Re: OT: Hydrogen Ecomomy gettting a little closer to reality.

ruylopez wrote:

Um. Have you read ANYTHING about fuel cells?

Actually, yea.

Read more. Read what is actually holding us up. Why everyone is worried. It is not the hydrogen. That has never really been the problem at all.

There are several issues with the hydrogen economy. But by far the single biggest problem is the lack of Platinum. According the article provided by FL Turbo here, which I have no reason to doubt and is in tune with what has been said, we are currently produce about 1/20th the amount of platinum required for a transition to hydrogen. There really isn't a whole bunch of platinum just waiting for demand to get at it. We are pretty much getting it as fast as we can. There just isn't enough. His article points to a possible plastic which can REDUCE the amount of platinum needed, but we are still TONS away from doing it. Making hydrogen isn't the problem. The problem is converting back into energy. Platinum is currently the key to that. I am glad you can't see it. Try telling it to the engineers.


You are really losing the thread here. This article is about an important
breakthrough in solar technology which allows energy to be used later in
fuel cells. It is certainly very promising. Turbo's article already
shows how there are probably ways around this Platinum problem. Like I
said, I don't think it will stop us.

Like I said, people have been working for decades on this, and we are REALLY far away. And the crisis is HERE NOW. And it will get worse. And Hydrogen will simply NOT make our cars go, not in the quantities that we need. I did read the article. Very nice. Supply was NOT the problem in the hydrogen economy.


If fuel cells had their problems, this has one big advantage: it PRODUCES
energy. Getting energy out of hydrogen gas is actually pretty easy. Using the energy from the Sun to produce O2 and H2 is what this article is
about, something that can make solar much more viable. Let's quote the
signifcant things in this article it seems you didn't read (or care about,
but it's the whole point):

I did read the article. TYVM. I however used that thing between my ears. The current severe energy problem is with cars, and this won't help us. The next energy problem is going to be agricultural, and this won't help us. Lastly we will need to make electricity, and we know how to do this and make all that we need, some clean, some not clean, but all that we need and want, not for a little while, but hundreds of years. But this will still not move our cars. That is the point. That is the current and real crisis.

It produces energy. Well goody. Another way to make electricity. But not as efficiently as other solar methods, but it is a nice side effect of hydrogen production. But we already CAN make electricity. Seriously. Loads of it. More than we know what to do with. Someday that may not be true. But like your faith in fuel cells, I don't worry about it. We know how to make more, lots more. We are building a freaking 4000 acre wind farm in texas to make even more electricity. None of this is going to push our cars around, or help us deal with 4 dollar gasoline. Which is our problem NOW. Today. And it isn't going to get any better. Fast....


<snip>

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved
in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap"
toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future
prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of
Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their
discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing
new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for
fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem." "

Nice, and my point is that it really doesn't matter if we have nothing to do with the hydrogen. Even though it was on the internet.

This is important, and it will spurn work on those fuel cells you are so
concerned about.

People ARE working on it, have been for decades, tons of people. World production of platinum is still at 5% of need. This isn't even close yet. It is not "I" that is concerned. It is the real and actual stumbling block keeping us from the "hydrogen economy". We have to solve the platinum issue, or it isn't going to work. Nobody has a solution yet. Not even a decent idea of one. We are still trying everytrick that can be thought of, and they have achieved magnitude reductions, but we are still not close.

If this would ever happen that we start moving towards this platinum prices would make 140 a barrel oil look like the kiddie game down the street.

Unless there is a new catalyst invented, this will never make the mass market.
I just don't think this is going to be a major problem. The breakthrough,
as I understand it, is the catalyst that "splits" the water in the first
place producing O2.
No that is the OTHER side of the equation. The catalyst in the electrical generating side, creates water and in the process creates electricity (Recovering the electricity used to split the water in the first place). No we do not need a new way to make hydrogen. We need a new way to make fuel cells, that allow us to make them in quantity that makes sense for the transportation, or even as many have stated, the local energy market.


That's what the article is about. That's the new catalyst.

No it is a new catalyst to MAKE hydrogen. Not MAKE electricity. FL Turbo provided an article on the make electricity side, but there is still WAY too much platinum to be useful, and there are no solutions even proffered, only "hope". Until "hope" gets converted to reality, the whole hydrogen thing is mythic.


Plug-in electric looks better with the Stanford improvements to lithium batteries, but there is still NOT enough heavy chemicals available to make the move to Plug-in electrics either.

Plug-in is not producing energy. You can plug it in and store it in
batteries if you want but having solar panels create the energy in the
first place would not be a bad thing.
Yeah, and where to these "battery's" come from. If you parse carefully, the batteries require all sorts of heavy elements LIKE lithium. Which there is NOT enough of. There is plenty of electricity. We make tons of it. The problem is making enough batteries for the car. There isn't enough stuff to make the batteries. Get it.


I agree batteries are a problem too, but we have a serious energy
production problem too. Do you not see that? Why do you think oil demand
is so high, are we making batteries out of it? Come on now. Solar has a
lot potential to create a lot of viable energy which is something any kind
of battery won't do. We need new technologies on both fronts. Get it?

We actually do not have an "energy production" problem. We make more than enough electricity, and know how to make more. What we have is a gasoline and hydrocarbon problem. We can switch to all sorts of things on the grid, it will still not power our cars. One choice was use hydrogen. Electricity is a fine source for this, the one in this article is a fine source. We can make as much hydrogen as we want. This article is simply NOT going to get us "closer" to a "Hydrogen Economy". The problem is that you simply cannot make enough fuel cells. It's really a physics problem on that end.

The other choice is batteries as storage more directly. But that is a problem too. Not enough stuff to make enough batteries.


Solar energy was not a very viable source but it may be able to be one
now. If that requires fuel cells, then damnit you improve fuel cells,
because this is an energy source too. It is much more important that
compressed air.

Sure... The engineers will get right on that. The advantage of compressed air, is that it works today. We do not have a grid wide electrical problem today. What we have is a gasoline problem.

Compressed air simply makes a better "battery", and they are in use today. Cars based on the technology will be mass produced next year in India. No car based pollution at all. And if the electrical source is clean, no pollutants at all. No pollution technology needed in the car at all.


But the power source has never been the problem. It is the storage, the replacement for the gasoline, that has been the problem.


Uh, if the "source" isn't the problem, and the current "source" is
gasoline / coal (limited resources), then why do we need a replacement at
all? Come on now.

Simply, we can make as much hydrogen as we want, we have plenty of electricity. We can make it at night next to any major electrical source that you want. Or just off the grid anywhere we like. Getting somewhere, putting into a car those are "problems" But we can make as much as we want. We can choose other sources of the electricity to drive it in the future, but we can make as much as we want.

The problem is what do we do with it once it is in the car. Fuel cells were presumably the answer. The problem is we cannot physically make enough fuel cells. Oops. Coming up with a new way to make hydrogen does not help that.

Come on now.
.

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