Comments on: Alternative Methods for Producing Hydrogen

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 17 May 2011 00:06:44 +0000

Some of the arguments used here are really silly. We need to up our level of thinking.

Like saying the universe is mostly hydrogen. So what? What good does that do us here on earth? We don’t live on the sun.

Besides, the hydrogen in stars is in plasma form, and that is a whole new ball-game.

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 17 May 2011 00:03:48 +0000

So the above list show 16 ways to produce hydrogen. So what? What we really need is one cheap way to produce a lot of hydrogen. Look at some of the items on the list, like solar. If we use solar to produce hydrogen, the efficiency is limited by the efficiency of solar. So we are really using solar. The key then would be to make solar more efficient, and what is the hope that will happen.

We need to reduce the human population. The real problem is too many people chasing too few resouces.

By: Jack

Jack — Mon, 16 May 2011 23:54:14 +0000

Why is not having faith in the economic viability of hydrogen like saying there would never be a man on the moon? Every technical advance has to be judged on its own merits. Why make that particular comparison. I’m sure we could find lots of nay-sayers who were correct. In the 50s many people believed that by the 80s or 90s cars would be going 100 miles/hour down the freeways. That didn’t pan out. So can I use that to prove hydrogen won’t pan out? No. And neither can you say it has to work just because going to the moon suceeded.

By the way, going to the moon, though scientifically a success, was not economically feasable. It was merely and excercies in nation pride.

By: Mal

Mal — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:38:36 +0000

If we inject water into a reciprocating engine which is designed to run at 800 C + an explosion will occur (Ask any potter). The trick is to design the components to extract the energy from an explosion. All IC engines show this to a limited degree.
We looked at using a shock wave introduced into a metre column of water. As the shock wave travels up the tube bubbles are produced. the shock wave reflects from the top of the tube causing the bubbles to collapse. the collapsing bubbles create local temperatures of 5000 deg C. the imploding bubble reaction is extremely violent.

~Mal

By: George Field

George Field — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:23:08 +0000

The universe is 90% Hydrogen,The ocean is two thirds hydrogen. Thats where the energy is. If we can send a man to the moon, build an atomic weapon,
we can suceed. A massive Goverment Program is what is needed. Every day we don,t do this costs
millons of dollars.

By: Rex

Rex — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:45:00 +0000

At the National Hydrogen Association, we witness first-hand the effort to find long-term solutions to produce hydrogen. While progress has been made, what this list illustrates is the flexibility hydrogen offers in terms of production. The long-term goal is to produce hydrogen from renewable resources, using alternative energies like wind and solar to capitalize on hydrogen in its purest form, where water is the by product.

In the short term, using natural gas and coal with carbon sequestration will reduce carbon emissions, and reduce our dependency on foreign energy imports. The U.S. has the largest estimated recoverable reserves of coal, 273 billion tons, possessing 27 percent of the world’s reserves. When hydrogen is extracted from coal using a gasification process, carbon is naturally released. However, when carbon emissions are sequestered those emissions are brought down to almost none.

Using natural gas in the short-term presents advantages as well. An estimated 2 percent increase in natural gas production would provide enough hydrogen to fuel 10 million fuel cell vehicles, while reducing carbon emissions about 50 percent. Furthermore, 53 percent of all natural gas is currently used in the U.S in the production of gasoline already. By reducing gasoline production, the natural gas could then be used to produce hydrogen fuel.

In addition, using nuclear energy to produce hydrogen has great potential. Nuclear energy can produce high quality hydrogen in large quantities at a relatively low cost without any air emissions. Uranium is the main fuel for nuclear reactors, and is readily available. Compared to natural gas or coal, uranium is low in cost, and the cost of nuclear electricity is less sensitive to its price fluctuations. One uranium fuel pellet, about the size of the tip of your little finger, has the equivalent energy potential of 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780 pounds of coal, or 149 gallons of oil.

Even though each method of production is has its own benefits and drawbacks, they all can help to make the transition to a hydrogen economy. The ultimate benefits of moving towards a hydrogen economy are to reduce our energy costs, improve our environmental outlook by reducing carbon emissions, and become more energy independent to improve national security.

For additional information about hydrogen production, please visit the National Hydrogen Association website at http://www.hydrogenassociation.org, the premier source for information on hydrogen and hydrogen technologies.