Hydrogen Economy? Not very likely 4

[GregLocock]

Popular Mechanics cast a wary eye over the hydrogen hype.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4199381.html?page=1

Pretty good article, I think.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[SomeYahoo]

Well written, but I'm afraid some of the readers will assume there are better technologies out there. All the emerging tech (Hybrid, Electric, etc) have obstacles; my opinion is that Hydrogen has the fewest and easiest to overcome.

I don't believe you will ever be able to "refuel" an electric car fast enough for the (American) driver, and Hybrids are a patch, interim, fix.

I still believe hydrogen is the future, but I'm likely to be refuted here.

 

[rnip]

That was indeed a good article. I always thought that hydogen is a bit too much for us.

From the article : "Using dirty energy to make clean energy doesn't solve the pollution problem-it just moves it around."

I totally agree, you can not just move the problem around. From the article, it would seem like wind power or nuclear power would be the way to go if we proceed on with hydrogen. However, the amount of raw material needed in nuclear power would be much more than production, but I believe that that can be solved with time.

Wind power, now that would seem like the best choice. If I was doing anything regarding hydrogen, I would probably go with wind power as well. The only problem is that wind power takes up too much space for the amount of energy it produces. The other problem is that the more power we would need to generate with wind power, the less places the wind turbines can be located. There are a lot of windy places in this world, but I do not believe that there will be enough to power all the energy required to produce hydrogen.

Although, I am very interested to see where hydrogen goes.

rnip

 

[PSE]

Nice article. I particularly like the comments involving infrastructure and delivery. Hydrogen is not easy to handle and how would you "idiot proof" it for the general populace. In my view, a hydrogen economy (more particularly a couple of it's isotopes) would be viable if/when sustained, controlled fusion reactions are realized.

Regards,

 

[owg]

When you think about the wind to transportation, the steps to transform wind to wheel, you have to wonder about the losses along the way. Wind to rotation to electricity (1) to transmission to hydrogen to transportation to storage to filling to on board storage to electricity (2) to rotation finally. Maybe we will some land yachts on the highways.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[moltenmetal]

Once you are satisfying 100% of your STATIONARY electricity needs by means of renewables, (near) zero-emissions fossil fuels or nuclear etc., then possibly you might begin to think of using hydrogen to power vehicles. But until then, using hydrogen for transportation is just plain stupid. Hydrogen offers very little to less than zero energy efficiency benefit relative to alternatives with much lower lifecycle energy costs- if the source of energy is fossil fuels in the first place.

It would make far more sense to first eliminate fossil fuel use for stationary applications. Conserve the fossil fuels for transporation applications where their enormous energy content per unit volume, ease of distribution etc. is most useful. Rationalize transportation by taxing fossil fuels and putting the money into better modes of transport: electric trains that can run on the renewable grid, rather than six seater 2-tonne vehicles each carrying one person. Once we've done these things, we need not worry so much about the remaining true transportation and portable power uses for fossil fuels- their energy requirements and fossil fuel emissions will be a drop in the bucket.

The article was fine- better journalism than I'm used to on the subject. But it didn't mention yet another key problem with PEM fuelcells: their use of platinum. Use less platinum and they become more prone to premature failure/shortened lifespan. The amount of platinum required for robust operation not only renders fuelcells enormously expensive, but the mineable quantities of platinum we have access to in the earth's crust will be gone before we manage to replace our existing fleet of vehicles, much less all those we'll need in future. And before you say, "no problem, we'll just recycle it", take into account that we recycle less than 20% of the platinum currently used in IC engine catalytic converters- no reason to expect we'll increase that to 99+% merely because we're building fuelcell vehicles. And remember that platinum is expensive because it's rare: an excellent platinum ore is less than 1 part per million platinum- that's over 1000 tonnes of ore mined, processed and turned into tailings to produce 1 kg of finished metal. That too costs energy- right now, 100% of which is coming from fossil fuels!

 

[electricpete]

I knew that Hydrogen is only a storage medium, but didn't realize that making it easily transportable required refrigeration or compression which requires a lot more energy. So not only do you have to provide the energy to be stored, you have to make up for the huge inefficiencies inherent in this type of energy storage. So whatever energy supply problems we have now would be compounded by storing energy in an inefficient intermediate form. And we'll have to spend a ton of money on development and infrastructure for that privelege of becoming less efficient.

