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May 25, 2005
Promises & Pitfalls of a Hydrogen Economy
The idea of a hydrogen economy--cars and facilities running on clean-burning hydrogen--suggests an end to our dependence on fossil fuels. Sounds great...but we're forgetting a few things:
In fact, utilizing hydrogen to enable energy systems alone won't make us any less reliant on oil and natural gas. As a May 11th Seattle Post-Intelligencer column points out, hydrogen "provides a great mechanism for transporting energy, but is not a net source of it." That means we still have to expend energy to extract hydrogen.
And unfortunately, for now, the only energy source that's abundant enough to power the hydrogen economy is...you guessed it...petrochemical, a.k.a. oil and natural gas. Writes Seattle Post-Intelligencer guest columnist Sim Larkin, "Thus, even switching to a hydrogen economy leaves us at the mercy of oil production and oil prices. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
But wait up. Don't give up on the incredible potential of a hydrogen economy just yet. What it does give us is choice, Larkin notes. Any type of energy source--be it, oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar, wind--could conceivably support a hydrogen economy.
One source that the U.S. Department of Energy is looking into is nuclear, reports a March 2005 article in IEEE Spectrum. A nuclear reactor, which would boil water into steam, could provide the energy needed for a new method of extracting hydrogen, which in a recent breakthrough was developed by researchers at the DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) in Idaho Falls.
This efficient and clean method breaks water into hydrogen and oxygen. Instead of converting hydrogen into electricity (as fuel cells do), it does the opposite: turn electricity into hydrogen at 850 degrees C in so-called solid-oxide electrolysis cells, made by Ceramatec Inc. in Salt Lake City. "We're taking high-temperature steam and electricity and producing hydrogen," says Stephen Herring, the project's lead researcher. And in the process, they're nearly doubling the efficiency of the electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
But here's where the need for the nuclear reactor sets in. Since the electrolysis of water is even pricier than getting hydrogen from natural gas, the new method would only be feasible if the energy came from an affordable and clean source--enter a nuclear reactor. In fact, the DOE has set some lofty goals for nuclear hydrogen, targeting 2015 as the date for developing a reactor with a thermal output of 600 megawatts and generating about 2.5 kg of hydrogen per second, at a cost of $1.50 per kilogram. These reactors "would supply the transportation needs of about a quarter million people (a day)," Herring tells IEEE Spectrum.
Many doubt the likelihood of such plans, however. Points out the IEEE Spectrum article, "No one in the United States has commissioned a new nuclear plant in 30 years, let alone one based on a new design requiring a large capital outlay."
For now, it looks like we're not budging from how we currently make hydrogen--through the re-formation of natural gas--which accounts for 95% of the hydrogen generated in the U.S. "The problem with (re-forming) is twofold," comments Phil MacDonald, a nuclear engineer at INEEL, to IEEE Spectrum. "It releases a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Second, it would put pressure on the price of natural gas that we burn for our home heating." What's more, generating and transporting hydrogen from natural gas costs about $4 to $5 per kilogram. That means it's triple the current U.S. retail price of gasoline (a kilogram of hydrogen has as much energy as a gallon of gasoline), according to the IEEE Spectrum article.
In short, while hydrogen does have the potential to help free us from our dependence on fossil fuels, we still have to figure out a few things first...starting from how to generate hydrogen cleanly and efficiently, and (in issues that were beyond the scope of this article) how to store it and transport it.
Sources:
Hydrogen Part of More Stable Economy
Sim Larkin, Guest Columnist
Seattle-Post Intelligencer, May 11, 2005
seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/223657_hydrogen11.html
Cheaper Hydrogen Beckons
Prachi Patel Predd
IEEE Spectrum, March 2005
www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/mar05/0305nhyd.html
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58 CommentsThere are other alternatives for the decomposition of steam. I suggest those interested take a look at the Alchemix process: www.alchemix.net
May 25, 2005 11:46 AMGood presentation. I've worked with Fuel Cells for quite a few years and it is amazing the difficulty of communicating to people who should know better, the fact that H2 doesn't just pop out of outer space.
Thanks for the update of info on the Idaho Steam reformers.
