Blood Protein Used to Split Water

brian0918 writes "The Imperial College in London is reporting that genetically-engineered blood protein can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. The abstract can be viewed for free from the Journal of the American Chemical Society." From the article: "Scientists have combined two molecules that occur naturally in blood to engineer a molecular complex that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This molecular complex can use energy from the sun to create hydrogen gas, providing an alternative to electrolysis, the method typically used to split water into its constituent parts. The breakthrough may pave the way for the development of novel ways of creating hydrogen gas for use as fuel in the future."

Comments

Energy output = input?

[Disoriented]

Now we just have to figure out if the amount of energy needed to synthesize the blood protein (say, X liters of hydrogen in a fuel cell) is less than
the energy of the hydrogen produced from this process... :)

--
Rare 680X0 and PowerPC posters!

Re:Energy output = input?

[CorSci81]

Well, we're getting pretty good at genetically engineering simple organisms to produce things like this on their own.... (think BT corn).

Re:Energy output = input?

[Anonymous Coward]

Food! AMERICAN RUN ON THAT STUFF :p

Just pop a needle in your arm before starting your car and start making some bloodcells...

Re:Energy output = input?

[Chris Burke]

I'd be willing to bet that this compound can be used to break multiple water molecules, just like our hemoglobin can carry another oxygen molecule after it drops one off. The source of energy that allows continued hydrogen production is the sun.

In which case, the main question is the rate at which you can produce hydrogen. How much of the substance do you need, and how much solar energy, to produce how much hydrogen over what period of time? That is what will define whether or not this is a practical method of producing hydrogen. One obvious point of comparison would be an equal-sized photovoltaic solar cell and water electrolysis machine. If it doesn't do better than that, it's pretty worthless. On the other hand it might be a very efficient way to convert solar energy into hydrogen gas for fuel cells, which would be sweet.

Not to mention the other possibilities it opens up in biochemistry. These proteins are fascinating, as is the idea of swapping out the bound metal atom to get different effects.

Re:Energy output = input?

[kfg]

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

KFG

Re:Energy output = input?

[Foofoobar]

Actually they say it far surpasses the current method of separation and assuming this is a passive process (much like solar power), unless the production costs are over a million dollars for one unit, the time it would take to pay for itself is nominal.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Paperweight]

The only point of comparison will be cost - not size or speed (directly).

Re:Energy output = input?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad we won't need this now that Steorn is on the map... Steorn.com

Re:Energy output = input?

[vertinox]

Now we just have to figure out if the amount of energy needed to synthesize the blood protein

How much energy is required for pig farm?

Genetically engineered pigs that is...

Re:Energy output = input?

[radtea]

Actually they say it far surpasses the current method of separation and assuming this is a passive process

They say nothing of the kind. Quote from the abstract, "The efficiency of the photoproduction of H2 was greater than that of the system using the well-known organic chromophore, tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphinatozinc(II ) (ZnTMPyP4+), under the same conditions."

Note the complete lack of superlatives.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Chris Burke]

Efficiency (as in the size/speed/amount of solar energy) is as important as cost. If it is efficient enough to pay for its own cost before a solar cell would do the same, then it is a better choice.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Pedrito]

Though it doesn't specify, it's highly unlikely that albumin or porphyrin is used up in the reaction. Instead, it likely cleaves the water molecules (the substrate). Not quite physically tearing it apart, but that probably isn't an entirely inaccurate description either. Many proteins perform functions like this on other molecules. They'll attach to part of the substrate and remove, say an -OH hydroxyl group, or some other piece of the molecule. This is how liver enzymes breaks down certain drugs so that the byproducts (called metabolites) can be removed from the blood by the kidneys. As someone else mentioned catalase from yeast, it works in a similar way and removes an oxygen molecule off of hydrogen peroxide, leaving water and oxygen, but the catalase isn't "used up" in the process.

That said, proteins don't usually last forever and how long they last largely depends on how hostile their environment is, and what constitutes a hostile environment for a protein varies from protein to protein.

Re:Energy output = input?

[NeutronCowboy]

Easy answer - in a closed system, total entropy will always increase. Which means that the bigger the system is that you consider, the less likely it is easy that you will actually be able to truly generate energy. At some point, it all boils down to shifting energy from one place to another, or storing it for use at a later time. Which means that by definition, you will use waste at least some energy in that process.

The real question is: what's the cost of producing energy in this fashion, and are we willing to bear the cost? This approach looks pretty damn spiffy: enviromentally degradable input and output, solar energy used for input.... far better than anything else I've seen so far. Sign me up.

Re:Energy output = input?

[sillybilly]

Yes, but most biological matter is easily degraded by UV radiation, plus infection - bacteria would love to feast on your new solar cells.
As a sidenote, to quote the artilce: "Dr Stephen Curry Opens in new window, a structural biologist from Imperial College London's Division of Cell and Molecular Biology who participated in the research explains: "This work has shown that it is possible to manipulate molecules and proteins that occur naturally in the human body by changing one small detail of their make-up, such as the type of metal at the heart of a porphyrin molecule, as we did in this study.
Naturally occur in a human? I was hoping they'd be talking about cow-derived materials, unless they are interested in genetically engineering photosynthetic human beings? Maybe one of our great great grand children will be engineered enough to be vacuum resistant and fully photosynthetic, then he can fly around in outer space while living off of sunshine.

Re:Energy output = input?

[jcr]

What really matters is how much this process drops the cost of separating water, not the energy efficiency.
-jcr

Re:Energy output = input?

[Foofoobar]

Note the complete lack of superlatives.

So greater!=surpasses? I'd suggest a dictionary if I thought you literate enough to even understand what a superlative is.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Buck2]

This reminds me of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Good book.

Re:Energy output = input?

[wetfeetl33t]

Yes, that's true if this were a closed system. However, this isn't a closed system. Energy is entering it (from the sun), and mass is entering and leaving (water, hydrogen and oxygen). So yes, total entropy is increasing somewhere, but it just isn't in this hypothetical system

Re:Energy output = input?

[Tumbleweed]

Now we just have to figure out if the amount of energy needed to synthesize the blood protein (say, X liters of hydrogen in a fuel cell) is less than
the energy of the hydrogen produced from this process... :)

This statement _really_ old, and completely misses the point.

It takes more energy to find, drill for, pump, process, and ship oil, than you ever get out of it. That ain't the point, either.

The POINT is to have a MOBILE fuel (or energy transfer medium, or whatever you want to call it; it's semantics at this point). Energy you can use to move your butt from one place to another in a vehicle.

Laptop computers aren't as powerful as desktop computers, AND they're a lot more expensive as well. That doesn't mean they're worse than desktop computers, just that that is how MOBILE computers work. Same thing with oil/hydrogen/what-have-you.

We expend energy to have a fuel (oil, hydrogen, natural gas) that we can take with us. No, it's not as energy efficient as plugging into the electric grid, but then again, I don't have an extension cord that long. :)

I'm sure it won't be less than the energy of the hydrogen produced by the process, but, what SHOULD we be comparing it to?

How much energy does it take to produce hydrogen via cracking natural gas?
How much energy does it take to produce hydrogen via electrolysis?
How much energy does it take to produce hydrogen via splitting water with a high-temp gas cooled nuclear reactor?
How much energy does it take to produce hydrogen via some genetically-engineered seagrass or other plant?

The efficiency of whatever hydrogen fuel cell or Hydrogen internal combustion engine is another part of the 'efficiency' equation, but then you get to compare that to a fossil-fuel ICE and get to take into account the efficiencies and hard dollar costs of removing pollution from the exhaust, and from pollution mitigation efforts of the stuff that makes it out of the tailpipe, anyway.

Please, everyone, just stop it with the 'will it take more energy to get it into a portable form than you get from the portable energy'? Yes, it will always take more energy to put the energy source into a portable form. It's worth it because YOU'RE PUTTING IT IN A PORTABLE FORM.

Ahem. Hopefully I haven't been too obnoxious here, but this is just really getting old and tired (just like me).

And now I'm hungry.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much energy? Depends how big the child is.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Anonymous Coward]

the energy to synthesize the blood protein is presumably negligible. these 2 proteins would probably be grown in cell culture, so the only input would be the nutritional requirements of the bacteria/yeast that produces it. they state in the results that the reaction appeared to continue without any slowing (i.e., none of the ingredients are consumed (besides water)).

the reaction is very slow however -- a 3.5ml volume produced 0.044ml hydrogen in 6 hours (using a 450W lamp).

assuming that their conditions correspond roughly to sunlight (i have no idea though), a 1x1 meter square, 5 cm deep, would produce about 100ml/hour.

Re:Energy output = input?

[ikkonoishi]

I think we have found the reason for the Matrix! They used human blood to make hydrogen for their fusion reactors!6775

Re:Energy output = input?

[UMNbandgeek]

Actually, it's most likely an enzyme, which is a biplogical catalyst. If thats the case, then it is not consumed in the reaction, and can be used over and over again, without needing to create more.

Re:Energy output = input?

[UMNbandgeek]

Too bad it needs the sun, which there was a definite lack of in the Matrix.

Re:Energy output = input?

[nuklearfusion]

I was hoping they'd be talking about cow-derived materials, unless they are interested in genetically engineering photosynthetic human beings?

It doesn't really matter what species the protein comes from. no that they about the gene, it should be possible to genetically engineer bacteria (E. Coli) to generate the protein. this is already done for human insulin.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Danny Rathjens]

Please move your signature to its proper place [slashdot.org]. I don't care to read your spam.

I second this request. And also request that we don't moderate up people using sleezy tactics like this. These subtle spammers and scammers are the ones creeping in our borders that we need to be vigilant of to catch them before they take root in our community.

Re:Energy output = input?

[DrFalkyn]

Actually there is somewhat of a point, since the ultimate source of biological energy is the sun, comparing its efficiency to other methods that involve solar is fair game. Unless they are actually talking about putting the protein *in the vehicle*, to produce hydrogen on the fly, then I would be impressed. If you have an efficient way to produce hydrogen from water on the fly, you wouldn't have to have store hydrogen directly which is extremely difficult to stora at the necessary energy densities for vehicular automotion (either needs extremely low temperature or extremely high pressures)

Re:Energy output = input?

