Re: Support OIl Driilling Off Florida!

Ernie Jurick wrote:
"Joe" <joea@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:FoadnTz4YoeDZMLVnZ2dnUVZ_trinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ernie Jurick wrote:
"Joe" <joea@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:LJadnexnW_N0Q8LVnZ2dnUVZ_tzinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The fuel cell and hydrogen car have pretty much lost their glamour.

Don't be so quick to give up on FCV.

Somebody finally figured out the cost of installing a national network of refueling stations.

It may not be so hard to do with local generators. Heck, we might even be able to come up with home based generators. Put a FC power plant in an advance electric hybrid and we might not need so much infrastructure. You would only fuel up for long distance drives.

Do you know how difficult it is to liquefy hydrogen?

It is generally stored as a compressed gas for FCV or generated onboard from hydrocarbons.
Hydrogen is also difficult to store, because it permeates so many materials.

Hydrogen has been stored and used in many common applications since perhaps Henri Giffard.

In laboratories, not in pipelines, refueling stations and automobiles. Hydrogen is called a fugitive gas because it can escape from anything. Ask a NASA scientist how difficult it is to deal with it in the space shuttle. Every time there's a delay involving valves or metering, you can be sure that hydrogen is involved.

In laboratories, welding shops, hospitals, factories, etc.
1. You are laboring under the misconception that liquefied hydrogen is needed, compressed hydrogen gas is treated pretty much like any other compressed gas.

Anyone who treats compressed hydrogen like any other gas is going to be in for an unpleasant surprise. :-)
I can go to any of several local sites and buy a big tank of compressed hydrogen, put it in a pickup truck and drive it home. No special permits or equipment required.
http://www.airgas.com/browse/product_list.aspx?catID=195&WT.svl=195

Liquid hydrogen is actually a lot easier to store. Gaseous hydrogen tries to escape at every opportunity and can permeate solid materials. http://record.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/6182.html

2. Since hydrogen can be found almost anywhere, localized generation eliminates the need for pipelines like those used with gas and oil.

And the energy for the separation and storage comes from where?
As I said, nuclear, wind, hydro, solar etc. Here are the three in my neighborhood. (from http://www.fuelcellpartnership.org/fuel-vehl_map.html)

*Sacramento* *Station*
"The station is a joint SMUD, BP, Ford, and US DOE project to demonstrate FCEV's and the generation of hydrogen from renewable resources. The station produces hydrogen on-site using power produced by a large solar array. The hydrogen will fuel SMUD FCEVs and others in the region. As the solar panels make electricity, an electrolyzer uses that energy to separate water into hydrogen to make clean fuel for the vehicles."

*West Sacramento Station *
Operational:

The CaFCP Headquarters Hydrogen Fueling Station is a state of the art hydrogen and fuel cell vehicle facility where our car company members test, maintain, and demonstrate the latest in fuel cell vehicle technology , refueling their cars at the CaFCP Headquarters Hydrogen Fueling Station. The public is invited to view the operations of this facility in a Public Tour <http://www.fuelcellpartnership.org/contact.html> offered on the fourth Friday of every month from 1:00 pm until 3:00 pm.

Three 750L cascading ASME steel tanks, plus 4500 gallon liquid storage tank

*UC Davis Station
*Operational

30 kg compressed hydrogen plus1500 gallon liquid hydrogen in storage tank


3. A car is not a spacecraft. In a spacecraft the liquid H is also used as a coolant and is piped all over the place. In a car, all it has to do is sit in a tank and evaporate then the gaseous H is used in the FC. Also, leaks due to diffusion through materials that are a problem for delicate spacecraft wouldn't be a problem for a car.

Spacecraft spend an awful lot of time on planet Earth. NASA is always complaining about the difficulties of dealing with the fuel tank on the shuttle.

4. Progress in materials are making higher pressure and even liquid H storage safer and more effective. Just like other alternatives, technological advances may eliminate many of the current difficulties.
Plus the fact you'd have to find an awful lot of hydrogen awfully quickly.


You're joking right?
"Hydrogen is the most abundant <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements> of the chemical elements, constituting roughly 75% of the universe's elemental mass." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen

Yes, the whole universe is mainly hydrogen, but every bit of it is locked up in water on Earth.

Really? All those organic life forms living, dead, and mined as fossil fuels will be surprised to hear that. :-)

Water = life. The hydrogen proton is what keeps our mitochondria chugging away, but it's all locked up one way or another. There is no free hydrogen on Earth. Just as there is no free lunch for the proposed hydrogen economy. :-)

If it escapes it heads for outer space. In order to separate hydrogen from oxygen you need exactly as much energy as you get from it, minus the mechanical inefficiencies of producing it and the thermal losses of burning it. For sake of argument let's say it costs $1.01 to produce $1.00 of fuel. Is it worthwhile at that cost?

Whose using straw man now?

The Straw Man Fallacy is assigning to your opponent qualities, beliefs, actions, etc., which he doesn't actually have, then attacking those qualities, beliefs, actions, etc. The fact that it takes as much energy to separate hydrogen, plus some losses both ways, is simple physics. One way or another you have to break the hydrogen-oxygen bond, and it takes energy to break it. There are quantum-level experiments using nanotubes which can manage it, but in the macro world there is no free lunch.
All it takes is water and the same electricity you've been touting for electric vehicles.

And where will all that energy come from to supply a national fleet?
Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, fossil fuels (no burning required), etc. Produced locally - no pipelines, tankers, trains, or semi trucks.

Why not use that power directly rather than using it to break apart water?
Because you can't use it directly without really long extension cords. The energy has to be stored and recovered. Hydrogen is an excellent storage unit.
And couldn't that same energy be better used in electric vehicles, eliminating the need to produce hydrogen at all?
-- Ernie
Not necessarily. So far batteries are heavy, expensive, made from dangerous materials, don't store a lot of energy, and take a relatively long time to recharge.

Batteries today are like that, but they would only be an intermediate step to true electric freedom. Gasoline at one point was heavy to transport, expensive, and a dangerous material in itself, as is hydrogen. Recharge time is a hurdle. Even the Tesla takes at least 3.5 hours to charge fully, but the average top-off recharge would be less than that. Again, I have faith in human ingenuity.
Your faith seems limited to one approach to the problem. As it stands, batteries can't provide the essentially unlimited range of gas, ethanol, hydrogen, etc.
And greed. :-) http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2008-06-23_D91G09KO2&show_article=1&cat=breaking


Imagine a fuel cell plug-in hybrid with a reformer with even 100 mile battery range. All the trips around town would be electric but if you wanted to take a trip around the world you could fill up on gas, diesel, biodiesel, methanol, natural gas - any hydrocarbon fuel and drive as far as you like with very low CO2 emissions and no other pollutants.

Yes, but fuel cells are a lot further away from day-in-day-out adequacy than batteries are.
I disagree. http://www.fuelcellpartnership.org/fuel-vehl_cars.html and then there's still hydrogen combustion too http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200806230159DOWJONESDJONLINE000034_FORTUNE5.htm.
Plus you're stuck with the CO2 problem again.
Only with hydrocarbon based fuels and at much lower levels than combusted hydrocarbon fuels.
Things have been pretty quiet on the automobile fuel cell lately. The last story I read was about adapting them to run laptops.
The news cycle is fickle. Today the buzz is drilling our way out of high gas prices, a few weeks ago it was a gas tax holiday, before that, ethanol, etc., etc., etc. Just because it isn't making headlines doesn't mean nothing is happening.
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=66692

Joe
.

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