The idea is that you can generate your power at huge superefficient plants that are as clean as possible.
Then, you don’t have to lose power transmitting it through resistant lines, and you don’t lose much if anything in storage.
Once you have that power you can convert it into hydrogen and back efficiently without emmisions or significant power loss.
With a clean plant like a geothermal, nuclear or hydroelectric it’s zero emmisions from start to finish.
Even with an oil plant the gains are huge.
You take your oil, or whatever hydrocarbon you’re using. Run it through a reform and you seperate it out into two or three components. In the most efficient scenario you produce hydrogen and release CO2, and get lots of power. Remember, we’re not burning the fuel, we’re simply seperating it into its most basic and powerful components so that we have clean and efficient chemical reactions instead of “dirty” and wasteful ones.
If we want to be even more clean, we release nothing but pure carbon in the form of a solid.
One thing to be aware of from a strict environmental standpoint is that a fuel cell still “burns” oxygen when it’s producing energy. Two atoms of hydrogen combine with an atom of oxygen from the air to produce water and energy.
If we are running the reaction from hydrocarbons we are still depleting oxygen and releasing CO2.
If we get the power from another source and get our hydrogen from the water, then the reaction is a wash from an emmisions standpoint.
Yes, but allow me to repost what I said about this a few months ago:
As for fuel cells…
Bush did not lie. He spoke the exact truth. The beauty of hydrogen power is that it separates the energy consumption infrastructure from the production infrastructure. That DOES reduce your reliance on foreign energy, even if you continue to buy it. Because if the price increases or supply is cut, you can ramp up your own energy sources to replace what’s lost, with no changes to the major infrastructure.
The reason OPEC has so much economic power is not just because oil is scarce, but because demand for it is inelastic. The reason for that is because our entire infrastructure is built around the usage of oil, and it is very, very difficult to change. So if the demand for power is inelastic, the demand for oil is inelastic. That means the OPEC cartel has us by the economic balls. If they stopped production tomorrow, they could throw the west into a depression. Because the infrastructure would be too difficult to change.
But with a hydrogen infrastructure, wonderful things happen. For one, you can respond to changes in energy costs (scarcity) gradually and smoothly. If oil prices climb, you can ramp up production of coal and nuclear plants and burn less oil. Almost instantly. That allows market forces to work, and will result in a much more efficient energy infrastructure.
Canada has floated a proposal to build 175 CANDU reactors in Nevada, situated near Yucca mountain. It is estimated that these reactors could produce enough power for North American needs. CANDU reactors are especially suited for this, because they can burn the waste from some types of U.S. plants. Since that waste is headed to Yucca anyway, it can be reprocessed through the CANDU, which greatly imrpoves the safety of the stuff (I believe the CANDU waste is back to the levels of the original ore within 400 years - a manageable storage time.). Also, CANDU reactors produce heavy water as a byproduct of making hydrogen, and heavy water is used as the moderator in the reactor. So the entire fuel cycle is more efficient.
Water can be pumped in from Lake Meade, fed into the reactors, and the hydrogen coming out can be shipped by pipeline throughout North America.
We don’t want to build this today because it’s not politically feasible, and because the cost is still too high. But once the price of oil rises above a certain level, alternatives like this can be phased in to take up the demand.
There’s another way to gain efficiency - you can reclaim the hydrogen spewed as waste from many industrial processes. For example, look at this story about GM’s partnership with DOW. Dow’s chlorine production process gives up 2% of its energy in hydrogen, which until now has been waste.
It is not an insignificant amount of energy. And this is just at one plant:
KeithT asked…
Can your gas tank withstand armor piercing bullets?
Yeah, actually, it can. Fuel explosions come from vapor, not product. In my own experimentation, I’ve found that the only thing that causes fuel tank explosions, are other explosions. You can shoot at a standard fuel tank until your finger gets tired, you can hit it with sticks, set the thing on fire and roll it down a hill, until the vapor reaches it’s ignition point, it just ain’t gonna explode. Until, that is, there is what’s called a BLEVE or Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion, wherein the burning product (no matter if it’s gasoline or cooking oil) produces more vapor than the relief valves built into a tank can remove, then, kablooie! Even then, it’s an environmental thing, with nothing to do with the product, except that it’s there.