[Tumbleweed]

You missed my point. There's no point in asking, "will you get as much energy out of it as you will in producing the hydrogen fuel," because you can't. As I said, yeah, it's good to compare it to OTHER methods of hydrogen production, and then to other ICE fuels. But the whole, "this takes way more energy than you can get out of it" misses the point - ALL fuels do.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

twas said:It takes more energy to find, drill for, pump, process, and ship oil, than you ever get out of it. That ain't the point, either.

That is completely untrue. By orders of magnitude. The ER/EI of oil in the 1920s was around 100:1. Nowadays it's down to a bout 20 - 30:1. Tar sands suck they're down around 2:1, at best.

The POINT is to have a MOBILE fuel (or energy transfer medium, or whatever you want to call it; it's semantics at this point). Energy you can use to move your butt from one place to another in a vehicle.

No, dumbass. The point is transportation, regardless of whether it uses transportable fuel, a la, the automobile, or connected energy, a la the electric train.

Hydrogen is a non-starter, even with this technology. Why? Simple physics: it takes more energy to unbond water than you get back from burning the hydrogen and thusly re-bonding it back into water. Period, end of story. It's a little thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Deal.

Hydrogen is a Really Bad Idea.

Nothing can contain it, storing it (as a supercold liquid) takes enormous amounts of energy, and, at root, it's got negative ER/EI. I don't care if it's in a portable form - IT'S NOT A SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY. PERIOD.

I suggest bicycles.

RS

Re:Energy output = input?

[pallmall1]

It takes more energy to find, drill for, pump, process, and ship oil, than you ever get out of it.

That is the biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever seen written on Slashdot. One tanker truck of crude oil uses about 10-15 gallons of diesel to deliver over 10,000 gallons of crude to a refinery. A small well can produce over a hundred truck loads in it's life. The refining takes far less energy than the energy yield of the refined products. While a drilling rig takes more fuel to run than, say, a lawnmower, it uses nowhere near the amount of fuel obtainable from even a small well. Pumping units are often run off residual gas produced by the well itself. Oil and gas are also transported through pipelines which are much more efficient than the tanker trucks.

The ridiculous statement about oil/gas exploration and production resulting in a net negative energy balance reflects the ignorant and uniformed attitudes that keep the United States dependent on foreign energy sources.

Re:Energy output = input?

[robaal]

I think there is also some work done to make algae produce hydrogen:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/02/2 2/0810225

Re:Energy output = input?

[Ginger Unicorn]

his obnoxious tone and your pedantry aside, you said it "far surpasses", which the article doesn't.

Re:Energy output = input?

[jafiwam]

Your post is so full of factually incorrect bullshit it's almost funny.

I defy you to find anybody in TFA that says they broke the laws of physics.

Of friggin course they will be bound by the laws of physics. This thing isn't a Captain Kirk invention. It's a novel biochemical solution to what used to be a chemical physical method, doing the exact same goddamn thing, taking a hard to move energy source and trading some of it for portability of a gas or liquid.

There are well known compounds and methods for storing hydrogen that makes your storage point moot. Fuck, BMW has a working H-power car. You think they are using a long cyrogenic hose? My guess is, there's an H tank in there somewhere. People have been storing and moving hydrogen around for years. The only questions are is it affordable, feasable in a car and safe. Even if all the problems are not solvable by good simple engineering, compromise solutions that don't rely on the stuff sitting in the vehicle for a week unattended might be used.

So I suggest fuck off. Ride your bike if you want you fucking hippie. Some of us like goods and services transported in a shorter time than a month and intend to have another way of doing it once the oil runs out.

Re:Energy output = input?

[icebrain]

Are we going to look at this from a pure physics standpoint, or a "practical use" standpoint?

Yes, the laws of physics and thermodynamics say that we need to put more energy into the water/methane/$other_hydrogen_source to "crack" it and get hydrogen than we will get back from burning it or recombining it in fuel cells. However, that's not the point. As other posters have said, _all_ fuels take more energy to create or store than they produce when consumed.

You say that "[h]ydrogen is a non-starter, even with this technology. Why? Simple physics: it takes more energy to unbond water than you get back from burning the hydrogen and thusly re-bonding it back into water. Period, end of story. It's a little thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Deal." Again, all fuels require that. Yes, I know that most of that has already been done for us (plants into animals into fossil fuels), but sunlight is FREE. Once we get infrastructure in place, it is (from a _practical_ standpoint) self-sustaining. In other words, we don't have to sit there and pay for every Joule of solar energy we use, because it's going to be there regardless. Might as well take advantage of it.

It's kinda like designing a rocket vs. designing an airplane. When you design a rocket, you have to carry all of your propellant (oxidizer and fuel) with you, and it all has to be accounted for. Every bit of extra fuel or inefficiency hurts you in overall performance. Similarly, when you design a plane, you know that you need air (your oxidizer) to run your engine and to fly. The difference is, however, that you don't need to worry about carrying the air with you. It's everywhere, and you don't have to worry about where it's going to come from. Essentially, it is free. There's a reason rockets define efficiency in terms of total propellant used, while airplanes define it only by fuel used--I don't really care how much air the plane uses, because again--I don't have to pay for it.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that, at the real-world practical level of things, efficiency is defined as "what you get" over "what you paid for." We don't have to continually pay money for the sunlight to produce hydrogen (which could then power its own distribution costs) like we have to continually pay for the coal/oil/uranium that would be used for the same thing (or that is used in the process of collecting, refining, and distributing themselves).

Re:Energy output = input?

[radtea]

his obnoxious tone

My tone was not (intended to be) obnoxious.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Anonymous Coward]

as long as the molecule does not interfere with rest of the body functions.

Re:Energy output = input?

[Foofoobar]

You must be a new practitioner of the art of sarcasm for you applied it but now claim to be ignorant of its application. Note the aire of condescension.

Re:Energy output = input?

[aminorex]

Comparatives are not superlatives.

protestors...

[User 956]

The Imperial College in London is reporting that genetically-engineered blood protein can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.

I can hear it now... "No blood for oil! or hydrogen!"

Re:protestors...

[zappepcs]

yeah, but on the funny side, this should fix any desalination plant issues they have in Iraq?

Re:protestors...

[xENoLocO]

Sure, but now they need water. ... are gypsy tears made of water?

How effecient is this?

[MikeFM]

I wonder how this compares to other methods such as solar power? Do you have to refuel this? How expensive is it to produce, install, and care for compared to solar panels. Makes me think of the book Distraction - maybe it'd be a good method for people that have time to care for it but not a lot of money?

Re:How effecient is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This method does save at least one energy conversion step over solar + electrolysis...

Re:How effecient is this?

[Ramble]

I'd say it'd be very efficient. All we need to do is keep the enzyme (assuming it is one) at a constant temp and pH.

Re:How effecient is this?

[kebes]

I'm reading over the actual article right now. It seems that process is quite efficient. In the conclusion of the paper they note:

Currently, rHSA(wt) is manufactured in an industrial scale, which allows us to use this zinc-protein photosensitizer in practical applications Thus the raw materials are cheap enough that one could imagine scaling this up significantly. Moreover since its behavior is catalytic, the protein isn't used up, so you wouldn't need to replace it very often.

With regard to efficiency, in the Abstract they also point out that their system is more efficient than the previous standard in organic photo-synthesis:

The efficiency of the photoproduction of H2 was greater than that of the system using the well- known organic chromophore, tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphinatozinc(II ) (ZnTMPyP4+), under the same conditions. Since the discovered system is a photosensitized catalyst, it effectively is a new kind of solar power. However it is one that directly generates H2 from incident light, without requiring one to harvest light energy as electricity, store it, and then use it to split water. So this discovery, coupled with cars/devices that run on H2 efficiently, seems like a viable idea. Of course we'll have to wait and see whether this really pans out, but from this paper it does indeed seem that this is a feasible way to harvest solar power (and store it as H2).

Re:How effecient is this?

[jalet]

> Do you have to refuel this?

Yes, but they are still wondering if it's better to refill this stuff with water, or with human bodies...

Re:How effecient is this?

[smackt4rd]

Just catch some small animals and stuff them in the gas-tank. :)

Re:How effecient is this?

[MikeFM]

A new use for road kill - let your car collect it and use it as fuel. Just watch out for small children. People whine so much if you run over their kids let alone if your car digests them for a fuel source.

Re:How effecient is this?

[misleb]

With regard to efficiency, in the Abstract they also point out that their system is more efficient than the previous standard in organic photo-synthesis:

Ok, HOW efficient is it though? I'd like to compare it to solar panels. Is there any indication of how much energy you could extract from sunlight? Is there an optimal protein density and water depth for breaking down water?

It would be cool if anyone could put something the size of a kiddie-pool outside and collect H2 all day.

-matthew

Re:How effecient is this?

[Hubristically Yours]

Not sure about the recombinant albumin, but part of my job involves pharmaceutical purchasing, and a vial of 20mL of 25% human serum albumin can be obtained for approximately $13. The human version is produced by precipitation from donated blood and is used quite routinely in the hospital to treat various conditions such as shock or malnutrition. Also, many medications are packaged with albumin in the vial (to provide a binding surface for the drug molecules).

I would say though that the "manufactured in an industrial scale" statement is a bit misleading. Purified blood proteins in general are ungodly expensive. For instance, immunoglobins, which you might get to protect you against infection if you've been exposed to, say, Hepatitis B or C, are some of the most expensive drugs we have, ranging up into the thousands of $ per shot. Most of these are refined from human blood, but even if you have trillions of bacteria slaving away for you producing recombinant proteins, it's the purification and quality control steps that are the killer.

Re:How effecient is this?

[adrianmonk]

I wonder how this compares to other methods such as solar power?

It is solar power.

Re:How effecient is this?

