Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Foxfyre wrote:

[Oh well. I see that it was a lame joke. Good thing I don't make my living being a comedian huh?
.

Sorry - I was a bit literal & pedantic.

You rarely do, Walter. You rarely do. But that's okay. It's not important. Carry on.

BMW believes that liquid hydrogen is the best bet as the next-generation fuel for cars. A memorable opening slide depicted a timeline of human history, in the middle of which was a narrow, tall spike showing our relatively brief fossil-fuel-burning period. The blank area to the left was labeled, "First solar civilization," and the one to its right, "Second solar civilization."

Just as an aside, I wonder why those who so strongly object to nuclear because of Chernobyl are so gung ho on hydrogen despite the Hindenburg?

Foxfyre wrote:

Just as an aside, I wonder why those who so strongly object to nuclear because of Chernobyl are so gung ho on hydrogen despite the Hindenburg?

This displays an astonishing degree of misunderstanding. Firstly hydrogen is not a source of energy. Its merely a transportation mode for energy, not an energy source for transport. Secondly a comparison between the world's worst nuclear accident and the loss of an airship is just silly. Like saying the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima was comparable to an accident at a garden fireworks party.

Sigh. Walter's mad at me because I agreed that he doesn't understand me and he takes that as a personal affront.

And nobody sees the joke even after I EXPLAINED it was a joke.

I need chocolate.

Steve 41oo wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Just as an aside, I wonder why those who so strongly object to nuclear because of Chernobyl are so gung ho on hydrogen despite the Hindenburg?

This displays an astonishing degree of misunderstanding. Firstly hydrogen is not a source of energy. Its merely a transportation mode for energy, not an energy source for transport. Secondly a comparison between the world's worst nuclear accident and the loss of an airship is just silly. Like saying the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima was comparable to an accident at a garden fireworks party.

Sigh. Walter's mad at me because I agreed that he doesn't understand me and he takes that as a personal affront.

And nobody sees the joke even after I EXPLAINED it was a joke.

I need chocolate.

Foxfyre wrote:

Sigh. Walter's mad at me because I agreed that he doesn't understand me and he takes that as a personal affront.

And nobody sees the joke even after I EXPLAINED it was a joke.

I need chocolate.

You said so when George answered. Him.

And 'yes', especially therefore I take it personal (it's not the first time, btw).

Foxfyre wrote:

Steve 41oo wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Just as an aside, I wonder why those who so strongly object to nuclear because of Chernobyl are so gung ho on hydrogen despite the Hindenburg?

This displays an astonishing degree of misunderstanding. Firstly hydrogen is not a source of energy. Its merely a transportation mode for energy, not an energy source for transport. Secondly a comparison between the world's worst nuclear accident and the loss of an airship is just silly. Like saying the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima was comparable to an accident at a garden fireworks party.

Sigh. Walter's mad at me because I agreed that he doesn't understand me and he takes that as a personal affront.

And nobody sees the joke even after I EXPLAINED it was a joke.

I need chocolate.

well normally if a joke needs explaining, its on the borderline of being funny. I wasnt joking when I said hydrogen is a means of transporting energy not an energy source for transport. Do you get it? (just eaten some dark chocolate with hazelnuts btw)

We've been thru this several times before. Radioactives decay into other elements. That is a basic characteristic of what they are. That decay releases energy. That energy can be used to do work, ultimately, usually, generating electricity. That's why radioactives are considered a fuel. In other words, you get work out of it that you didn't have to put into it first.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, mostly occurs already in a chemical bond in a compound. In that state, you can't use it to produce energy. You have to put energy into it to break those bonds, to get the elemental hydrogen that you can use to power something. When you recombine it, e.g. potentially in cars, all you do is get back the energy you had to use in the first place to split the bond. It's a zero-sum game.All you're doing, as Steve says, is transporting the energy from one place to another. You are, in the current technology, using a lot of electricity in one place to split the hyrdogen bond so you can move the hydrogen somewhere else to recombine it in a car and get back somewhat less energy than you've already spent. You're just replacing fossil fuel use in a car with somewhat greater fossil fuel use (natural gas) to run an electrical plant.

...How do you see hydrogen as different from enriched uranium or other nuclear material then?

Foxfyre wrote:

...How do you see hydrogen as different from enriched uranium or other nuclear material then?

