From: Jay Willingham (jaywillingham@cfl.rr.com)
Date: Sat Jul 19 2003 - 18:09:21 EDT
Hydrogen strikes me as a junk science/green politician's answer.
Where are we in the development of fusion as an energy source?
Jay Willingham
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
To: "Asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 12:37 PM
Subject: the hydrogen economy
> There was an article in Nature a couple of weeks ago which highlight the
> problems facing the US in energy production and consumption and the
supposed
> future switch over to hydrogen. the article is: Paul M. Grant, "Hydrogen
> Lifts Off-with a Heavy Load," Nature, 424(2003):129-130
>
> The article points out that the US would need to generate 230,000 tonnes
of
> hydrogen daily to replace oil. This is enough to fill 13,000
Hindenburg's.
> Grant also notes that hydrogen is not a primal energy source. More energy
> is used to extract hydrogen than we get from its use. Grant notes that if
we
> use electricity to generate the hydrogen there are problems:
>
>
> " For simplicity, and to bypass issues of carbon and carbon dioxide
> sequestration, let us assume that hydrogen is obtained by 'splitting'
water
> with electricity-electrolysis. Although this isn't the cheapest industrial
> approach to 'make' hydrogen, it illustrates the enormous production scale
> involved-about 400 gigawatts of continuously available electric power
> generation have to be added to the grid, nearly doubling the present US
> national average power capacity. The number of new power plants that would
> need to be build-based on presently available technologies-to meet this
> demand is roughly 800 natural-gas-fired combined-cycle units generating
> 500-megawats, or 500 800-megawatt coal-fired units, 200 Hoover Dams (two
> gigawatts each), or 100 French-type nuclear clusters (four reactors, about
> one gigawatt each)."
> "The average capital cost of building an electric power plant is $1,000
per
> kilowatt (with considerable variance), which would mean new investment of
at
> least $400 billion (one-twentieth of US gross domestic product). This does
> not include the storage and delivery costs that would be incurred for a
> complete transformation to a surface transport system running on hydrogen
> instead of petroleum. A daunting prospect, but not impossible. To get
the
> daily hydrogen ration of 230,000 tonnes, just over two million tones of
> water is required. Even this vast amount of water expelled as 'exhaust'
will
> be recycled to the environment in several days, unlike carbon dioxide."
> Paul M. Grant, "Hydrogen Lifts Off-with a Heavy Load," Nature,
> 424(2003):129-130
>
> In 1999, estimates put 42% of the world's primary energy use being used to
> generate electricity. (Richard C. Duncan, "World Energy Production,
> Population Growth, and the Road to the Olduvai Gorge," Population and
> Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 22:5:503-522. May
2001,
> p. 505-506).
>
> If this is true, then as oil and natural gas get scarce the problem of
> generating electricity for the purpose of turning it into hydrogen becomes
> more difficult. Duncan's article notes that 1 J of electricity is worth 3
J
> of gas because of conversion losses. and natural gas is now getting
scares,
> at least in the North American market. This same 1 J for 3 will apply to
the
> hydrogen economy which raises serious questions about the wisdom of
spending
> energy profligatly for hydrogen in the face of declining supplies of oil
and
> natural gas.
>
> The investment to convert to hydrogen and the associated energy loss is a
> direction we may not wish to go. Why pay a high price of hydrogen energy
> when one can get a cheaper per joule return from any other energy source?
>
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