isn't burning coal prohibitively expensive? Why doesn't the 'disposal and maintanance of the radioactive waste' drive the cost up?

The reason is because the regulations for dealing with radioactive waste are a joke. They've got little to do with real risks, real costs, and a lot more to do with public fear and hysteria over anything that has the word 'nuclear' in it, which is why if you twist your knee playing football you go to get an MRI scan instead of an NMR scan. If a human being were considered under the regulations dicating the disposal of radioactive waste, then simply the naturally-occurring radioisotopes in the body would make cremation or burial in wooden coffins illegal. But nobody's bothered by that, either because they don't know that all organic matter is radioactive, or because they think that somehow K-40 in organic tissue is different from K-40 that's sitting in a used fuel rod.

Blaming public ignorance, fear, uncertainty, and doubt for the high cost of nuclear power does the best technology we have available to us if we want to maintain our standard of living *and* clean up the planet a great disservice. Right now, every kilowatt-hour we get from burning coal dumps 2.3 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere, so for a country like the UK which gets 74% of its power from burning coal, that's 614 billion pounds of CO2, every year.

There is no way in hell the real costs of handling nuclear waste even come close to the costs of all that pollution. No. Fucking. Way. In contrast, a typical, 1000-MW nuclear plant produces something like 20 tons of high-level waste per year; that's under 50 *pounds* of waste per megawatt of plant capacity, and since it's so dense, volumetrically that's practically negligible.

Much of the high cost of nuclear waste is directly due to stupid-assed government regulations that are based upon the fact that PWRs in this country are a byproduct of nuclear weapons programs. They *prohibit* reactor designs that include fuel recycling, using additional reactor stages to burn the 'waste' produced by earlier stages. Don't want to deal with the waste for 10,000 years? Fine. Dump it into a seafloor subduction zone, by the time it sees the light of day again it won't be any more radioactive than any other molten material that spews forth from the Earth on a daily basis.

Considering that much of high level radioactive waste has a half-life of 12,000 years

If it has a half-life that long, it's not high-level.

Re:How does it come out?

[Spy Hunter]

You don't gain any efficiency at all [with eletric vehicles].

You don't think one centralized fossil fuel powered turbine plant, operating with a huge economy of scale, with the latest efficiency technology and pollution scrubbers, running at one speed all the time, is more efficient than thousands of poorly-maintained piston engines, purchased more for their power than their efficiency, constantly being started and stopped?

The efficiency gain could be significant, even if electric cars were powered solely by fossil fuel-generated electricity. Furthermore, the pollution could be significantly reduced, and located where it is not as much of a problem (away from city centers).

And another huge advantage is that the energy source can be *changed* at any time, on a moment's notice, simply by switching power plants. We would no longer be dependent on any single energy source to the extent we are on oil today.

Re:How does it come out?

[kevlar]

Nuclear power is only cheap if you measure its cost with an archaic accounting system that cannot apply a major future expense to the period of production that brings that expense about. Most of the cost in the current technology is in handling the waste products over a very long future period. An appropriate solution to recycling or permanently storing nuclear waste is no closer today than it was in 1960.

Maintaining the waste is a miniscule expense in the grand scheme of things. The USA has produced enough nuclear waste from Nuclear Power generation to fill a single football field a meter or two high. Small space, small problem. Burying the crap under Yucca Mountain and maintaining it indefinately is a ridiculously small price to pay for humans to survive on the planet with clean air and water.

We are more likely to see economical cold fusion power generation sooner than we will see an economical solution to the waste problems of fission technology.

Not true. The likelyhood of anyone alive witnessing economical cold fusion is extremely sparse. Nuclear Power right now, at this very moment is economical and the infrastructure to transport that power already exists. The storage facilities face all kinds of social battles because of misinformation disperced by organizations like Green Peace. The fact of the matter is that Nuclear Power does not pollute the air or water, does not produce greenhouse gasses, produces magnitudes less waste overall than fossil fuels and exists today. The current management of waste is to bury it under a mountain in concrete facilities until we know what to do with it. If we never find a solution, then at worse, we move it deeper underground.

Playing off Nuclear Energy like its a destructive source of energy is simply ignorant.

Re:How does it come out?

[Lord Apathy]

There are plenty of ways to deal with the long term storage of nuclear waste. People just don't want to commit to it.

With conventional oil drilling technology is it possible to drill for oil with. Drill a hole into the ocean floor in a Subduction zone. On average I think you will drill through 1 mile of sediments. Then you drill a farther 1 mile into the ocean floor. Or hell, why stop at 2 miles down, current technology can drill down 4 or 5 miles easy. Encase the waste in glass, grind up the glass in to pellets and dump them in the hole.

Leave about a mile of the hole empty, the sediment layer, at the top. Then pile in the sediments that was removed, about a mile of it.

Problem solved. You've put the waste out of the environment. By putting it in to a Subduction plate it will be carried down into the earth where it will be cooked for a few billion years at 5,000 degrees.

I'm pretty sure I over simplified the problem but both the technology and theory are mature enough to be refined.

Re:How does it come out?

[misleb]

The bottom line is that electricity has a certain value. It doesn't matter how it is generated. Currently electricity is valued much higher than chemical (gasoline) energy per kWh. Even before the 12% conversion effiency, using electrcity for cars isn't economical. It can't compete with fossil fuels (yet). Now consider the 12% (in)efficiency of converting and using hydrogen as fuel in cars. It just isn't goign to happen.

You just can't say "oh, just use a cheap source of electricity." It doesn't work that way. If I am a power company who can sell electricity for $0.25/kWh on the retail market, why in the world would I bother converting that to hydrogen which would sell to consumers for a lot less as auto fuel.

Some quick math: A gallon of gasoline contains about 60 kWh or energy. Say gas costs $3/gallon. Even at this relatively high gas price, you're only paying $0.05 per kWh!

If you were to convert electricty (at $.25/kWh) to hydrogen, you would pay $15 for a gallon of gas worth of energy!

