Posted on 01/25/2002 12:12:08 PM PST by John Jamieson
John R Jamieson MIT67, NASA67-94 retired
It seems like a great idea at first glance. Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on earth and burns very cleanly. It contains more energy per pound than any other fuel.
At second glance, things are a little less encouraging. Most of the hydrogen on earth is already burned! The oceans are the ashes of billions of years of hydrogen fires. The hydrogen is tightly bound to oxygen atoms and must be separated from those atoms before it can be used again. Using electrolysis, the hydrogen can be separated from the oxygen by putting in exactly the same amount of energy that will later be retrieved when the hydrogen is burned. Hydrogen, made from water, is thus an energy storage media like a battery, not an energy source. Neither the separation nor the recombination of this reversible process can happen at 100% efficiency. Waste heat is generated during each process. Because most of our electricity is generated by hydrocarbons, we would still be using hydrocarbons to run our cars. The inherent efficiency of the electrical energy generation process (about 40%) times the expected efficiency of the electrolysis process (about 50%) would indicate a hydrogen fuel price of about 5 times the price of fossil fuels.
The second major source of hydrogen is directly from hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons contain both hydrogen and carbon; about twice as many hydrogen atoms than carbon atoms, but since a carbon atom weights 14 times more than a hydrogen atom, much more carbon by weight. When we drive our cars today, we burn about 5.3 pounds of carbon and .7 pound of hydrogen per gallon of gasoline. Hydrogen plus oxygen equals water, good; carbon plus oxygen equals carbon dioxide, bad (the same stuff we exhale!). If we could breakdown natural gas, methane, gasoline, or fuel oil to separate the hydrogen from the nasty carbon (on which all life is based) and sell the huge piles of carbon for enough to pay for the separation, about 3 gallons of liquid or an equivalent weight of gas (about 18 pounds) would yield about 2 pounds of hydrogen, which is the energy equivalent of 1 gallon of gasoline or 6 pounds of natural gas. Remember that burning the carbon would not be allowed. We could make diamonds with it. The net result is that hydrogen fuel cannot, ever, be made for less than 3 times the price of fossil fuels.
OK, what if we just ignore that fact that we can’t make hydrogen economically. What do we do with it in an automobile? The logical answer is we burn it, in the same cars we’re driving today. Internal combustion engines basically don’t care what provides the heat. There are a few minor problems: How do you seal up the leakiest substance known to man? How do you store enough in the car to go 300 miles? What happens in a freeway crash? Etc. But, these little issues can all be solved. IC engines will need water injection to lower peak cylinder temps so we don’t make nasty NOX, but that technology is pretty well understood. Oh, but wait a minute, IC engines are nasty and unacceptable! Enter the miracle solution: FUEL CELLS!
FUEL CELLS work! There is about a $100,000,000 worth of them on each Space Shuttle generating the equivalent of almost 36 horsepower. Coleman just announced a real commercial home power generator that puts out 1.2 kilowatts for only $7,995 (Plus $100 per hydrogen canister that lasts for a few hours). GM just drove its latest fuel cell vehicle “Hydrogen1” on an “endurance test”, 230 miles from LA to Los Vegas. They only had to stop 7 times for more hydrogen. Many other companies built fuel cell cars and tried to go along, but didn’t make it. Zero to 50 was only 18 seconds.
The US department of energy recently set a goal of only $400 per kilowatt (about a horsepower, figuring electrical controller and motor efficiencies) for STATIONARY APPLICATIONS BY 2015. Won’t they be surprised that Detroit is planning affordable family fuel cell automobiles by 2010! If Detroit gets to magic $400 per horsepower five years early, and makes it small enough and light enough to go in a family car, you too, could be driving a 200 horsepower family car for a little over $100,000 that “burns” hydrogen costing you $5 a “gallon”. What a deal! You’ll drive it with pride knowing that your leaving no bad stuff in the air of your immediate area, while increasing the pollution of the poor people that live next to the power plant outside of town by a factor of 3 and increasing the importation (and probably the price) of Arab oil by a factor of three.
All this negativity aside, there is one and only one way to cheap automotive fuel, clean air and energy independence for this country. The answer is a massive, nuclear energy economy, probably fusion (hydrogen) powered. Hydrogen used for fusion generates power thousands of times more effectively than burning it with oxygen. A national effort equal to the Manhattan project or the Apollo program could develop fusion-powered electricity (and cheap hydrogen for automotive fuel) within 25 years. Then, we can truly say, we’re driving clean, fusion-powered cars. Electricity could be as cheap as 2 cents per kilowatt-hour and hydrogen for our cars, 40 cents per “gallon”. It is the only solution to the problem that has any economic, political, or engineering viability.
