We Are All Spaniards

In article , Tom Sixkiller wrote:
Hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not a source.
The hydrogen comes
from oil, and you lose some of the oil's energy in the process.

Misleading and/or just plain wrong.

Why is it wrong?

If hydrogen is an energy source, where are the hydrogen wells/collection
facilities? Answer: there are none.
Hydrogen either must be obtained by breaking chemical bonds in oil
(therefore using oil), or breaking the chemical bonds in water (with,
for example, electrolysis). Breaking chemical bonds takes energy and
resources. There just isn't a bunch of hydrogen floating around for us
to extract - the hydrogen is all bonded to some other atom (bummer).

Or do you have a marvellous scheme for breaking the laws of
thermodynamics?

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
In article , Tom Sixkiller wrote:
Hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not a source.
The hydrogen comes
from oil, and you lose some of the oil's energy in the process.

Misleading and/or just plain wrong.

Why is it wrong?

If hydrogen is an energy source, where are the hydrogen wells/collection
facilities? Answer: there are none.
Hydrogen either must be obtained by breaking chemical bonds in oil
(therefore using oil), or breaking the chemical bonds in water (with,
for example, electrolysis). Breaking chemical bonds takes energy and
resources. There just isn't a bunch of hydrogen floating around for us
to extract - the hydrogen is all bonded to some other atom (bummer).

How much hyrogen is can be obtained from petroleum relative to the energy
required for fueld cells?

Or do you have a marvellous scheme for breaking the laws of
thermodynamics?

Do you have anything other than weaseling?

Tom Sixkiller wrote:

How much hyrogen is can be obtained from petroleum relative to the energy
required for fuel cells?

Auburn University has developed a method of separating the hydrogen from diesel
fuel. Preliminary results indicate that a truck using fuel cells fed by their
separator gets about 3 times as many miles per gallon as a conventional diesel
truck of the same size. I only saw the one AP article about it, however, and
who knows how accurate it is. One of the unanswered questions is what happens to
the carbon and sulphur which is separated out. The article also said that the
military is getting involved. That would slow down its availability in the
civilian market if the Army wants to keep a competitive advantage (which they
will).

George Patterson
Battle, n; A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would
not yield to the tongue.

In article , Tom Sixkiller wrote:
Hydrogen either must be obtained by breaking chemical bonds in oil
(therefore using oil), or breaking the chemical bonds in water (with,
for example, electrolysis). Breaking chemical bonds takes energy and
resources. There just isn't a bunch of hydrogen floating around for us
to extract - the hydrogen is all bonded to some other atom (bummer).

How much hyrogen is can be obtained from petroleum relative to the energy
required for fueld cells?

It doesn't matter how much - energy will be lost in the process. If you
do make a more efficient system utilizing a fuel cell (which you should
be able to - for a vehicle, fuel cell + battery + regenerative braking
should be much more efficient than today's internal combustion engines +
friction brakes) you are still using a resource that is very definitely
finite. It still doesn't change the laws of thermodynamics (no free
lunch) and our burgeoning population is still dependent on oil to feed
itself.

All you've offered is vague insults, and you still haven't explained why
my belief in the laws of thermodynamics is somehow "misleading" or
"inaccurate".

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Dylan Smith wrote:
It doesn't matter how much - energy will be lost in the process.

Of course it will, but don't neglect conversion
efficiencies and alternative energy sources.

The net efficiency of converting crude oil to gasoline,
distribution down to the individual car at a few gallons
at a time then to locomotion via the piston
engine/transmission/drive train is very poor.

In a fuel cell system, various materials including crude
oil, natural gas, etc. would be converted to hydrogen in
bulk then distributed with less evaporation loss and
converted to locomotion with fuel cell/electric motors
that have a much higher conversion efficiency than the
piston engine/transmission/drive train


Soup to nuts the net conversion of BTU's to mechanical
energy would be better. No violation of thermodynamics,
just modern engineering.

Neither crude oil nor natural gas have to be involved at
all. Solar panels or nucler reactors can supply the
energy to crack water directly.

Finally has been good progress on the Direct Methanol Fuel
Cell which has the advantage of using a low pressure
liquid in the car.

"Doug Carter" wrote in message
...
Dylan Smith wrote:
It doesn't matter how much - energy will be lost in the process.

