Hydrogen

[DrPizza]

Analogy: let's forget about energy for a moment and pretend that our cars ran on pure money.
So, we run around, finding things we can make money out of. We can use trees to make paper money. We can mine copper to make copper coins. We can mine nickel to make nickels (bare with me). Or we can mine gold to make coins. There are refining costs for each of these ways to make the fuel for our car, but in the end, we can poor the money or coins into our fuel tank of our car and make it go. The dollar bills are the easiest to refine. You just burn some of the trees, and it produces enough electricity to power your mint. It kind of works out this way: You burn about 10 tons of trees, but, this gives you enough power to turn another huge pile of trees into about 500 tons of bills. Wow, that's a lot of bills. It's so plentiful, but we're running out of trees. Now, remember, you can't just go out and pluck bills out of the trees; you have to refine the trees to make the bills.

Then, some number of years, someone realizes that "Hey! Sodium is a metal. The ocean is FILLED with it!!!! It's in the ocean as sodium chloride (aka salt) <scientifically advantaged forum members, please don't point out ionic form, lets keep it simple>

So, you say "hey, there's lots of it, and, quite frankly, we're running out of trees and it's polluting the air to burn the dollar bills (made from trees). Lets get the sodium out of the oceans and make coins!
Now, I left this out: 100 pounds of bills will get your car 250 miles. 50 pounds of any type of coins gets you 250 miles.
Sooooo, you have these choices:
1. burn 100 pounds of bills to produce some sodium coins. But, those sodium coins will only get your car 200 miles. You were better off with the bills.
2. use 50 pounds of coins to produce some sodium coins. But, again, those sodium coins will only get your car 200 miles. Again, you were better off using the copper and gold coins.
3. Burn the salt to produce sodium from the salt? No, that won't work. Say abracadabra to produce the sodium from the salt? No, that won't work either. Shake it, jump on it, rub it all over your body... it doesn't matter what you do. You cannot produce sodium from the salt without using one of the other energy sources. AND, as a LAW OF PHYSICS, you will ALWAYS get less energy from the sodium than you could have gotten from any of the other fuels.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Wreckage, perhaps it is you who needs to re-read this thread.
I will allow you this point - at the point of use, hydrogen can replace gasoline.
Everyone in this forum agrees with that point.

The question is WHERE does the hydrogen come from? It's NOT a matter of technology. Oil is a SOURCE of energy. Wind is a SOURCE of energy. Solar is a SOURCE of energy. Hydrogen IS NOT, I repeat, IS NOT A SOURCE OF ENERGY
It never will be. It never can be. It's not a matter of technology. You need to produce hydrogen. You need energy from somewhere else to do it. You cannot use hydrogen to produce hydrogen.

Your idea of having solar and wind farms to produce hydrogen around the clock is a great idea. It appeals to the masses. We worship the power of the sun and wind. However, if you had actually read the article I referred to above, you would see that world-wide, we absolutely CAN NOT feasibly sustain our energy needs with solar and wind power.

Incidentally, since you referred to internal combustion of hydrogen: WRONG WAY TO DO IT!!!! There are inherent losses in an internal combustion engine that simply cannot be overcome. What this means: It's IMPOSSIBLE to get anywhere near to 100% efficiency with such an engine. Hence the research into fuel cells. - convert the hydrogen more directly to electricity. This gives a huge boost in efficiency. So, you may want to research a bit about fuel cells.

I'd have shut up a while ago and given up any hope of convincing you, but *sigh* it seems that there are too many stupid politicians who are completely unprepared to make policy decisions concerning future energy needs. I suspect the reason Dick Cheney met behind closed doors with energy executives and refused to release minutes from the meeting was to avoid embarassment after having to be explained things 10 times.

Anyway, I'll attempt one more analogy.

Oil needs to be converted to Gasoline, just as water needs to be converted to hydrogen. There is a LOT more water than oil. Oil is not a practical energy source until it is converted to gasoline.

As far as using hydrogen in an internal combustion engine....
http://www.bmwworld.com/hydrogen/h2r_racer.htm
I will trust the Engineers and BWW more than you.

I bet you would drink your last glass of water and die before saving it to find a better source. Oil is your last glass.

