Hydrogen Stored in Safe High Density Pellets 889
sunbeam60 writes "A group of scientists are going to present their breakthrough in hydrogen storage this Wednesday. In contrast to previous storage mechanisms, this method binds hydrogen to a pellet which is completely safe to handle at room temperature. While bound in this medium no hydrogen loss occurs, enabling hydrogen to be stored cheaply for indefinite periods. When needed, the extraction of hydrogen is relatively simple. The pellets exceed all criteria set by the US Department of Energy for 2015, enabling a car to drive more than 500 km on a 50 L tank (13 MJ/l)"
Will be good for solar homes if.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Other measurements (Score:2, Interesting)
Using Hydrogen to power your car (Score:3, Interesting)
When you go to the pump, do you swap pellets with the gas station attendant? How flammable are these things?
What if I swallow one? Is it non-toxic?
interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
What's the catch? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Other measurements (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the problem with some of these emerging technologies-- you can have a car that runs on happy feelings, but if those feelings have to be produced in a factory and cost $500 per gallon, then you might as well use gasoline instead.
I'm sorry, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It's a slow week.
Re:Other measurements (Score:3, Interesting)
It could also be produced nearly anywhere a water supply is. So, shortages and pipeline restrictions would be a thing of the past. As would foreign dependance on energy.
Not very efficient (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless we come up with a serious breakthrough on hydrogen production it'll never happen.
There are several groups working on describing how photosynthesis actually works in plants. It is theorized that the process would yield us all the hydrogen we wanted. But that is still a few years off.
Re:Using Hydrogen to power your car (Score:5, Interesting)
Great, but how much carbon do they release into the atmosphere?
See, energy density isn't the only consideration.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:2, Interesting)
The real issue is still global warming and environmental effects. H2O is a greenhouse gas, just like CO2. H2O also has more immediate effects on local weather. If we switch over to hydrogen powered autos, we can count on more foggy roadways in the future.
OTOH, there could be some interesting benefits. Imagine the whole stretch of desert along U.S. Highways turning green because of the new abundance of water... (Not really a realistic scenerio, though.)
Finally, as others have pointed out, Hydrogen merely carries the energy, you still have to generate the energy by burning fossil fuels, running nuclear reactors, setting up windmills, or some other means, and how that energy generation is done will determine the effect on the climate.
Katrina should have been a wake-up call for all of us. While it's unknown and probably unknowable if Katrina was the result of global warming, it's pretty certain that as the oceans heat up, we'll get more Katrina-sized storms. We've got to take action to stop the greenhouse warming now.
You can take action by conserving energy and pushing your legislative representatives towards greener policies. You can plant trees to soak up CO2. (Just don't burn them for firewood later!)
Re:Amazing (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How does it come out? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two sources of hydrogen, electrolyzing water, and stripping it from hydrocarbons. Both of these sources suffer severe drawbacks.
Electrolyzing water is short sighted at best. The second law of thermodynamics (which we obey in this house!) dictates that it will always take more energy to get the free hydrogen that you can ever get back in a fuel cell. This means that it will take a LOT of power to supply a hydrogen economy which means new power plants, which means burning more natural gas and coal. The single best leveragabile solution to a hydrogen economy is new nuclear power plants... Wait isn't nuclear bad? At least that's what the majority of the public thinks so it won't happen. The tree huggers of this world like to think that we can supply hydrogen with windmills, solar, and tidal power. Now while these alternate energy sources certainly merit investment we are a looong way from being able to produce anywhere near the energy needed to supply millions of autos with hydrogen.
The other option is, well ironic. We need fuel cells to free ourselves from foreign oil. So we'll get the hydrogen from hydrocarbons. We'll call them hydrocarbons, so that Susie Homemaker won't immediately pick up on the problem that hydrocarbons are foreign oil. Sure it can be more efficient from wellhead to power, which is undeniable a good thing. The problem is that if it works it will reinvigorate the commuter culture here in America, which will exacerbate the problem.
In conclusion the hydrogen economy is uneconomical, and will never happen. But then again the same is true of ethanol-blended fuel, so we can always prop it up on free government subsidies.
Re:What's the catch? (Score:3, Interesting)
Attended a lecture of one of the creators (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How does it come out? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, sorry for the tree huggers, but right now nuclear is the ONLY power source that we have that can produce enough energy to get us off fossil fuels and is viable in the long term.
Solar is too inefficient with current technologies. Wind doesn't produce enough power. Hydro is limited by location and not very scalable because of it. Geothermal is interesting but doesn't really produce much power. In order to maintain our current way of life we're going to need a massive amount of energy.
