Where Are the Hydrogen Mines?

Tech Central Station ^ | 12/10/2003 | Ronald Bailey

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[jwh_Denver]

"Got a light?"

[Jeff Chandler]

Hydrogen as a portable carrier for the energy produced by nukes makes sense, but the idea of hygrogen as fuel for the average motorist is a far-away Utopia. Exotic fuels make more sense for local fleets, however, because those vehicles are generally fueled at a central location, and can hire mechanics with the expertise necessary to maintain them.

[Axenolith]

The hydrogen that all of those sprinkled by the hydrogen fairy gush about will be mined, the "mines" are called oil wells. Hydrogen will be cracked from the hydrocarbons because it takes 4 or 5 times less energy than by electrolysis...

[GladesGuru]

If you think the Pinto was a death trap when the fuel tank failed in an accident, consider what happens when a hydrogen tank is breached.

Remember the Hindenberg?

[DB]

I think it first needs to be proven carbon dioxide is a problem before spending trillions trying to avoid releasing it.

[Russian Sage]

Hydrogen as a portable carrier...

Exactly - it is only a carrier. Extracting hydrogen from water to burn it back to water is like pumping water uphill to let it flow down through a generator.

[clee1]

What I want to know is why hasn't biodiesel caught more interest?

I saw a report about a guy that uses used frenchfry oil to run his car - at about twice the mpg of gasoline.

[Cvengr]

Darnedest thing about them Hydrogen Mines,....thar isn't a hydrogen miner alive who was fast enough to dig the mine, recover from the explosion from the pick sparking the rock, and then capture all that hydrogen down in the mine....at least from those who live to tell about it!! ;^)

[Jeff Chandler]

There aren't many fuels packing much more punch than gasoline. The Hindenburg didn't explode, it burned. The actual material burned.

[Jeff Chandler]

pumping water uphill to let it flow down through a generator.

The Salt River Project in Arizona does just that with its series of lakes. At night, when demand is low, the water is pumped into the upper lakes. During the day, when demand is high, it powers the generators.

Nuke plants can't be powered up and down like other plants. If we build enough to achieve regular overcapacity, the excess electricity could be stored by producing hydrogen? (I don't know if this would even be cost-effective).

[farmfriend]

Biodiesel is heavily pushed by the Grange. I hear about it a lot. You can find National Grange policy on their website.

[clee1]

I'll look into it, thanks.

I'm really interested in this. My next vehicle may very well be a diesel/converted to biodiesel.

[DeepDish]

They do the same thing at Tam Sauk in SE Missouri.

Using off peak capacity from nuke power plants would make some sense.

[Boot Hill]

The article sez:   "But can solar power and wind power supply the energy needed to make hydrogen fuel?"

LOL, of course it can, (about the time that hell freezes over!)

--Boot Hill

[farmfriend]

(about the time that hell freezes over!)

With all this "global warming" no chance of that happening anytime soon.

[Fledermaus]

Fossil fuels are mined or pumped from wells, but unfortunately, there are no hydrogen mines. This means that hydrogen must be somehow extracted from water or hydrocarbons like natural gas. Since extracting hydrogen from hydrocarbons still emits the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, this means that one still has to figure out what to do with the leftover carbon dioxide. Producing hydrogen by separating two hydrogen atoms from the oxygen atom in molecules of water avoids the production of carbon. But that only works if the electricity is produced using non-carbon fuels. That means that for environmental activists the only canonically acceptable way to produce hydrogen is by using renewable sources of energy like photovoltaic cells and windpower. As previously noted, those sources produce about one half of one percent of the world's power today and that's primary production for direct use, not for producing another form of energy in which losses inevitably occur. Using electricity to make hydrogen produces no net gain in energy; in fact, energy is lost. Hydrogen is not so much a source of energy as it is an energy carrier. In this sense hydrogen is just a kind of electric storage battery.

Finally, some reality. I've been preaching this point to any enviro-moron that would listen. And then I ask them if they want to drive a car that uses hydrogen cells and thus needs a tank of compressed hydrogen and one with compressed oxygen, and a power source, to combine them for an explosion in the cylinders. That confuses them.

The only solution is a pipeline to Jupiter or the Sun. Yeah, that's feasible.

[Fledermaus]

We can drastically drop the levels of carbon dioxide if all the enviro-morons and politicians would just shut the < John Kerry expletive deleted > up!

[farmfriend]

Look, bringing facts into the argument will get you no where! We don't care about the fact, we want to feel good about doing something for the environment.