[MikeFM]

Okay, how this cares to existing forms of solar power shuch as photovoltics. Duh - like anyone needed that explained.

Re:How effecient is this?

[Cutie Pi]

True, but let's hope this process doesn't require the expensive purification steps that are required to make proteins suitable for human injection. The process might even be able to run with the enzyme-producing bacteria living directly in the water that they are decomposing, with added nutrients of course. Ideally the system could be run ad infinitum as a steady state bioreactor, although this might be difficult to achieve in practice.

Re:How effecient is this?

[marcosdumay]

It is not a medicin. Maybe they won't need to purify it that much.

Very exciting!

[__aagmrb7289]

I eagerly await the return to the days of human/animal sacrifice. "It's for the good of the country! We need to have more SUVs on the road!" Bow down, I say!

Re:Very exciting!

[Skidge]

The Red Cross can just roll it into their blood drives: "Give a pint of blood and fill up your hydrogen tank!"

Re:Very exciting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Psh you think they're going to use human blood? This will end up being yet another way to exploit the animals of the world and use them as factories. Anti-animal-rights people start the flame wars...

Re:Very exciting!

[TimToady]

They've already got the sacrifice part covered:

"...In the presence of the colloidal PVA-Pt as a catalyst and triethanolamine (TEOA) as a sacrificial electron donor, the photosensitized reduction of water to H2 takes place."

Re:Very exciting!

[Duncan3]

Await the return? Every war over oil (all current wars) is exactly that.

Re:Very exciting!

[Greyfox]

Actually they probably could use blood from them. I seem to recall that blood doesn't keep very long and they have to throw a lot out. That waste might not be suitable for use in humans anymore but it should still be full of harvestable proteins.

Re:Very exciting!

[Threni]

"Diesel red! It's people!"

Re:Very exciting!

[Silencer-7]

Blood Drives, you say?

Re:Very exciting!

[pwizard2]

Bah, everyone knows that there is a constant blood shortage only because the vampire overlords secretly control the blood banks.

Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

The breakthrough may pave the way for the development of novel ways of creating hydrogen gas for use as fuel in the future.

Screw that! It means we can breathe underwater! I'm off to try it now.

Re:Cool!

[mikeron]

I don't know why parent has score 0. Breathing underwater is the first thing I thought of.

Cool!

[davidwr]

Now I can pour on plain old cheap DiHydrogen Monoxide next time I cut myself!

No more having to buying that expensive Peroxide stuff. I'm saving up for something really important.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Catalase (cool experiment)

[b0s0z0ku]

Blood also contains a protein called catalase. It makes the hydrogen peroxide that you put on a wounds bubble up with little oxygen bubbles. Yeast contains the same protein. Mix yeast and 3% peroxide solution and you get ------ oxygen and water. Stick a burning match in it and it burns with a bright white flame like a welding torch.

-b.

Re:Catalase (cool experiment)

[slimjim8094]

Not to sound like some sort of a bitch, but do you mean oxygen and hydrogen?

Re:Catalase (cool experiment)

[b0s0z0ku]

Not to sound like some sort of a bitch, but do you mean oxygen and hydrogen?

No, I mean:

2H2O2 --> O2 + 2H2O

(can't seem to get subscripts to work!)

-b.

Re:Catalase (cool experiment)

[slimjim8094]

OK, sorry. I thought there might have been a typo...

Neat experiment. I might have to try it...

efficiency

[drDugan]

The mention efficiency many times in the article, but do not mention the most important efficiency number - that is total energy in/out.

So, a quick calculation of efficiency:

FTA

Light in:
6 hours, 450 W light = 2.7 kWh

H energy out:
0.044 mL H ... at 4.7 MJ/L (Wikipedia) * 1/1000 (L/mL) * 1/3.6e6 (kWh/J) * 1e6 (J/MJ) =

= 5.7 e -5 kWh

Disclaimer:

This probably has an error, please help me correct it.

It has been a really long time since I did physics or dimensional analysis.

I could not find in the paper the pressure for the 0.044 ml of generated hydrogen, nor it's weight, so I made a gross assumption the energy density listed in Wikipedia (at 700 bar) was close enough.

Regardless, if you put in 2.7 units of energy and get out 0.000057 units... that seems really (s)low.

Re:efficiency

[TubeSteak]

Regardless, if you put in 2.7 units of energy and get out 0.000057 units... that seems really (s)low

Even if your math is off, it might not matter if the process can be scaled up, since solar power is cheap/free.

The important question is how cheaply can they synthesize the needed protein.

Re:efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd think that the amount of sun in isn't really relevant to how useful this will be. It would be more interesting to know whether there's any maintenance associated with the protein... How long can the protein go on breaking down water/taking in sunlight before it needs to be replaced with more protein?

Re:efficiency

[jafac]

Presumably this protein catalyst can be manufactured on a much larger scale than solar cells.

Solar energy is free (well. .. as "free" as the square-footage of land on which you situate your collectors) - but solar CELLS aren't free.

Re:efficiency

[radtea]

could not find in the paper the pressure for the 0.044 ml of generated hydrogen, nor it's weight, so I made a gross assumption the energy density listed in Wikipedia (at 700 bar) was close enough.

1 bar is more likely, so the miniscule efficiency you've computed needs to be reduced by a further factor of 700.

Thanks for providing these numbers, which look quite sensible. I don't have access to the article, and neither the abstract nor the press release contain any information that would be useful in evaluating the practical status of this technique.

Re:efficiency

[FridayBob]

This is exactly the point. It's nice that we can now use sunlight and a protein to split water and make hydrogen, but indeed, How efficient is the process? Screen printed poly-crystalline solar panels are about 12-15% efficient and produce around 120-150 W/m2... directly (=very convenient). Can this new method do any better? Let's hope so, because otherwise we might as well use solar panels to produce electricity to split water.

Re:efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Beaten by TubeSteak... tonight this AC wheeps.

Re:efficiency

[Emeye]

The other thing is that not all of that in wattage is actually light; how much is heat?

Re:efficiency

[NeutronCowboy]

The energy of the light bulb (didn't read the article, I'm assuming that's what was used) is radiated out in a sphere. If more of the energy is absorbed by a larger container, or a container more closely positioned to the light, or any other method of more efficiently using the light radiated by the bulb, you can dramatically scale up the efficiency of the process. That's why incident light energy is generally measured in W/m^2, not straight W.

Re:efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Another stab:

Earlier in the article they state that "The solution of rHSA(wt)-ZnPP absorbed 8.9 × 10^16 photons for the initial 60 s".

Lets assume the same rate of photon absorption for the final 6 hour test: (not sure if this is true)

Energy in watts in can be calculated with planks constant and the frequency of visible light:
photon rate * planks constant * frequency = Energy rate in Watts
(8.9/60)e16 photons/sec * 6.63e-34 J*s * 5.9e14 /s
    = 5.8e-4 Watts for 6 hours
    = 3.48e-6 kWh energy in

Energy that can be released from hydrogen:
    0.044 mL H2

Assume H2 is a gas at 1 atm, STP, 1.013 bar:
      density of H2 = 0.085 kg / m3 = 0.085 kg / 1e6 mL

Therefore we have 3.74e-9 kg H2

The higher heating value for hydrogen HHV = 39.39 kWh/kg

If we burn the hydrogen, we get 1.47e-7 kWh energy out.

Efficiency = energy out / energy in

      = 1.47e-7 kWh / 3.48e-6 kWh = 4.2 %

However we are assuming here that no other energy went into making any of the other chemicals that are consumed by this reaction. (HUGE ASSUMPTION)

-twb

Re:efficiency

[clacke]

Oh, but it does matter. If you're choosing between populating your field with fast-growing biomass, photovoltaics or this thing, the efficiency (and TCO as always) is extremely relevant.

What does your car run on?

[metlin]

What does your car run on?

Mine runs on blood, sweat and tears! =) /stupidity

Re:What does your car run on?

[Chosen Reject]

Yeah, I had a car like that once.

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

If you inject the GM blood in a person, and they are cut, and the sun shines on the blood, will the person blow up?

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

[metamatic]

Vampire cars!

Re:Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

[FusionDragon2099]

Dracula is not on the bus, Dracula IS the bus!

Doomsday weapon?

[Reality Master 101]

I wonder if you could bioengineer a plant that could survive in the ocean similar to seaweed, which would secrete this chemical. Eventually all the oceans would turn into Hydrogen and Oxygen... and LIFE WOULD BE DOOMED! Bwahahaha

Re:Doomsday weapon?

[idonthack]

Easy and fun solution:
Blow it up. Huge explosion, and you get your water back!

Re:Doomsday weapon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about global warming!

age old mistery finally solved !

[Potatomasher]

So that's how Moses managed to cross the Red Sea ?!

Re:age old mistery finally solved !

[Tandoori Haggis]

"So that's how Moses managed to cross the Red Sea ?!"

That's an interesting idea. But if the reaction was too fast and someone rubbed two sticks together, he could have gone in to orbit nearly 2000 years before Sputnik. (If the red sea was blood that is).

Maybe he ran a ferry service. Except on Sunday's of course.
And I used to think that the red stuff the hull was coated with was anti-fouling paint.

Re:age old mistery finally solved !

[davidsyes]

HOLY MOSES!

Captcha: factor...

(Why am I thinking blood factors and MaxxFactor?)

Re:age old mistery finally solved !

[ibn_khaldun]

Moses would have happily run the service on Sunday; it was Saturday he would have skipped. Hmmm, except he didn't even have those laws yet, and when he did, Version 1.0 crashed (literally) and only Version 2.0 was widely marketed. Success of the product is still debated.

Re:Desalinization

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I thought the abstract said that the compound used is oxidized, meaning that the oxygen is captured and only the hydrogen is released. If I read the abstract wrong, please correct me.