Most scientists agree that hydrogen will be the energy source of the future.... If you don't agree you might want to start saving your oil now.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: f95toli
Yes, but the difference is that you only need a small amount of energy to refine a certain amount of oil.
If you i.e. burn 1 m^3 of gasoline you would get enough energy to refine 10 m^3 of new gasoline (or something like that, the exact amount is not important)

If you burn 1 m^3 of hydrogen you do NOT get enough energy to produce 1 m^3 of new hydrogen from water,you would end ut with maybe 0.5 m^3.

:thumbsup:

This is exactly the crux of the matter. From a thermal efficiency standpoint, production of gasoline is enormously more productive.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
An internal combustion engine can run off of hydrogen just like gasoline....how is that not energy? I agree oil and hydrogen are not the same, because your car does not run on oil. You can heat your house by burning hydrogen just like natural gas. You can launch the space shuttle into space by burning liquid hyrdogen (try that with powerlines or batteries).

It can't run on it 'just like on gasoline' for a large number of reasons. However, the first and foremost is that 100+ years of optimizations for gasoline-burning engines have given us the fuel economy you see today. The precision with which a car engine functions is based around the fuel of choice: gasoline. If you substitute an alternative fuel, even a different distribution of hydrocarbons, the efficiency of the engine will decrease. This is why many people are disturbed by the inclusion of ethanol in fuels as a substitute for heptane or octane. It has a higher octane rating than octane itself, but is not what cars are necessarily designed for, so it may perform less efficiently. You're oversimplifying everything in this thread to the level of talking points, which simply will not do in a technical discussion.

Hydrogen can be burned just like natural gas or gasoline as a direct replacement for those diminishing resources. Everyone makes it sound like 97 octane gets pumped out of the ground and into your car. As I have stated a lot of R&D money needs to be spent to improve the production and use of hydrogen (just like what is still being spent on oil).

Sigh, and double sigh. Oil is running out and it is a major source of pollution. What will replace it? Go take a class in reading and then re-read this thread.

As others have stated in this very thread and you repeatedly ignore, I will sum up why thinking electrolysis can solve all of our energy problems:

1. The energy used for electrolysis comes from fossil fuels.

2. Since fuel cells are only about 90% efficient at converting input electricity to output electricity in the best of circumstances, you've just burned more fossil fuels to net the same amount of output electricity.

3. As a corollary of #2, you've created additional pollution and demand for oil, driving up prices and harming the environment, all without mitigating the draw on the dwindling oil supply at all. You've made it worse. So, until we switch to nuclear power instead of fossil fuels, we're at an impasse.

Maybe you have a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the utility of oil. Look at it this way: oil is the stored energy from the sun accumulated on earth over some millions of years. According to basic energy conservation, accumulation = input - output. Since there was essentially zero output (neglecting reflectance and other miscellaneous factors irrelevant to this discussion) millions of years ago (no energy consumed by reaction: no oil was burning), energy was simply accumulated in oil. Thus, oil became a source of energy. Now, output is extremely high as we burn through this reservoir of accumulated energy.

You'll note that at no point in this story does accumulation of energy as stored hydrogen occur. Hydrogen is not a viable energy reservoir: it is simply too thermodynamically unstable, since it will readily react at much lower temperatures than will oil. If you want a more detailed analysis on why this is the case, I'm willing and able to give it, but I'm not going to waste my time without knowing your background. If you won't know what I'm talking about, then there's little point.

 

[PowerEngineer]

I...just...can't...stop...myself!

I want one more try at illustrating the difference between oil/gasoline and water/hydrogen (and demonstrating I have "an open mind and a look at the future) :

The thing that makes crude oil an energy source is that it consists of all those carbon and hydrogen atoms that have NOT yet been oxidized. You have to put some energy in with the oxygen to initially break the carbon-hydrogen (and carbon-carbon) bonds, but there's a lot more energy released when the carbon and hydrogen are oxidized into carbon dioxide and water. Refineries separate and purify the components of crude oil (and then recombine some components) to produce products like diesel and gasoline. Refining takes some energy (which comes from burning some of the crude components), but it is a very small percentage of what's inherent in the crude(about 5%). This means that 95% of the crude oil's energy makes it into the final products.

The problem with water is that it is hydrogen that IS already oxidixed. You have to put in energy to break the hydrogen-oxygen bonds, and you'll theoretically get the same amount of energy back when you oxidize the hydrogen back into water. This means that when you talk about refining water into hydrogen, the energy required to "refine" the hydrogen will be 100% of the energy you can get from the hydrogen produced. This means that if you siphon off enough of the product to power the refining process, it's not the 5% for crude oil -- it's 100%!!! There's no hydrogen left to use for anything else.

