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![]() Stephen Harding wrote: Regnirps wrote: Stephen Harding wrote: That's pretty typical of American thinking. But increasingly, we're going to find that car is making demands on us that we aren't going to like. In some areas, that's already the case. snip You must be at a University. Faculty? Grad student? I know a Stanford physicist Former UMass/Amherst computer science dept programmer. Now part-timer and self-employed technical writer and programmer. [Anyone looking to hire a tech writer??] you should talk to. This has been his field for the last 30 years. For instance, he can give you The Five Reasons Commuter Lanes Don't Work and how traffic engineers know how to fix most of the problems if the politicians would let them. There is no looming catastrophe and we are not running out of resources. I pretty much agree with that, although I'm skeptical of politically limited solutions to traffic problems. Oil will run out probably sometime in the next 100 years, but by the time it does, I suspect fuel cell technology running on straight H2 (rather than the initial gasoline) will be meeting energy needs for centuries to come. snip I have refrained from participating in this discussion before, but I certainly have some doubts about your remark about H2. I know H2 has some wonderful advantages. If you allow it to react with oxygen in a fuel cell you get electricity and water. Zer pollution. Fantastic! Also, you can store far more energy by using it to dissociate water into O2 and H2 than by storing it in a battery for instance. Great! However, the big question that very few people seem to be able to answer (myself included) is where the energy to make the H2 should come from? I'm sure you're aware that H2 is not something you can dig up from the ground. Perhaps our hope should lie with nuclear fusion, though that's not without its own problems either. In my opinion H2 not the answer to a possible energy/environmental crisis. Focussing on H2 is just replacing one problem with another. Regards, Ralph Savelsberg SMH |
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Ralph Savelsberg wrote in
: I have refrained from participating in this discussion before, but I certainly have some doubts about your remark about H2. I know H2 has some wonderful advantages. If you allow it to react with oxygen in a fuel cell you get electricity and water. Zer pollution. Fantastic! Also, you can store far more energy by using it to dissociate water into O2 and H2 than by storing it in a battery for instance. Great! However, the big question that very few people seem to be able to answer (myself included) is where the energy to make the H2 should come from? I'm sure you're aware that H2 is not something you can dig up from the ground. Perhaps our hope should lie with nuclear fusion, though that's not without its own problems either. In my opinion H2 not the answer to a possible energy/environmental crisis. Focussing on H2 is just replacing one problem with another. Regards, Ralph Savelsberg Until we develop nuclear fusion,we can use nuclear fission. We must put more effort into waste disposal and 'burning' of hi-level wastes.And put all the waste into the Yucca Repository until those techniques are developed. -- Jim Yanik,NRA member jyanik-at-kua.net |
#3
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Here is a little cold H20 for th hydrogen crowd.
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/energy/ Check out where the hydrogen will come from. -- Charlie Springer |
#4
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Ralph Savelsberg wrote:
I have refrained from participating in this discussion before, but I certainly have some doubts about your remark about H2. Come on Ralph! Everyone is OT on r.a.m these days! Go ahead! Be naughty! Do it! In fact...let's bash French fuel cell technology!!! Great! However, the big question that very few people seem to be able to answer (myself included) is where the energy to make the H2 should come from? I'm sure you're aware that H2 is not something you can dig up from the ground. Perhaps our hope should lie with nuclear fusion, though that's not without its own problems either. In my opinion H2 not the answer to a possible energy/environmental crisis. Focussing on H2 is just replacing one problem with another. There's so dogone much H2 around that its use for energy is almost as attractive as splitting atoms in the long term. But yes, those H and O atoms really like to stick together, and the energy it takes to coax them apart is problematic at the moment. But I really think this technology is going to fly...and probably nuclear power will triumph over the long haul. SMH |
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![]() Stephen Harding wrote: Ralph Savelsberg wrote: I have refrained from participating in this discussion before, but I certainly have some doubts about your remark about H2. Come on Ralph! Everyone is OT on r.a.m these days! Go ahead! Be naughty! Do it! In fact...let's bash French fuel cell technology!!! In fact I stopped posting alltogether a few months ago. The irritation over the stupidity being expressed by people from both sides of the Atlantic (and some other parts of the world as well) had begun to outweigh the enjoyment I got from many of the discussions and interesting exchanges of ideas/information. Anyway, I'm back now. It's not the fact that its off-topic that stopped me from getting involved in this thread, but its title. Great! However, the big question that very few people seem to be able to answer (myself included) is where the energy to make the H2 should come from? I'm sure you're aware that H2 is not something you can dig up from the ground. Perhaps our hope should lie with nuclear fusion, though that's not without its own problems either. In my opinion H2 not the answer to a possible energy/environmental crisis. Focussing on H2 is just replacing one