Re:Desalinization

[dextromulous]

If we're lucky, you'd not only get clean water, you'd get an abundance of (clean, perhaps?) energy that could be converted to electricity.

superhero

[alucinor]

However, one of the scientists went too far, and replaced every iron atom at the center of his porphyrin molecules with zinc, transforming him into Hydro Man -- but only when he went out into the sunlight.

a little too Matrix-like for my peace of mind

[Tumbleweed]

Don't anyone tell the Machines about this, otay?

So, all we gotta do is ship water up into orbit at $10,000 per pound and gain access to 24 hour light, then let the hydrogen ships drop back down where we can pick them up.

Or perhaps something more reasonable. If we do this, we can also probably eliminate salt mines with all the salt we'll be taking out of the water at the same time. Yay, no more salt mines!

Now all we need is some of those nifty carbon nanotube wall fuel tanks to store enough hydrogen to make a hydrogen-fueled passenger car a practically reality, and we're all set!

Oh yeah, and lots more highways; screw public transportation!

Guess someone should get on making hydrogen-powered buses and light rail for Seattle.

Re:a little too Matrix-like for my peace of mind

[bobcat7677]

Yeah, I'm thinking this is the type of power generation they were talking about in the Matrix. First I find out that there is in fact a company that makes advanced robotics called "skynet", then the crazy idea of buring the sky to prevent global warming (stupid eco-terrorists!), now this!

Beware of the machines.

Re:a little too Matrix-like for my peace of mind

[Kreigaffe]

Yeah, how about you guys out there get to cracking on that bitchin' monorail I've heard so much about before you get any light rail.

haha.. monorail.

Re:a little too Matrix-like for my peace of mind

[Tumbleweed]

Monorail project is dead dead dead. (Yes, it's really dead; it's not getting better.) The only monorail we have now and are likely to have for the foreseeable future is the one made for the world fair in the 60's, which breaks down a lot these days. :(

The light rail lines, on the other hand, are doing quite well, and I think we'll see some of that start operating in 2007, though I could be wrong about the timing on that.

You want a modern monorail in the U.S., go to Vegas.

Re:a little too Matrix-like for my peace of mind

[Kreigaffe]

I don't WANT a modern monorail, I vastly prefer making references to the Simpsons about a FAILED monorail.

OGDONVILLE!

Wow movie becomes true...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bloodcar.com/ ;)

Thank you!

[mapkinase]

I would like to praise the submitter for providing a link to a peer-reviewed article. Does not happen very often, worth mentioning.

Re:Thank you!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to praise the submitter for providing a link to a peer-reviewed article. Does not happen very often, worth mentioning.

I second this thanks and praise. Its nice to see some real science news that references a genuine scientific journal. More of this and less of the pseudo-scientific drivel from "Nu Scientist" (intentionally misspelled) please.

Re:Thank you!

[TwilightXaos]

Indeed. It is nice when people cite sources, and provide reliable information. I too wish to encorage this practice, not only on /. but everywhere else on the internet.

Dumb luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow the American car companies (the only ones dumb enough to be using hydrogen-gas for feul for green cars) just lucked out big time.

Re:Dumb luck

[b0s0z0ku]

Wow the American car companies (the only ones dumb enough to be using hydrogen-gas for feul for green cars) just lucked out big time.

Why dumb? Hydrogen + oxygen combining in a fuel cell generates pure water as exhaust. And the process isn't limited by Carnot efficiency, so it can be well over the 40% or so max efficiency for an internal combustion engine. Methane in the form of natural gas is a greenhouse gas, and even with a reformer you still need to do something with the carbon after you burn it. Methanol is an idea, but you'd need to grow a *lot* of corn to fuel the entire USA auto fleet. And that comes with problems like the fact that the land can be better used for other things, like growing other foods, leaving it in its natural state, etc. Not to mention that farming the corn takes energy in and of itself, so it's not as attractive as first thought unless you're just fermenting the waste cobs from food corn (which you get free). Hydrogen, if produced cleanly using either this process or heat/electricity from nuclear reactors *is* really the way to go.

Only American companies? Not AFAIK - both Honda and BMW have done research into hydrogen cars since the early 90ies at least.

-b.

Next:

[jafac]

We'll need one of these that can split Oxygen and Carbon.

(ie - remove Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere, and plant the Carbon somewhere safe - like maybe in empty petroleum resevoirs, where it came from).

Re:Next:

[Jherico]

You mean these?

Re:Next:

[ink]

Yeah, they're called plants. They use this process known as photosynthesis to do just that (where do you think most of the carbon came from in the oil that we're drilling up?). We need to stop making so much CO2.

Re:Next:

[PitaBred]

I wish I had mod points. Is there a "So painfully obvious it hurts" tag?

Re:Next:

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha. thank you.

Re:Next:

[Baldrson]

These are better than trees. You can't grow trees in the ocean -- at least not without some pretty impressive artificial islands.

They compare their efficiency to chlorophyll

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromophore
"The efficiency of the photoproduction of H2 was greater than that of the system using the well-known organic chromophore, tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphinatozinc(II ) (ZnTMPyP4+), under the same conditions."

So, if we can get plants to produce this we can have hydrogen plants.

Um, Finland already runs on hydrogen fuel

[CrazyJim1]

Finland made hydrogen fuel cells that they use for many things such as electricity when boating. They say it only takes 8 fuel cells to theoretically power a car, but the article I read was years old. I've been told Finland already has electric cars.

Heresay, I do say.

Re:Um, Finland already runs on hydrogen fuel

[Lorkki]

I live in Finland, and had to google to find out what you're talking about. I guess the claims about Hydrocell's products come pretty close, but fuel cell technology is not really in that wide use here.

Electric and (more so, I'd presume) hybrid cars do have some penetration, but then again there's less obstacles to adopting them.

Old Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Now not only the wheels of history are oiled with the blood of the workers, but the power system as well.

No need to breath anymore

[Hoi Polloi]

I look forward to not having to breath anymore. I could just stand out in the sun and drink some water. Is there a chance that I'd split all the water in my blood and dessicate like a raisin? Then there is the matter of all that leftover hydrogen. Would I burst like the Hindenburg? Oh the humanity!

breathing under water would be nice too

[GodWasAnAlien]

A gill pack would be nice for walking around on the other 3/4 of the planet.

Though it's not the same, as I think fish get oxygen from dissolved free oxygen, not by splitting H20.

What to do with all this extra hydrogen?

Re:breathing under water would be nice too

[deevnil]

Maybe the hydrogen can keep us from getting the bends.

We really don't want to do that.

[mmell]

Imagine such an organism in the wild, breaking water down into its constituent elements.

Do you believe that such an organism, once engineered, could be kept forever contained? Life has a funny way of getting around such obstacles. GM corn is one thing - even GM bacilli to, say, biodegrade plastics. GM organisms which can break water down to hydrogen and oxygen? I think we (collectively) need to reevaluate the risk factors here; such an organism in the wild could very well turn our planet into a dustbowl in such a shockingly short time we wouldn't even have time to lynch the scientists who created it (think: hours - the mathematics of unchecked reproduction are truly alarming).

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[catbutt]

Given that its from a living thing anyway, it seems like if breaking down hydrogen and oxygen in mass had any survival benefit, natural selection would have figured it out already.

Obviously, caution is always needed in genetic tinkering, but still....I think the knee jerk "OMG its going to zap all our oceans!" is unwarranted.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[CorSci81]

It has, it's called photosynthesis. Granted, here you're not liberating free hydrogen. But to counter the GP argument of using up all water on earth... can you imagine how incredibly unstable the local environment would become for one of these organisms in the wild? They'd be very liable to kill themselves off either through pH changes or simply setting their environment on fire if they reproduced unchecked. That combined with the fact you could never split all the water on earth faster than it will recombine if sunlight is your only energy input.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[SquareOfS]

Umm . . . we already do this? Check it out.

Net loss of 1 H2O molecule in the Krebs Cycle. And plenty of other places as well, I assume.

It's impossible, one presumes, for any standard cellular organism to destroy all water in its environment, because then no biochemical processes could occur and it would be dead.

I presume the way this works is that they isolate the protein, rather than adding the organism to the water. And proteins don't self-replicate.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[Nutria]

one of these organisms in the wild?

What organisms?

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[Coryoth]

I think we (collectively) need to reevaluate the risk factors here; such an organism in the wild could very well turn our planet into a dustbowl in such a shockingly short time we wouldn't even have time to lynch the scientists who created it (think: hours - the mathematics of unchecked reproduction are truly alarming).

Who said anything about reproduction, let alone unchecked reproduction? The article says it is a molecular complex, not a living organism capable of reproduction. I expect it is just an enzyme to catalyse the reaction, so I wouldn't worry about this any more than you would be inclined to worry about naturally occuring cellulase suddenly going rampant and destroying all plant life on earth in a matter of hours. Generally being somewhat informed is a prerequisite critical analysis of risks and any ensuing scaremongering (okay, that's not true, i just think it should be a prerequisite!).

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[Anonymous Coward]

The assumption, of course, being that breaking down water could be a selective advantage in the wild, compared to other bacteria.

"Boy Bubba, that sure is a neat thing yer doin' with yer cytosol!"

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[CorSci81]

Read my original comment on hypothetically genetically engineering organisms to produce the catalyst to do this and subsequent discussion. I might also suggest reading through the entire thread of a conversation vs. replying to the last comment. It tends to make more sense that way.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[CorSci81]

I brought up reproduction... i.e. the possibility of synthesizing this compound via a genetically engineered organism, hence the scaremongering response.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[Nutria]

hypothetically genetically engineering organisms

But that's the point. Going wooly over a wild hypothesis is idiotic. (The molecule would "eat" it's own host up.)

I might also suggest reading through the entire thread of a conversation vs. replying to the last comment.

And yes, I did read the whole thread. Up to my comment, at least.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[Qzukk]

(The molecule would "eat" it's own host up.)

This might be of interest to you.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[_argonauta]

just so you can sleep well tonight, i'll let you know (as the summary says): it is not an organism. it is just a complex molecule. sweet ebola dreams.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[_argonauta]

now immagine that water molecules could fight back! what a mess! war of the worlds! (hypothetical joke, of course)

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[_argonauta]

I brought up reproduction... hence the scaremongering response. exactly!