Hydrocarbons have potential chemical energy because they can be oxidized; it's like being on the top of a hill. The right chemical "shove" will change this potential energy into heat that we can use. We didn't have to push the hydrocarbons up the hill; we found them "up there".

Water has no real potential chemical energy because it's already been oxidized; it's at the bottom of the hill. We have to push the water all the way up the hill in order to produce the hydrogen.

Refining water to produce hydrogen is analogous to refining water and carbon dioxide to produce gasoline. A circular chemical process produces no net energy.

Electricity works the same way as hydrogen. You put energy into an electric generator that strips electrons from atoms and then you let them recombine through devices (like light bulbs and motors) that make use of the energy released again. Neither are sources of energy. Both are ways that energy can be stored or transported cleanly and conveniently.

...I fell so much better now...

 

[Geniere]

Originally posted by: Wreckage?Sigh, and double sigh. Oil is running out ??

Wrong again! The US has the largest deposits of oil in the entire world! More than 2 trillion barrels or about a 200 year supply!

http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/reserves/publications/Pubs-NPR/40010-373.pdf

Its extraction was never before economically competitive with oil well production?that is until the cost per barrel exceeded $40.00. It seems the time has come.

Take your choice. Continue to burn fossil fuels or switch the much more environmentally sound nuclear option.

 

[Wreckage]

OK, WTF? Ignore oil. Oil is going away. Forget oil from all of your repetitious posts. What is going to replace oil. I have already agreed that oil is easier to use than hydrogen. The point is that oil is going away, oil pollutes, oil is the only reason anybody gives a f*** about the middle east.

Oh and Cylcowizard.... click on the link for the BWM hydrogen powered race car, that negates your post regarding internal combustion engines.

It's like telling you people that soon there would be no cows and we need something to replace them. Your response is that we can eat steak instead.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Geniere

Originally posted by: Wreckage?Sigh, and double sigh. Oil is running out ??

Wrong again! The US has the largest deposits of oil in the entire world! More than 2 trillion barrels or about a 200 year supply!

http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/reserves/publications/Pubs-NPR/40010-373.pdf

Its extraction was never before economically competitive with oil well production?that is until the cost per barrel exceeded $40.00. It seems the time has come.

Take your choice. Continue to burn fossil fuels or switch the much more environmentally sound nuclear option.

Oil is $70 a barrel yet no one is running for this. It's near impossible to seperate it from the shale and make a profit.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Oh and Cylcowizard.... click on the link for the BWM hydrogen powered race car, that negates your post regarding internal combustion engines.

It's like telling you people that soon there would be no cows and we need something to replace them. Your response is that we can eat steak instead.

It doesn't negate anything. If I put hydrogen in my car, my car would barely run, if it even ran at all. Why? Because hydrogen and water (its related 'combustion' product) are thermodynamically VERY different from the hydrocarbon mixture and its related combustion products. My engine is not designed to handle them. What thermodynamic properties am I talking about? Well, even if you assume ideal gas behavior everywhere in the engine (bad assumption), the most important factors would be:

1. Pressure in the cylinder would be drastically different.
2. Temperature in the cylinder would be drastically different.

This would be enough to ruin my cylinder head right out (and I'm not going through all of the trouble to replace that bastard again). Do I need to go on, or can you understand that you're drastically oversimplifying the problem of designing/constructing an automobile to run off hydrogen fuel? Simply because a racing team did it does not mean it's commercially viable. If this were true, then every car would have rubberized gas tanks, electronic sensors in every orifice, and anti-roll devices like NASCAR. But we don't.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Oil is $70 a barrel yet no one is running for this. It's near impossible to seperate it from the shale and make a profit.

Not nearly impossible. Indeed, it's not terribly difficult from an engineering perspective - anyone with a bachelors degree in chemical engineering has all the necessary knowledge to pull it off. The challenge comes in finding all of the capital necessary to construct the plants necessary to do it. Instead, the industry is tending towards coal liquefaction processes, which are currently much more cost-effective. That, and the US has about as much oil-equivalent of coal as the rest of the world combined.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

It doesn't negate anything. If I put hydrogen in my car, my car would barely run, if it even ran at all. Why? Because hydrogen and water (its related 'combustion' product) are thermodynamically VERY different from the hydrocarbon mixture and its related combustion products. My engine is not designed to handle them. What thermodynamic properties am I talking about? Well, even if you assume ideal gas behavior everywhere in the engine (bad assumption), the most important factors would be:

1. Pressure in the cylinder would be drastically different.
2. Temperature in the cylinder would be drastically different.