On the rest of it, Bush is pandering. It’s a great idea, and I’m all for it, it would be wonderful to send hydrogen cars all over the place, along with hydrogen lawn mowers, and even hydrogen powered homes, but remember that this is 10 years plus down the road. Through an odd coincidence, in a few months, we may have all the oil we need.
—What Would Scooby Doo??
No way. You got taken in by a really poorly worded press release, I’m afraid. Here’s the important part of it:
I’m assuming that what they really meant is reflected by the inserted words. Note that if you divide the heat recovery increase percentage (47/43 = 1.09) by the volume change (.6) you get 1.816, or an 81% increase in volumetric efficiency. Actual efficiency for the unit is 34%; much more believable.
I should stress that the tank-to-wheel efficiency of the fuel cell system mentioned in my Argonne cite above (this one) assumes efficiencies not yet achieved (in the 46%-52% range). The GM study cited by KiethT uses much more modest TTW efficiencies of 25%-41% (from this pdf).
Well, not quite on your not quite. The 80% efficiency number most certainly does not reflect a real tank-to-wheel efficiency number. Best case TTW is the number Argonne cites. Further, check out the GM well-to-wheel study (the pdf above). They estimate 4650 BTU/mile energy usage for a diesel hybrid (table 3.8). Compare this to 4360-4680 BTU/mile energy usage for a fuel cell hybrid vehicle (table 3.10), depending on fuel source. So, while I agree that fuel cells are a promising technology with some definite advantages, there’s only a small efficiency advantage (if any) over hybrids. And hybrid technology is a lot more realistic short-term than fuel cells are.
Funny for you to say such a thing, given that you obviously haven’t been paying attention and aren’t conversant with the science. The only thing absolutely inane is your jumping to an apologist rant.
Ever heard of direct methanol fuel cells? Where does the hydrogen come from? Methanol. Where does the methanol come from? Plants, or anything that can be fermented. Advantage: You can use the existing infrastructure for gas with just a little bit adaption. While these cells release CO2, it is only to the extent that CO2 was taken out of the atmosphere by the plants fermented, in other words the net effect on CO2 is zero.
Coincidentally, direct methanol fuel cells are planned to be introduced starting next year as substitutes for the standard power supplies in cell phones and laptops. For cars, either an optimized version is conceivable, or an indirect version which first generates hydrogen from the methanol. Just go to the gas station, and instead of filling with gas, fill with methanol. No hassles with liquefied gas.
Dependency on fossil fuel is by no means anywhere NEAR as obvious as you make it. Quite the contrary.
Again, you are obviously not quite up to date on the science. Hydrogen, even pressurized, is actually safer than standard gas. Precisely BECAUSE it is a gas, and not liquid. No leaking, dripping, flowing around.
If a hydrogen tank near your trunk gets punctured and the gas ignites, you will have ONE blowtorch like flame going upwards from the puncture. You will be perfectly able to safely exit your car. Have your gas tank punctured, and you will have burning fuel running all over the place, setting the entire car on fire within moments.
Don’t look for Solar, Hydro, and Wind power to do away with oil and coal just yet, though. I agree this Hydrogen intiative is a good thing. But as nice as Solar and Wind and such sound, they aren’t all they are cracked up to be.
Fact is, we simply cannot make (yet, at least) nearly enough efficient to cover our needs. Solar would take up cast amounts of space and vast amount of money. Wind, likewise, with many bird kills plus more inefficiency. Hydro has its problems; there aren’t too many more places to dam in the US. Seawater simply isn’t very powerful.
You mean like the ones NEAH Power Systems and Micro Fuel cells are working on? Sure I’ve heard about them.
I was under the impression that this kind of power was definitely scalable to automobiles and larger applications.