-matthew

Re:How does it come out?

[patently obvious nam]

Wrong, There are a variety of synergistic efficiencies with electric vehicles. Regenerative braking turns otherwise wasted energy back into electricity for re-use rather than throwing it away as heat. Thats why the Ford Escape hybrid gets better milage in the city than on the highway. Lighter power plant and no brakes means the car weighs less. Since the car weighs less you need less power and lighter wheels and suspension. Lower Rolling resistance wheels can be used (which are lighter. Lower power means lighter power plant . . . Repeat a few times. etc. Power generation is centralized and therefore more efficient. Oh and by the way, these cars are quiet.

Re:How does it come out?

[Phanatic1a]

The bottom line is that electricity has a certain value. It doesn't matter how it is generated.

Of course it does. That's why people willingly pay *more* for power generated from clean sources. There are utility companies that *offer* people the chance to pay *higher* utility rates for the assurance that they'll be using windpower, and people pay that.

Currently electricity is valued much higher than chemical (gasoline) energy per kWh.

I'm certainly not aware of where you're getting *that* notion. A gallon of gas right by my house sells for $3.19 at the moment, and a gallon of gas comes out to about 33 kilowatt-hours. Electricity, on the other hand, goes for about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour, so 33 kilowatt-hours comes out to only $2.64. So it's *not* valued much higher than gasoline.

If I am a power company who can sell electricity for $0.25/kWh on the retail market, why in the world would I bother converting that to hydrogen which would sell to consumers for a lot less as auto fuel.

Because you stand to profit from the sale of hydrogen. You can't just make more money by increasing the supply of electricity.

A gallon of gasoline contains about 60 kWh or energy. Say gas costs $3/gallon. Even at this relatively high gas price, you're only paying $0.05 per kWh!

You're off by a factor of two. Here.

Just to check my figures. The figures on that page average 44.6 MJ/kg, gasoline has a density of .8 g/cc, so one US gallon (3785cc) weighs about 3 kilograms, that's 133.8 MJ, that's 37 kilowatt-hours. Still less expensive than an equivalent energy-amount of gasoline.

Granted, a lot of that cost/gallon is taxes, not the real cost of the gas, but that sort of artificial price inflation is also at work in the retail cost of electricity.

If you were to convert electricty (at $.25/kWh) to hydrogen, you would pay $15 for a gallon of gas worth of energy!


No, you wouldn't. At that price of electricity (Which is really a high figure, according to the DOE, for the year 2003 the average cost nationwide was 8.7 cents per kWh, so most power companies *can't* sell electricity for $.25/kWh. Those same DOE figures claim that the highest electricity costs in the nation are in Hawaii, at 14.47 cents/kWh. I believe that during the Enron debacle in California, prices went up to 20 cents. So, really, you're using a 'typical' value that is actually considerably higher than the worst absurdities the market has been able to generate. But moving on... ), you'd be paying $9.25.

Power

[b00tleg]

If you crash into another car, do you get to steal the car's pellet and absorb its power?

Re:Power

[tdemark]

Actually, if you crash hard enough, you will form Helium pellets.

Re:Power

[The Wooden Badger]

If you crash into another car, do you get to steal the car's pellet and absorb its power?

Only if you chop off its head.

Re:Power

[/dev/trash]

But teh car is still somehow immortal!

Hold on, more info in the summary than the article

[TripMaster Monkey]

There seems to be information in the summary that is not substantiated in the referenced article:

While bound in this medium no hydrogen loss occurs, enabling hydrogen to be stored cheaply for indefinite periods.

The article referenced mentions nothing regarding hydrogen loss (or lack therof).

When needed, the extraction of hydrogen is relatively simple.

Is it? Again, nothing in the article about the extraction process.

So where did the submitter get this extra data? If this data is correct, we'd appreciate a link.

If, however, this detail in the summary is unsubstantiated, we'd appreciate less speculation in the future.

Airships

[mrogers]

The new pellets could also bring about a renaissance for giant hydrogen-filled airships, or as they will now be known, beanbags.

Will be good for solar homes if....

[Martix]

will be good for solar homes if it can be reused and is easy to fill and use...didnt see how it releases H2 from it when stored or how...went to the link but very intresting to say the least if its as good as they claim

Tragically...

[Waffle Iron]

... they decided to coat these pellets with a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum powder.

Re:Tragically...

[jimand]

Modded funny? This sounds like flamebait to me.

Re:Tragically...

[hotdiggitydawg]

Fe2O3 + Al2 ---> Fe2 + Al2O3 (Thermite - highly exothermic). Don't tell me we've finally found someone who hasn't read the anarchist's cookbook (or sat through high school chemistry)?

And we shall call these pellets...

[utexaspunk]

COAL!

Re:And we shall call these pellets...

[ozmanjusri]

Sorry, but sugar is (relatively) pure carbon.

Well, this lump I have here seems to have 12 carbon atoms, 22 hydrogen atoms and 11 oxygen atoms. Maybe you've microwaved yours a little too long

Re:And we shall call these pellets...

[nganju]

You call 45 atoms a lump of sugar? Try sweetening your coffee with that.

Other measurements

[varmittang]

Thats about 60 Miles to the gallon of hydrogen, if my calculations are correct. Now, what is the price of hydrogen, per gallon or liter?

Re:Other measurements

[Bluey]

I got 23 miles to the US gallon.

500 km is about 310 miles.
50 liters is about 13 US gallons.

This is comparable to many US sedans. The question is whether the cost of hydrogen processing will be more or less expensive than the cost of refining oil.

Re:Other measurements

[Non Dufus]

It's about 23 mi/gal. Of course I used the conversion factor 20oz=591mL right off my Mountain Dew bottle.

Re:Other measurements

[scovetta]

I would question how much energy is required to pelletize the hydrogen? Hopefully not more energy than can be reasonably extracted from the hydrogen after the fact.

