History, energy, automobiles

[Robert Myers]

But the basic question remains, Gross.  What is the ultimate source of the 
hydrogen.  Yes, hydrogen is plentiful.  Water is (in one way of looking at 
it) 2/3 hydrogen.  However, this hydrogen is already chemically combined 
with oxygen and energy from one or another source and using one or another 
basic technology is required to make that hydrogen available for use in 
your home fuel cell or whatever.  Where does the basic underlying energy 
come from?  Methane?  OK, that works for a while.  What happens when we run 
out of methane?  What environmental effect will result from using that 
amount of methane?  When methane is burned to liberate its contained energy 
the two products are water (big deal) and CO2 (a major contributor to the 
greenhouse effect).

CH4 + 2 O2  --->  CO2  + 2 H2O  + energy

This energy can be used to boil water to drive a steam turbine to generate 
electricity or whatever for whatever purpose.

Using hydrogen to operate fuel cells for the purpose of generating hydrogen 
to produce power from fuel cells is absolute folly.  This describes not 
only a perpetual motion machine but a perpetual motion machine capable of 
providing a useful output of energy.  This is, simply put, 
impossible.  [TANSTAAFL, as _Robert Heinlein_ would say.  :-)]

Such a fuel economy as you describe becomes sustainable only if some future 
technology can provide free (chemically free, not economically "free") 
hydrogen using some variety of renewable energy to liberate the 
hydrogen.  So far, unless someone in some dark secret lab somewhere is 
doing remarkable research of which the world is unaware, no such technology 
exists today.  Some day in the future?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

Yes, I know.  My comments sound as if they are related to the old quote, 
"If God had meant for man to fly He'd have given us wings."  But the 
question remains: Where does all this chemically free hydrogen and the 
energy required to produce it come from?  Until we have an environmentally 
sound answer to that then we are simply barking up trees.

At 08:17 AM 3/16/02, G.J.K.Scruggs wrote:

>Bob, et al...
>
>(snip)
>
>The two numbers 75% for a gasoline engine vs. 68% for a hydrogen engine are
>not all that far apart.  Other assumed efficiency factors for the various
>steps would, of course, give different numbers.  The actual numbers would
>certainly give differing calculation results from what I have here.  It is
>noteworthy, however, that introducing additional steps in any process often
>results in an overall decrease in the efficiency of whatever is being
>done.  My point is that the use of hydrogen as an auto fuel does little, if
>anything, to preserve the environment when compared to using either
>gasoline or diesel. It sounds nice but the overall effect isn't much
>benefit to the environment.
>(Snip)
>
>Good points regarding the 'hidden charges' in what otherwise appears to be 
>an attractive alternative.  Your snapshot of today's state of the art for 
>making hydrogen is on target but these processes and efficiencies are not 
>stationary.  I think that these intermediate processes will  become more 
>efficient thus making the overall energy conversion numbers more 
>attractive.  Since we're not talking next week or anytime soon, how about 
>if our electrical production is also done in fuel cells with hydrogen as 
>the fuel... thus reducing the fossil fuel pollution component of the process.
>
>But let me switch to a larger picture.  A couple years ago I held a small 
>conference in Montery (on an unrelated topic) where one of my speakers was 
>from Department of Energy, Policy Division.  He laid out a vision of our 
>energy future that was quite compelling.  I'll make this short... 
>essentially we are entering the final days of petroleum-based energy 
>production.  Within 40-60 years we will have converted to a natural 
>gas-based energy production.  Natural gas is plentiful and doesn't have to 
>be refined to use.  (By the way 80% of all known natural gas reserves are 
>off shore and Russian owned... so make sure your kids have lots of 
>"Gazprom" and "Schlumberger" stock.)  The natural gas period will last 
>only about 60 years but will introduce a lot of the infrastructure for the 
>next period... hydrogen.  The reason to use hydrogen is that, in addition 
>to being clean burning, it is everywhere, it doesn't have to be mined or 
>refined only 'extracted' from water.
>
>As hydrogen becomes more readily available we will transition more easily 
>to fuel cells for electricity production but on a distributed vice 
>concentrated basis.  Everyone will have their own home-sized fuel cell... 
>they're already available but expensive... that will power your home and 
>be hooked to the grid to share peak loads as they fluxuate with 
>time-of-day peak usage.
>
>But for automobiles the current challenge is storage and btu content.   A 
>contemporary engine that produces 300hp on gasoline only makes 50hp on 
>hydrogen and current storage technology allows similar range 
>reductions.  Although carbon nanotube ("Buckytube") storage cylinders show 
>great promise toward increasing the amount of hydrogen storage in the same 
>volume they are yet to be produced.
>
>Problems and challenges certainly but count on hydrogen powering our stuff 
>in the future.
>
>Regards, Gross Scruggs
>Annapolis, Maryland
>
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Bob
*****
  Robert L. Myers   304-574-2372
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