Apparently I am incorrect. Would you be so kind as to show me who’se claiming we can run a car on a methanol fuel cell?
Yeah, so was the Hindenburgh. Again, I have been following this, and certainly the people designing these things recognize the problem presented by large quantities of highly pressurized reactive gas. That’s why onboard reformers and metal hydride storage devices are being considered.
To give a vehicle range, the Hydrogen must necessarily be stored under extremely compressed circumstances. This presents the same problems encountered with the transport of welding gases. You have the dangers of the gas itself, and you have the dangers of a pressurized vessel exploding, and you have the dangers of a slow leak.
Gasoline is more explosive as a vapor than as a gas. A lucky idiot can put a cigarette out in a can of gasoline. Atomize it and it explodes. That’s what fuel injectors and carbeurators do. They partially vaporize the gas and mix it with air.
Well, exactly. Fuel cells, if they work, will reduce pollution by concentrating power generation (and pollution controls) in a relative handful of facilities, rather than diffused over hundreds of millions of internal-combustion engines. But any net energy savings are speculative at best. Hence Bush’s promise of reduced reliance on foreign sources of energy was bogus.
Yes, fuel cell technology is worth investigating, and Federal dollars should be a part of this mix. But it would be stupid for that, along with more drilling for fossil fuels, to be the entirety of our energy policy. Yet that seems to be what Bush has in mind: fuel cell investment as a substitute for any other conservation, greenhouse-gas or clean-air measures. For a billion point two now, and a pie-in-the-sky promise, he’s made a whole complex of problems politically disappear. Pretty damned impressive, politically.
Yes, and it seems he’s right that I got suckered. I’m checking out the rest before I reply.
Yup.
No. It’s promising but indeed speculative. That’s not bogus.
Agreed.
Absolutely. As my Bud on the energy commision says, Bush really doesn’t have an energy policy. No doubt he’s doing his best to make this bit look like a whole policy. That’s politics.
Scylla - your’s is a generous view. My take was that the Bush camp figured, correctly as far as I can tell after hearing comments from my greenie friends and RTfirefly, that most greenies would be too ill-informed to understand much more than “magic fairy hydrogen fuel cell cars” and White House energy policies would by BAU.
Uh. You’re aware, aren’t you, that substantially all the methanol made in the world today is made from plants which “fermented” millions of years ago, yes? Specifically, from methane captured from gas wells, not landfills or agriwaste or anything like that. Fossil fuels.
I’m pretty excited about methanol fuel cells myself (I met this very morning with a methanol producer and I’ve seen a prototype cell phone fuel cell), but let’s not pretend that we’ll be throwing corn stalks and alfalfa roots into a vat and getting methane from which to make methanol. We’ll be drilling for the stuff for substanially all production for the forseeable future.
Actually, the burning gas from the Hindenburgh did go straight up and would not have caused much damage. The problem was the coating on it, which was basically model airplane glue, which is highly inflammable.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by zut *
**No way. You got taken in by a really poorly worded press release, I’m afraid.
Instead of me going through this 89 monstrosity right now, maybe you could tell me if my earlier objection holds water. That is, that apples to apples are not being measured.
Part of hybrid technology aside from smaller, cleaner, more efficient engines are thigns like super low drag coefficients, regenerative braking, low power/weight ratio, conservative gearing and such which could also be applied to fuel cell vehicles.
In other words, if we take two big ugly '79 Chevy 1 ton pickups, and I set mine up with a fuel cell system, and you set yours up with a hybrid system so that they have equivalent horsepower and capabilities, isn’t the fuel cell truck significantly more efficient?
I hope no one is under the impression that we are importing oil from the middle east and burning it to produce electricity. Electric power in the US is made primarily from coal, hydro, and nuclear power. The US has vast reserves of coal, we have lots of hydro, we could increase nuclear if the political will was there. We don’t burn oil for electricity. So if we were using electrical power to produce hydrogen, it would certainly reduce our oil imports. And that would certainly drastically reduce our dependence on foreign energy.