Breeder reactors (and even more traditional designs) are actually more environmentally friendly than coal plants, but scare people and can in theory be misued to produce EEEEVIL nuc-u-lar weapons.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:3, Interesting)
How do you figure this? Coal is more carbon-intensive than gasoline, so burning coal to produce hydrogen puts more CO2 into the air than burning the equivalent amount of gasoline.
Coal also produced more sulfur and mercury emissions than gasoline and creates toxic and caustic ash that must be disposed of.
Finally, coal mines cause more environmental damage, especially via acid runoff, than oil wells.
My concerns with hydrogen... (Score:2, Interesting)
I've seen it stated that 96% of hydrogen comes from fossil fuels and thus refining it causes at least as much pollution as running cars on gas.
Maybe efficient, performance diesels like they have in Europe are the answer until fusion or something else comes along. I've seen recent tests where these are more efficient than the hybrids that everyone is hyping.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:5, Interesting)
You are correct. The reason it is economically viable is that the human race has at least two virtually unlimited supplies of the very energy we need to break the hydrogen loose and today they go unused in any real capacity. That energy source is either solar or nuclear. Other sources could be viable as well eventually, such as geothermal.
The issue is that we need an energy storage and transportation method that works within our current tech development. Using hydrogen for portable power and electricity for stationary power is feasible as long as we can use an energy source that is plentiful and currently underutilized. Hence, solar or nuclear are the only real possible solutions right now. Solar would be best, considering the Earth receives 5000 times as much solar energy as we currently use in oil equivalents. Nuclear fusion might be a good alternative but I withhold making any concrete statements until we manage to get our first commercial reactor going. Modern nuclear fission reactors are perfectly feasible and safe as long as we manage to keep them out of the hands of terrorists (Note: The US has ZERO modern designs in operation -- we still use highly dangerous designs from the 50's and 60's).
So, in the sense that it takes more energy to break apart hydrogen than you get back from recombining the hydrogen, you are right. But it is practical to use hydrogen as an energy carrier because there is so much under utilized energy sources at our disposal, sources that do not make very good portable energy supplies by themselves.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:3, Interesting)
Correct, but it is much easier to put a large scrubber system on a Hydrogen 'factory' than it is to put that scrubber system on a car. The factory scrubbing can be much more complete and it makes less weight for the car to drag around.
Electrolyzing water is short sighted at best. The second law of thermodynamics (which we obey in this house!) dictates that it will always take more energy to get the free hydrogen that you can ever get back in a fuel cell. This means that it will take a LOT of power to supply a hydrogen economy which means new power plants, which means burning more natural gas and coal. The single best leveragabile solution to a hydrogen economy is new nuclear power plants...
Or Solar, or wind, or wave. All of those can be mounted nicely on a piece of land but not very well on a vehicle.
The tree huggers of this world like to think that we can supply hydrogen with windmills, solar, and tidal power. Now while these alternate energy sources certainly merit investment we are a looong way from being able to produce anywhere near the energy needed to supply millions of autos with hydrogen.
You don't have to produce enough from those source to supply *all* the cars. Just producing enough for a decent percentage of cars would go a long way toward reducing carbon emissions. Every bit of reduction is good, it doesn't have to be total. Eventually folks may come around to using pebble-bed fission if fusion doesn't pan out.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:5, Interesting)
Although, depending on how you think of it, we've been using stored solar energy all alone. AFAIK, the best solar cells available are plant cells. Using solar energy and storing it in hydrocarbons. When the plants are fossilized, we get fossil fuels.
The question in my mind is, can we simply bypass the 'fossilization" requirement. Wired had an article [wired.com] about one possibility a while back.
Re:500 km on a 50 L tank (Score:4, Interesting)
500 km on a 50 L tank? Bah! (Score:5, Interesting)
Diesel. Jetta. And my fuel was 30% cheaper than regular unleaded. And I filled up with 20% Bio-Diesel blend before my trip.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention the fact that any source of electricity can be used to create hydrogen, and wind power is cheaper over 20 years megawatt-for-megawatt than coal. (Google it.)
Re:And missing would be (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about the economics? (Score:2, Interesting)
If there is demand, you can bet your ass that someone, somewhere will try and supply it.
Other companies will be founded and they will sell it to us instead. If the green energy market continues to grow explosively as petroleum prices continue to rise, Big Oil will have to adapt or die.
The market abhors a vacuum.
I find your knee-jerk surrender to the multinationals Disturbing.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure solar is ineficient, but the solutions that are almost available now remove #'s 1 and 2 on your list, and beyond the price of the cells it is virtually free.