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[adrianmonk]

I presume the way this works is that they isolate the protein, rather than adding the organism to the water. And proteins don't self-replicate.

I wouldn't be too sure of that. I mean, this particular protein, maybe not. But never say never.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[PWNT]

Ahem. Proteins can replicate. I refer you to my friend Prion. Better known as CJD, scabies, or Kuru. I understand you refer to self propagating, however it still brings up an interesting idea, if humans continue to use purified proteins (enzymes) to do a great deal of processing, perhaps some sort of prion for this enzyme will be found.

As an aside,

Could the hypothetical prion for this hypothetical hydrogen splitting protein infect a person, and cause illness? It is indeed a scary thought.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[chaoticgeek]

This is why you make it so they can not reproduce, and die after some time. That way the company makes more money, and our oceans don't go bye bye. Safe guards are great for things like this. Of course we would have to figure it out how to do it first, but I have faith.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[cluckshot]

I think the parent of this post should be moderated up to about a 25 or 30. (Yes I know 5 is the limit now) The subject of a solution becoming a serious problem recently came up regards to Bucky tubes. It turns out these things are dangerous to life in the first degree. We need to be careful ... damn careful when we do something new. It may have unforeseen consequences and they can really get out of hand in the nanotechnology area.

I don't want to hear from the classical libertarian arguments about "freedom" here. This stuff has to be carefully watched and decisions cannot be made by simple decision of one person. They have to be worked on carefully.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[RockDoctor]

Ahem. Proteins can replicate. I refer you to my friend Prion. Better known as CJD, scabies, or Kuru.

That would be SCRAPIE, not SCABIES.

• Scrapie is a moderately transmissible disease of sheep that makes them (slightly) more stupid (there's not a lot of "room at the bottom" for ovine stupidity) ;
• Scabies is an itchy condition of the (human) skin caused by a tiny mite (Sarcoptes scabiei).

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[PWNT]

my bad

you're right

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[Fordiman]

Um. RTFS. it's not even an organism. It's a protein. Unless, of course, you're sardonically being the "oh noes! the world's gonna end soon!" guy. If that's the case, carry on.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[maraist]

such an organism in the wild could very well turn our planet into a dustbowl

So why haven't trees stripped every ounce of Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere?

Because there is more to a chemical process than one input (such as water).. For photosynthesis, there are many chemicals and input sources that are necessary. Sunlight being the most critical element, as it's what provides the energy.

You can do some simple math to figure out how much energy would be necessary in a 100% efficient environment to convert the ocean to Hydrogen and Oxygen.. Then take into account that very little of the high energy solar radiation actually gets to the earth's surface. Then take into account the starvation of constituent ingredients. In photo-synthesis, you need carbon dioxide, Oxygen and water. I don't recall the exact cycle. But for the engine to operate you need to efficiently feed all ingredients in the exact mixture. In nature, this happens through diffusion.. The "waste" products slowly ooze out, while the ingredients seep in (with sun-light permiating based on ideal geographic locations).

Then you have competition between the cells.. They fight over one another, thus starving one or more ingredients. But much like a database deadlock situation. If A blocks B for resource 1 and B blocks A for resource 2, then you have an inpass.

Finally, there are counter-weights in nature. As the chemical makeup of the surroundings change (due to super-saturation of new elements, and th starvation of others'), the ability to do business as usual degrades. The chemical engines themselves, eventually become the food source of some other mechanism.

Thus, even in a homogenous environment of some genetically engineered cellular factory, it would be nearly impossible for the oceans to run dry. SOOOO many factors would kick in LONG before any appreciable progress was made.

Now, it's possible under the right circumstances for a desert's lake to dry up, for example (assuming the right minerals exist to promote cellular replication).

But as other posters have noted, if this were an easy thing to occur, it would have already happened naturally and there wouldn't be water on earth today.

Re:We really don't want to do that.

[Alsee]

the fact you could never split all the water on earth faster than it will recombine if sunlight is your only energy input.

That's why we're going to make them nuclear powered!

Muahahahahahaha!

-

Why did the image...

[rtilghman]

of a small piece of Ice-Nice suddenly pop into my head. :)

rt

ice 9 ish

[jbaker8935]

... oh no, it's escaped and it's angry ... ... earth becomes water free ... ... ) ...

Blood Money?

[zerosix]

Gives a whole new meaning to blood money...

Take Borat's advice

[DeepZenPill]

So if we just harvest the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq we could be free from our addiction to oil?

Biochemical isn't the only approach

[quoll]

I'm pleased to see alternative technologies to split water using sunlight, but the idea is not new.

There is a group at UNSW who have been working on ceramics which use sunlight to split water (via a process of electrolysis). It's still in research (mostly due to efficiency), but it's an interesting option if you're interested in this stuff.

Their website is pretty sparse, but there is a story on them here.

Serum shortage leads to high prices.

[Anonymous Coward]

Winos drinking Dom instead of Polly Peach!

Re:Desalinization

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it (haven't read the full article), the protein acts as a catalyst (enzyme would probably be a better term - same thing, but organic in origin). The thing about catalysts is, they work under fairly strict conditions. eg: there's a catalytic converter in modern car engines, to cut down the nitrous oxides car engines produce. Those don't work if lead is present - hence, unleaded fuels.

It's very likely that the presence of salt in salt water will break down the enzyme, or otherwise stop it from working ... so no, not an easy way to desalinate water. You'd have to desalinate water, then split that into hydrogen and oxygen, and burn the result to generate the electricity to desalinate the next lot - much less efficient.

Which is not to say that the process would not be viable - it may well be. Just that it would take a different form to what you're proposing.

Splitting CO2

[KidSock]

Can anyone specuate as to whether or not a similar technique could be used to split 2CO2 into 2CO+O2? That would be rather useful as well provided the CO could be fixed elsewhere.

Re:Splitting CO2

[noigmn]

Yeh was thinking the same. If we could break down carbon and sulphur compounds in the air, it would be a big step forward in fixing global warming. And also in atmospheric engineering, which we might need if we decide to create an atmosphere on Mars.

Imagine if photosynthesis could work with whatever compound we wanted. We could have it on space ships to break the CO2 breathed out back into O2 to rebreath also. Might also work for divers.

Re:Splitting CO2

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude! See above.

Re:Splitting CO2

[Jim_Callahan]

It's called a 'tree'. It removes an oxygen molecule from every carbon dioxide molecule, then you burn it in low-oxygen conditions to get CO. It uses a series of light-activated enzymatic molecules to do this, as described in the article.
 
Merry christmas.

Tip of the Iceberg?

[GogglesPisano]

I suspect that many of our most vexing engineering problems (efficient energy production and storage, advanced pattern recognition, to name just two) have already been solved at the molecular level by our cells. The answers to these problems are as close as our own DNA.

In college in the late 80s, I double-majored in Computer Science and Biology because I was convinced that the next huge advance in technology would be come from advances in genetic engineering. The Human Genome Project was an exciting first step in that direction, but major advances since then have been disappointingly slow in coming. (I've also been discouraged to see that in recent years, due in large part to resistance from religious fundamentalists in the US, most new developments in this field seem to be coming from Europe and Asia.)

I hope this is the first of many such breakthroughs - our genome is an untapped treasure trove.

Al is gonna be pissed

[walrus2517]

So in a few years when Al Gore's predictions come through and the entire earth is covered in water we can just start converting it to hydrogen fuel for our boats? Maybe "Waterworld" would have been a bigger success is Costner had incorporated this idea...

Finally reading about...

[fahrbot-bot]

...something on the bleeding edge of technology here on /.

Ok, ok, OK. I promise not to post for the entire weekend, sigh.
Damn.

Problem with large scale use?

[The Step Child]

From the abstract:

In the presence of the colloidal PVA-Pt as a catalyst and triethanolamine (TEOA) as a sacrificial electron donor, the photosensitized reduction of water to H2 takes place.

My chemistry knowledge isn't really up to the point where I can fully understand the whole abstract, but it sounds like we still need triethanolamine as a source of electrons in order to reduce water to H2. So the energy needed to produce more triethanolamine could put a big dent in the net energy gained from the H2 produced when we're talking about the practical large-scale usefulness of this. Maybe one day we could use another (renewable) electron donor like NADPH, so that we can couple it to another biochemical process like photosynthesis in order to renew our electron donors :)

Re:Problem with large scale use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on the money, it's hard to believe the Journal of the American CHEMICAL Society would publish this as is. First, water is not reduced; protons are reduced. If they had added a little acid, they could have claimed "photosensitized reduction of acid X" just as well. Second, as you mentioned, triethanolamine is a sacrificial reductant. So, the Slashdot title is misleading--water is not being split (which in the scientific jargon means reversing combustion of hydrogen, i.e. net reaction 2H2O --> 2H2 + O2, no sacrifical reductants allowed). Their work leaves the oxygen in its reduced state. Third, they require a platinum catalyst. There are already means to use expensive Pt catalysts or electrodes wired into a circuit with a photovoltaic module. What they've accomplished is light-driven oxidation of TEA to H2. From an industrial-scale energy conversion standpoint, this work doesn't seem terrifically relevant.

It is a neat use of HSA to solubilize Zn protoporphyrin IX and prevent collisional self-quenching of the excited triplet state, though. And, they achieved a greater efficiency in this non-water-splitting reaction than another known catalyst, so that's worth knowing too, I suppose.

Re:Desalinization

[oni]

Actually, I thought the abstract said that the compound used is oxidized, meaning that the oxygen is captured and only the hydrogen is released. If I read the abstract wrong, please correct me.

My (admittedly layman's) understanding is thus: they have a molecule that sticks to oxygen. Put the molecule into water and it grabs the oxygen away from H2O, releasing H2. That by itself is not very impressive. Sodium does something similar. So here's the cool part, when exposed to sunlight, the molecule releases its oxygen - thus the process will go on so long as you have sunlight and water. This is only interesting because the molecule works like a catalyst.