That's the problem with some of these emerging technologies-- you can have a car that runs on happy feelings, but if those feelings have to be produced in a factory and cost $500 per gallon, then you might as well use gasoline instead.

I'm sorry, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It's a slow week.

Re:Other measurements

[apt142]

I don't know. Probably expensive at first. But as the technology matures it could get very cheap indeed. Unlike fossil fuels Hydrogen is of course very abundant and won't suffer the supply and demand problems that oil is right now.

It could also be produced nearly anywhere a water supply is. So, shortages and pipeline restrictions would be a thing of the past. As would foreign dependance on energy.

Re:Other measurements

[msmikkol]

That 10 liters per 100 km (23.5 MPG) is gasoline talk. US DOE wants to store hydrogen into a 50 liter (13.2 gal) tank and be able to drive 500 km (310.7 mi). What makes that challenging is the low density of hydrogen, only about 89 g/m3 (0.089 oz/ft3). High pressure tanks are either very heavy or very expensive, and chemical storage solutions always include reforming equipment or other processing steps to get hydrogen out.

Therefore, we should look at the energy content of the hydrogen stored into that 50 liter tank. With what Amminex claims, they can reach an energy content of 486 MJ (461 kBTU), versus 2150 MJ (2.0 MBTU) of 50 liters of gasoline. 486 MJ equals to 11.3 liters (3.0 gal) of gasoline equivalent. That makes 2.3 liters per 100 km (104.1 MPG!)

How is that possible? Fuel cells, electrical engines and braking energy harvesting. Fuel cells are electrochemical energy conversion devices that are free from the Carnot engine efficiency limitations, and furthermore, their efficiency increases on partial load. Operating a heat engine on partial load is detrimental to efficiency.

Re:Other measurements

[Pharmboy]

Everyone knows that since gas has risen $1 in the last 45 days, it will continue to do so at exactly the same pace forever, so gas will be $83 per gallon within 10 years.

Obviously,there are no other factors that should be considered.

Re:Other measurements

[hesiod]

> If they raised nearly a dollar in ~45 days what's going to happen in 10 years

The oil companies will buy the rest of the world. Oil prices raised a dollar because oil companies refuse to stop gouging. If they started making a reasonable return instead of the ass raping they give now, gasoline would be at a more reasonable price.

Using Hydrogen to power your car

[ReformedExCon]

The article (advertisement) is pretty short and doesn't explain the technology in much detail. I wonder how much a "full tank" of hydrogen pellets would cost. And would the extra weight of the pellets be significantly detrimental to the car's performance?

When you go to the pump, do you swap pellets with the gas station attendant? How flammable are these things?

What if I swallow one? Is it non-toxic?

Re:Using Hydrogen to power your car

[koniosis]

What if I swallow one? Is it non-toxic?

I dont think that's an issue, what happens if your drink petrol or car oil or battery acid... don't expect it to be safe to eat (if is is, that's a bonus, but not really going to save anyones life...)

Re:Using Hydrogen to power your car

[Kevin DeGraaf]

What if I swallow one? Is it non-toxic?

Make 'em as toxic as possible and let natural selection do its thing. It'll clean up the gene pool for the rest of us.

Re:Using Hydrogen to power your car

[Perl-Pusher]

Less than half of the energy by volume is available from hydrogen than from gasoline. From the article, the energy density by volume is 13.0 MJ/liter where as according to The Physics Factbook gasoline has a density of 8.6 kwh/liter. Using this online converter 13 MJ = 3.61 kilowatt hours.

By comparison the post office runs several propane powered vehicles around the city here. These poor performing vehicles run on a fuel with an energy density of 7.5 kwh/liter.

Re:Using Hydrogen to power your car

[ifwm]

"By comparison the post office runs several propane powered vehicles around the city here. These poor performing vehicles run on a fuel with an energy density of 7.5 kwh/liter"

Great, but how much carbon do they release into the atmosphere?

See, energy density isn't the only consideration.

Are they chewable?

[DaFork]

I won't be buying any of their power pellets if they taste terrible.

Re:Are they chewable?

[markov_chain]

I wouldn't eat those if I were you. They could give you gas.

*rimshot*

Extraction?

[D3]

Sadly not much detail on the extraction process. Good ol' water can store a lot of hydrogen cheaply but getting it out is a PITA. Still, it'd be nice to pull up to a station and just drop a pellet (or bag of pellets) into the car and drive off again. D

interesting

[rayde]

i see huge potential in a fuel source that could be stored in this manner. Imagine a world where you could just buy a box of fuel pellets at the grocery store, since it's safe enough to keep in the aisles. My guess i that this could potentially do away with "gas stations" as we know it, leaving them to scrounge around for the few remaining gasoline-powered cars, and becoming more and more relegated to doing service and maintenance.

What about the economics?

[CyricZ]

The main thing to consider is the economics. More to the point, how will the existing oil/energy companies financially benefit from such technology? For if they don't have an interest in this product, it will never come to fruition, regardless of its technical merit.

Re:What about the economics?

[ScentCone]

The main thing to consider is the economics. More to the point, how will the existing oil/energy companies financially benefit from such technology? For if they don't have an interest in this product, it will never come to fruition, regardless of its technical merit.

Yes, yes. Sort of like VOIP will never happen because the old-school phone companies won't like it. Or DVD players are just a fad, because theater owners don't like them. Etc.

I'm always astounded by the imaginary power that people assign to particular industries, even as we watch the market tap-dance right around them, to the tune of that old favorite, demand.

Energy companies distribute energy in ways that are useful to the people who are willing to pay for it. If there is anything like a useful price point for technology such as this (though I think it will require a huge number of nuclear power plants to provide enough juice to pull that much hydrogen out of enough water to replace oil, per se), then companies will be there to provide that service. Whether its BP, or Exxon, or whether it's Uncle Jimmy's Hydrogen Shoppes, it'll happen. If there's fundamentally no way to make the math work, then it won't work.