So by your formula - solar production of hydrogen burned directly in a combustion engine, is almost equal to burning fossil fuels.
United Nuclear is developing a system that uses solar panels to produce the hydrogen via electrolysis - 8 - 2' x 4' panels is all you need for 1 car.
http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/ [switch2hydrogen.com]
There is also a company based in England that has a direct solar to hydrogen panel that flows water through the cell and produces hydrogen.
http://www.hydrogensolar.com/basics.html [hydrogensolar.com]
So please revise your calculations and factor in that the fossil fuel to hydrogen option is not the only viable option.
Re:The utopianists don't like clean and cheap ener (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, okay. But don't build any freeways through my nice, pedestrian neighborh -- oh no, you already did!
Let's all take a moment to shed a tear for the American car culture, the freedom to live in ugly-ass subdivisions, and paving the entire universe. They were beautiful concepts.
(And I *like* driving. One of my favorite things to do. But it should be for trips and oddjobs, not commuting and getting basic essentials. Hoorah fuel efficiency but hoorah intelligent city planning.)
Re:The utopianists don't like clean and cheap ener (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, if you also pay for all the associated costs.
Cleanup costs of pollution should be factored into the price of fuel, the car etc.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://news.com.com/Fuel+cell+pulls+hydrogen+out+
Re:How does it come out? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only benefit from using hydrogen is that this conversion process can be done somewhere outside your town so the emissions in town are clean. Same thing with electric vehicles. So what we need is some way of storing lots of potential energy in a car, which means you need high-density batteries for pure electric, or high-density hydrogen storage for fuel cell. Hydrogen is currently looking more likely. Initial versions just used high-pressure tanks, but that needs all sorts of high pressure pumps and heavy tanks. Trouble is that molecules in a gas in a confined space will naturally want to jump about (it's what creates gas pressure), so that's a pain.
The latest approach is to stash molecules of H2 in the gaps between molecules in various fancy compounds, kind of like dropping marbles into a tube (you may have heard of carbon nanotubes being used for it, which almost exactly mimics that analogy). Being "slotted in place" allows more H2 storage without the high pressure tank. And that seems to be what this one is about.
Grab.
Re:The utopianists don't like clean and cheap ener (Score:2, Interesting)
"These folks are utopianists. They harbor a social agenda to force you to live your life on their terms."
No, rationalists. As in: until replacement technologies are demonstrably practical, it makes no sense to guzzle the cheap stuff quickly. It's not about control, it is about trying to wake people up to the fact that if they like the lifestyle they have now, and think their children should enjoy the same, they should consider whether it is wise to gamble the future on technologies that might not come to fruition in time. Maybe they should consider cutting back a little until the prospect of a replacement is clearly in sight. Conservation is cheap and technologically simple compared to deploying major alternatives. The more we conserve, the more time we will have to make the switch. The more we burn now, the faster a serious crisis could loom.
Such a change in attitude is not about forcing people to transform their behaviour, it is about asking people to take some small and easy steps now (like choosing to drive a more efficient vehicle) rather than being backed into a desperate corner sooner than we are prepared to deal with it.
If you want to be reckless, go right ahead. It's your priviledge in a free society, and a luxury we can afford right now. But please don't cast anyone who opposes that choice, and offers an alternative, as if they were a some kind of nutty, oppressive utopian. I *want* people to be able to choose what they do, I'm just worried it isn't sustainable, and wondering what to do next. The reality is, if we don't make the transition from fossil fuels smoothly, we will *all* be forced to live on whatever terms the remaining resources and the laws of physics permit. It will become involuntary not because of politics, but because there is no other way. Why approach a hard wall at such a high speed until we are really sure there is a door through it, and that we can swerve through it gracefully?
People who ask for moderation are not opposed to choice -- just the opposite. They are saying: please choose wisely now or we eventually won't have a choice anymore. They want to preserve choice as long as possible -- stretch current resources out until we know what to do next. We can't snap our fingers and solve the world's energy problems in a day. We need time. We can't bargain with the laws of physics and resource limitations. Energy is a hard problem, and people who think technology will easily solve it are the ones that are living in a fantasy world. I can't fuel my car on press conferences about promising technologies. All I'm saying is: what if it isn't as easy as people hope? Shouldn't we be a bit cautious given the uncertainties? Why be reckless about it?