This would be enough to ruin my cylinder head right out (and I'm not going through all of the trouble to replace that bastard again). Do I need to go on, or can you understand that you're drastically oversimplifying the problem of designing/constructing an automobile to run off hydrogen fuel? Simply because a racing team did it does not mean it's commercially viable. If this were true, then every car would have rubberized gas tanks, electronic sensors in every orifice, and anti-roll devices like NASCAR. But we don't.

If I were talking about everybody using hyrdrogen today then, yes you would have a problem. However over the next 20 years, I doubt you will be driving the same car. In fact most people I know get a new car every 3 or 4 years.

So could your next car in the future have an internal combustion engine powered by hydrogen? lets see.....

http://www.ford.com/en/innovation/engin...hnology/hydrogenInternalCombustion.htm
http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/avta/light_duty/hicev/index.shtml
http://avt.inel.gov/hydrogen.html
http://www.autospectator.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1618
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-12/p39.html
etc., etc., etc, that was from 30 seconds of google.

The last article had a good quote...

Jet engines and internal combustion engines can be rather easily modified to run on hydrogen instead of hydrocarbons. Internal combustion engines run as much as 25% more efficiently on hydrogen compared to gasoline and produce no carbon emissions.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
If I were talking about everybody using hyrdrogen today then, yes you would have a problem. However over the next 20 years, I doubt you will be driving the same car. In fact most people I know get a new car every 3 or 4 years.

Well, I've been driving the same car since 1997 - the year I got my license. Since I'll be spending the next 35 years paying off student loans, a new car isn't in my immediate future. Regardless of my personal situation, the vast majority of cars on the road have been around for more than five years. There is simply no way you can introduce a sudden paradigm shift in the fuels market given the relatively long turn-around time on automobiles. You can try to do it over 20 years, sure, but that doesn't do much for the current perceived 'crisis'. That, and if you're still talking about combusting hydrogen, you're ignoring the real gains to be had from hydrogen. Fuel cell efficiency is around 90%, while hydrogen combustion is probably closer to 30% (compare to gasonline engines at about 13%). Ergo, combusting hydrogen is simply not the future, regardless of what Google or Ford tells you. Fuel cells powered by hydrogen? Much, much more likely, unless you're really intent on pissing money away.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Wreckage
If I were talking about everybody using hyrdrogen today then, yes you would have a problem. However over the next 20 years, I doubt you will be driving the same car. In fact most people I know get a new car every 3 or 4 years.

Well, I've been driving the same car since 1997 - the year I got my license. Since I'll be spending the next 35 years paying off student loans, a new car isn't in my immediate future. Regardless of my personal situation, the vast majority of cars on the road have been around for more than five years. There is simply no way you can introduce a sudden paradigm shift in the fuels market given the relatively long turn-around time on automobiles. You can try to do it over 20 years, sure, but that doesn't do much for the current perceived 'crisis'. That, and if you're still talking about combusting hydrogen, you're ignoring the real gains to be had from hydrogen. Fuel cell efficiency is around 90%, while hydrogen combustion is probably closer to 30% (compare to gasonline engines at about 13%). Ergo, combusting hydrogen is simply not the future, regardless of what Google or Ford tells you. Fuel cells powered by hydrogen? Much, much more likely, unless you're really intent on pissing money away.

Well most of the automakers have internal combustion engines on their drawing boards. Since that's where I get my cars from I will have to trust them. I am in no way saying this will be an overnight transition. It will take years, maybe even decades. It's already started so now it's just a matter of time.

Several people above may not seem to like hydrogen, but they offered nothing better. I believe the technology for producing hydrogen will improve vastly over the next two decades to the point where everyone can use it.

 

[DrPizza]

Wreckage, I'm not putting down internal combustion engines for cars... I stated that fuel cells were FAR more efficient..
in other words, you get 50 miles per gallon instead of 30. That's where the research is. Now, what BMW did was show that you can have a high performance engine using hydrogen rather than gasoline. That's wonderful.

Again, I don't give a rat's ass that water is abundant. You CANNOT get the hydrogen out of the water without using some OTHER fuel to do so. It's IMFVCKINGPOSSIBLE. It's not a matter of technology... it CAN'T BE DONE! We are not lying to you about this on this forum. These are basic physics principles.