Otherwise, saying that the (currently, mostly) oil companies are going to use their secret cabal super powers to stop this sort of thing is like saying that Detroit and Big Oil aren't going to let hybrid cars find a way to the market (a commonly enough heard argument, which plainly turns out to be nonsense).

Re:What about the economics?

[CommieLib]

Actually, they made $29.6 billion in profits. Of course, that constitutes only a 10% profit margin.

For all of everybody's bitching about oil companies, here are some net profit rates for a couple of oil companies:

Exxon-Mobil: 10% net profit

Chevron: 8% net profit

BP: 5% net profit

Of course, as a consumer, I'd prefer that they make zero profit and lower the price, but these rates of profit don't seem outrageous to me.

Re:What about the economics?

[Lord Raze]

What a blinkered opinion. Ever heard of the free market?

The main thing to consider is the economics.

True.

More to the point, how will the existing oil/energy companies financially benefit from such technology?

Who cares if existing oil companies benefit? If they don't, alternative energy startups will.

For if they don't have an interest in this product, it will never come to fruition, regardless of its technical merit.

Nonsense.

If there is demand, you can bet your ass that someone, somewhere will try and supply it.

Other companies will be founded and they will sell it to us instead. If the green energy market continues to grow explosively as petroleum prices continue to rise, Big Oil will have to adapt or die.

The market abhors a vacuum.

I find your knee-jerk surrender to the multinationals Disturbing.

I Wonder

[.tardo.]

If I feed this to my dog, will he fart lightning?

Re:Proprietary technology.

[TripMaster Monkey]

The energy density of these pellets is 13 Mj/l (compared to gasoline's 34.6 Mj/l).

Tell me: what is the energy density of water?

Well, wait until Wednesday's report

[Red Flayer]

""A group of scientists are going to present their breakthrough in hydrogen storage this Wednesday."

Seeing as neither the article nor the summary give any specifics, why is a press release being passed along as an article?

Why not wait until they've presented their findings, and then submit an article with more information?

Whoever submitted this article is probably interested enough in the subject to search for a better article come Thursday or Friday -- and if it gets on /. again, I, for one, will not cry "Dupe".

Re:Well, wait until Wednesday's report

[Nyh]

This press release of the Danish Univeristy may shed some light on the material:
http://www.dtu.dk/English/About_DTU/News.aspx?guid =%7BE6FF7D39-1EDD-41A4-BC9A-20455C2CF1A7%7D

Nyh

What's the catch?

[swelke]

I don't get it. Are they made out of solid platinum? No, the article says the materials are inexpensive. Does it take 400 hours to handcraft each one? Do they crumble to dust in the presence of gravity? Do you have to hold a seance to get the hydrogen back? Ooh, I know: each 20-gram pellet is made from the concentrated brains of twelve dead whales. Come on folks, there has to be something that makes these things completely impractical. All we have to do is figure out what it is.

Re:What's the catch?

[MSBob]

Well, it requires a hydrogen car to be useful. And those can't be built without huge amounts of platinum. That's the reason why honda FCX costs over $1 million without any chance of dropping in price until a cheaper catalytic material is found.

I need information

[TomorrowPlusX]

The linked article gives very little information. So, while I'm super stoked by this ( it's a really, really important development ) my questions are:

1) How do they get the hydrogen back out? Do they crush the pellets ( destroying them ), do they heat them, etc.

2) Are the pellets re-usable? Or do you have to get new ones? And if they *aren't* re-usable, can the carrier material be re-cycled into new pellets?

My concerns would be that if the material isn't re-usable/re-cyclable we'd end up with vast landfills full of crushed or otherwise useless carrier material, in which case this is hardly a boon.

On the other hand, if it's recyclable, I can see the oil companies being very happy with this, since you could go to a hydrogen station and dump your used pellets and "refill" with a dump of charged pellets. The station would send the used pellets to a recharging or recycling facility. I say "oil companies" because they've already got quite an infrastucture, and would probably be willing to make the investment into such facilities, since it would maintain their quasi-monopoly on automotive energy distribution.

Still, the appeal of safe hydrogen storage is great.

Re:You should be an editor

[tgd]

If he was really up to that task, he would have posted his reply twice.

Slashdot doesn't need editors that don't take that initiative!

all wet

[tjic]

I too have come up with a scheme to

* bind hydrogen
* that is completely safe at room temperature
* has no loss of hydrogen
* thus enabling cheap storage
* allows for simple extraction of hydrogen

I use a proprietary process involving oxygen. I'm not at liberty to give more details until the patent is issued.

Re:all wet

[ntsucks]

"* that is completely safe at room temperature"

Unless your city is below sea level

Re:Hold on, more info in the summary than the arti

[newnam]

I saw an article earlier that talked about hydrogen pellets but they were using them to recharge laptop batteries. It could be similar technology but this article talks about how it works. http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/2005/0508 28.Varma.fuelcells.html

Re:You should be an editor

[tgd]

If he was really up to that task, he would have posted his reply twice.

Slashdot doesn't need editors that don't take that initiative!

.

Not very efficient

[kilodelta]

50L to go 500kM is 10kM to the liter. Or about 23MPG. Not good.

Unless we come up with a serious breakthrough on hydrogen production it'll never happen.

There are several groups working on describing how photosynthesis actually works in plants. It is theorized that the process would yield us all the hydrogen we wanted. But that is still a few years off.

Re:Not very efficient

[Waffle Iron]

Or about 23MPG. Not good.

It doesn't make sense to directly compare gasoline and plastic pellets on a volume basis to evaluate efficiency. The MPG number is only useful to show that the size of the fuel tank is in the same ballpark as those current cars, making it more feasible than bulky storage methods such as compressed gaseous hydrogen.

To evaluate efficiency, you need to measure the miles driven per unit of energy put into the hydrogen production facility.

Re:Not very efficient

[Angstroem]

50L to go 500kM is 10kM to the liter. Or about 23MPG. Not good.

