What could possibly go wrong???
Posted on 08/19/2019 5:20:04 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Oil fields, even abandoned oil fields, still contain significant amounts of oil. The researchers have found that injecting oxygen into the fields raises the temperature and liberates H2, which can them be separated from other gases via specialist filters. Hydrogen is not pre-existing in the reservoirs, but pumping oxygen means that the reaction to form hydrogen can take place.
"This technique can draw up huge quantities of hydrogen while leaving the carbon in the ground. When working at production level, we anticipate we will be able to use the existing infrastructure and distribution chains to produce H2 for between 10 and 50 cents per kilo. This means it potentially costs a fraction of gasoline for equivalent output". This compares with current H2 production costs of around $2/kilo. Around 5% of the H2 produced then powers the oxygen production plant, so the system more than pays for itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, by a couple of orders of magnitude.
Hmmm.....oxygen injected into oil. I’m not sure I’d want to work at one of those plants. Boom.
All they need now is away to store hydrogen. Nothing we can can store it for long. It’s bad as electricity in that respect.
Sounds like another “green” energy source... put more energy into it than you get back out.
All energy is like that. We use energy from the ground that has been building up for billions of years.
Now, if they can figure out how to inject the oil and oxygen and do the conversion to hydrogen and all the boom boom inside the cylinder under compression.
“...put more energy into it than you get back out....”
It’s the libs’ way....better known as insanity.
It’s all “for the children”, dontchaknow?? /S...LMAO.
How much energy do you waste to do this ?
What could possibly go wrong???
I agree with the other guy, storage of Hydrogen is challenging, but we were able to store Helium underground, which is probably just as hard to contain.
But, if this concept does show promise, you can bet that the Left will stop it, as their objective is to SHUT DOWN THE COUNTRY, not actually find options other than carbon-based fuels. If Hydrogen is relatively cheap, it simply will not be permitted.
Sorry, but that’s who they are.
You beat me to it!
Since the “fight against Climate Change” has nothing to do with “Climate Change”, this bit of spectacular discovery, will mean nothing, if it doesn’t mean the use of American Taxpayers as parasitic hosts by the world’s Leftist elite. They don’t give a rat’s rectum about the planet, unless it means the burdening and destruction of the American Energy Economy. This kind of easy transition to H2 power is not what the tantrum throwing left wants. They will find something wrong with it, as they do hydro-electric and nuclear power.
As long as it's neither mandated nor government subsidized, I say: "Go for it." Proof of concept here is commercial viability, not some "carbon free" blather.
Hydrogen has more energy than gasoline by weight but:
“On a weight basis, hydrogen has nearly three times the energy content of gasoline (120 megajoules per kilogram [MJ/kg] versus 44 MJ/kg), but on a volume basis the situation is reversed (3 megajoules per liter [MJ/L] at 5000 pounds per square inch [psi] or 8 MJ/L as a liquid versus 32 MJ/L for gasoline). Furthermore, the electric energy needed to compress hydrogen to 5000 psi is 4 to 8 percent of its energy content, depending on the starting pressure; to liquefy and store it is of the order of 30 to 40 percent of its energy content.”
And
“Pipeline transmission of hydrogen is expected to be more capital-intensive than pipeline transmission of natural gas because of the need for pipes at least 50 percent greater in diameter to achieve the equivalent energy transmission rate, and because of the likelihood that more costly steel and valve metal seal connections will be required for pipelines for hydrogen in order to avoid long-term embrittlement and possibilities of leakage.”
https://www.nap.edu/read/10922/chapter/6#38
Translation: Besides mere production of H2 at fossil fuel well sites, there are transmission and storage issues, and their costs to be overcome. Those things are not even counting changes in motor vehicle industry for the production of vehicles using H2 as the fuel. The resolution of all those issues, and not the science of just making H2 with oxygen injected into fossil fuel wells will be what determines if H2 is a fuel of the future or not.
Changes in supply and demand of other fuels, in the future, could revise present analysis of the comparative costs of H2 vs other fuels.
When I worked on the National Aero-Space Plane (X-30) project from 1988-1995, we were using liquid H2 as the fuel.
The program had several failures, most notably the inability to get the scramjets working to necessary velocities. But we were very successful with producing, storing, pumping and burning H2 proving its worth as a fuel.
Oh, and they said they discovered that if you ran an electric current through the exhaust it would give you ozone . . . so theoretically we could have put back any of the “missing” ozone layer.
That issue kinda went away.
All they need now is away to store hydrogen. Nothing we can can store it for long.
I worked in a lab that used high-pressure hydrogen 1,000 psi sometimes higher.
They had a large central storage tank and lots of stainless lines.
IIRC they lose about 2% a day in hot weather.
Less in cold.
Venting is a problem, remember the Hindenberg!
And the laser detection systems for hydrogen leaks is about as you can get!!!
Define 'waste'.
Around 5% of the H2 produced then powers the oxygen production plant, so the system more than pays for itself.
If they succeed in making this commercially viable the warming alarmists will be screaming water vapor is the most dangerous 'green house gas' there is.
What could possibly go wrong???
And that is why I used to tell everyone, ‘REMEMBER THE HINDENBERG! When working with hydrogen.
I worked in a large research lab, with miles of high pressure (1000 PSI) hydrogen lines.
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