[ScienceDaily]New Way to Split Water Molecules Into Hydrogen and Oxygen - Page 7

Hydrogen still requires a lot of energy to compress it to get any kind of meaningful energy/volume, and it still lags significantly behind gasoline and other hydrocarbons. Although I guess the efficiency of fuel cells will make up for some of that, not sure how much though. Infrastructure will also need to be revamped, although that can happen over time.

Anyways, hydrogen is just energy storage. We still need some form of reliable, clean (this means zero net carbon emissions, not no carbon emissions), and affordable form of energy production. There are lots of ideas out there, and our energy state in the future will probably be a hybrid of all of those, since there is no one single source that can take the place of fossil fuels, unless we get fusion working in a way that it has net energy production.

The efficiency gains of a fuel cell system over an ICE are still greater even if you consider the cost of compression. The energy/volume is a non-issue given H2 vehicles will have ranges similar or greater than gasoline equivalents due to the ever increasing efficiency and power density of H2 stack technology(I should know, I work for a FC company).

As I said about infrastructure, in the short term, all H2 fleets will be in areas where it already exists, which are high population density locations(cities with access to natural gas lines). Our reformer can be plopped at a gas station, tied into the natural gas lines, and bam, H2 generation, compression, storage and a pump. By the time H2 vehicles are out there in meaningful volumes, I imagine we'll have transitioned to high efficiency electrolysis based systems that could possibly be solar powered...all you'd need then is access to water.

Also, like I said earlier, bio-alcohols, steam reformed to H2 - nearly net zero carbon emissions.

Biodiesel is very, very safe. You can literally run it through a flame and nothing dangerous will happen.

I realize you know a lot more H2 technology than I do, but I think your claims seem questionable and/or biased to me. Do you have any references with proof?

You say that adoption of H2 technology will happen before biofuels. How can you say this when biofuels are already in use, whereas H2 is not. Biodiesel in particular can be used in most diesel engines with no modification. So the infrastructure for biodiesel already exists and gas stations need to make zero changes to sell biodiesel right now. In fact, a significant amount of gas stations already do sell biodiesel, either in blends or pure.

You say that steam reformation of ethanol would be a good alternative. According to wikipedia, the process has a max. of 65-75% efficiency. So the higher efficiency of fuel cells seems to be counterbalanced, especially considering biodiesel is far superior to bioethanol to begin with. Not to mention, again the additional infrasctucture you'd need. You also mention natural gas reformation - but that's not carbon neutral for obvious reasons.

I already posted links...I'd send you documents from my company and/or the briefing we just got on Toyota's FC vehicles, but I'm sure I'd be fired for that.

H2 adoption will happen before we see 100% biofuels at the pumps because of the auto industry. Gasoline/diesel reforming is still cheaper than producing any biodiesel/alcohol(plus, how many flex fuel vehicles do you see out there?). I mean, consider the adoption rate of ethanol at the pump. I've personally never seen E85. Not around here.

The infrastructure exists, but the demand does not, because of the costs and because of the production rates. I've never seen pure biodiesel at the pumps near me. I'm sure it's a production limitation.

Natural gas reformation IS the most cost-effective method of producing H2 now. I'm not saying it's green, or carbon neutral, because it isn't. It's cheaper than H2 from water electrolysis because that technology is not developed enough to the point where the power requirements are less costly than the cost of natural gas/volume of H2 produced. Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from biomass, like waste paper pulp, or fast growing plants like switchgrass. Only reason I mention it is because of the country's obsession with ethanol. Only reason we produce it from corn is because we overproduce corn.

Anyway, the demand for diesel will increase, so maybe we'll see some of the advances in biodiesel help make it more prominent at the pump...still, H2 vehicles are coming, and they're going to be here to stay given the billions the auto industry has invested. I love diesel engines, I was considering a custom install on my car, still am. Issue is efficiency, and you'll never reach the efficiency of a H2 fuel cell with a combustion or diesel engine.