In the meantime, burn all the cheap Arab oil you can get and keep supporting the development our own fossil fuel sources for the day when we decide to shut the Arabs off!
Thanks for the info
What a great article! I tell me husband that we shoud "burn it all" all the time! Thanks for writing this up!
Maybe I'll start watching Ballard once again.
They have clean diesel power all over Europe ... it is only political considerations keeping it out of the U.S.
Plenty of sun out here in the desert southwest. Almost all of it is wasted.
Chemical Batteries like lead acid, gel deep cycle and even the lithium have life times that are short by a cars lifetime definition. They are heavy; they are a problem in an accident; Disposal is a problem. Chemical storage is bay far the best way to store the energy for a car. What’s wrong with a nuclear power plant producing hydrogen to fuel our cars with, and hydrogen stations with “Spare” tanks that a re a universal size and shape (Vehicles could use one or more, i.e. bigger vehicles four or six, etc) We can then drive cross country, stopping for refills as we do now, and we can not pollute (Fusion reactors can eat the waste of Fission reactors, so no waste to bury.) no pollution, no oil from Saudis what’s the down side?
Oh, the oil companies stocks would drop like a stone and these reactors would be terrorist target.
Know your topic, look good
http://www.billingsenergy.com/
The storage system: http://www.billingsenergy.com/Research/HWV-Chapter_07.pdf
(In fairness I met Dr Mel billings the brother of the founder of Billings Energy Corp. several years ago and talked about this, so in a way I am cheating)
But hey, even if this is not the solution, I’m sure with a little incentive, we can figure something out.
“Necessity, the mother of invention” – Love quotes.
BTW, If I remember correctly, I was told the tests of these metal hydride storage tanks included being shot with incendiary rounds, and all that happened was they set it on fire (and it burned very brightly, and for two days IIRC.
MIT degree, 27 years working with hydrogen fuel at NASA KSC.
I should know something about it.
John
You need to stop getting the cheap ones from the supermarket and get the good ones from Sporting Goods stores.
Ballard did hit 13 in May for a day, now a rock solid $6. You should buy some.
You said” Liquid Hydrogen is the densest form. It takes about two pounds to make the equivalent energy of one gallon of gas. Two pounds of hydrogen liquid occupy about 7 gallons of space, leak through most materials, cost about $50, boils off about 7% a day when stored in very heavy cryo tanks. Gaseous storage requires even heavier and larger tanks.
Other than that, it's an excellent fuel.”
I pointed out a new Way of doing things (while admitting I was not an expert, and saying I was “Cheating” by having talked to the inventor’s brother)
You said “MIT degree, 27 years working with hydrogen fuel at NASA KSC.
I should know something about it.”
Great!
So, does this process I linked you to work? What are its flaws? Can they be fixed? Will it be cost effective? How long to build it (if it’s going to be worth it)? If you’ve got the expertise, share…
Or do you mean “Hey I’ve got a degree, so don’t question me or confuse me with the facts!”
(When I put together a team I like to have 4 degrees and two self taught geniuses It’s entertaining and they bring out the best in each other, structure, and outside the box solutions)
Oooh, we have another hydrogen pimp on FR!
It used to, now they are using ethanol.
Because no heavy fuel needs to be transported.
Good Luck, I've been hearing that we are "20 years away from fusion" for 40 years now
Yes, CTNF has always been 50 years in the future, for the last 50 years, and always WILL be 50 years in the future. BUT it has a LARGE lobby of physicists in congress, they've been throwing oodles of money at that black hole all these years and it will NEVER get past the Lawrence Coefficient(break even point). Their new scam is this ITER thing in france. It is these same jokers who bad mouth Cold Fusion, 17 years of it now.....As to the "hydrogen economy", another sorry joke; they never tell you WHERE the energy comes from for hydrolysis other than solar, wind....gimme a break...
>> Please read your links yourself before wasting my time.
I read, the link, but didn’t see the ramifications like you did, (Not my specialty) now that you point it out, yep, it needs work. I hope they find a solution to these problems, but not holding my breath either.
It may not be “Obvious” to you, but I don’t have an MIT degree, and 27 years of experience with hydrogen. That’s why I like Free Republic; you ask answers, you get questions (Ok sometimes the reverse).
I am sorry you feel I made you waste time reading something that “Looked good to me” but I am not an expert in your field. Which is why I asked you to go and look at it and evaluate it for us? I say “us” because I often read a post such as this for information without commenting, and I am sure I am not the only one who learned something here.
P.S. Drop the condescending tone, it makes you sound small and petty. (I am willing to bet that’s not how you talk in person, as for me, I really am funny in person… Honest!).
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