Re: Support OIl Driilling Off Florida!


"Joe" <joea@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:avKdnSVLV-EjEP3VnZ2dnUVZ_oDinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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


Thanks for the info. I'm glad to see they're trying different alternatives,
but I still feel we'll see superbatteries before fuel cells become
widespread. Then the whole hydrogen cycle can be bypassed. Or maybe next
week somebody will discover a 100% efficient solar cell or a whole new form
of energy altogether.
-- Ernie


.

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