There's even research on electrolysis using a fuel cell in reverse operation...so consider that, plug a hose into your car overnight, in the morning you've got a full tank of H2. The technology is only getting better...the amount of power we get with our stacks increases every year, very exciting times indeed!

Corn-based ethanol is quite possibly one of the worst "green" ideas ever implemented. Did nothing but drive food prices up. That's probably why you don't see widespread implementation, but even then, ethanol is very often mixed into gasoline. I think by law in California gasoline must contain at least 5% ethanol, and sometimes up to 15%. Also, flex-fuel cars by design are inefficient at using ethanol or regular gasoline due to the compromises that needed to be made.

As it stands, I think part of the reason why biodiesel and any other bio-fuel source isn't widely researched and invested in is because of the stigma of just burning gasoline/diesel, regardless of whether or not it comes from a renewable source. People automatically equate gasoline/diesel with fossil fuels, and as several posters have shown in this thread, they would think it's a bad thing.

I've also done some research into biofuels (mostly just online stuff). A significant source of greenhouse gases is methane released from decomposition of livestock. If the waste matter was instead collected and placed in a biogas composter, it would capture the methane and create nitrogen-rich fertilizer, which in the US is mainly created from crude oil. I did the math once a few years ago based on what I could find on the internet, and the energy that could potentially be gained by gathering all the methane of livestock in the US is equivalent to the energy consumed by all vehicles in the US (at least, that's how I remember it). Not to mention all the crude oil saved from making fertilizer. The technology already exists. Why isn't it being implemented?

because Gas companies lobby for a gasoline and diesel infrastructure, that's why. They want to control the supply, and they don't control the supply of biofuels. It's exactly why Hess has invested in our company, they'll have access to H2 reformers when the market demands an H2 infrastructure.

/thread

Except reformers aren't the end-all solution, are they?

Well, you can always get methane for H2 reformers from landfills and animal and plant wastes.

You could, sure. My university had gas from landfills piped to the on-campus power generation facility, so it could be done. And I never said reformers were the end-all, they're just the most cost-effective now. They will continue to be the go to for hydrogen generation until technologies like the one in the OP become production ready and can prove their effectiveness in practical application.

Harvard did a study a few years back and found that surigcally attaching a methane collector into one cow's digestive system nets enough methane to power a small car with a daily commute. Especially if that car is something like a Wikispeed(I will build one someday).

As for biodiesel, I did some research a while back and like all alternative fuels the only way to make it profitable is government subsidy and selling the carbon credits the government issues. It's exactly the same business model as the wind farm crowd,solar crowd, and now the offshore hydro crowd. And that last one is a big dissappointment because honestly I think that tidal generation using buoys or something just sounds llike it would work well. But as for biodiesel, freshwater algae grown in a closed system is the most promising source, but has one ultra-significant stumbling block - it takes more electricity to seperate the vegetable protein from the vegetable oil than you can get out of burning the resulting biodiesel afteer seperation and processing. If that problem could be cracked biodiesel could become the new fuel for transportation,almost completely replacing gasoline and avgas and indefinitely renewable. Before it folded, Valcent Technologies managed to get such a system producing more than double what any other source could per acre per-per year using a greenhouse that could be deployed on comletely unarable land, that would also produce plant material that could be used as animal feed and for soil remediation, but they simply could not crack the seperation issue.

But the market realities can not be ignored, bottom line if a technology can't even pay for itself it won't survive long term. This is why petroleum is still around.

Ethanol is a complete scam from end to the other. Agra business gets subsidies, energy companies get subsidies while increasing the cost of gasoline, car makers profit as older cars explode because they aren't made to run on gasahol, and finally it drives up corn prices which drive up all meat prices as well as sugar and cereals. The increased cost has already been blamed for an unbelievable number deaths due to starvation and it's only going to get worse. Honestly I blieve that the widespread starvation of the poor in the third world really IS one of the goals of corn based ethanol.
Edited by Jarhead - 11/25/12 at 3:38am