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Mon 9 Feb, 2004 05:31 pm
Some people think hydrogen can replace gasoline and diesel fuel. Unlikely, but hydrogen can fill perhaps a 5% nitch replacing these fuels before costs and enviornmental damage gets out of hand.
One problem is new technology requires new infrastructure, which requires materials whose procurement does some environmental damage. ie we can burn coal to make coke and high temperature steam, which combined makes hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The latter is burned to make more heat and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is what we wanted to get rid of. Any carbon monoxide that escapes is very toxic to humans and other animals.
Thousand of toxic materials come from the coal burning and coke making. The hydrogen needs to be purified before it is suitable for fuel cells requiring more chemicals, materials and toxins into the environment. Several other ways to make hydrogen are less destructive, but all have some environmental impact indirectly and/or directly. Neil
So... cold fusion anyone?
Or hot fusion, or solar cells, or microwave transmission from space, or tidal power, or even fission?
Water has always seemed a logical source for hydrogen but the only known feasible method to separate it, electrolysis, costs ten times as much as natural gas, and is three times as expensive as gasoline. And since it takes energy to manifest the electrolysis, we're back to the original problem again. This is the root problem. If Hydrogen were economically feasible, then we would find ways to solve all the other problems with containment, distribution and storage.
Plants split oxygen from hydrogen efficiently, so maybe we can steal the secrets from them
See the link below:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/02/09/science.hydrogen.reut/index.html
There are problems with hydrogen. The technology should be viewed as a way to "store" energy, instead of a way to create it, since, as many have noted, it will take energy to produce the Hydrogen.
Hydrogen is certainly better than what we have now. The internal combustion engine is a very inefficient machine that generates a lot of pollution.
Getting coal burning plants to make the energy need to separate hydrogen is a net win for the environment -- even though it is not perfect. This is because large power plants are quite a bit more efficient. It seems using nuclear power to separate the Hydrogen would be the best for our climate problems. (This of course has problems with storage and safety.)
The big problem, of course, is economics. Pulling energy up from the ground and burning it directly is the cheapest way to do things. So cheap, in fact, that we don't need to worry that it is quite inefifcient or that the exhaust is changing the climate.
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