I believe the technology for producing hydrogen will improve vastly over the next two decades to the point where everyone can use it.

It's not a matter of the technology to produce it... it's a matter of where you get the power for that technology. The energy in the hydrogen you've produced for everyone will be LESS than the energy you use to produce that hydrogen.

You need a source of energy. Fine, let it be something other than oil. I don't care what you use. But, you cannot make hydrogen without that other source of energy. Creating hydrogen merely changes the form of how you store the energy.
You can do this:
wind power --> hydrogen
solar power --> hydrogen
nuclear --> hydrogen
The things on the left are SOURCES of energy. Hydrogen will never be a source; it's impossible.

Alternatively, you can do this:
wind power --> battery
solar power --> battery
nuclear --> battery

And use the batteries to power your car. There is no difference (except, of course, performance probably)

I completely agree with you that we will be filling up our cars of the future with hydrogen. But, that does absolutely nothing toward eliminating our reliance on other sources of energy. Absolutely nothing.

 

[DrPizza]

Oh, and let me explain the BMW link to you.
You can use hydrogen as a fuel for internal combustion engines. It combusts *very* well.
You can make a car that goes ZZZOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!

But, in the consumer market, there will be two types of hydrogen powered automobiles:
a. internal combustion
b. fuel cell

To travel 100 miles, you're going to need $50 worth of hydrogen for the internal combustion engine.
To travel 100 miles, you're going to need $12 worth of hydrogen for a fuel cell operated vehicle.
Technology cannot possibly close the gap between the two to the point that the difference is negligible.
BMW made a car of type (a.)
The world cannot support such wasteful use of energy for the long run, unless we succeed with making nuclear (fusion) reactors successful. Solar and wind can support neither type in the long run.

 

[DrPizza]

Also, to directly answer your question posed in this thread, "why is hydrogen so costly?"

Hydrogen MUST cost more than the cheapest energy available, because the cheapest way to make it would be to use the cheapest energy available.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Wreckage, just curious, what is your background?

We have engineers and scientists here telling the basic Laws of Thermodynamics and they seem to elude you.

 

[Mark R]

But, in the consumer market, there will be two types of hydrogen powered automobiles:
a. internal combustion
b. fuel cell

To travel 100 miles, you're going to need $50 worth of hydrogen for the internal combustion engine.
To travel 100 miles, you're going to need $12 worth of hydrogen for a fuel cell operated vehicle.
Technology cannot possibly close the gap between the two to the point that the difference is negligible.

But based, on the current state of the technologies - it does appear that the difference is, while not negligable, not very great.

BMW claim efficiency of their engine exceeds 50% - considerably better than gas engines, and better than most diesel engines. Hydrogen fuel cells for automotive use are most likely to be PEM cells - Current models achieve about 60% efficiency (the maximum thermodynamic efficiency for any fuel cell is 83%, but only the very high temperature SOFC cells get anywhere close to that).

These figures could translate roughly as:
To travel 100 miles, you're going to need $12 worth of hydrogen for the internal combustion engine.
To travel 100 miles, you're going to need $10 worth of hydrogen for a fuel cell operated vehicle.

A noticeable saving, yes, but not massive. Especially when you consider the costs involved - unless there is a complete paradigm shift in fuel cell technology, it's going to be difficult to build a fuel cell for a car for less than about $50k - and that's in mass production. The internal combusion engine could be built for under $5k.

Perhaps a better technology would be batteries:
Current battery tech compared to FC tech is:
Cheaper (by a factor of 10-50:1)
More durable (current fuel cells get about 10k miles before they're cooked)
More efficient (About 85% of energy input is recoverable - compare to about 25% for hydrogen)
Better high power performance - fuel cells have limited power handling (which limits accelerationg). Batteries, in comparison, are hugely better.

 

[Wreckage]

Sigh, Sigh, Sigh.... Once again I never said anything to contradict that statement. I said that hydrogen would be an ideal replacement for gasoline. That energy is needed to refine oil in to gasoline. I stated that more research and new technology will make hydrogen more feasible. I stated that hydrogen will probably replace many fossil fuels in the future.

Everyones response was to ignore what I had to say and tell me "Oil rocks, you suck"

I was hoping for a more intelligent response relating to what fuels people think will be used in the future and the current hurdle hydrogen faces and why the costs are so high (like the OP asked). Instead I just get response, after response defending oil. Oil was never really the topic.