IF it really works (I am cautiously optimistic) this could be the biggest discovery in the history of the world. It could mean that our civilization is no longer on the road to oblivion. It could mean no more energy wars (but don't worry, we'll still have to fight the United Atheist Alliance).

Mad scientists were right!

[monkeyboythom]

They really do need the blood of virgins to power their infernal machines! And we just thought they were mad!

Blood in the water will separate it into hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new rocket-shark overlords.

Where do the electrons come from?

[Draka]

The abstract also mentions "In the presence of the colloidal PVA-Pt as a catalyst and triethanolamine (TEOA) as a sacrificial electron donor, the photosensitized reduction of water to H2 takes place." This basically means that electron fro TEOA is being used to reduce water to hydrogen. This chemical (TEOA) is oxidized and has to be replenished to maintain the H2 production rate. I am not disparaging their results (they are valuable, otherwise it would not be published in such a reputed journal), but trying to put things in perspective. Compare this to the reports of water splitting using titanium dioxide and other ceramics ( http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006ApPhL..89p3106P, http://edu.chem.tue.nl/6KM11/files/Project%20repor ts%202003%202004/Photocatalytic%20water%20splittin g.pdf ) where water is split to yield hydrogen and oxygen without the need for any "sacrificial electron donor".

So...

[tsotha]

If my h20 splittting car has a hole in it's pipes, would it be leaking or... bleeding?

So about that Soylent Green,

[morplewhoosh]

and ending our dependency on oil....

Go Cry Emo Kid

[TranscendentalAnarch]

Wait he's not emo, he's just working on his car.

Re:Desalinization

[ucblockhead]

Yeah, and it's a pity, what with O2 so hard to come by and all

Good news for progressive values

[cryfreedomlove]

I have high hopes for this because it could enable hydrogen to replace fossil fuels as our main source of energy. This would enable the continuing trend of increase personal energy consumption. Enabling personal energy consumption raises standards of living and therefore it is consistent with liberal and progressive values.

Enabling an increase in personal energy consumption for all is a more moral stance than the current emphasis on conservation.

Re:Good news for progressive values

[Jim_Callahan]

Indeed. Progressive, and not a good idea in general.

You realize that the progressives were the crazy, impractical party absorbed by the democrats that correspond to the impractical overreacting Libertarians' relationship with the Republicans, right? What I'm telling you here is that you're right, but you're also being impractical in your basic goals.

The Brits will love this.

[Roadkills-R-Us]

I can hear it now.

``Bloody hydrogen!''

Obligatory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you believe that's air you're breathing?

Sorry.... I had to.

Prior art?

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

Don't vampires have prior art on this? Vampire is exposed to solar energy, blood seperates water into hydrogen and oxygen, vampire bursts into flame. It explains everything.

Come to think of it...

[jcr]

What is Oxygen worth, in commercial quantities? Anyone here bought it for medical purposes or welding lately?
-jcr

Re:Come to think of it...

[Jim_Callahan]

something like .06$US per scm, if I recall correctly. That was for purchases in oxidation-reactor quantities, though, so you might want to look it up yourself.

Also, most of the cost of bought oxygen comes from compressing/cooling it to a liquid and then shipping it, not producing the stuff itself.

Re:Desalinization

[hadhad69]

The NaCl in the sea water may interfere with the catalytic pathway in question, its another story altogether really

Shh. Don't want the gas companies to catch wind

[jsprigg]

The gas companies would never allow a cheap alternative to gas see the light of day.
They'll beg, borrow, steal, kill, throw money at, stomp whoever thinks of crossing their path.

This of course is assuming that this protein can be made on the cheap.

Re:Desalinization

[Boronx]

I'd bet if you exposed this enzyme to ocean water, something is going to eat it. If you kill everything in the water first, there will still be something that breaks it down.

Re:Desalinization

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd bet if you exposed this enzyme to ocean water, something is going to eat it. If you kill everything in the water first, there will still be something that breaks it down.

Large scale gamma irradiation of the sea water would kill everything that might find the enzyme tasty. The real problem is the salt. As the water is broken down into H an O molecules, the salt will accumulate and ruin the process.

Re:Desalinization

[misleb]

Well, maybe AFTER running it through a fuel cell to make electricity. Otherwise you'd be wasting one heck of a lot of energy to make minimal amounts of water. You'd have to burn a lot of hydrogen just to get a glass of water.

-matthew

Re:Desalinization

[misleb]

Wouldn't the salt just precipitate to the bottom requiring periodic flushing? You have the same problem with any desalination process... what to do with all the salt?

-matthew

Imagine

[Duhavid]

A beowolf cluster of those!

titanium dioxide is probably cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

titanium dioxide can be used as a photocatalyst for hydrolysis, as mentioned on wikipedia:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_dioxide

it can even work efficiently if doped w/ carbon:

    http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-110587279.html

kieran

Soylent Green

[WallaceAndGromit]

And all this time I thought I'd be eating it. Come to find out, it'll be powering my car.

They laughed at me at the academy.

[mollace]

No one will be laughing when I unveil my army of VAMPIRE ROBOTS!

Re:They laughed at me at the academy.

[Anonymous Coward]

No one will be laughing when I unveil my army of VAMPIRE ROBOTS! Haven't you heard? Vampire robots suck.

Re:Desalinization

[Prof.Phreak]

If we're lucky, you'd not only get clean water, you'd get an abundance of (clean, perhaps?) energy that could be converted to electricity.

Electricity which can be used to make that blood protein!

Re:Desalinization

[hab136]

Wouldn't the salt just precipitate to the bottom requiring periodic flushing? You have the same problem with any desalination process... what to do with all the salt?

Put it in a container and sell it.

Porphyrin chemistry is very interesting...

[alchemist68]

Porphyrin chemistry is very interesting and has been studied for over 100 years. This news is both exciting and old news, because porphyrins and related isomers have been the subject of continued research. For very detailed information about porphyrin chemistry, refer to The Porphyrins edited by David Dolphin. Also, review the research of Martin Gouterman. In biological systems, porphyrins are found commonly in heme-type proteins used for oxygen transport and cytochrome P450 in the liver for metabolizing biological compounds including pharmaceutical products, and as chlorophyll in plants. Porphyrins have served as catalysts for organic reactions in industry, photodynamic therapy for cancer, molecular devices including sensors and switches, and model compounds for the active sites of enzymes. My thesis, which available for download through OhioLink:

http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?akron11339504 18

details the photophysical characterization of N-Confused tetraphenylporphyrin and characterization of zinc N-Confused tetraphenylporphyrin.

Upon reading this post on Slashdot, I was pleasantly surprized that the subject of my thesis has some similarities to a related compound that could be used for further research into catalyzing an energy source. In one way I'm surprized, and in another I'm not, and I'm glad that one of the Slasdot crowd submitted the post. Porphyrin chemistry is vast, interesting, and complex.

Happy reading!

The Article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Introduction

The photosensitized reduction of water to molecular H2, which is a clean-burning fuel free of CO2 emission, has attracted considerable attention during the past decade. In order to trigger this reaction by visible light, organic chromophores are extensively used as photosensitizers, such as ruthenium tris(bipyridyl) complexes and zinc-porphyrins.1,2 The classical, but effective system, appears to consist of water-soluble, positively charged tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphinatozinc(II ) (ZnTMPyP4+), methyl viologen (MV2+), a colloidal Pt catalyst, and sacrificial electron donor.1a,2 Instead of the synthetic ZnTMPyP4+, if one can use the most prominent porphyrin in nature, namely, protoporphyrin IX, it would have a significant impact not only on pure chemistry but also on solar energy conversion. However, the Zn(II) complex of protoporphyrin IX (ZnPP) is relatively insoluble in water (pH 9), and it is therefore difficult to employ ZnPP in order to construct a practical catalyst system in aqueous media.

Human serum albumin (HSA), the most abundant plasma protein in our bloodstream, acts as a transporter for a range of insoluble endogenous and exogenous compounds, such as fatty acids, bilirubin, thyroxine, hemin [Fe(III)-protoporphyrin IX], and a variety of drugs.3,4 This heart-shaped monomer protein contains three homologous domains (I-III), each of which is composed of A and B subdomains.4,5 Recent X-ray crystallographic studies have revealed that hemin is bound within a narrow hydrophobic D-shaped cavity in subdomain IB of HSA with an axial coordination of Tyr-161 to the central ferric ion.6,7 Furthermore, we have demonstrated that site-directed mutagenesis to introduce a proximal histidine into position Ile-142 and to replace Tyr-161 by Leu at the heme-binding site [rHSA(I142H/Y161L); rHSA(His)] confers a reversible dioxygen binding capability to the prosthetic heme group in a fashion similar to hemoglobin.8

In this paper, we report for the first time the photophysical properties of rHSA complexes with a ZnPP [rHSA(wt)-ZnPP, rHSA(His)-ZnPP] and their photoinduced electron transfer to MV2+ and highlight their activities for the photosensitized reduction of water to H2 in the presence of colloidal PVA-Pt as a catalyst and triethanolamine (TEOA) as a sacrificial regent.

Experimental Section

Materials and Apparatus. All reagents were purchased from commercial sources as special grades and used without further purification. The rHSA(wt) and rHSA(I142H/Y161L) mutant [rHSA(His)] were prepared according to our previously reported procedures.7,8 Zinc(II)-protoporphyrin IX (ZnPP) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. 5,10,15,20-Tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphi natozinc(II) tetrachloride (ZnTMPyP4+) was synthesized by insertion of the central zinc(II) into 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphi n tetra-p-toluenesulfonate (Sigma-Aldrich) using Zn(AcO)2 followed by exchanging the counteranions with chlorides using a Bio-Rad AG 1-X8 resin (100-200 mesh) chloride form with CH3CN/H2O (1/1). The UV-vis absorption spectra were recorded using an Agilent 8453 UV-visible spectrophotometer with an Agilent 89090A temperature control unit. The fluorescence spectra were obtained from a HITACHI F-4500 spectrofluorometer. Water was deionized using a Millipore Elix and Simpli Lab-UV.