Now compare it to the energy density of Hydrogen compared to gasoline, and you will see what? (Oh, and mind you, we're talking about combustion engines -- not nuclear fusion. Just in case you let yourself be fooled by absolute numbers placed out of context again...)

Ever used so-called "bio diesel" (RME) instead of mineral-oil based diesel? Spotted a difference in consumption and gave a thought where that difference originated from?

Btw, hydrogen production is easy. We have plenty of deserts on this planet with hot sunny days, which are just perfect for all-solar powered hydrogen fabs. Just pump (even used) water there.

The problems were rather storage and transport of H2, which just doesn't like to be kept imprisoned and leaked out of the bottle. If that pellet stuff is working as advertised, that problem is solved.

Re:Not very efficient

[udoschuermann]

50L to go 500kM is 10kM to the liter. Or about 23MPG. Not good.

It depends entirely on the production cost of these pellets, hence the price to the consumer. This price may be high initially but economies of scale should drop it. But even if the price for the consumer is about equivalent to gasoline, the lower (or maybe nil) environmental impact of this type of hydrogen fuel is likely worth the switch.

Re:Not very efficient

[joib]

Actually, since what matters is the energy consumption, and this method according to the article delivers 13 MJ/l, it looks very efficient. That's about 1.3 MJ/km.

Compare that to a normal gasoline car that does, say, 7 l/100 km. Gasoline having an energy density of about 45 MJ/l this works out to 3.15 MJ/km.

That is, the hypothesis is that the hydrogen car would be 2.4 times as efficient as the current gasoline car.

Better article

[Akbar]

A better article which goes into a bit more detail about the pellets can be found at this french website http://www.achats-industriels.com/actualites/dossi ers/269.asp/.

The google translation is available at http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr& u=http://www.achats-industriels.com/actualites/dos siers/269.asp&prev=/search%3Fq%3Damminex%26hl%3Den %26lr%3D/.

This is an interesting storage solution but to really evaluate this we need to know more about the process to extract hydrogen and the waste products involved and their potential re-uses.

Why would a "gas station" be needed?

[CyricZ]

This technology would render gas stations obsolete. Why would you need to drive to such a station in order to drop a small pellet into your pellet tank? It's completely unnecessary! You could easily buy a bag of these pellets from your local hardware or grocery store, and refill your vehicle in the comfort of your own garage!

Re:Why would a "gas station" be needed?

[Nyh]

This technology would render gas stations obsolete. Why would you need to drive to such a station in order to drop a small pellet into your pellet tank? It's completely unnecessary! You could easily buy a bag of these pellets from your local hardware or grocery store, and refill your vehicle in the comfort of your own garage!

Usually I need to refil my vehicle while I am on may way to some destination. I don't use my car to drive to the local hardware store so I can buy pellets to put into my car in the garage.

I would find it really cumbersome to leave the highway, find a grocery or hardware store, park, get my bag of pellets, wait some time in the que at the checkout, put the pellets in my car and drive back to the highway, just to fill up my car with some fuel.

Nyh

Background info.....

[CnlPepper]

A bit of background info found doing a quick google:

http://lww.kt.dtu.dk/pdf_publications/department/D TU_04.pdf

Not much there but adds a bit more ligitimacy to the claims. Its a university annual report from the Technical University of Denmark, see pages 24-26.

Royal TripMaster Monkey to You

[Quirk]

"...we'd appreciate less speculation in the future."

I assume, as you aren't an editor, you have ascended to Royalty in your usage of the Royal We. Let me be the first to Welcome our new /. bashing Overlord.

If you could give me somekind of pointer on how to ascend to Your Highness, I would be forever grateful.

I look forward to Your Highness first "We are not amused post.

Re:Dubious?

[andymar]

Looks legit to me. The story has been reported in the danish media today. 5 scientists from DTU (the danish technical university) have patented the hydrogen pills. They will talk about the find at a conference today in Chicago.

Some information

[ben_of_copenhagen]

Danish website ing.dk (run by the danish union of engineers) says in their article, that the hydrogen is store as ammonia in pellets made of seasalt. The hydrogen is released by way of a catalyst (they dont explain how or which catalyst is needed). But i suppose this means the pellets are highly reuseable. If you can read danish, theres a lot more here: http://ing.dk/article/20050907/MILJO/109090025

Re:Some information

[Pharmboy]

A better link of the same or similar article in English was given above at http://www.dtu.dk/English/About_DTU/News.aspx?guid =%7BE6FF7D39-1EDD-41A4-BC9A-20455C2CF1A7%7D

Rough translation of most important part

[maxm]

The pill consists of ammonia absorbed in ordinary seasalt.

The ammonia is made catalytical by combining atmospheric Hydrogen and Nitrogen.

It can be stored as long as necessary.

Only when the ammonia is passed through a catalyst the Hydrogen is released.

When the pellet is emptied, it just needs a new shot of Ammonia to be ready again.

(I believe that heating is necessary in the catalyst)

Stuff Aminex!

[Blancmange]

Carbon nanotube technology looks far more promising:

http://www.e-sources.com/hydrogen/storage.html

"One of the most exciting advances recently has been the announcement of carbon nanofibre technology. This may have the capacity to store up to 70% of hydrogen by weight - an astonishing amount. Typically a metal hydride can store between 2% and 4% by weight - in a heavy structure, but if the new carbon results actually prove to be true then it may be possible for a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to travel for 5,000 km between refuelling stops. This would render any necessity for a distributed hydrogen infrastructure obsolete as the refuelling could be done either by depot stops, or potentially even through the postal service! Everyone in the hydrogen community is eagerly awaiting the announcement of further news."

I've found some more info

[woutgaze]

But it's only in French. http://www.achats-industriels.com/actualites/dossi ers/269.asp

Google Translate to the rescue: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr& u=http://www.achats-industriels.com/actualites/dos siers/269.asp&prev=/search%3Fq%3DAMMINEX%2B%26hl%3 Den%26hs%3DWxJ%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls% 3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official

Solution!

