Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
'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.
How the fuck do they work?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
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.
That should prevent forest fires for a long time, right?