Preparation of rHSA(wt)-ZnPP and rHSA(His)-ZnPP. Typically, 5 mL of a potassium phosphate buffered solution (pH 7.0, 50 mM) of rHSA(wt) (0.1 mM) was mixed with 0.8 mL of 0.625 mM ZnPP in DMSO (ZnPP:rHSA molar ratio of 1:1) and incubated for 12 h with rotation in the dark at room temperature. The complex was then diluted with 50 mM potassium phosphate and concentrated to the initial volume using a Vivaspin 20 centrifuge filter (10 kDa MW cutoff) at 4000g using a Beckman Coulter Allegra X-15R centrifuge. These dilution/concentration cycles were repeated to reduce the DMSO concentration to 0.1 vol %. The phosphate buffered solution (pH 7.0, 10

The Matrix

[OBeardedOne]

So the idea of using humans as batteries isn't the _worst_ sci_ fi_ plot_ evar after all?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The Crux of the Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question to be asked here is: can this solar process make hydrogen more cheaply than using current solar methods (of all types) once it is developed?

Adage

[Flwyd]

Even if blood is not thicker than water, it can be used to make the water thinner.

Morpheus

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding, that's exactly what I was thinking...

Morpheus: "With a special protein in the humans' blood, the machines found all the hydrogen generation they needed..."

Neo: "Whoah..."

In the long run, biology will prove efficient

[CFD339]

Right now, we use solar power which has been biologically turned into chemical energy, used to power the growth of at least one, and probably several life cycles, then deposited as waste product from the end of life and digestion of micro organisms and finally stored in the ground for a really long time.

It seems to me, if we can get half as clever as the natural biology in the first place, we should be able to skip a few of those steps. Since there has to be some energy loss at each step, we should have some hope of catching up. Of course, there is the disadvantage of not having millions of years worth of solar energy compressed into each unit of chemical energy, but that's the way it goes.

Kra S'haon

[Doc Ruby]

Can these proteins work properly in the sea?

Skimming the seas for extra oxygen and hydrogen power, and the pure water runoff, seems like the salvation of mankind from the CO2 Greenhouse and otherwise inevitable oil and water exhaustion wars. But if those pressures see us pumping these chemicals into the seas, without consuming the catalysts, then we'll be burning off the seas without limit, and destroying our ecosystem in a grand "antiflood".

Some people are already talking about seeding the seas with iron to promote massive algal blooms to sink more carbon and liberate more O2 to rebalance the atmosphere. Others are talking about massive sulphur jets into the upper atmosphere to absorb more incoming solar radiation. Some want to just burn dirty coal willy nilly to replace imported oil/gas, and damn the consequences. And most people won't believe that polluting our fresh water is the most dire threat we face to our way of life.

So I'm sure many will just want to release these chemicals into the warm, salty seas. All it takes is a few misguided governments or industrialists to do a lot of damage. I really hope we don't just overdose on stupidity, while getting high on how smart we are.

Re:Kra S'haon

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation -1
    100% Redundant

My post does not duplicate the points made in any other post in this thread. TrollMods stagger around Slashdot overdosed on stupidity, pushing their poison on everyone.

Soylent Energy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's made of people! Damn you! People!!!

Re:Desalinization

[dextromulous]

Are you insinuating that our parents are all reverse-vampires?

oblig pulp fiction...

[dumpsterdiver]

Cops tend to notice things like you're drivin' a car drenched in blood...

Sacrifical Donor

[Roxton]

n the presence of the colloidal PVA-Pt as a catalyst and triethanolamine (TEOA) as a sacrificial electron donor, the photosensitized reduction of water to H2 takes place. [Emphasis mine]
Isn't this a problem? How do you restore the triethanolamine without using energy?

Our Machine Overlords

[sylvainsf]

So scientists have invented a way for the machines to get cheap hydrogen power FROM OUR BLOOD?

New 21st century Car...

[TheWingThing]

gives 1000 miles per gallon (of blood).

ATTENTION SLASHDOTTERS

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Don't think about your breathing!

I'd rather drink water than drive my car...

[ThisRoadClosed]

Given our current methodology of "usurp natural resources first, ask questions later," should we maybe think about the consequences of making it easy to monetize the demolition of water? The last I checked, we had a finite water supply and had found neither a way to synthesize it or a nearby celestial body containing any extra. I just do not see it doing us that much good to opt for fuel to power non-living things over fuel to power ourselves. Granted, I would love to see the rise of alternative fuels that do not involve the mining and burning of fossil fuels, coal, and other toxin-laden substances, but we might ought to keep this one in the lab.

Re:I'd rather drink water than drive my car...

[amliebsch]

The last I checked, we had a finite water supply and had found neither a way to synthesize it or a nearby celestial body containing any extra. What are you talking about? Hydrogen + Oxygen = Water. Water synthesis! And both hydrogen and oxygen are readily available in our own solar system.

VAAM not Hydrogen

[mattr]

The protein based process sounds interesting, if it is real, though it will be one choice in the future and as I understand it hydrogen is simply one energy storage technology. Since this might be a way to make hydrogen strategies cheaper it needs to be examined but the proteins will have to survive the industrial process long enough to lyse enough water to break even.

Also consider something like that aquafuel process if it is real, where they burn a carbon arc lamp under water to generate hydrocarbon fuel. You need to consider if making, delivering and burning hydrogen is going to be cheaper than that.

And while we are on the subject of biological molecules it might very well be a lot better to engineer proteins that could produce oil or even an ATP-like system instead of hydrogen. Because you want a concentrated, easy to use substance.

If you want a biological equivalent of jet fuel (well unless you want to make jet fuel itself) you could do worse than synthesize VAAM (Vespa Amino Acid Mixture) and glycogen. This is what hornets use for power and I've drunk it. Quite a kick.

Re:Off the point

[bussdriver]

It takes more energy to find, drill for, pump, process, and ship oil, than you ever get out of it.

No it does not.

Oil is high density stored power you just have to extract, process and ship (for less than you put in, aka profit) and then burn. There are alternate means to make gas, but they cost more which is why oil wins.

Radiation has to be converted into a storage medium(H2O->H+O) often it is again converted for porable storage (cell, or compressed) and finally, its consumed which is also a convertion.

Each conversion process has a loss. Sure, this may be the best H thing yet-- but it has to be a lot better and you still must have massive solar collection even at 0% conversion losses.

Consider minimizing conversions in the chain and picking the better processes.

Solar Radiation -> blood split to H (< fuel cell or compressed(90%?) -> complex piston engine (20%)

the REAL plans are to have you consume a fuel as opposed to use a battery. not as much money in making a battery better which is the weakest link of that chain.

Ya Know.....

[IHC Navistar]

This could be a flimsy pretext to a 'War of the Worlds' joke.....

BTW..... When I was a kid, I once saw this horror/scary movie on TV about a converted battleship that was powered by blood. It was really weird, but I remember it being sorta cool. Wish I could remember it now.....

Re:Off the point

[Tumbleweed]

>> It takes more energy to find, drill for, pump, process, and ship oil, than you ever get out of it.

> No it does not.

I wasn't complete with that line - when you take into account the pollution factor (not only of using it, but finding, drilling, transporting, and processing it), oil gets a LOT less energy efficient. The problem is, we can't (easily?) calculate what oil's true energy cost IS because we're still emitting so much exhaust, and since we haven't cleaned up after the use of fossil fuels, we don't know what those costs are (certainly the Kyoto Protocols have been costing a huge amount of money to no measureable effects as yet, which is pretty a pretty daunting thing to think about). Saying you know what oil's energy costs are compares well to the Republicans saying we've got a great economy going -- all the while deliberately not looking (and outright lying) about the mounting national debt. We've got an unbelievably huge carbon debt to pay.

If someone knows of some theoretical work on calculating the true costs of fossil fuel, I'd love to see it. But at this point, it would be HIGHLY theoretical -- rather like estimating the cost of Boston's Big Dig, only harder. :(

re: H

The true costs of H use can't really be calculated yet because we don't have an H infrastructure to calculate in any meaningful way. Until we HAVE a mass industry that is producing H, we can't calculate those costs. Until we HAVE a distribution system for this H, we can't calculate those costs. We don't know if we'll wind up using gaseous, liquid, or solid H (mixed with other chemicals like Sodium BoroHydride ala Milennium's 'PowerBall' technology), so we can't calculate the costs of any of that. Until we know what form of H we'd use, we don't know whether we'll need to expend great amounts of energy pressurizing or cooling the H in our cars, what the costs of the fuel tanks in our H cars will be, none of that. Comparing proven-false energy costs for oil with theoretical costs of just one potential path of H use is pretty ridiculous, though it's to be expected on book-smart people commonly found on Slashdot. I'd be willing to bet that if the 'Hydrogen economy' does come, we don't be using proton-exchange membrane fuel cell cars; it just doesn't scale (with current technological theories) to what we need. Hydrogen ICE may be the answer for cars, but the efficiency and storage problems are still pretty brutal. The last I heard, the Hydrogen version of Mazda's Renesis rotary engine produced about half the power as the gas version, with a quarter of the range. That was a few years ago, so I'm going to assume they've improved it some, but I don't know by how much.

The true costs of both fossil fuel and Hydrogen cannot be calculated at this time as far as I know, though I'm sure incomplete studies everyone likes to use (such as existing ones that don't take pollution cleanup into account) will continue to be trotted out for quite some time.

If something like this new H extraction technology turns out to be super-super-cheap, it's still but one tiny piece of the H economic equation. Distribution and storage are still huge questions to be answered, though I suspect carbon nanotube-lined fuel tanks may help with the onboard storage question. Distribution will be a biggie.

If we could get the energy density way (WAY) up with things like PowerBalls, that'd be pretty awesome. That's a very interesting technology there, and would make distribution potentially much cheaper than gas/diesel.

Virgin blood?