I've been involved with tech pollution prevention for many years including the development of many many applications for super critical CO2 i.e. Freon CFC replacement, solvents, cleaners, AC, agricultural distribution, etc... In the transition from petrochem H2 generation to nuclear generation and distribution in the natural gas system I visualize a very functional CO2 economy.
Good Luck! Keep writing!
WMS 703-536-7995
wmstrasburg@yahoo.com
What is the overwhelming obstacle of utilizing the huge poentiol of tides?
If a large mass "such as an oil rig" was supported by any large surfaceed pier. The mass would rise with the tide (meanwhile potentially raising an incredible amount of negative pressure inside theretieval vessel. When the tide lowered the reverse forces coulg generate large pressures injected into the well head to power turbnedriven generators. This is overly simplified but meant to create ideas.
To suggest that nuclear reactors are "clean" is often heard but is far from the truth. The radioactive waste lasts for many years and therefore the waste continues to grow with time. In addition, the waste can be quite dangerous because of container leakage. This is a sales pitch that rivals the best of those of automobile dealers.
May 25, 2005 1:12 PMIt amazes me that the opponents of nuclear energy, citing the tremendous hazards associated with that process, are so hip on hydrogen.
Does any engineer really want to see a hydrogen powered junker driving down the freeway at 80mph zipping in and out of traffic?
Do we really want to see hydrogen refueling stations on every corner being run by minimum wage employees? That is a catastrophe just waiting to happen.
Don't forget, water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, one that comprises 3-7% of our atmosphere.
A hydrogen based transportation system has got to be one of the most idiotic agendas that has come along in quite some time.
May 25, 2005 1:31 PMIs it possible that the most powerfull industrie sector of the whole world can not manage nuclear energy? Are the french people the only one? They have been using atomic energy for a very long time sucesfully. Take note America!!!
May 25, 2005 2:13 PMThis Great article is the most accurate and thorough presentation of energy source pros and cons I've seen. May I have permission to reprint including comments with credit on my website: http://webpages.charter.net/clift and
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/cornstoves
The safe method of accumulating, storing, handling, transporting Hydrogen is corn. Local farm grown whole kernel shelled corn consist of 13.1% hydrogen, 40-50% carbon, and water. Need more be said except please people educate the educated.
May 25, 2005 2:13 PMHydrogen fuel is common to the space industry. Seems it would work fine in our economy with further development of safe storage/mixing/combustion.
Other sources also need to be seriously considered, such as methane gas as generated from agricultural waste, and alcohol, also created from agricultural products. Methane is used in third world economies for residential cooking and heating using VERY low-tech systems and also is used for public transportation (baloon fuel storage busses in parts of China(?)...not certain of country.
Purified oxygen combined with any of the above makes for energetic fuel combustion...and all are more or less replenishable...especially the methane and alcohol. Mechanical engineering just needs to come up with better and more efficient methods for mixing and combusting the oxygen/air and fuel, depending on the specific fuel being used, and controling and redirecting the energy produced into mechanical force for work.
May 25, 2005 3:40 PMOK we all know then that the next part of the puzzle is to determine how to make the nuclear waste inert instead of putting it into a mountain.
What about the fuel cell (motorbike) that is fueled from methanol (or whatever it was)? Is this what the post from Harry and Linda Clift is referring to?
The initial fuss over hydrogen as THE ALTERNATIVE FUEL is, in my opinion, bunk. Now that we have just about eliminated all carburators from passenger vehicles, we could eliminate many farm subsities as well and buy the sugar beets and/or Jerusalem artichokes produced from the previously subsidized soy bean (for example) farmers for ethanol fuel production increasing our fuel supply by 30% in one year.
Gasoline + alcohol was an idea that couldn't fly in the 1970's due to the then current technology, but whose time has come. We have the storage, transport and distribution infrastructures for a gasoline/ethanol blend in place already. All we need do is modify the current technology in our vehicles in any one or several simple ways (such as changing the car's computer program, if using a blend of the two fuels) Just safely pre-heating alcohol alone (through the cooling fluid, for example)and replacing the catalytic converter with a CO2 "scrubber", could double the fuel supply with the above listed non changes to our current way of life.
As always we go out of our way to point out how or why things won't work. Where is the american spirit that mechanized the world. It certainly isn't in France.
Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe and as such we all become better when we learn to use what is available to us. If extraction is the problem then lets get those ideas going. Ask kids how to solve something before they become like the rest of us. Some idea is just waiting out there to be heard by the right person so that an experiment can be done that will get the answer to the question.
At this point I don't even care that the only feasable way to get hydrogen in a plentiful enough
supply is through nuclear reacters. Lets just do something positive, lets get hydrogen moving.
There have been succesful efforts for producing hydrogen by electrolysis from solar energy. i'm suprised the author did not expand on these cleaner alternatives to nuclear.
May 25, 2005 9:40 PMeverybody forgets that while using hydrogen
for energy either during combustion or in fuel
cells it depletes oxygen from the atmosphere.
This amounts to 30% of the total combustion volume
Is it not very dangerous?
Already I am watching a lot of fish death in lakes
due to less dissolved oxygen in waterbodies.
Another important thing is hydrogen takes more oxygen than gasoline.
For the same reason fuelcell generators can not be
used in closed rooms as it takes away all oxygen
present in the rooms.
I request concerned authority to consider this point before deciding on hydrogen.
Why spend so much time, energy, and money on hydrogen when there is abundant energy in the form of wind, tides, and solar that we have yet to tap. Seems like electricity stored from these sources to power electric vehicles would be preferable over fuel cell technology. Why use electricty to extract hydrogen when you can just use the electricity?
May 26, 2005 5:19 PMThe answer to the question "Why use electricty to extract hydrogen when you can just use the electricity?" is that batteries are heavy and toxic and there is no way to get electricity to every vehicle while it is moving. If everyone tried to drive with a power cord running from their car to their house, the cords would soon get tangled. In theory, a "third rail" system like that used by nearly all underground subways or an overhead (canternary?) system like that traditionally used by trolleys and currently used by Amtrak from New Haven to DC, by some electic buses in California, etc., could work, but installing the wiring on every street in the country would be too expensive.
Regarding the concern about oxygen consumption:
1. The amount of oxygen already in the atmosphere is some many times greater than the safe levels of many chemicals produced by other fuels that we would all be dead from air pollution long before the decrease in the amount of oxygen remaining became significant.
2. Plants make oxygen (from carbon dioxide). Due to deforestation, the amount of oxygen being produced has decreased by more than the amount of oxygen consumed by fuel cells.
3. Combustion of nearly anything (including trees and fossil fuels) consumes oxygen. I am not sure that hydrogen is any worse.
The sun is mostly hydrogen. If we could just find a way to get enough of that hydrogen here, then we would not need to make it from natural gas or from water.
June 14, 2005 12:57 PMConnecting wind/hydro turbines to the utility grid is a major part of the cost of renewable energy. Most renewable energy sources including wind/solar/hydro are seasonal and intermittent. By going directly to hydrogen electrolyzers we can save the cost for the 'power conditioning' equipment required to convert the raw power source to a constant voltage and frequecy for the grid. We (TorsionTec) estimate at least half the cost of a wind turbine generator involves power conditioning. Direct hydrogen electrolysis from renewable resources makes economic sense now. It seems the naysayers of the hydrogen economy overlook the fact that reforming fossil fuels used to be the cheapest way, that's why such a large percentage is still made that way. It's called 'momentum'. We need to change our mindset and think about the alternatives, get off this fossil fuel mentality. Direct from wind/solar/hdyro to hydrogen makes economic sense now. We (humanity) just need the will to do it. Every individual can make a difference, every thing you purchase (vehicles, stocks & bonds, boats, ...) counts. Vote with your wallet, choose hydrogen!
June 14, 2005 1:14 PMThe Germans towards the end of WWII equipped a few of their subs to run submersed on hydrogen/oxygen with some success. What happened to that technology?
What about handling, fueling, storing this trouble prone gas? Raising the price of gas to $20 per gallon over a decade would put everyone in tiny, high efficiency vehicles, that would still be roomier, cheaper and better than the conceptual hydrogen vehicles. The fuel isn't the issue, the efficiency is. Investing in a modern two track national rail network with electric power would be so much better. Non technical people love devices with no moving parts, like the fuel cell.