problem with another. There's so dogone much H2 around that its use for energy is almost as attractive as splitting atoms in the long term. But yes, those H and O atoms really like to stick together, and the energy it takes to coax them apart is problematic at the moment. But I really think this technology is going to fly...and probably nuclear power will triumph over the long haul. SMH I realise that truly `green' types of energy simply aren't enough. Wind-power is suitable for some situations, as is electricity from solar panels. In some cases biomass can be a nice addition, but even a combination of these on any realistic scale cannot satisfy all our energy needs. We will run out of fossile fuels in the future. That's simply a matter of consuming them faster than they are being produced. As for nuclear technology I tend to be somewhat pessimistic. We will also run out of useful fissionable materials, although on a longer timescale than the fossile fuels. And then there is the issue with the waste. Jim Yanik has great hopes for future technology to do the trick, but I'm not so sure. Fission might be the only thing to keep us going until fission comes along, but who knows how long it will take to get nuclear fusion working properly? For know the energy it takes to create an environment suitable for fusion exceeds the energy you get from the fusion. Knowbody really knows how big a tokomak must be before you could expect it to actually deliver energy. Regards, Ralph Savelsberg |
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Stephen Harding wrote in news:3F994B53.FACA123
@cs.umass.edu: Ralph Savelsberg wrote: Great! However, the big question that very few people seem to be able to answer (myself included) is where the energy to make the H2 should come from? Natural gas. Mix methane (CH4) and very hot steam (H20) to produce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Hydrogen (H2). This is a very well known process, and is (was?) commonly used in the industrial production of chemicals. I'm sure you're aware that H2 is not something you can dig up from the ground. Perhaps our hope should lie with nuclear fusion, though that's not without its own problems either. In my opinion H2 not the answer to a possible energy/environmental crisis. Focussing on H2 is just replacing one problem with another. There's so dogone much H2 around that its use for energy is almost as attractive as splitting atoms in the long term. But yes, those H and O atoms really like to stick together, and the energy it takes to coax them apart is problematic at the moment. The energy will always be probematic if water is the only thing used. The energy it takes to free the hydrogen will be equal to the energy you get by running it through your fuel cell, assuming that there is no energy is lost in the process (very unlikely). Now, there are ways around this. You can introduce something else (like Methane above) which tends to help. Or you can use 'cheap' energy, like solar or nuclear. |
#7
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![]() "Seraphim" wrote in message .. . Stephen Harding wrote in news:3F994B53.FACA123 @cs.umass.edu: Ralph Savelsberg wrote: Great! However, the big question that very few people seem to be able to answer (myself included) is where the energy to make the H2 should come from? Natural gas. Mix methane (CH4) and very hot steam (H20) to produce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Hydrogen (H2). This is a very well known process, and is (was?) commonly used in the industrial production of chemicals. Why not just use the methane directly and not incur all the losses conversion brings with it ? Keith |
#8
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In article ,
Seraphim wrote: Stephen Harding wrote in news:3F994B53.FACA123 @cs.umass.edu: Ralph Savelsberg wrote: Great! However, the big question that very few people seem to be able to answer (myself included) is where the energy to make the H2 should come from? Natural gas. Mix methane (CH4) and very hot steam (H20) to produce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Hydrogen (H2). This is a very well known process, and is (was?) commonly used in the industrial production of chemicals. But the big problem for the eco-types is all of the C02. If you're going to make that, you might as well just use gasoline. Now, if this new algae-based process of making H2 works out, we'll get H2 with a net *reduction* of C02. -- cirby at cfl.rr.com Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations. Slam on brakes accordingly. |
#9
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In article ,
Chad Irby wrote: In article , Seraphim wrote: Stephen Harding wrote in news:3F994B53.FACA123 @cs.umass.edu: Ralph Savelsberg wrote: Great! However, the big question that very few people seem to be able to answer (myself included) is where the energy to make the H2 should come from? Natural gas. Mix methane (CH4) and very hot steam (H20) to produce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Hydrogen (H2). This is a very well known process, and is (was?) commonly used in the industrial production of chemicals. But the big problem for the eco-types is all of the C02. You can scrub out the CO2 by trapping it by forming carbonate (CaCO3?). If you're going to make that, you might as well just use gasoline. Now, if this new algae-based process of making H2 works out, we'll get H2 with a net *reduction* of C02. Cite? Sounds interesting. |
#10
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In article ,
Steve Hix wrote: In article , Chad Irby wrote: Now, if this new algae-based process of making H2 works out, we'll get H2 with a net *reduction* of C02. Cite? Sounds interesting. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54456,00.html -- cirby at cfl.rr.com Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations. Slam on brakes accordingly. |
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