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Spinach Could Be Used For Hydrogen Fuel
An anonymous reader writes "If Popeye had made alternative fuels, he'd have probably come up with something like this. Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a system that converts solar energy directly into hydrogen using the common spinach plant."
How many miles per acre do you get?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Where are all the Popeye jokes?
Food based fuels are worthless. Extremely low yield and drives food costs up and deletes food supplies, and you need an acre of land to produce a gallon of usable fuel.
I can convert beans into methane in my large intestine.
--
BMO
Here's the more detailed press release. They're using proteins extracted from spinach and they plan to eventually produce them synthetically. The spinach doesn't directly produce the hydrogen.
They really need to stop wasting time and money researching how to reduce the food supply. It makes a lot more sense to look at potential energy sources that do not reduce the amount of arable land.
Hydrogen Fuel != Fossil Fuel
Fossil Fuel == Bad
Therefore (they conclude):
Hydrogen == Good
The proponents of Hydrogen Fuel say that the only waste product in the burning of H2 and O2 is H2O but this is NOT true. Because you do not get a 100% efficient burn and because H2 is very leaky stuff even in a fuel cell, the other waste product they fail to mention is the fuel itself. So the question is what happens to H2 and O3 in the upper atmosphere? We were is such a rush to eliminate CFCs (quite heavy molecules in comparison) because of their effects should they reach the ozone. How ironic that so many now turn to H2 as a panacea of clean energy when it can be demonstrated that it affects on ozone and unspent and leaky H2 has no where to go but up. http://eands.caltech.edu/articles/LXVI/H2.html
Well if you RTFA you will come notice that the spinach is not the energy source in this case. It is being used as a catalyst for the hydrogen production.
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Thank you. TFA is one of the most poorly written pieces of drivel I have read in a long time. It barely makes any sense...
Umm, so this is some kind of nuclear process to produce hydrogen? WTF!?! This is just the worst example from TFA, the whole thing is crappy. Thanks very much for your link, it actually explains what has happened.
I don't therefore I'm not.
At this point, anything that has hydrogen in it or can turn into hydrogen somehow can be used as fuel these days but for what purpose was this research made for?
To answer your question, FTFA:
âoeWeâ(TM)re building on the photosynthesis research to explore the development of self-assembly in biohybrid systems,â Oâ(TM)Neill said. âoeThe neutron studies give us direct evidence that this is occurring.â
The efficiency of photosynthetic proteins is terrible compared to inorganic photocatalysts. The only advantage biological systems have is that the only reasonable room temperature catalyst for photoconversion of carbon dioxide in air is biological. If you only want to make hydrogen, commercial systems already beat the theoretical highest possible efficiency of biology.
The article that you link to doesn't say that hydrogen isn't good or that it isn't green. It simply says that it may not be ideal. IF hydrogen builds up in the atmosphere then there will be some environmental impact, but that is not known. Even if it does build up, there is no analysis of whether that environmental impact is more or less than alternatives.
Green isn't some philosophical ideal - it's a moving target based on what we can achieve.
The problem with hydrogen is *still* storage, production is easy. A quick run to the store takes several cubic feet of the gaseous stuff.
Beans could be used for methane fuel.
No one intimates that it will skew food prices. No one's suggesting subsidies. It's research. There is no commodity market for spinach. It doesn't trade on the FOREX, CBoT, etc.
Instead, there's a protein that might seve as a catalyst. We don't know the efficiency. We don't know the cost cycle. We don't have very good hydrogen-based fuel cells for civilians yet. We don't have any business ecosystems for civilian hydrogen distribution system so far.
So, if I may ask, how do you make the leap of logic to food prices at this stage?
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Spinach prices skyrocket. Children worldwide rejoice.
1) pigs and cows don't produce food, they consume it. You don't need innovation to feed the world - just stop eating meat. You'll also be helping the energy crisis, water crisis, and climate crisis at the same time.
2) THE government? I assume you mean America's government, but even then I'm not sure which one you're referring to... it changes every once in a while you know, as does technology.
I know people are working hard to try to find an alternative to fossil fuel, but I believe using plant as an alternative is probably a lost cause. Whether you try to create methanol from plant (or food) or as the article suggests, use the spinach protein to extract hydrogen from water, is not very efficient way to create fuel. Sure, plants are "renewable", but at what cost? The gain in fuel is not enough to offset the cost, not only the economic cost of producing the fuel, but the environment, societal cost too. You may argue that we simply haven't found an efficient way to do it, that's all, but we eventually will. However, the cost to environment and the ripple that it creates through societies (e.g. rise of food prices) will always be there. Unless, of course, we could harvest plants/food massively, at very low cost, and without effect to the planet. That is a tall order, by itself.
I believe there are better ways, which we already know now, and which have lower long term cost. Nonetheless, the research project mentioned in TFA is still very cool.
RTFA - it's about using proteins, which happen to be found in spinach, to catalyse solar power reactions that produce Hydrogen, not burning the damn spinach. Yeesh.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Anyone else read that as *Spanish*?
I wondered if it was some attempt to improve the country's finances and reduce unemployment at the same time.
Of course if you wanted to drive anywhere between noon and 4 p.m. you'd be SOL...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
IF Popeye had made alternative fuels? ONRL is simply replicating what you get when Popeye takes a dump.
s/Popeye/Chuck Norris/g
Are we going to send our finest young men and women to conquer the spinach producing countries now?
1) Take proceeds from myy sugar and corn ETFs that went up from Ethanol;
2) Sit back and wait for Spinach ETF;
3) Profit.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
The massive advantage to using Kimchi as a fuel source is that only the most badass customer would toy with the idea of eating your fuel.
Fuel from Olive Oyl?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
The US is the number 2 spinach producing country in the world and the largest exporter. China produces 85% of the worlds spinach so they will probably benefit more from this technology than we will.
My car was nearing empty so I put some spinach in my tank. The tires bulged up a lot and got some sort of battleship design on them. Then my car took off (luckily, I was able to jump inside) and I made my 30 minute morning commute in just 3 minutes. Of course, it was knocking cars off the road right and left. And I'm not sure how a corncob pipe got stuck in my car's grill.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Why should everyone deal with higher food prices especially healthy foods we shouldn't discourage people from eating? Fuck the lazy and make them drive less and build up superior public transportation. It's not like the whole world has too much food and we'd only be converting waste.
You simply don't need to drive your big ass SUV down the road to the shop. When the petrol runs out then tough luck. Walk more fatties.