June 14, 2005 2:36 PMForget all of these alternatives.Look at the aircar being developed in France.It runs on compressed air.Check aircar.com
June 14, 2005 3:44 PMTHE WRONG PROBLEM
It would seem many in the engineering / scientific
world have forgot the
SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS.....
There are no free meals.
The fundimental problem ... is NOT how much energy
we want... or can use.... but how LITTLE energy
is necessary for a reasonable life style or society. Probally a order of magnitude less that
we are using now.
Lewis Munford did a wonderful book on this subject
many years ago...
TECHNIQUES & CIVILIZATIONS....
and there are others.
The latest..... Jarad Daimond "COLLAPSE "
June 14, 2005 6:19 PMThe world as we know it evolved with a more or less given composition of the atmosphere. In order to burn fossil fuels using a flame in open air, combustion air is required. To burn a cubic foot of natural gas you need about 10 cubic feet of air. At sea level and 70 degrees, a pound of air takes up a volume of about 13.5 cubic feet. To burn a gallon of gasoline takes about 20 pounds of air. Similar large volumes of air are required for oil and coal. This air returned to the atmosphere is forever altered by the combustion process. Especially, automobiles are separate little chemical plants traveling around while despoiling the atmosphere. In time, the world will not end over this, but we can get very, very, sick with
time. This goes for animal life and plant life.
The best energy source is non-poluting. How to use this source will have to be studied and don't we have the engineers to do it? It is magnetic energy. No one has come up with a magnetic motor yet, but I believe it is the best idea to resolve our energy problem.
June 14, 2005 10:01 PMClarence, Of course we need conserve and look for new ideas. But since you railed on the internal combustion engine can I assume you never utilize one? How about riding a bus or train? Do you live a hunter gatherer existence in the woods, with no plastics, no metal, not even a bicycle (because mining the material and processing it to build the bicycle will surely damage the planet too). That seems to be what you are promoting. Are you walking the walk or just talking? What provides the electricity for your computer? Are you growing all your own food? If so, how do you preserve it for the winter? Almost everything we do, including a mere caveman lifestyle, affects our environment.
June 16, 2005 8:04 AMHere is a fact AMERICA, rich people need back their crude oil money, what do their going to do whit all that infraestructure to produce gas , diesel etc. They know, like you and me, there is another way to safe and eficient energy but again Money, big and powerfull congresmams and lobbist
From petroquemicals industry are involved on stopping funding for new energy reserch. Now lets Drill Florida shore. A lot of money dear friend
A thought provoking article, but are there some inaccuracies?
The article stated "a reactor with a thermal output of 600 megawatts and generating about 2.5 kg of hydrogen per second, at a cost of $1.50 per kilogram. These reactors "would supply the transportation needs of about a quarter million people (a day)," Herring tells IEEE Spectrum."
Now, an OUTPUT of 2.5kg/sec is equal to 150kg per minute. Later in the article, the energy in a kg of hydrogen is equated to a gallon of gasoline.
This means the output of a large 600MW reactor only produces energy equal to 150 gallons of gasoline every minute...pretty small amount for that big nuclear reactor I'd say!!!!
Further 150GPM is 216,000 Gal/day and this is just less than one gallon per person per day if you figure a quarter of a million users.
June 21, 2005 11:28 AMI Think every one here is barking up the wrong tree. First, the people in South America extract alcohol from their sugar cane crops to power thier vehicles. Secondly, what is wrong with running the motor car with steam? Too hot? I am sure the old problems of high temperature materials has been solved now. Thirdly, as far as mass transportation, why not improve on the compressed air tube to move "trains" from place to place. As one might have guessed all the mentioned fuels are plentiful on our planet!
July 17, 2005 1:54 PMAm I the only one in the world that remembers that Honda came out with a hydrogen powered automobile in 2001. I saw it showcased in the Seattle King 5 TV station news sometime pre 911, 2001. My Aunt was murdered in Tacoma, Washington that year & since I live in Tennessee, I was scouring the Seattle News site to find out about her when I stumble upon the news cast about the Honda hydrogen powered automobiel.It was covered in solar cells that were used in the extraction of Hydrogen from plain water. The only exhaust it had was water. Didn't anybody else see this??
July 28, 2005 1:34 PM