There are also new technologies like hyrdogen bioreactors and hydrogen catalysts that use far less energy to make hydrogen. So if you don't count the energy it takes to mine coal, then using a hyrogen bioreactor takes no energy to make hydrogen, you are basically using algae to mine the hydrogen for you.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot

Do you even have a background in science?

Hydrogen is the most abundant element, but it is always bound chemically on earth. There are no wells of hydrogen. To produce hydrogen, we need a primary power source (coal, oil, gas, nuclear) otherwise the entire idea falls flat on its head. Hydrogen is not an energy source unless we master fusion.

There are no wells of gasoline, it needs to be refined from petroleum. Hydrogen needs to be split from water. two thirds of the planet is covered in water.

I take a gallon of crude oil. I lit a match. I throw it in the gallon. Fire ensures => so crude oil has a positive energy balance.
I leave to you to do the same experiment with water.
While refining the crude oil is costly, a crude oil refinery can "produce" all its products using only a part of the incoming crude oil. And almost all the refined fractions are usable - even the tar.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Calin
Generating hydrogen might be a simple process (passing an electric current thru water). However, the efficiency of hydrogen generation is quite a bit lower than the theoretical 100% (using a perfect something to create electricity from hydrogen, you will end up with less electricity than what you used to separate hydrogen from water). And this is a significant problem, as the proportion is quite big.
Also, storing hydrogen is expensive: liquid hydrogen uses some kind of one third of its energy for the cooling process, and compressed (high-pressure) hydrogen uses a tenth of its energy to compress itself.
Transporting hydrogen in pipes might be even more lossy - as hydrogen will escape thru cracks to small for the air to escape (not to mention too small for gasoline to escape) - your losses can be much bigger if you pump hydrogen thru gas pipes.

I am not suggesting hydrogen as a replacement for all energy sources. It would however be a good replacement for gasoline. It takes a lot of energy to drill for oil, transport oil, refine oil, then transport the gasoline. Theoretically hydrogen could be made on site at hydrogen fueling stations.

All that energy is generated by the gasoline itself (and by a small part of it thereof). Big ships are more efficient at transporting goods, however, american railroad companies are able to transport loads using 2 imperial gallons per net 1000 net ton miles (taken from here )
If railways would be built from Iraq to America, that would make at most 20,000km, or 15,000 miles, so a ton of diesel fuel would need 30 imperial gallons, or some 40 US gallons or diesel fuel for transportation. You loose 229 pounds of fuel for a ton of it moved halfway across the Earth.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Generating Hydrogen is a simple process of passing an electric current through water. Not to mention separating it from current hydrocarbon fuels or newly discovered bio-organic methods. It can be done at home. However electricity is not as cheap as fossil fuel (yet). The higher the price of Oil the closer using Hydrogen on a daily basis gets. There are already Hydrogen fueling stations. Cars can run on Hydrogen just like they run on gasoline.

Actually the only real barrier is the initial cost of converting our infrastructure from Petroleum to Hydrogen. No one wants to pay that bill. Not when coal and oil are still relatively cheap. Not to mention that 'Big Oil" has been protecting it's monopoly for decades.

If the dream of nuclear fusion ever became a reality it would only further the use of Hydrogen.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe and it burns pure without pollution. It's the perfect fuel and eventually, it may be our only fuel.

Okay, Wreckage...you've inspired me to add another cent or two!

Remember that simple and economic are not always the same thing. It is a "simple" process to dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen in the sense that the underlying principles are understood by high school chemistry students and the equipment can be cobbled together in any decent high school chemistry lab. But the cost of that "simple" process is tied to the cost of electricity, which is determined by the cost of the energy source used to produce the electricity, which right now is the cost of fossil fuels. In order to make hydrogen through dissociation economical, you'll need an energy source that is significantly cheaper than fossil fuels. Until then, electricity costs will rise in step with the prices of oil and coal, and therefore hydrogen prices will always be higher than electricity or fossil fuels because of the inherent inefficiencies in converting energy from one type to another.

Note that separating hydorgen from "current hydrocarbon fuels" does nothing to reduce our need for fossil fuels. The process for doing this will certainly consume energy, and the resulting net energy realized from a barrel of oil will be significantly less because of this consumption and because you no longer get the energy released when carbon is burned to produce carbon dioxide. (You also need someplace to bury all the carbon.) The so-called bio-organic methods are still a long way from proving their worth, and since they would rely on solar power they will suffer from the same problems that generating electricty from solar has. And I wouldn't get sucked too far into the "Big Oil" conspiracy theories either...