BONUS: voluntarily curbing demand a little now is the best possible thing that could lower gasoline prices. People always seem to forget the demand side of the supply:demand equation, and, until the events of the last week, it was growing demand that has driven gas prices up over the last couple of years -- growth faster than the supply can easily grow to meet. It's like people have been binge drinking this stuff for the last decade, and they're suprised when the price goes up. Duh. Even though plenty is left to last a while, the bar is having trouble keeping up. I'm not looking forward to the fights if supply runs low, let alone the hangover.
Re:Waste of research money (Score:3, Interesting)
a) Magnesium is hard to ignite. So are tires. Still, they burn. Hydrogen is quite easy to ignite by comparison.
b) Both magnesium and tires, as well as the upholstry inside the vehical and the plastics in the body, trunk and engine compartments are each more than hot enough to ignite hydrogen. So are electric sparks from downed powerlines and shorted battery cables.
c) True, you won't find many cars with magnesium any more, and hopefully it'll stay that way. You will continue to find tires and upholstry, however, along with a more and more other plastics.
d) Hindinberg pretty much calls into question every statement you've made regarding expansion rates and ignitability.
e) "Little Heat" - 2400 calories per gram per degree to convert from steam to liquid or vice-versa. That is an ASSLOAD of heat. And that's just a secondary reaction that happens to the byproduct later on, not the primary one that'll drive the car.
f) No heat means no pressure to drive a reciprocating engine. Bullshit. To force a piston down, you need pressure. Pressure is heat as far as that's concerned, clearly it is present. Period.
In the future, I'd suggest you do a little study of firematics and hazmat prior to making such statements. Here is a good starting point. [tc.gc.ca]
Re:Waste of research money (Score:3, Interesting)
Hindinberg pretty much calls into question every statement you've made regarding expansion rates and ignitability.
How so? Hindenberg burned the way it did because they covered it in thermite.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maintaining the waste is a miniscule expense in the grand scheme of things. The USA has produced enough nuclear waste from Nuclear Power generation to fill a single football field a meter or two high. Small space, small problem. Burying the crap under Yucca Mountain and maintaining it indefinately is a ridiculously small price to pay for humans to survive on the planet with clean air and water.
We are more likely to see economical cold fusion power generation sooner than we will see an economical solution to the waste problems of fission technology.
Not true. The likelyhood of anyone alive witnessing economical cold fusion is extremely sparse. Nuclear Power right now, at this very moment is economical and the infrastructure to transport that power already exists. The storage facilities face all kinds of social battles because of misinformation disperced by organizations like Green Peace. The fact of the matter is that Nuclear Power does not pollute the air or water, does not produce greenhouse gasses, produces magnitudes less waste overall than fossil fuels and exists today. The current management of waste is to bury it under a mountain in concrete facilities until we know what to do with it. If we never find a solution, then at worse, we move it deeper underground.
Playing off Nuclear Energy like its a destructive source of energy is simply ignorant.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:5, Interesting)
With conventional oil drilling technology is it possible to drill for oil with. Drill a hole into the ocean floor in a Subduction zone. On average I think you will drill through 1 mile of sediments. Then you drill a farther 1 mile into the ocean floor. Or hell, why stop at 2 miles down, current technology can drill down 4 or 5 miles easy. Encase the waste in glass, grind up the glass in to pellets and dump them in the hole.
Leave about a mile of the hole empty, the sediment layer, at the top. Then pile in the sediments that was removed, about a mile of it.
Problem solved. You've put the waste out of the environment. By putting it in to a Subduction plate it will be carried down into the earth where it will be cooked for a few billion years at 5,000 degrees.
I'm pretty sure I over simplified the problem but both the technology and theory are mature enough to be refined.
Re:How does it come out? (Score:3, Interesting)
You just can't say "oh, just use a cheap source of electricity." It doesn't work that way. If I am a power company who can sell electricity for $0.25/kWh on the retail market, why in the world would I bother converting that to hydrogen which would sell to consumers for a lot less as auto fuel.
Some quick math: A gallon of gasoline contains about 60 kWh or energy. Say gas costs $3/gallon. Even at this relatively high gas price, you're only paying $0.05 per kWh!
If you were to convert electricty (at $.25/kWh) to hydrogen, you would pay $15 for a gallon of gas worth of energy!
-matthew
Re:When do we get biodiesel-electric hybrid cars? (Score:1, Interesting)
Low-sulfur petrodiesel* will arrive in the US in late 2006 (unless they push the date back
Which is not to say that the improvements are independent of the CC -- but that it's not as mundane as "ULSD = we can now install CC's on diesel engines".
(* We already have low-sulfur diesel. Biodiesel has no sulfur. And some petrodiesel is apparently already ULSD-ready. The big deal is that in October 2006, *all* diesel fuel will be ULSD here in the states.)