[Bearpaw]

Now, lets just look at the problem. We currently jump into a car weighing 1500 kg, running a 20% efficient motor, to transport an 80 kg person. This is an efficiency of 1.01%, which is what the problem really is.

So if everybody eats enough to double their weight, the resulting efficiency would be dramatically increased. (Meanwhile, having cleverly intuited this for themselves, many people in the US have already begun the process ...)

Re:Amazing

[DrZorachus]

Most breakthrough technologies are unimpressive compared to what they eventually replace, but they start the game at the bottom of the technology "curve" so they have plenty of room to improve. (Common example: new data storage technologies often don't store more than the previous ones, but they make up for it by being smaller/cheaper/more efficient) Also, you wouldn't have to surpass the energy density of fossil fuels if you could translate more of the energy into work. IIRC, current car engines waste almost 60% of the energy in gas creating heat.

Re:You should be an editor

[imnojezus]

+10 Karma for one comment. I nominate tgd for president of the world.

What's that in American?

[John Jorsett]

enabling a car to drive more than 500 km on a 50 L tank

That would be 311 miles in 13.2 gallons.

Hah! I spit on your so-called metric system.

Re:What's that in American?

[JohnsonWax]

Uh, spit is the metric measurement. Loogie is imperial.

More information...

[chhamilton]

I've found another (from June) article here (in french). For a long time people have been talking about ammonia as hydrogen storage, as it's quite high in energy density and is a relatively safe liquid. However, there are issues with gas expansion, pressurization and toxic fumes.

Essentially, these pellets are an ammonia storage system that stores ammonia nearly as efficiently (by weight and volume) as liquid ammonia. The above article says that they are relatively cheap to produce (initial costs of 1 euro/kilogram of material, which translates to roughly $12.88 USD for the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline). The article clearly states that the process is reversible, thus the base materials must be reusable. It does not state what the cost is of 'recharging' the pellets. The recharge cost would have to be at least 4x cheaper than production in order for it to be competitive with gasoline. The extraction technique is listed as 'desorption', which I imagine just means heating the pellets up and siphoning the extracted gas off. As for temperatures, and desorption rates, nothing is cited.

It doesn't state specifically how the reaction runs, but that ammonia is extracted from the pellets, which is then run through a standard ammonia converter (at temperatures of around 350 degrees celsius) to extract the hydrogen. It says the reaction runs quickly, so it's able to provide the hydrogen quickly enough.

The Amminex website has slightly more information available by clicking on the "ammonia storage" page, because it's the exact same technology as the hydrogen storage (link here)

Scientific American

[boring, tired]

I recall seeing something like this on an episode of Scientific American Frontiers a few years ago. Alan Alda was talking to a scientist about his storage pellet which looked something like a hockey puck.

Attended a lecture of one of the creators

[Aquatopia]

I had a physics lecture this morning at my university (Technical University of Denmark) and the teacher asked us whether we had seen today's newspapers about this invention. He then told us about this and that this was a project here at the university. Also he told us that he was one of the researchers for this project. So as far as I know this is indeed correct. Unfortunately he didn't go into any details about how this works but I'll be sure to ask him in a weeks time if I haven't seen any details :) Quite impressive I must say :)

My concerns with hydrogen...

[digithead]

...have less to do with storing it (although this would seem promising) than with the energy required to produce it in a usable form for motor vehicles.

I've seen it stated that 96% of hydrogen comes from fossil fuels and thus refining it causes at least as much pollution as running cars on gas.

Maybe efficient, performance diesels like they have in Europe are the answer until fusion or something else comes along. I've seen recent tests where these are more efficient than the hybrids that everyone is hyping.

Re:My concerns with hydrogen...

[mark-t]

First of all, the hydrogen would be produced in large, commercial plants specially dedicated for this purpose, function in very much the same way as oil refineries do today, and as a result it would be exponentially simpler to implement and enforce stricter pollution control standards on the plants than it would be on many millions of mobile vehicles all over the place. Also, because it's functioning at a large scale, it's not improbable that it could perform the task more efficiently (with respect to the hydrogen produced) than an appropriate number of fossil fuel burning autombiles, further reducing the pollution.

Second of all, and more obviously, our best options for using hydrogen as a fuel are in the exploitation of surplus energy sources that are _NOT_ derived from fossile fuels. Geothermal, wind, solar, and nuclear are the ones that immediately come to mind in this respect. Some of these are too rare or too inefficient to be seen as having a surplus at the moment, but in all honesty, this is unlikely to be the case forever.

That said, the problem with electrolysing water to produce hydrogen has the nasty effect of taking away the water supply on the planet. I'm fully aware that the hydrogen combusts to produce water vapour and that in theory no mass should be lost, but of course that doesn't necesarrily mean that would actually happen. In particular, there is potential for hydrogen to be lost to the atmosphere without ever combusting into water vapour because of imperfect storage, pumping (connections between two storage containers), or transporting facilities. These amounts may of course be trace amounts relative to the total mass of hydrogen being worked with, but accumulated over the number of potential hydrogen vehicles in the world, it has the potential to be appreciable.

The utopianists don't like clean and cheap energy

[wheelbarrow]

There is a definite sub-culture of folks out there, many of whom play on SlashDot, that do not want to see any sort of cheap and clean alternative to fossil fuels. These are the same people who say things like "we've got to get people out of their cars".

These folks are utopianists. They harbor a social agenda to force you to live your life on their terms. They see the rising costs and pollution from fossile fuels as a lever for gaining the control they need to remake society against most people's free will. They want to do things like move everyone into locally dense housing. Nobody will have their own free standing home and nobody will have the freedom to choose to drive their own car, on their own terms, whenever and wherever they like.

If this sounds like a nightmare to you then pray for clean and cheap alternative energy sources.

Warning Label

[Skudd]

WARNING
DO NOT INGEST!!!

Re:500 km on a 50 L tank

[aderusha]

Your car does that on a gallon of gasoline, not hydrogen. It still isn't at the energy density level of gas, but it's getting close. Oh and 0 emmisions, which we're pretty sure your sports car doesn't do.

