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Topic: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming...  (Read 68648 times)

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Offline enahs

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming..
« Reply #45 on: July 11, 2007, 09:43:04 AM »
Geodome, now do another fancy chart (which is not easy on the forum!) about the energy and pollution produced mining and refining Aluminum as compared to fossil fuel or obtaining hydrogen from water.


Producing aluminum is one of the most energetically expensive mass industrial processes in use today. And since most of our energy on "the grid" comes from burning fossil fuels, is it really any better?

Offline Donaldson Tan

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming..
« Reply #46 on: July 11, 2007, 06:19:02 PM »
Enahs: you mean do a Life Cycle Assessment of Aluminium Production..That will take me a while to gather all the required data.
"Say you're in a [chemical] plant and there's a snake on the floor. What are you going to do? Call a consultant? Get a meeting together to talk about which color is the snake? Employees should do one thing: walk over there and you step on the friggin� snake." - Jean-Pierre Garnier, CEO of Glaxosmithkline, June 2006

Offline Woofuls

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming..
« Reply #47 on: July 15, 2007, 11:26:22 PM »
It is easy to have a variety of fuel for electricity generation but it wouldn't be the case for transport, unless we switch to electric vehicles.

Having more than one type of fuel is possible for transport. For example, diesel and gasoline are served at every fuel station I've ever been. Being "easy" is debatable, but if there is a great enough demand then some company will try to supply it.

I do agree that electricity is the future! :)

Offline Donaldson Tan

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming...
« Reply #48 on: July 17, 2007, 03:51:17 PM »
However, this issue has to be reconsidered from another point of view.

Are you familiar with the concept of Vendor Lock-in?

Being "easy" is debatable, but if there is a great enough demand then some company will try to supply it.

It is easy to choose the fuel type for electricity generation because it is an investment for utility companies and they will get a good return on investment. In view of declining supply of fossil fuel, it is strategically better to adopt IGCC which has thermal efficiency of generating electricity at 40-45%. IGCC can run a variety of biomass fuel, on top of traditional fossil fuels.

There is no positive cash flow generated from purchasing a vehicle for personal transport. Personal transport accounts for an overwhelming majority of vehicles in the transport sector. Although a personal vehicle generates intangeble benefits such as convinience, it is still a liability as it has a regular operations and maintenance (O&M) cost on top of the one-off purchase price. O&M cost includes road tax, carbon tax (if there would be one), fuel price, etc.
"Say you're in a [chemical] plant and there's a snake on the floor. What are you going to do? Call a consultant? Get a meeting together to talk about which color is the snake? Employees should do one thing: walk over there and you step on the friggin� snake." - Jean-Pierre Garnier, CEO of Glaxosmithkline, June 2006

Offline sluiceman

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming...
« Reply #49 on: April 27, 2008, 10:05:36 PM »
Yes, Hydrogen as a fuel.
I believe this line of thought should be revived.
Last summer in the Minneapolis area I produced hydrogen on-board in my old Ford Van. I used Sodium Hydroxide (could also have used Potassium Hydroxide) and scrap aluminum to get an extra ~100 extra miles per tank of gas. I used a single 500mL Pyrex flask, rubber stoppers with appropriate holes, sections of glass tubing, some refrigerator ice maker tubing, a second Pyrex flask as a water scrubber unit and a one way valve designed for aquarium use to keep the engine idle vacuum,which builds up in the reactor unit, from siphoning water from the scrubber into the reactor unit. The Hydrogen I produced was fed into a vacuum port on the intake manifold. The flow chart goes like this; From the reactor unit through the one way valve to the scrubber unit. From the scrubber unit to the vacuum port on the intake manifold.
It was all very simple. A couple tblsp of caustic and a couple ounces of Aluminum would "boil" Hydrogen for nearly an hour and a half. When the pressure was sufficient it would overcome the resistance of the valve. This happens mostly on level or downhill runs. With two or more reactors the pressure will be positive most of the time.
Since this is an exothermic reaction I placed the works on a hot pad in a Rubbermaid enclosure. I didn't even blow myself up. I really believe the explosive nature of Hydrogen is greatly over rated. I vented off a lot of Hydrogen doing this. It immediately dispersed and floats away, unlike gasoline fumes.
Yes, aluminum is expensive in terms of cost and energy consumption. But, it is nevertheless produced and it is available as scrap. Also, This is somewhat messy and inconvenient for short trips, and the thing freezes in the winter. This could be overcome by doing this in my garage and using a compressor for storage.
If you're wondering, I got this idea from a book that was published in 1919 by P. Litherland Teed, The Chemistry and Manufacture of Hydrogen. During WW2 Hydrogen was produced in vast quantities for lighter-than-air craft. They didn't use petroleum fuel to produce electricity to evolve Hydrogen by electrolysis of water (this is a net loss, and is why the current proposal for a Hydrogen Economy is a farce). Instead, Teed outlined perhaps a dozen methods of producing Hydrogen. The most viable and economically feasible method uses Sodium Hydroxide and ferosilica (Yes, sand) of sufficiently high silica content. The "Silicol Process" begins on page 45 of the book and is expressed as:
2Si + 2NaOH + 3 H2O = Na2Si2O5 + 2H2
Government and the energy industries surely know this. We could be producing Hydrogen for practically nothing. Makes me wonder.