Its fundamentally different. Hydrogen is not abundant on earth (I'm not saying uranium is....hang on a sec). Any free hydrogen in the earth's atmosphere tends to leak out into space. We can produced hydrogen by various means (steam reformation of natural gas being the most common) but all methods require input of energy. Even hydrogen producing bacteria need energy ultimately from the sun. Simple electrolysis of water needs energy in the form of electricity to split water molecules into its component elements. Once you've got the free hydrogen and liquified it or pressurised it in a gas bottle (both of which require further energy input) then you can burn the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell to liberate some of the energy you had to put into the system to produce the liquified hydrogen in the first place. But liquid hydrogen can go in a tank like gasoline. You can take it with you fairly easily (contrast with towing a coal bunker or literally tonnes of batteries) so its a useful fuel for transport, but it is not the ultimate source of the energy for transport. Its just a way of storing energy and moving it about fairly easily.


Uranium on the other hand (ignoring the difference between chemical and nuclear reactions) is a true primary source of energy. The U235 isotope splits spontaneously, releasing heat, and if you can gather enough of it together and control its splitting (fission) you have a system which liberates much more energy than you have to put in to get it going. (Unlike failed fusion experiments).

There are only 3 ultimate sources of energy that we know about, solar geothermal and nuclear. Power from a nuclear reactor is therefore a primary energy source, the oxidation of hydrogen is not. (Easily recognised by using nuclear power to generate electricity to electrolyse water and produce hydrogen).


Another interesting nuclear source I was reading about is He3 from the solar wind. The moon's surface is rich in it. Scoop it up (and you dont need a vast amount) bring it back to earth, combine it with deuterium from sea water and you have a neat reactor producing prodigious amounts of heat and harmless helium and pure water as by products. The Russians have proposed doing this. (But then it will be a while before it powers your family car).

Alternatively you can walk to the shop for chocolate

I appreciate the heroic efforts to explain the scientific principles involved here, but you have a very inept student in that department.

I will leave it up to you scientific wizards to understand how it all works...

Foxfyre wrote:

I appreciate the heroic efforts to explain the scientific principles involved here, but you have a very inept student in that department.

I will leave it up to you scientific wizards to understand how it all works...

Well I'm not an expert either. But I dont attempt to argue details with someone who is (I'm thinking climatology here).

Steve 41oo wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

I appreciate the heroic efforts to explain the scientific principles involved here, but you have a very inept student in that department.

I will leave it up to you scientific wizards to understand how it all works...

Well I'm not an expert either. But I dont attempt to argue details with someone who is (I'm thinking climatology here).

Do you think I've been arguing details????? I thought I was explicitly trying to avoid doing that.

Its fundamentally different. Hydrogen is not abundant on earth (I'm not saying uranium is....hang on a sec). Any free hydrogen in the earth's atmosphere tends to leak out into space. We can produced hydrogen by various means (steam reformation of natural gas being the most common) but all methods require input of energy. Even hydrogen producing bacteria need energy ultimately from the sun. Simple electrolysis of water needs energy in the form of electricity to split water molecules into its component elements. Once you've got the free hydrogen and liquified it or pressurised it in a gas bottle (both of which require further energy input) then you can burn the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell to liberate some of the energy you had to put into the system to produce the liquified hydrogen in the first place. But liquid hydrogen can go in a tank like gasoline. You can take it with you fairly easily (contrast with towing a coal bunker or literally tonnes of batteries) so its a useful fuel for transport, but it is not the ultimate source of the energy for transport. Its just a way of storing energy and moving it about fairly easily

Foxfyre wrote:

Steve 41oo wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

I appreciate the heroic efforts to explain the scientific principles involved here, but you have a very inept student in that department.

I will leave it up to you scientific wizards to understand how it all works...

Well I'm not an expert either. But I dont attempt to argue details with someone who is (I'm thinking climatology here).

Do you think I've been arguing details????? I thought I was explicitly trying to avoid doing that.

Well you're not the only one I admit. It seems the self confessed non experts pick up on any detail, any argument or theory or idea which seems to challenge the consensus view that global warming is anthropogenic. It could be cosmic rays and cloud cover or sun cycles the earth's precession or industrial pollution, basically anything if it points in the other direction. Whilst these ideas may be interesting in themselves they do not threaten the basic theory. Its a bit like creationists pointing out something unexplained about the three toed frog as a damning indictment of the whole theory of evolution.