And missing would be

[WindBourne]

1. the efficiency of getting increasingly harder oil from the ground.
2. The efficiency of refining the oil.
3. The high cost of maintence of an internal combustion engine.
4. The very low efficiency of getting the CO2 out of the air.

Re:And missing would be

[Hard_Code]

Yeah, the situation changes a lot when you change the timescale. Fossil fuels are finite (and if they are not "finite" they are at least naturally renewable in vanishingly small amounts), so after you use your last drop, the fancy equation demonstrating efficiency becomes useless. *When* they run out we'll have to do *something*, so it is a little gratuitous to argue against the efficiency of the alternatives.

Q: Re:Power

[JonTurner]

Can J. Robert Oppenhiemer claim prior art on multi-car pileups?

Re:You should be an editor

[goldspider]

Watch out for the Karma Police.

500 km on a 50 L tank? Bah!

[jlcooke]

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.

Re:MPG is a meaningless stat

[i41Overlord]

And even more importantly price per mile per horsepower is what matters. Gas MPG/hp hasn't changed since the 70's. I want a 200hp car that gets 35-40mpg, or a Hydrogen powered car that for example gets 17-20mpg at $1.00 a gallon or the equivalent

Gas MPG/Horsepower has changed a lot since the 70's. A new Corvette has 400 HP and gets about 18 mpg/28 mpg (city/highway).

It also depends on the type of engine in the car. If you have a naturally aspirated engine and you make it capable of producing more power, your gas mileage usually decreases a bit since you have to change the displacement/compression ratio/cam timing/etc, and it operates with that configuration all the time, it doesn't change (well the cam timing does nowadays).

However if you have a turbocharged car, making the engine capable of producing more power won't decrease the gas mileage. I have a 300ZX Twin Turbo that had 300 hp and got about 22 mpg (highway) when it was stock. After I increased the boost from 9.5 to 15 psi, I have about 400 hp and 450 lbs of torque. My gas milage stayed the same (during normal driving). That's because I didn't change the engine configuration, during normal driving, the engine doesn't operate any differently than it did before. While the wastegates on the turbochargers will now enable them to produce 15 psi of boost compared to 9.5 psi before, they aren't going to make that much unless I'm flooring it.

Now when I'm racing it, it will burn gas faster than it did before, since the potential for increased airflow increases the potential for fuel burn, and consequently potential for horsepower.

Basically, your engine will burn fuel at a rate that's proportional to the amount of horsepower it is producing at the moment. A 400 HP engine isn't always producing 400 hp... it's just capable of doing so.

Re:Perhaps not...

[ramk13]

The amount of water already in the air and water released by natural evaporation absolutely dwarfs the amount of water released through combustion. Should we start covering up lakes too? On top of that the environmental impact of humidity change is insignificant compared to the impact of all the other compounds released in combustion.

LOL

[SatanicPuppy]

*Sound of brains asploding*

We better just tell them they're "Magic Pellets"

Don't forget to add

[UnapprovedThought]

1. The gruesome inefficiency of shale and other sources people are turning to
2. The fuel lost while trucking fuel around (versus generating it locally)
3. The fuel lost by spills due to the need to store it, truck it, ship it and pipeline it
4. The impact of environmental degradation and cost of restoration (est. $400 trillion)
5. The cost of wars and political distortions due to resource conflicts
6. The fact that the atmosphere is not an infinite CO2 sink and so eventually the efficiency of burning hydrocarbons will degrade noticeably

My god! Negative energy!

[N3wsByt3]

"50% conversion efficiency of fuel energy to electricity in large power plant.
66% conversion efficiency of electrolysis to make hydrogen.
66% conversion efficiency of making electricity in fuel cell.
95% conversion efficiency of electricity to motive power.
35% conversion efficiency of internal combustion to motive power."

So, when I finally want to drive my car, it is 50 + 66 + 66 + 95 + 35 = 312% of inefficiency! My God! My Car will drive backwards at more then three times the normal speed!!

Re:The utopianists don't like clean and cheap ener

[codeshack]

"Your view sounds nice, but don't use tyranny to force me to adopt it."

Oh, okay. But don't build any freeways through my nice, pedestrian neighborh -- oh no, you already did!

Let's all take a moment to shed a tear for the American car culture, the freedom to live in ugly-ass subdivisions, and paving the entire universe. They were beautiful concepts.

(And I *like* driving. One of my favorite things to do. But it should be for trips and oddjobs, not commuting and getting basic essentials. Hoorah fuel efficiency but hoorah intelligent city planning.)

Re:The utopianists don't like clean and cheap ener

[Scarblac]

Sure, if you also pay for all the associated costs.

Cleanup costs of pollution should be factored into the price of fuel, the car etc.

Re:Maybe 80 years ago...

[RingDev]

"Funny how that logic never seems to stop the nuclear power or ethanol industries... ;^)"

Err, it did stop Nuclear power growth. The cost of dealing with Nuclear waste is so high that the US hasn't built a new nuclear power plant in what, almost 20 years now? I think we have just 'restarted' construction of 3 or 4 plants that had never been completed back in the 70's though.

As for ethanol... it's a complete waste. If organic fuel is your goal, soy diesle is a much better route. Corn requires HUGE amounts of nitrogen rich fertalizer. Which means using chemical (petrolium) based fertalizers. Corn has plenty of other issues to, but I'm no agronomist. Soy on the other hand, produces its own nitrogen, is significantly more hardy, and can also be used as livestock feed after the oil has been removed. Diesle engines are also more efficient, and with current emission control standards, less polluting the their gas equivilants.

-Rick

Re:The utopianists don't like clean and cheap ener

[Anonymous Coward]

" There is a definite sub-culture of folks out there, many of whom play on SlashDot, that do not want to see any sort of cheap and clean alternative to fossil fuels. These are the same people who say things like "we've got to get people out of their cars"."

