talking too much about things i know nothing about, or, preaching mostly to the converted (part two)

[solarbird]

This was originally going to be part of my previous post, but I decided that one should stand alone as a single topic. Maybe this can be a series.

HAS EVERYONE GONE COMPLETELY INSANE?!

I heard a guest commentator on NPR this morning waxing ecstatic about how the hydrogen economy will usher in a new industrial revolution. Would someone please tell me how?

I mean, sure: it's great for portable devices, and that's really, genuinely exciting to me. Also, it's clean. It's quiet. I'm pro-hydrogen as a technology. But it's not an energy source, and its energy density is 1/4 that of gasoline and similar products even when stored at 10,000 PSI, which is a lot. (Alternatively, you can get better density by storing it in supercooled liquid form, but that has its own problems, not the least of which being that you need to use it to maintain it, and enough to give a vehicle decent range is going to be gone in a couple of days, just maintaining its own refrigeration.) Even after you solve the energy density problem, the energy that you're storing via hydrogen has to come from somewhere.

Coal and oil helped create the first industrial revolution because it was high energy density and high energy output for relatively little energy expenditure in; It's compact with a large net energy gain. It also proved to have an assortment of useful chemical applications. Hydrogen yields less energy than is put in (because nothing is 100% efficient), has lower energy density, and isn't all that interesting chemically - therefore having none of the primary energy qualities of coal and oil.

So where does this great "industrial revolution" come in? Aside from power for portable devices - it's got great battery-replacement potential - and the seriously good reduction in pollutants of all sorts (which provides many good things, none of which are new types of power or lead to new uses of power, as far as I can see)...

...where's the revolution?

Why are people acting as if this is free power? Free or cheap, limitless, nonpolluting power? The hydrogen-battery economy may be valid, but hydrogen isn't a replacement for oil.

And it's not fusion either. Is that what's going on? Do people have some subconscious connection to this and fusion power? Do they think there's a whole hell of a lot of hydrogen out there - it's part of water, after all - and that therefore all they have to do is come up with some way to mine it and viola, literal oceans of fuel, free for the taking?

Is this a fundamental failure to understand thermodynamics? Are people hoping for some kind of physics cheat? That seems kind of... unlikely. Or, to put it more bluntly, I think we'd have about as much luck waiting to discover an antimatter mine. On Earth.

So. Am I missing something? Or is this spirit dancing for the modern era?

Comments

[banner.livejournal.com]

Everytime I hear these people going on about hydrogen and how it's 'cheap to make and clean to burn' I wonder if any of these people have ever heard about the three laws of Thermodynamics? Unless we build nuclear plants everywhere (not a bad idea really) Hydrogen will generate more pollution than gas or diesel. And use more energy, and cost more. It's just the pollution gets moved to another less visible place. So you're not helping the environment, you're just sweeping it under the rug.

Now fuel cells that burn gasoline at a much higher efficeny rate with less pollution, that's a technology I wouldn't mind seeing advanced.

[dpawtows.livejournal.com]

Yes, people do not understand thermodynamics. I have met folks who think that you can pass water through "a filter" to get the hydrogen out of it. When I mention that you need electrity to do this, they smile and say that you can just burn the hydrogen to get it.
Methinks these are the same people who think you can recharge an electric car while it's moving by putting a wind turbine on the roof. And I've met someone who thinks that a Toyota Prius "uses zero power" when running on electric drive because "it gets it all back from the regnerative brakes."

[britzkrieg.livejournal.com]

When I first bought my hybrid, plenty of people asked me how long it took to charge it.

*facepalm*

[kensaro.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the idea is that hydrogen would make a halfway decent transport medium, you set up huge hydrogen farms in places like Mexico, Morocco and such, places with plenty of sunlight, water (sea) and relatively close to the engergy guzzling countries.

[solarbird]

So, solar charging?

Nitrogen-cooled electric cable makes a remarkably efficient power transmission medium, and you can even reclaim the heat. So I'm not saying no, but I am more concerned about hydrogen pipelines than I am about nitrogen pipelines. Hydrogen is slippery stuff.

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

When one hypothesis is that people just don't understand science at all, especially physics, that's the way to bet. How many random people on the street understand the laws of thermodynamics? Almost none.

Not to mention they're listening to people *say* how clean and wonderful it is, so the impression is that it's just out there for the taking, rather than costing more pollution upstream.

Cathy

[solarbird]

When one hypothesis is that people just don't understand science at all, especially physics, that's the way to bet.
True, but I meant more the promoters. I don't expect the average American to understand much of this, given the failure of the educational system to teach science.

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

I suspect, too, that part of it is that while Hydrogen /is/ plentiful, it is rarely available by itself and to get some for use, you have to break it out of some other configuration. The average person has not had enough exposure to chemistry to have any idea about that.

And the people talking up Hydrogen power (who /do/ likely know that) are taking advantage of a failure in critical thinking on the part of their audience.

Your Energy Posting

[yrosalita.livejournal.com]

Rosepurr suggested I contact you.
I have an LJ username: yrosalita. I also edit an energy blog with my husband on blogger that is called "charge the future of energy" and can be found at www.chargezine.blogspot.com.

The reason I mention this is that your posting seems to show you are one of the few people who really "get" what it's all about. Hydrogen is not only not a replacement for oil, but current methods of producing this energy source use more energy that they produce --or are extremely expensive.