[TrueKonrads]

Sacrifice a virgin, get a galon of hydrogen fuel!

Re:Desalinization

[GeffDE]

Of all the naturally occuring fluids that are salty, blood has to be one of the saltiest. If salt inhibited the way these (pre-existing) blood proteins worked, they wouldn't work much at all, so there would be no worries about salt inhibiting the proteins. What would affect behavior is changes from biological pH (~7.4) and temperature (37 C).

check your physics, spoilsport

[bodrell]

Hydrogen is a non-starter, even with this technology. Why? Simple physics: it takes more energy to unbond water than you get back from burning the hydrogen and thusly re-bonding it back into water. Period, end of story. It's a little thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Deal.

Hydrogen is a Really Bad Idea.

Nothing can contain it, storing it (as a supercold liquid) takes enormous amounts of energy, and, at root, it's got negative ER/EI. I don't care if it's in a portable form - IT'S NOT A SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY. PERIOD.

I suggest bicycles.

Refuting your points, one-by-one:

1) Energy doesn't come from out of the ether; even oil comes from sunlight's energy, ultimately. All organic matter is fuel, and it took a lot more energy (from the sun) to produce that fuel than will be obtained from burning it. That would be the case even if extraction and separation were free, which is far from reality. It takes a LOT more energy to vaporize water into steam than is obtained from the mechanical energy in steam. Even a Carnot engine is less than 40% efficient. But guess what? That lack of efficiency doesn't matter when the heat is free, from geothermal to solar sources. Are you going to tell me geothermal is a "non-starter" because of the difference in energy input vs. output? Didn't think so.

2) I think you mean the First Law of Thermodynamics, conservation of energy. The Second Law simply states that the entropy of the universe will continue to increase.

3) Hydrogen need not be stored as cold liquid in a tank. The focus of hydrogen technology right now is matrices that can absorb hydrogen at one pressure / temperature, then release it with a pressure / temperature swing in a controllable fashion. Other ideas involve chemically releasing hydrogen (from ammonia, for example) as needed. No one said gaseous hydrogen was the be-all end-all.

4) Bicycles are great, but we should be riding those regardless of what fuel goes in the gas tank. It's also difficult to, say, move furniture with a bicycle.

I for one...

[cwaldrip]

...would like to welcome our new blood powered molecular complex overlords.

Re:Desalinization

[binary_ftw]

"This would also make desalinization/decontamination pretty easy right? Just seaparate the H from the O, capture the gases, recombine into clean water." Provided that the active proteins won't be contaminated by the contamination, and that it will be able to do this at a energy cost that's cheaper than current pressure membrane systems (~2kW / cubic meter). Yeah! Pretty easy!

Man I wish I could handle calculus...

[Vegeta99]

If it weren't for the fact that college-level calc and math scares the shit out of me, I'd be a bio major.

That's where it's at in this world. I'm planning to be a lawyer, but barely a day goes by where I don't hear something to the effect of "We figured out a better way to do something, and if it weren't for life on earth, we'd have never figured it out."

Watching a cell in a microscope is an amazing thing when you know that down to the very core, it's just some simple chemical reaction.

geez

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if these things make it into the environment!?!

To all the naysayers:

[mmell]

I didn't say this would happen - I said this could happen.

Mankind's track record in bio-engineering is pretty dismal (just look at what happens almost every time we move some critter or another into a non-indiginous ecosystem).

Again, not urging a moratorium, merely advising caution!

Cheap shot

[bussdriver]

Its easy to attack a short comment by saying it doesn't cover everything.

Carbon costs for oil I did not include and they historically have not been included. The market doesn't still consider and will not until more laws are made to make the market include that cost. Getting those laws is next to impossible as you said, because we don't know the costs and they don't want to take the economic hit. (USA not in Kyoto shows just how bad it is.)

EVERY alternative is forced to compete with the current Oil economy which does not consider carbon.
The end-to-end cost can be figured without knowing what the carbon cost is (put a C in the equation.)

The laws of physics are not going to be broken anytime soon. I've read of many "cheap" H creation ideas and they all involve costs not presented which in the end make it not much better. Economy of scale has nothing to do with physics. Energy conversion is what it all comes down to.

H is NOT the end-all solution to all our problems. Don't put your eggs into ONE oil-lobby promoted basket. Saying we must create a whole H economy 1st to begin to estimate is stupid. I could argue that we can't evaluate a compressed air until we have a whole compressed air economy. (fyi: compressed air is way beyond H in creation & storage losses) Or what about a N economy?

There are other kinds of fuel cells using different chemistry may work better. Even then fuel cells are not the best solution for all problems. (ideally you wouldn't need chemical refills, which is why big oil doesn't like batteries.)

Using H to heat my house will NEVER compete with more direct methods of passive/active solar heating and wood gasification (think about it. hint: why don't we heat our houses with electric heaters?)

Book smarts are the basis of modern society.

Re:Cheap shot

[Tumbleweed]

Your comment didn't cover everything, and as I said in another, neither did my original one.

The problem with comparing H with oil is that the whole *reason* for switching to H is to avoid the carbon hit, so there's no reason to compare them until you calculate the carbon hit of oil. It's completely pointless.

I didn't say we must create a whole H economy to begin an estimate. I said until we actually decide WHICH H production technology, WHICH distribution system, WHICH storage systems (both at refuelling stations and onboard the vehicles), then we can't even estimate the costs. There are too many technologies in the labs with vastly different benefits, drawbacks, and costs for us to figure out which ones will be used in an H economy. The simple fact is, we *can't* calculate the costs of an H economy, because we don't know what technologies will be in use. We've already discussed the problems with calculating the costs of oil. So it's an impasse.

re: fuel cells

I'm not sure fuel cells will ever scale up to the point necessary for practical use in passenger vehicles. Even the inventor said it was only a demonstration technology, never meant to be put into widespread use. He may be wrong about that - where there's a will, there's a way, and all that, but it seems to me that Hydrogen internal combustion engines present a smaller technological problem than fuel cells.

re: other methods of energy production & use

There are multiple really great new solar technologies coming along (some using cheap glass, some using low-quality silicon (would no longer compete with the semiconductory industry for material), others with much higher efficiency ratings, some using concentrated solar power, etc.) that should see market use in 2007 (some of them in early 2007, with some CSP plants already being constructed in the American southwest, and one demonstration plant already in use, I think). Totally can't wait for this to become more widespread.

The pressure California has put to bear on the issue with legislation enacted this year has forced the industry to produce energy production methods the industry has been saying weren't feasible - but when push comes to shove, they did it. The same will be true of the auto industry - once legislators have the balls to actually make it a requirement, the industry will respond, as they've already shown they can, with much more efficient vehicles. It's just a matter of will.

IMPORTANT Fundimental Concept

[bussdriver]

Oil/Coal:
  1) stored chemical energy
  2) nature made (or "from god" if you hate nature)

Hydrogen (H):
  1) stored chemical energy
  2) MAN made using MAN's energy

Perhaps H may be a better energy storage medium in 10 years (like they've predicted for decades) but it DOES NOT CREATE energy!

- - - - - more depth - - - - -

Oil/Coal/Wind/Solar/Geothermal involve extraction of potential energy that is "free." Free in that we humans put nothing into it. Sure, we have to extract it but that is actually a different step in the whole process.
OIL/COAL are like chemical batteries that are given to us for free. (sorry wind/solar/geothermal can't be stored.) To keep it simple I'll not go into organic or sub-atomic power sources.

vs

H is not found. H is MADE! There is no similar "free" energy. You have to put in power to extract that H atom and even at 100% you only then are getting what you put into it. Its impossible to pass 100%. At best you find less stable chemicals that require less work to make H from (not water.)

This HUGE difference that creates a LARGE LARGE disadvantage right from the start. To compete, a H economy has do more than just match, it has to significantly beat Oil/Coal down the whole production/usage chain and that problem makes the moon landing look like algebra. Obviously, since H is not a power source it can't compete and must rely on a real power source for its creation.

Now I'm all for better batteries (which the H) but most people are missing the point:
WHERE DO WE GET THE ENERGY that we are storing as H?

Since we moved from the gold standard, we essentially moved to the oil standard which was represented by the US dollar. Its no surprise that conventional minds think we need to pick some oil-like standard medium on which to base global trade. (greenland then becomes unstable, Jeb Bush invades...)
The idiots in power think we can't have a global economy that doesn't globally trade energy.

- - -

I'm involved in multiple real projects and many design projects. From a straw garage (for me) heated by a vacuum wood furnace to a prototype pulse burner (natural gas) for a warehouse to tire recycling. A stack of other great ideas I hope to help move forward into production.

We plan to post plans for DIY people online eventually at designcoop.org when somebody writes enough down on the computer. (We do have finished working inventions including a 70+mpg car 1 guy made from the 70s.)

YOU CAN NOT WAIT. The system discourages the best alternatives and the public waits for somebody else to do something. You have to educate yourself then pick up a hobby and do it yourself. Its surprising how easy many things are and how little real skill the corps actually have. (you can buy parts from china and slap them together too)

Re:IMPORTANT Fundimental Concept

[Tumbleweed]

Oil/Coal/Wind/Solar/Geothermal involve extraction of potential energy that is "free." Free in that we humans put nothing into it. Sure, we have to extract it but that is actually a different step in the whole process.
OIL/COAL are like chemical batteries that are given to us for free. (sorry wind/solar/geothermal can't be stored.) To keep it simple I'll not go into organic or sub-atomic power sources.

Technically true, but in practice, it doesn't help in the discussion (which was my entire point). There's nothing free about oil or coal; energy is used to extract it, process it, transport it, and store it. Energy will be used to remove the pollutants it produces (though not much of that happens right now).

We were trying to compare the costs (in real dollars) of oil vs hydrogen. The true costs of oil aren't (and can't) be calculated because the big benefit of moving to hydrogen is the lack of pollution -- the cost of which isn't yet being PAID for using oil.

So while you're technically true, it's only a game of semantics because one side of the game (oil/coal) isn't playing by the same rules.