"These folks are utopianists. They harbor a social agenda to force you to live your life on their terms."

No, rationalists. As in: until replacement technologies are demonstrably practical, it makes no sense to guzzle the cheap stuff quickly. It's not about control, it is about trying to wake people up to the fact that if they like the lifestyle they have now, and think their children should enjoy the same, they should consider whether it is wise to gamble the future on technologies that might not come to fruition in time. Maybe they should consider cutting back a little until the prospect of a replacement is clearly in sight. Conservation is cheap and technologically simple compared to deploying major alternatives. The more we conserve, the more time we will have to make the switch. The more we burn now, the faster a serious crisis could loom.

Such a change in attitude is not about forcing people to transform their behaviour, it is about asking people to take some small and easy steps now (like choosing to drive a more efficient vehicle) rather than being backed into a desperate corner sooner than we are prepared to deal with it.

If you want to be reckless, go right ahead. It's your priviledge in a free society, and a luxury we can afford right now. But please don't cast anyone who opposes that choice, and offers an alternative, as if they were a some kind of nutty, oppressive utopian. I *want* people to be able to choose what they do, I'm just worried it isn't sustainable, and wondering what to do next. The reality is, if we don't make the transition from fossil fuels smoothly, we will *all* be forced to live on whatever terms the remaining resources and the laws of physics permit. It will become involuntary not because of politics, but because there is no other way. Why approach a hard wall at such a high speed until we are really sure there is a door through it, and that we can swerve through it gracefully?

People who ask for moderation are not opposed to choice -- just the opposite. They are saying: please choose wisely now or we eventually won't have a choice anymore. They want to preserve choice as long as possible -- stretch current resources out until we know what to do next. We can't snap our fingers and solve the world's energy problems in a day. We need time. We can't bargain with the laws of physics and resource limitations. Energy is a hard problem, and people who think technology will easily solve it are the ones that are living in a fantasy world. I can't fuel my car on press conferences about promising technologies. All I'm saying is: what if it isn't as easy as people hope? Shouldn't we be a bit cautious given the uncertainties? Why be reckless about it?

BONUS: voluntarily curbing demand a little now is the best possible thing that could lower gasoline prices. People always seem to forget the demand side of the supply:demand equation, and, until the events of the last week, it was growing demand that has driven gas prices up over the last couple of years -- growth faster than the supply can easily grow to meet. It's like people have been binge drinking this stuff for the last decade, and they're suprised when the price goes up. Duh. Even though plenty is left to last a while, the bar is having trouble keeping up. I'm not looking forward to the fights if supply runs low, let alone the hangover.

Re:Waste of research money

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Kahrytan, it appears that you've never fought a car fire. It also appears that you dunno wtf you're talking about, at all, and that you do not know how to use google, at all. We have a word for you in the fire service. We call you "NIOSH Food" (aka dead from arrogance, hopefully you don't take out your crew along with you).

a) Magnesium is hard to ignite. So are tires. Still, they burn. Hydrogen is quite easy to ignite by comparison.
b) Both magnesium and tires, as well as the upholstry inside the vehical and the plastics in the body, trunk and engine compartments are each more than hot enough to ignite hydrogen. So are electric sparks from downed powerlines and shorted battery cables.
c) True, you won't find many cars with magnesium any more, and hopefully it'll stay that way. You will continue to find tires and upholstry, however, along with a more and more other plastics.
d) Hindinberg pretty much calls into question every statement you've made regarding expansion rates and ignitability.
e) "Little Heat" - 2400 calories per gram per degree to convert from steam to liquid or vice-versa. That is an ASSLOAD of heat. And that's just a secondary reaction that happens to the byproduct later on, not the primary one that'll drive the car.
f) No heat means no pressure to drive a reciprocating engine. Bullshit. To force a piston down, you need pressure. Pressure is heat as far as that's concerned, clearly it is present. Period.

In the future, I'd suggest you do a little study of firematics and hazmat prior to making such statements. Here is a good starting point.

Re:Waste of research money

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Hindinberg pretty much calls into question every statement you've made regarding expansion rates and ignitability.

How so? Hindenberg burned the way it did because they covered it in thermite.

Photosynthesis is highly inefficient

[erice]

AFAIK, the best solar cells available are plant cells

Far from it. Photosyntheis is only 3-6% efficient.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w7241e/w7241e05.htm

By contrast, commercially available solar cells are between 10 and 35% efficient.

Re:The utopianists

[wytcld]

You could just as well say, "The utopianists believe that necessary energy technologies will always arrive in time to ensure our civilization's smooth path to utopia. They believe that either some hidden natural law or divine being assures this. They also believe that this law or being requires faith, or it won't come through. According to them, showing any caution in the rate at which we burn through our current energy resources would demonstrate a lack of faith. Such a lack of faith, if demonstrated, will cause the natural law/divine being to withhold the otherwise promised new energy technologies, and we'll enter a state of extreme planetary entropy instead of the promised utopia.

"Similarly, these utopians believe that if your car will go at 100 mph, it is good and necessary to do so. They hate all speed limits and traffic cops."

Idiot

[HornWumpus]

Lighter power plant and no brakes means the car weighs less.

How much do those batterys weigh? (much more then the difference between a four banger and an eight)

You're going to use regenerative braking for a panic stop? (they still need regular brakes)

The main point you miss is although central generation is more efficent you incur new losses (battery inefficencys, electric line loses etc). Each of which multiply.

You can put low rolling resistance tires on any car. The reason nobody does is they are as hard as rocks hence give an awfull ride.

But hybrid cars make hippy chicks puddle like nothing else these days. Who can put a value on that.

Gallons of Hydrogen is irrelevant

[BobPaul]

That would be 311 miles in 13.2 gallons.

Who cares how many gallons? Gas and Hydrogen have different energy densities, and gas is a liquid while hydrogen has no fixed volume.

Instead think of it as 311 miles on a tank of gas, or between fill-ups.
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