University Unveils Method to Turn Ethanol into Hydrogen

Pioneer Press ^ | Thu, Feb. 12, 2004 | DENNIS LIEN

[Voltage]

The formula is: Ethanol + Lots of taxpayer $$$$ = Hydrogen.

[SwinneySwitch]

Every county, town and home could build its own still!:)

[templar]

Asked how he happened to focus on it, he said, “I just had an inkling it might work.’’

"Intuition trancends intellect" --- Nikola Tesla.

[stylin19a]

Over the past year, they've built a reactor that converts ethanol, a renewable corn-based product produced in 14 plants statewide, into hydrogen. That, in turn, can be used to power a fuel cell, a battery-like device that converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity and heat.

Um.....how much energy is used to get the ethanol in the first place ?
how much hydrogen would be needed ? lots ? then we need lots of ethanol, which inturn would need more energy to convert it into hydrogen......I'm starting to make my own head spin.

[Psycho_Bunny]

University Unveils Method to Turn Ethanol into Hydrogen

Sooooooooo.......we spent money to turn a difficult-to-produce, man-made fuel into the most abundant, naturally occurring element in the universe?

Suweet. 

(I know there's value here but it just sounds so absurd.)

[Rodney King]

And just what source of energy are they going to use to turn the corn into ethanol, and then to turn the ethanol into hydrogen?

The answer of course, is oil and gas. Only its much more efficient to take the oil and gas and put it straight into the energy marketplace then to wash it through a bunch of transactions to turn that energy into hydrogen.

[Falcon4.0]

We need to have this whole HYDROGEN crap vetted by the Trial Lawyers before we get too excited. Who's gonna get sued when a compressed tank BLEVE's in an intersection after a rear ender? Remember the Pinto and the Ford side saddle tanks?
(Boiling Liquid Escaping Vapor Explosion)for you none Fire Fighters.

[pointsal]

When will the Federal-folks allow industrial HEMP to go into production..... Another "old" technology waiting to be discovered.

[TBall]

The hydrogen will not compressed into a tank or frozen as liquid. Safer methods of storage have already been developed.

[dirtboy]

Great. So we subsidize the farmers to grow corn, subsidize ADM to make ethanol, and then subsidize the production of hydrogen. It would be cheaper just to burn money, because you'd only have to pay for it once.

[Enterprise]

"Over the past year, they’ve built a reactor that converts ethanol, a renewable corn-based product produced in 14 plants statewide, into hydrogen. That, in turn, can be used to power a fuel cell, a battery-like device that converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity and heat.

Schmidt said the reactor can be built small enough to hold in a hand and could in five or more years provide electricity for houses, lighted billboards, and air-conditioning units in vehicles. "

Sort of my question too. What powers the reactor, even if it gets small enough to hold in a hand?

[FastCoyote]

Bwahahaha, I read this as boondoggle. There are already reports that the gasoline required to run the farm machinery to make the corn requires almost as much energy as produced. Even with their claim of 60% efficiency (which is quite optimistic), it's still nearly a wash, especially with all the storage problems of hydrogen.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[usafsk]

In this case, the term reactor refers to a microchemical reactor, which is a very important technology. Don't think of large, industrial style plants. A microchemical reactor might be as simple as 2 input hoses (components, catalyst) and two output hoses (desired output, waste/exhaust). Microchemical production of hydrogen peroxide has already been proven, phrama companies are putting millions into research to simplify and reduce the cost of low-scale production of designer drugs, and battery/fuel cell research is hot.

The Japanese are putting billions into this. And ethanol production is not energy intensive. Look, I'm no Green or enviro-nut, but technologies that reduce our dependence on oil to any extent through the use of renewable - in this case the most likely end product, at least a decade away - is a small fuel cell technology that replaces batteries in cell phones, PDAs, toys, notebook PCs, etc.

This is good news.

[Moonman62]

"Intuition trancends intellect" --- Nikola Tesla.

"Hey Tesla, what happened to all that money I invested with you?" --- J.P. Morgan

[usafsk]

You are confused. First, post "some report" that supports the idea that the fossil fuels used to grow an acre of corn and produce ethanol is greater than the potential energy output of the hydrogen produced in this process. Secondly, this is not about large scale storage of hydrogen. The idea is simplify and shrink the hydrogen production reactor so that hydrogen is not stored, but produced and used as needed from a less volatile (ethanol, which is no more volatile than gasoline) source.

[Moonman62]

Bwahahaha, I read this as boondoggle. There are already reports that the gasoline required to run the farm machinery to make the corn requires almost as much energy as produced. Even with their claim of 60% efficiency (which is quite optimistic), it's still nearly a wash, especially with all the storage problems of hydrogen.

I don't think the hydrogen is stored in this process. It's used as soon as it's extracted.

[Voltage]

Good news for the pigs at the trough, bad thing for the taxpayers. The pigs will be happy.

[uncle fenders]

Maybe i am missing something on all the hate for ethanol? I swear I don't understand if I am being lied to or the people that hate it are? I live in the midwest,and have no involvement in farming or ethanol production...Personally I am glad we can grow fuel..derived from corn..the spin I always hear on tv and radio here is that there is NO SUBSIDY on ethanol..they do however pay a lower tax rate to be able to grow,compete with straight gasoline,and perfect the product...a subsidy and tax cut are different things..
Anyhow here the price of ethanol is always about 4-5 cents less than regular,and I have never heard of fuel problems with cars ,or shortages of the product. There was trouble with METHANOL years back. Now its the only fuel I buy. I have heard almost 50-60 percent of all fuel purchased here is ethanol,even though its not required in any way..
My current car used only ethanol unless I couldn't get it (out of state)and I drove 197,000 miles on the original 4 cylinder dodge motor,with only routine high mileage problems.
I guess what I am saying is if they can squeeze more out of ethanol by converting into a hydrogen product great..but I can't understand why any place other than an oil state would hate it so much?