Of course it will, but don't neglect conversion
efficiencies and alternative energy sources.

The net efficiency of converting crude oil to gasoline,
distribution down to the individual car at a few gallons
at a time then to locomotion via the piston
engine/transmission/drive train is very poor.

In a fuel cell system, various materials including crude
oil, natural gas, etc. would be converted to hydrogen in
bulk then distributed with less evaporation loss and
converted to locomotion with fuel cell/electric motors
that have a much higher conversion efficiency than the
piston engine/transmission/drive train


Soup to nuts the net conversion of BTU's to mechanical
energy would be better. No violation of thermodynamics,
just modern engineering.

Neither crude oil nor natural gas have to be involved at
all. Solar panels or nucler reactors can supply the
energy to crack water directly.

Finally has been good progress on the Direct Methanol Fuel
Cell which has the advantage of using a low pressure
liquid in the car.

BINGO! You've separated various methods of production (my point about
misleading). One other point is the efficiency of fuel cells (in utilizing
the energy) versus an internal combustion engine. Doomsayers absolutely HATE
that.

In article , Doug Carter wrote:
Neither crude oil nor natural gas have to be involved at
all. Solar panels or nucler reactors can supply the
energy to crack water directly.

And there's the rub - nuclear reactors, which the sheeple are so afraid
of! You can have the best, safest nuclear reactor design, that's
demonstrably less harmful by orders of magnitude than a coal-fired power
station, yet it'll never get built because people are too afraid. They
all think Chernobyl, when Chernobyl was really a product of abysmal
design. Or go on about Three Mile Island, despite not a single person
being injured in the TMI accident (thanks to reactor design that wasn't
anything remotely as atrocious as the Soviet ones).

Fuel cells are undoubtedly better than the ICE (for the reasons you
state, and you can realistically use regenerative braking in a vehicle
to get some of the energy back instead of dumping it as heat).
Additionally, the fuel cell is essentially an "abstraction layer" - once
you have your transport network powered by fuel cells, and, say, we
figure out nuclear fusion, you don't have to change everyone's cars -
you just make the H2 with your new energy source. But the rub is even
fusion contains that scary "N" word.

As for solar power, photovoltaic cells are still pretty inefficient, and
are a long way from being a viable way to get the hydrogen.

So the rub with the hydrogen economy that at least in the forseeable
future, it's just the oil economy in disguise. Hopefully what it will do
is allow us to diversify our energy sources...but we're still a long way
off from that.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Dylan Smith wrote:

And there's the rub - nuclear reactors, which the sheeple are so afraid
of! You can have the best, safest nuclear reactor design, that's
demonstrably less harmful by orders of magnitude than a coal-fired power
station, yet it'll never get built because people are too afraid.

I saw accident figures for the U.S. back in the mid 70s. At that time, solar
power was the most dangerous power source in the country. This was due to the
fact that most of the installers were amateurs. Most of the accidents involved
someone falling off the roof of a house. At that time, there was an average of
two fatalities each year due to nuclear power, all construction accidents. Since
we don't seem to be building any more plants, I would assume the rate is now 0.

George Patterson
Battle, n; A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would
not yield to the tongue.

G.R. Patterson III wrote:

I saw accident figures for the U.S. back in the mid 70s. At that time, solar
power was the most dangerous power source in the country.

"Bat fatalities have recently become an issue in the wind
power industry because fatalities have been documented at
wind power sites where post-construction bird studies have
been conducted." From
http://www.currykerlinger.com/bats.htm.

No traces of radioactive bats though.

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 17:03:48 -0000, Dylan Smith wrote:

And there's the rub - nuclear reactors, which the sheeple are so afraid
of! You can have the best, safest nuclear reactor design, that's
demonstrably less harmful by orders of magnitude than a coal-fired power
station, yet it'll never get built because people are too afraid.

and you, no, the next couple of generations, have to deal with the waste.

As for solar power, photovoltaic cells are still pretty inefficient, and
are a long way from being a viable way to get the hydrogen.

so we have to make it more efficient.
efficience allone is not enough. You only have one planet to destroy.

#m
--
A far-reaching proposal from the FBI (...) would require all broadband
Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire
their networks to support easy wiretapping by police.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5172948.html