I'll also reiterate my other point that you need to remember the pollution created by burning the additional fossil fuel to make the electricity needed to produce hydrogen (or charge batteries). It may burn "clean" in your hydrogen-powered car, but it can only be really "clean" if the energy source used to produce the hydrogen is pollution free too.

In order to rid ourselves of fossil fuel economy, we need to look to hydrogen as the nuclear fuel for fusion reactors rather than as the chemical fuel for our automobiles.

Fusion could be 100 years away and we will probably be out of fossil fuels by then. If we can drill oil in the middle east, transport it half way around the world, refine it and then transport it across the country, we can easily do the same with hydrogen. Wind, Solar, Tidal, Nuclear energy all could be used to generate hydrogen. If we don't do it soon, we will be screwed when oil becomes $200 a barrel. I just paid $40 for a tank of gas that won't last me a week. It might be a worthy investment to install solar tiles on my rough to generate my own fuel. It was not always economical to use gasoline but economies of scale kicked in and brought it down, the same will happen with the next fuel source.

The government really would hate for us to use hydrogen. Because if you can make it at home you can't tax it and the rich people can't sell it to you.

:thumbsup:

Use house-mounted solar panels to produce hydrogen could be some kind of solution - and it might work pretty well (not as a total fuel source, but as a partial one)
Of course, storage would be a problem, but the biggest problem (production) would be solved

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
The point is that fossil fuels won't be here forever.

Not to mention the huge amount of pollution they make.

Do you even think we would be in Iraq if it was not for oil? Nope, that's why we are staying out of the Sudan.

Oil has a price beyond production and when it's gone there is no clear replacement. Hydrogen can and most likely will be that replacement.

I'm glad "powerengineer" is done with this thread, because this topic needs an open mind and a look at the future.

Right now hydrogen is not economically viable to produce and use, but if enough R&D were dumped into it (much like oil exploration) it will be.

I don't want to turn this in to a political issue, but those defending oil must not give a s*** what your kids and grandkids will have to pay for so that you can maintain the status quo.

Check the recent energy bill passed through congress and see how many billions are being dumped into oil R&D. If it were such a miracle fuel why are we still paying billions for it's discovery.

I wish I could live in whatever world these people do where oil flies out of the ground and into their car and that the exhaust is pure and clean. Where it's an unlimited supply and I don't mind that my whole economy is tied to it and that thousands must die in order to preserve it. Ignorance is bliss.

Yes, oil is relatively cheap right now if you don?t count the environmental impact and political blood. If as much resources were put into hydrogen that has been put into oil over the last 100 years we would all be using a clean and near unlimited fuel source, instead we will use whatever crap we can dig out of the ground.

FUD

With lots and lots of dollars in hydrogen research (production/engines/etc), maybe hydrogen would become as easy to use as gasoline (cars that go 600 miles from a full tank, hydrogen stations everywhere). However, production of hydrogen cannot be self-sustained (as the gasoline production is)

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
You may as well point your finger at the sun and say "there it is. We'll get it from there... somehow"

:laugh:
Excelent - Sun is composed from hydrogen in a 90%+ proportion - there is a sphere of high pressure hydrogen bigger than Earth itself
We will never end the supply of hydrogen from Sun

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Sigh, Sigh, Sigh.... Once again I never said anything to contradict that statement. I said that hydrogen would be an ideal replacement for gasoline. That energy is needed to refine oil in to gasoline. I stated that more research and new technology will make hydrogen more feasible. I stated that hydrogen will probably replace many fossil fuels in the future.

Everyones response was to ignore what I had to say and tell me "Oil rocks, you suck"

And we've listed about 329857239857 reasons why you're wrong. But, you ignore us all and say "Hydrogen rocks, you suck!"

I was hoping for a more intelligent response relating to what fuels people think will be used in the future and the current hurdle hydrogen faces and why the costs are so high (like the OP asked). Instead I just get response, after response defending oil. Oil was never really the topic.

