Running on home-brewed hydrogen

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by cosmictraveler, Aug 27, 2008.

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  1. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    UK Firm ITM Power has developed a way of making hydrogen at home to fuel a car.

    Chief executive Jim Heathcoate says it has made a new type of plastic for the production process.

    ITM believes the plastic could be mass produced relatively cheaply and would allow people to create the gas at home using their normal electric supply or greener sources such as solar power.

    However, some industry experts have said that electric power and not hydrogen could be more cost effective and energy efficient.

    They have also questioned how safe it is to create fuel at home.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7496644.stm
     
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  3. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Cosmic, when are you finally going to drop the hydrogen "trip" you've been on for so long?

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    Haven't you noticed that the "hydrogen economy" has died and vanished completely from the news? Sure, there are still all these 'ideas' kicking around on the fringes - but the heart has gone out of it. Hydrogen is not an energy source, it's just a storage medium - and it's also a an energy sink, a negative energy producer.

    Unless and until we return to a full blown program of building nuclear electric power plants, along with breeder reactors, hydrogen will always remain nothing more than something like an old idea from back in the 1950's when everyone was supposed to soon have a helicopter in every garage.
     
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  5. w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

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    Read-only, where can I get information about what you have to say on hydrogen?
     
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  7. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    When I die!

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    Why not produce hydrogen at home to refuel your vehicles with? I think that's a much more practical idea than reactors.
     
  8. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Try Google. TONS of info out there about the failed "hydrogen ecomony" and how hydrogen is both nothing more than a storage medium and an energy sink (meaning it takes more energy to produce than it returns when used).
     
  9. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, yeah - SURE it is!

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    With all the expense and dangers of compressors and storage. If everyone DID try that, there would be explosions and fires by the dozens all over the country every single day.

    Just look how stupid ordinary people are with storing gasoline for use in lawnmowers. And you trust them to be able to handle highly explosive compressed hydrogen? Please - get real!
     
  10. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    Although I agree with most of what you wrote about the whole "hydrogen economy" thing being a bit of a scam, hydrogen isn't really much more dangerous than the gasoline and/or natural gas that people use at home every day. Of course accidents could and would happen, but the risk isn't much worse than what people already accept. In some ways hydrogen is safer, since hydrogen fires usually flash over very quickly and then go out without igniting surroundings (unlike gasoline, which will set things on fire and often itself burn for a long time). In terms of explosive power, hydrogen has less explosive power than natural gas.
     
  11. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    I looked at their website and the only breakthrough is in drastically reducing the up front cost of the electrolizer.

    The cost of the electricity required to make hydrogen is still far more expensive than the price of gasoline in cents per mile.
     
  12. CHARIZAARRRD!!! Registered Member

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    shame :\, though gasoline may be scarce enough to warrant the potentially huge research and technological infrastructure investments.. if it is feasible at all.
     
  13. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

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    Just thought I'd mention the often overlooked fact that hydrogen in air has about the widest explosive mix ratio of any flamable gas. Something like 15 to 95 percent hydrogen in air doesn't burn quietly, it goes bang. Loudly. No confinement required. And hydrogen just loves to leak.
     
  14. Diode-Man Awesome User Title Registered Senior Member

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    I too believe it is more of a matter of advancing battery technology so they last longer and hold more energy, perhaps using nano stuff.

    Unless it were possible to separate the burnable gasses from the atmosphere?
     
  15. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    I suggest you put a little more thought into the subject.

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    Yes, hydrogen does tend to go in a flash BUT that flash is also a very explosive one! While gasoline might burn down the building it's in, a hydrogen 'flash' can easily destroy it instantly AND hurl dangerous projectiles a long way.

    There's also the matter of the explosive mixture ratio that's already been mentioned, too. And that greatly adds to the danger of an ordinary householder trying to deal with hydrogen.
     
  16. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    True - in general gasoline burns, hydrogen explodes. But as I said, it has less explosive power than natural gas.
     
  17. JoNnYBoY Registered Member

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    This is one of my first posts, as I'm still and Undergrad.. but from what I remember in Physics - isn't there VERY few to none containers that can actually hold hydrogen without leaking? Isn't it a really bad idea to have hydrogen (which burns very hot and clear) leaking out of moving vehicles?
     
  18. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah, diffuses right through many materials. And good luck trying to get a gasket or pipe fitting to hold.

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  19. scorpius a realist Valued Senior Member

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    this guy in NJ has done the same thing using solar panels

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEdQRVQtffw
    the cost of such a system is just way too much for an average household.

    electricity from the Sun would be my choice too..
    something like this
    http://www.mrsharkey.com/solar.htm
     
  20. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Where would the required electric power come from that you use at home? How would it get there?

    At home production of hydrogen with grid power would be less energy efficient as you would need to generate all the energy lost in the distribution wires and transformers. Conceptually one can use solar cells etc. and some energy storage locally if your want to avoid doubling the distribution gird loses(BOTH coming and going nowthat you use it for your "virtual battery")*. But until solar cells costs (and the installinaton of them which is several times larger at home scales) come way down (probably never) that is only for the "eco-rich."

    At home generation would lose all the cost savings of scale. If it were not a silly idea, why not also at home generation of electricity from coal or oil? At least that way you could save on the electric distribution system cost and energy losses plus the waste heat could heat your hot water and warm your home in winter. Year ago people did burn coal at home, but the pollution was terrible. Lets skip that and only consider the cost of 100 million little generators instead of 1000 big ones. Point is that economy of scale is very important.

    Residential energy systems are practical only for at least appartment scale with the utilization of the waste heat - called ço-generation. Co-generation at industrial plants that also need heat is very economical, but home scale generation of hydrogen loses energy in the distribution system and suffers from too small a scale for low cost. (Not to mention that the safety and maintance expenses are more than an order of magnitude greater, at least, than central generation of hydrogen.)
    ------------------
    *That battery is zero capital cost to you but a huge cost to society if even 5% of the population did this -I.e. they all want power at the same cloudy day windless day so the electric company needs to invest in more peak generation capacity, which has very low duty cycle. The capital cost per kWh is an order of magnitude greater than base load power even if made by cheaper gas turbines because the capital cost runs 24/7 but the use is ~1/7 or less. Electric power is already at least 75% capital cost. - Wide spread use of solar at home systems (with the grid as back up) would more than double what the average guy pays for kWh from the grid.

    As is usually the case, the 0.001% of population - the "eco-rich" - with their grid backed up solar pannels on their roof are "free loading" on the average guy to pay for both their "virtual" battries and the increment of peaking power demand they cause, but it is only a few extra pennies on each of the 99.999% who are not "eco-rich" so we do not scream: - "Stop stealing from me!"
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 6, 2008
  21. Gustav Banned Banned

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    cheers?
     
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