But... what is the alternative?


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[moltenmetal]

The alternative is to use less: and use it where we need it rather than where we merely want it!

Sorry, but there's no technological "fix" to this one. There's only a sociological/public policy/values "fix"- minimize the amount of energy you're wasting, and invest in means of energy production that minimize unpleasant effects on future generations.

 

[ivymike]

That's not the only alternative. We could just keep on doing what we're doing until that hypothetical day in the future when we physically can't anymore.

 

[SnTMan]

Here is a couple of links on the subject:

This one takes no postion, pro or con, just explores the consequences

http://www.tbp.org/TBPMain/BentBulletin/BENTFeatures/Sp04Uhrig.pdf

This one really crunches the numbers

http://planetforlife.com/pdffiles/h2report.pdf

If you think the oil economy is expensive, you're really not going to like the hydrogen economy.

Regards,

Mike

 

[KENAT]

Is there any middle ground.

Maybe using hydrogen generated from spare renewable/clean energy (if that ever happens) to some how enrich/increase/dilute/stretch other fuel sources?

 

[GregLocock]

Sure, a mixture of solutions is the most likely way forward.

I'd guess that nukes+electric cars where appropriate+some efficiency improvements in electricity usage+say some wind power, would do little harm and might do some good.

For the USA in particular I'd like to see a new category of vehicle legislation introduced - a light efficient vehicle. These would not meet the airbag rules, or rollover, or crash. They would have crush cells (designed to a standard), and decent seatbelts.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[electricpete]

I don't get it. I realize nobody wants to give up anything. But who wants to give up safety?

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[KENAT]

You're not necessarily giving up safety, just achieving it in a different way surely. For instance, while the public would probably never accept it 5 point seatbelts might obviate the need for air bags.

 

[SomeYahoo]

I'll take the five point.

Pete, if we ALL drove the small cars it wouldn't be a problem. When a small car meets soccer mom oversized SUV, bad things happen. We will never all drive small cars.

 

[PSE]

Five point, not for me, I'll take, and always raced with 6. A single sub-belt can hurt you in places you really don't want in a shunt (assuming you are male). In any case, I tend to agree with moltenmetal and Greg. Addressing stationary sources and using a mix of technologies would seem a preferred route. The "rallying cry" should not be simply about developing a hydrogen economy, but should be about readily renewable sources and increasing the efficiency of products using energy.

Regards,

 

[SomptingGuy]

Back to the original topic...

What makes hydrogen any better than an as yet undiscovered better battery for storing electrical energy created elsewhere? As energy storage media go it has many drawbacks, as discussed in that article. Maybe it's because we're all assuming that fuel cells will be the future and they require hydrogen?

 

[SomeYahoo]

What makes hydrogen any better than an as yet undiscovered better battery for storing electrical energy created elsewhere?

The fact that it is discovered, I guess. I'll likely change my tune when a high energh density, rapidly recharged battery is discovered.

 

[GregLocock]

Well, fuel cells are a bust in my opinion, but that is a separate issue.

electricpete, people already sacrifice safety when they buy an SUV. A full size car is significantly safer than an SUV, because it is less likely to get in an accident in the first place, and the safety standards it is designed to are much higher. Since it weighs more than most other cars, it also wins on the conservation of momentum front.

They also sacrifice safety when they buy a small car, or a motorbike, as SG says.

So, one way or another people do trade safety against other attributes of the car. My proposal merely allows us to explore genuinely efficient 1 or 2 seaters, which are not really possible under the current regs.

The problem is that at the moment there is virtually nothing tending to reduce the weight of the average car in the fleet. Almost without exception each new model is heavier than the preceeding one, even if it is faster and has better fuel consumption.




Cheers

Greg Locock

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[opsops]

As long as there will be big monopolies (in US) like the petrol/gas/fuel and car manufacturing industries, the likelihood of new technologies to emerge on a large scale and cost effective is minimal to zero.

No industry is likely to canabalize on there main stream of revenues without goverment intervention.




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