You can't ask for a more intelligent set of responses than those you've received here. You simply don't understand the basic principles that contradict your ideas, so you're trying to paint us all as ignorant. My suggestion: take a class in basic thermodynamics, maybe one in separation processes, and one in reaction engineering. Or, take a college physics course. Then you'll have the basic knowledge needed to understand why not one person here has agreed with your ideas - they're simply incorrect. We can't debate them, because they're based on things that are not factual.

There are also new technologies like hyrdogen bioreactors and hydrogen catalysts that use far less energy to make hydrogen. So if you don't count the energy it takes to mine coal, then using a hyrogen bioreactor takes no energy to make hydrogen, you are basically using algae to mine the hydrogen for you.

Wrong. The amount of input energy to produce hydrogen will always be the same. Why? The Gibbs free energy of reaction is a thermodynamic constant for a reaction. Catalysts cannot change this. They can lower the activation energy required, but that has absolutely no effect on the net thermal efficiency of the process.

Further, for the zillionth time, the amount of energy it takes to get coal will always be less than the coal produces. The amount of energy it takes to produce hydrogen via electrolysis, however, will NEVER be less than the amount you can harvest by reacting the hydrogen again to form water. Second law of thermodynamics - look it up.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Sigh, Sigh, Sigh.... Once again I never said anything to contradict that statement. I said that hydrogen would be an ideal replacement for gasoline. That energy is needed to refine oil in to gasoline. I stated that more research and new technology will make hydrogen more feasible. I stated that hydrogen will probably replace many fossil fuels in the future.

No, no no no no no. In the United States, oil produces more electricity than wind, solar, and geothermal does. Increasing hydrogen production will cause a rise in fossil fuel use, not lessen it.

I was hoping for a more intelligent response relating to what fuels people think will be used in the future and the current hurdle hydrogen faces and why the costs are so high (like the OP asked). Instead I just get response, after response defending oil. Oil was never really the topic.

Hydrogen can never be an energy source, there will always be a need to subsidize the cost of hydrogen. The reason we talk about crude is because you likened the production of hydrogen from water to the refining of gasoline from oil. The energy to refine crude comes from the crude itself. We sacrifice a little bit to change the chemical makeup, but we don't need to supply energy. Most refineries are self-sufficent. In contrast, we need to supply energy to electrolyze water or steam reform methane to produce hydrogen.

There are also new technologies like hyrdogen bioreactors and hydrogen catalysts that use far less energy to make hydrogen. So if you don't count the energy it takes to mine coal, then using a hyrogen bioreactor takes no energy to make hydrogen, you are basically using algae to mine the hydrogen for you.

They still are in a negative energy balance. In this type of discussion, that is all that matters. A bioreactor isn't free. You have to maintain particular conditions, supply a feedstock and monitor waste and byproducts. I haven't read up on hydrogen bioreactors, but if they are similar to methane/condensate bioreactors, then the energy balance might be slightly positive. The question is how fastidious are the bacteria/algae and what types of feedstock needs to go into the reactor.

 

[Wreckage]

Ok, you win OIL IS TEH L33T AND WE WILL USE IT FOREVER!!!!

Hydrogen sucks, it's not really energy, it?s a mythological substance and no one will ever use it.

All these companies working on hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen internal combustion engines, bioreactors, catalysts, distribution systems, are morons and not as smart as you. All of the Universities and PhDs bow before your intelligence. All the data I linked to was made up.

Long live OIL. Long live our dependence on it. Long live the pollution and the damage it does to us. Long live your arguments with nothing to back it up as far as proof.

ONE FINAL TIME.

I never said Hydrogen will replace all energy sources on earth. I said it is a valid replacement for many fossil fuels. I have linked to several examples. No one has said anything to disprove my claim. You just throw words around like "thermodynamics" to make people think you?re smart. Even though you have never once answered my posts directly.

I apologize to the original poster that this topic has gone off course. I hope a mod finds it within him to just lock this since no one wants to discuss the future of hydrogen; they only want to discuss the oil of today.

I hope it does not cause personal injury to the people above that there are actual proven uses for hydrogen. Even though in your infinite wisdoms you say it?s not a valid fuel source many people are somehow using it and have been using it for years.

You should go to those hydrogen fueling stations in Washington DC and in California with pitchforks and torches to drive out whatever witchcraft they are using.

Hydrogen is energy. It?s easy to make (even pond scum can do it). It?s in use now. It?s in nearly unlimited supply. These are facts. I have linked to many articles to back up my claims.

Here is a nice article on the ?hydrogen economy? that should explain it in simple terms?
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hydrogen-economy.htm