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Large Source Of Hydrogen Gas May Lie Near Slow-Spreading Tectonic Plates Under The Ocean (sciencedaily.com)
New submitter pyroclast writes: According to research from Duke University, rocks forming from fast-spreading tectonic plates create hydrogen gas in large quantities. The tectonic alternation of hydrolyzed ultramafic rock to serpentinized rock has the byproduct of hydrogen gas. Science Daily reports: "'A major benefit of this work is that it provides a testable, tectonic-based model for not only identifying where free hydrogen gas may be forming beneath the seafloor, but also at what rate, and what the total scale of this formation may be, which on a global basis is massive,' said [researcher] Lincoln F. Pratson[.] 'Most scientists previously thought all hydrogen production occurs only at slow-spreading lithosphere, because this is where most serpentinized rocks are found. Although faster-spreading lithosphere contains smaller quantities of this rock, our analysis suggests the amount of H2 produced there might still be large,' [researcher Stacy] Worman said. [S]cientists need to understand where the gas goes after it's produced. 'Maybe microbes are eating it, or maybe it's accumulating in reservoirs under the seafloor. We still don't know,' Worman said. 'Of course, such accumulations would have to be quite significant to make hydrogen gas produced by serpentinization a viable fuel source.'"
Is there enough that, if we tap it as a fuel source, we could use up all this pesky oxygen in the air?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
How will you keep it metallic?
emt 377 emt 4
It's just a small detail i'm sure engineers can figure out. Possibly with clever use of magnets?
Instead of sending more useless probes to get data from Jupiter's atmosphere, which is pointless,
Or discover a new source of Hydrogen or other 'non-renewables'. We won't know until we explore.
Hardly pointless.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Well, he *did* say he was an expert butt.
Ezekiel 23:20
Magnets, always with the magnets...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
'Of course, such accumulations would have to be quite significant to make hydrogen gas produced by serpentinization a viable fuel source.'
If it is on the mid atlantic ridge it will be very difficult to drill for most of the ridge is really deep far deeper than the continental shelf. Now if the Hydrogen is near one of the Islands on the mid atlantic ridge then it could be reachable.
Then you have the problem of transport. You can liquify it but it is will still have a very low energy density plus people will tend to freak out over giant tankers filled with Hydrogen. Then you have hydrogen embrittlement to deal with and that makes hydrogen transportation a real pain. Over all if it is not at an island it will be too deep to use.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You might want to calculate the amount of energy needed to get a probe to Jupiter and back, then the amount of H2 that probe could bring back and then reconsider that idea.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unlikely, he forgot to build Spock's blue deus ex machina box.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How the fuck do they work?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Are they not teaching basic Earth Science in high school anymore?
Well, in my high school they taught it from the Book of Genesis...
You know, it gets increasingly hard to determine whether you're trolling or ignorant...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, his plan is foolproof. Just leave at night, and come back during the day! It will work best if the AC goes with the probe, to make sure it chooses the correct gravity well.
There's actually a plausible case for bringing hydrogen back from Venus (not Jupiter) - it's highly deuterium-enriched (~150-240x Earth) due to the great amount of hydrogen loss to space over the planet's history. If further enriched in-situ (using the local abundant energy resources), it could be exported back to Earth. And there's a pretty clever way to do in-situ enrichment as well: whatever facility you're operating is going to need nighttime energy storage. Electrolysis has a very strong enrichment factor. If you wire your fuel cell stack in a cascade, you're enriching the deuterium at the same time you're storing electricity, and hence getting it for "free" (only the cost of the cascaded plumbing versus a simpler linear approach). There's also potential for enrichment on the recombination side.
Exporting from Venus is (obviously) not economically viable at present, however; you need the total costs to get the return product** to be under $1k per kg. ~$2k/kg if you had to return some hydrogen-bearing material anyway (such as plastic containers) and returned deuterated versions instead. But there could well be a potential case in the distant future for importing hydrogen.
** Costs include in-situ propellant (and potentially drop tank) production for launch, fueling the cycler, deorbit costs at Earth, and of course maintenance of everything involved, not least capital cost amortization if you want to be fair.
Hourglass says she knows a kid in Iowa who grows up to be president.
If so then with generous quantities of H2S mixed in...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Please tell me you're kidding...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Why would you need to get hydrogen from so deep?
Plain electrolysis, 46 kWh per kg of H2 and $0.04/kWh surplus wind electricity results in 46 * 0.04 = $1.84/kg. Not much different from wholesale gas price per gallon, but can be used more efficiently and conveniently compared to combustion. The problem is scaling up hydrogen distribution, which is too expensive at current low scale, and not production.
How the fuck do they (magnets) work?
Ask Richard Feynman
Svifnökkvinn minn er fullur af flum
At least I needed no thorns...
Nope. Coral Gables High, Miami, 1956.
álum :) And thanks!
(Back to seeing if I can resurrect this old Kirchoff's laws code... ;) Trying to do some mass estimates on something not that different from the above. )
Hourglass says she knows a kid in Iowa who grows up to be president.
It's increasingly hard to deny his theories.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Then you need to go back and demand repayment of your fees.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
That would involve dead people filing for income tax refunds...;-)
And this is a problem? I'd have thought lawyers would be queueing up to help. (Since it would imply that the dead can simultaneously be pursued for their debts. IANAL in my country, let alone anyone else's.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"