Will Clean Hydrogen Power End U.S. Dependence On Oil?

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY ^ | Friday, February 7, 2003 | SEAN HIGGINS

[Isara]

For all of the benefits of hydrogen, there are major drawbacks. The main one is that it requires energy to extract it in the first place.

The most common method (called "steam reformation") mixes natural gas and water with a catalyst to produce hydrogen. Greenhouse gasses are a byproduct.

The process also requires heat, which must come from another energy source.

Solar or wind could be used, but vast tracts of land for windmills or solar panels would be needed.

That's what I thought. "There are no hydrogen wells. We can dig up petroleum, but hydrogen has to be created from, say, seawater. And that requires a lot of energy."

[AppyPappy]

The point is to move us away from oil as a vehicle fuel. We can get power from coal, solar, wind or nuclear. All of these are home grown.

In goes a hydrogen powerplant into a Ford Explorer at Virginia Tech

[AppyPappy]

You are missing the fun here.

[Thud]

Hydrogen fuel is merely a means of distributing energy from elsewhere.

[Diogenesis]

In concert with the State Dept., the Commerce Dept which runs the Patent Office gave away
all US inventors' secrets (including all US patent applications) on energy to China, but under the corrupt officials
and traitors who run the Patent Office, all energy related patents involving new sources remain ungranted, and
the researchers under attack despite the US Constitution permitting such patents.

President Bush: How about an iota of accountability.
Please remove Q. Todd Dickenson and other corrupt officials at the Patent Office and State Dept. TODAY.

[ffusco]

You mean like "electricity"?

[Puppage]

We can get power from coal, solar, wind or nuclear

All true, however it can't, at least at this time, be made to satisfy the publics demand OR expectations. If these alternative methods cannot perform as well or better than fossil fuels, people will not use them.The technology does not exist yet...if it did, SOMEONE would be producing these products & would become the next Bill Gates.

[philosofy123]

You don't dig in the ground and find hydrogen. The way to produce it is to reform hydrocarbon materials to hydrogen rich component. It is an expensive way to obtain hydrogen. Another way is electrolysis of water to Hydrogen and Oxygen. That is also expensive. However, if the environmental nut-cases would allow this country to build lots of nuclear power plants, we can have lots of electric power to do this electrolysis economically.

[Physicist]

I just finished reading the article when you pinged me.

My knee-jerk reaction: if Jeremy Rifkin is for it, I'm against it.

Article sez: Using the cheapest process, it costs $3,000 to make enough hydrogen to generate one kilowatt. That's four times what it costs a gas-powered generator to make the same amount of power.

I don't believe, however, that with the cheapest process only 25% of the energy from the gas is being stored in the hydrogen; this factor of four must include the efficiency of the fuel cell itself. It would be nice to see this figure broken down so that we could have some idea of how much of it might be gained back by research.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

"We can dig up petroleum, but hydrogen has to be created from, say, seawater. And that requires a lot of energy."

And that energy comes from...

PETROLEUM!!!!

[Britton J Wingfield]

http://www.powerball.net/concept/index.shtml is very interesting.

[Sgt_Schultze]

...Hydrogen gas would then be stored in compressed form in a battery-like device called a fuel cell. When mixed with oxygen - an air filter would do it - the cell creates an electric charge. The only exhaust is water vapor...

Water vapor is the #1 greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

The point is to move us away from oil as a vehicle fuel. We can get power from coal, solar, wind or nuclear. All of these are home grown.

Its far easier to use that same domestic energy to turn coal into gasoline, diesel and kerosene through coal gasification.

Hydrogen powered anything in practical form is 100+ year old pipe dream, right up there with urban Monorails and personal jetpacks.

[Wonder Warthog]

"That's what I thought. "There are no hydrogen wells. We can dig up petroleum, but hydrogen has to be created from, say, seawater. And that requires a lot of energy."

Actually, we can "dig up" hydrogen, as well. Coal gasification very nicely produces large quantities of it (the final product syngas is pretty much carbon monoxide and hydrogen). Separate them, burn the carbon monoxide in gas turbines to produce electricity at the mine-site and for transmission locally, and send the hydrogen off by pipeline to wherever it is needed. We have MORE coal reserves in the US than Saudi Arabia has oil.

[Physicist]

And that energy comes from...

PETROLEUM!!!!

But not necessarily. Petroleum is an expensive power plant fuel. The cheapest thing right now would be to build fission reactors (and they won't have to be near populated areas this time). Ultimately, coal represents the greatest available store of energy.

[rellimpank]

--biggest drawback--the laws of thermodynamics, which even the Democrats can't break--

[Physicist]

Water vapor is the #1 greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

That's true, but since most of the surface of the Earth is liquid water, you can take it as a given that we can't drive atmospheric water vapor very far out of equilibrium. The more water we pump into the air, the more will come out as rain.

[Isara]

Coal gasification very nicely produces large quantities of it (the final product syngas is pretty much carbon monoxide and hydrogen). Separate them, burn the carbon monoxide in gas turbines to produce electricity at the mine-site and for transmission locally, and send the hydrogen off by pipeline to wherever it is needed.

I like the idea. How complete is it to burn CO from H₂? Is it dangerous to burn something when H₂ is around? Like Hindenburg.

[Protagoras]

If these alternative methods cannot perform as well or better cheaply than fossil fuels,

[AppyPappy]

Yes but we aren't doing it. Meanwhile, we are dependent on foriegn countries for our life's blood. I would rather pay more and have our independence.