This is an Idea to Start: Is Hydrogen a Real Alternative?

Do you have a hydrogen mine in your back yard? If not, where were you planning on getting it?

That is the 64,000 dollar question! Until a new and acceptable method of generating H2 comes into play nothing is going forward.

I think it's called Cold Fusion and they cannot figure out how to harness that energy. And I think they've figured it to be more expensive in separating the hydrogen from the oxygen then they could make in revenue using it as an energy source.

I concur with the first two replies.

A Hydogen energy community seems to be so simple until you realise that the H has to come from somewhere and of course there is an obvious solution, seawater.

The trouble is that getting the Hydogen out of seawater is extremely costly.

And then you need to move the Hydogen to where you need it for use.

Transmision via pipelines whilst theoretically possible, in practice , with the size of the Hydogen molecule is so tiny that the leak potential of any pipe is enormous and it's transmission capacity will therefore be poor.

Of course there are people who are inventing new gadgets etc. One thought was to combine the Hydogen with another molecule for tranmision and combine at the user end. This also requires energy and the 'other' molecule will need to be returned to whence it came.

I hope that we can find a simple way to bring Hydogen into play.

Sleepy

For H2 pipelines, İ believe that Air Liquide still operates a merchant pipeline that runs between Houston and Mobile. The H2 is generated by steam reforming using hydrocarbons as feedstock - not environmentally friendly.

You are correct engineer and scientist are working hard to develop equipment and method to react hydrogen and oxygen to generate water and electricity. This is done using typical catalyst system which is based on nickel or platinum as metal site for this reaction and the the transportation of this using ceria or stablized zirconia.

We forget before that most of them will have another catalyst which is to convert hydrocarbon to hydrogen and is generally call fuel conditioner. This is mostly based on rhodium or other effective catalyst material.

Yes you are generating power and water and is most effective use of the hydrocarbon which comes from crude oil and other sources like waste dump methane

The crude oil technology is not dead but we will use other source of starting raw materials also and will burn cleanly and will slow down climate changes caused by abuse of hydrocarbon by cars, trucks, plane and other improper method of use. IF suscessful we will be having more effective use

Until the 'new' source of H2 is available - meaning not from hydrocarbons - the entire H2 thing is going nowhere.

Just wait some one will come up with what Allah or God does to provide catalytic break down of water to Hydrogen and oxygen but do it faster. If this is done then we can get out of Middle East mess we are in and in the world of uncertanity.

Few are working on this which I know but not a serious afford to rap this up.

Many research programs are centered on just this point! Only one problem - it isn't easy.

If easy then China will do this. We are only nation on planet which will make dream come true

Every thing you are talking is Engineering inside and Engineering balance. We are not BP who was only motivated with greed of share holder and not putting check and balances upfront. We say scenario and prevention.

I come from semiconductor generation and we put redundant resistor lines at start and when we started developing data and making sure we do not need three we went to two and now we are happy to work with one. Same thing is in the other field. When we developed capacitor we can put redundancy line so we developed !00% inspection

If it fails then it is design flaw and one will take care of this. We have hydrogen tanks at out side of factory and we move 55 gallon size container one one end to another or from truck to use point what the failure rate is less than plan accident and far far less than auto accident.

Technology is there only how to use. Hydrogen you can use in solid metal and metal sponge safely and use it.

Any way we do not walk off technology and we are risk take and not not a copier. We make dream come true and not back off because of simple engineering issues

I will feel very safe building my house next to storage facility

I think we have to think about the worst case senerio with the use of H2.

What happens if the storage tank leaks in your garage ?? Or in an accident get ruptured. H2 is more likely to explode rather than burn rapidly. How do you feel about living within a 1/4 mile of an H2 station that would have 1000s of gallons of licquid H2. Do you remember some of the early day of rocketry???? Some rather fantastic explosions as I recall. I don't think it would be very practical to impliment all the necessary saftey precautions, and there would still be a chance for some sort of unforseen malfunction. Let's stick with Gasoline for a while.

H2 is far safer than gasoline any day any place any time.

Maybe you could explain your comment to me.

İf you have an H2 leak the gas goes up and away. İt will not be in the liquid form outside of the container. Your comment about explosions holds equally true for LPG and that stored and handled in volume and in cylinders in many homes. You see transporters on the road all the time. İf you have a BLEVE (boiling liquid evaporating vapor explosion) you are in deep trouble with any stored liquid - that can be overcome as is shown with LPG or other fuel cylinders. H2 is not carcinogenic - not much good for washing parts in either. İ designed, built and managed plants reforming very large volumes of CH4 into H2+CO in the US and around the world for many years. Gas safety has to be considered - yes but it must be with any fuel. Anyone that works with gases will tell you H2 is an ideal fuel. Have you ever heard of the Air Liquede H2 merchant pipeline from Houston to Mobile - it serves numerous consumers along the way. No problems İ know of over the past many years. The disaster scenarios you worry about can be drawn up for most any fuel is one wants. Same with nuclear - the safest power generation (by safety record) but people worry about it more.

Pacesetter,

Your concerns probably are valid for compressed H₂ gas. However, a lot of work has been done in the area of metal hydrides for storage of similar volumes of H₂ gas absorbed onto the hydride surfaces at pressures much lower. Tests (even full-scale ones) with rupturing of these tanks has had no explosions, and modest but easily controlled fires. Such fires were less intense than those of ruptured gasoline tanks.

You probably are aware of the concerns with cryogenic storage of methane as a liquid. Even greater concerns are valid regarding cryogenic storage of hydrogen as a liquid, because of its substantially lower temperature.

Regarding the topic raised in the original post--I believe a good argument can be made for using H₂ as an energy storage medium, in comparison to batteries, super capacitors, pumped storage, etc. Research has been occurring recently regarding harnessing the hydrogen transport system in photosynthesis to generate H₂ from sunlight. Otherwise, you go through the process of solar cells or wind mills and electrolysis to generate the H₂.

--JMM

This is what I explained earlier that I will be safe having my home next to hydrogen storage facility since it far less risky than having next to high pressure liquid notrogen or current hydrogen cylinder in use.

The delay is since we do not have proper catalysis to use sunlight to generate H2 from water. The day we do we will be out of Middle East pressure

Please fogive my ignorance, i have heard of the metal hydride, concept level only, and would apppreciate a reference to upgrade my knowledge please.

The other issue to me is does this metal hydride have to travel from source to sink with the H2 attached and presumably back to the source without the H2? Double the transport costs? Is the transport of a gaseous, liquid or solid nature?

I accept the discussion regarding the dangers of H2, we are not talking about airships. This should be relatively safe.

As I do not understand the mechanism i cannot comment further until I have read the material and any backup needed. Possibly a useful idea.

Brian

Sleepy,

A valid question. Consider the metal hydrides to be in a form similar to a very porous powder, in which the gas is free to migrate but the metal hydrides are unlikely to move. Call this a metal hydride matrix. The Hydrogen gas gets absorbed onto the exposed surfaces of the matrix. The pressures at which this occurs are typically below 150 or 200 PSI (compare that to a typical compressed Nitrogen or Oxygen cylinder at 2000 PSI). As the Hydrogen gets absorbed onto the surfaces, it packs so tightly that you can get about the same amount of Hydrogen stored as you would if you used an empty cylinder and ten times the pressure by itself. To get the Hydrogen out, you have to draw the pressure down and warm up the hydride matrix.

I know the general outline, but not the intimate details. Hope this helps. You should be able to find much more detail with some on-line searches also.

--JMM