Offline Borek

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming...
« Reply #50 on: April 28, 2008, 03:02:11 AM »
They didn't use petroleum fuel to produce electricity to evolve Hydrogen by electrolysis of water (this is a net loss, and is why the current proposal for a Hydrogen Economy is a farce). Instead, Teed outlined perhaps a dozen methods of producing Hydrogen. The most viable and economically feasible method uses Sodium Hydroxide and ferosilica (Yes, sand) of sufficiently high silica content. The "Silicol Process" begins on page 45 of the book and is expressed as:
2Si + 2NaOH + 3 H2O = Na2Si2O5 + 2H2
Government and the energy industries surely know this. We could be producing Hydrogen for practically nothing. Makes me wonder.

You are aware of the fact that NaOH is industrially produced by electrolytical method, so using NaOH to avoid electrolysis is in fact biting your own tail? Back then NaOH was produced by other methods (Leblanc/Solvay to get Na2CO3, then roasting of carbonate and reacting Na2O with water), but electrolytical methods proved to be cheaper.

Then, ferrosilicon is not a sand. It is an alloy made by reducing sand with coke in the presence of iron. It requires waste amounts of energy to be prepared.

I wouldn't call it "practically nothing".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrosilicon
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Offline sluiceman

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming...
« Reply #51 on: April 28, 2008, 08:19:24 AM »
Good point.
I mentioned that KOH can also be used, which is not made by electrolytic methods.
also, Tailings sands, waste sand from the processing of the Athabasca Oil Sands, average 95 to 98 percent silica (SiO2) in the raw bulk samples. According to Teed, sands averaging 84-92% can be used in this process. Perhaps other sands can be obtained of similitude. Would the O2 create additional problems?
I'm trying to find a way this can work.

Offline Borek

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming...
« Reply #52 on: April 28, 2008, 08:50:10 AM »
I mentioned that KOH can also be used, which is not made by electrolytic methods.

As far as I know it is made electrolytically as well.

Quote
also, Tailings sands, waste sand from the processing of the Athabasca Oil Sands, average 95 to 98 percent silica (SiO2) in the raw bulk samples. According to Teed, sands averaging 84-92% can be used in this process. Perhaps other sands can be obtained of similitude. Would the O2 create additional problems?

You are mistaking two completely different things - silicon (Si) with silica (SiO2). The difference is similar to that between gasoline and exhaust gases.
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Offline sluiceman

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming...
« Reply #53 on: April 30, 2008, 09:37:18 AM »
Well, That's OK.

I buy NaOH by the drum for a reasonable price, and I have more scrap aluminum than I can use. I'll make my own Hydrogen again this summer.

Offline tasmodevil44

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Re: Hydrogen Economy Fallancy, Nuclear Power Plants, Global Warming...
« Reply #54 on: July 08, 2008, 05:53:15 PM »
Scientific expert Klaus Lackner and many others believe that direct carbon dioxide capture from the atmosphere to make methanol and other hydrocarbons is indeed possible.Furthermore,methanol is the starter molecule for synthesizing all these other much larger hydrocarbons.It may indeed turn-out to be better than the hydrogen economy due to bulkiness of space and storage costs.What is methanol itself but a convenient way of molecular hydrogen storage that a methanol fuel cell can use?

      Shhh...be very quiet...some people might think you're talking about a million litres of perpetual motion alcohol originally made from just one molecule ! ! ! LOL ! ! ! Heh,heh,heh.. :D 

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