OT Hydrogen economy, not?

But the neocons hate the French with extremem venom, because the French didn't participate in the insanity of Bush's crusade.

Cheers! Rich

Just flush nothing but clear water for about a month, while you use the facilities at the restaurant just up the block. ;-)

Good Luck! Rich

Not true -- salt attacks concrete itself. I've got a patch in the basement where it's kind of soft and flaking as a result of a sodium chlorate spill -- admittedly, a somewhat different and much stronger (i.e. more soluble) salt, but the same idea. Same reason you're recommended to go easy on the salt in winter on fresh concrete. Sadly, I don't remember what that [chemical] reason is.

Surrounded by salt, a concrete plug probably wouldn't even cure, but on top of backfill up to the rock level it would be okay.

Tim

I wonder what will happen when the Great Unwashed Masses find out that ethanol == moonshine? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

It's a nice idea, but sadly, fuel reprocessing is VERY energy intensive. By reprocessing fuel, you only about triple -- nowhere near 32-fold -- the energy you can get out of the stuff. And it's expensive. Might as well just dump the shit and mine more new fuel, which we have plenty of (because we aren't using much nuclear power) and it's still cheap.

Tim

Homer is at the school science fair. "Alcohol-fueled car, huh?" He imagines himself and his car at the pump: "one for you, one for me, one for you..." "Allllgggh..."

Tim

I doubt there will be enough platinum. It's already in serious use as part of the Haber process, which is vital for growing food around the world. If energy not only tears a huge gaping hole in food production through conversion of croplands to the purpose, but then also removes it from continued use in the Haber process for fertilizer production (90% or so of it made that way, I seem to recall), ... wow.

Jon

Well said Neon John!

OT question.... do you see nuclear engineering field exploding soon? Good area for a student to study?

AFAIK we all make our own. Just requires eating enough beans for dinner :-)

But there's no method to collect the fuel? Or is there?

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I would LOVE to do what you have done..... go off grid.... but it would be a major investment in time money and energy for me.

I rent...don't own any land or even a house... so would have to buy some land somewhere suitable for small off grid cabin (proper design of course).

The engineering and logistics of it would be quite an undertaking.... not impossible.... but not something I could do over night.

What would be nice is if there was equipment one could buy or make that was portable and could be used in apartment/rent situation..... grid tie systems, etc

Yes, I can dispute one fact! conflict of interest!.

Well, most of those problems are solvable with enough technology. The real problem is the relative cost of production. Electricity>H2 is very inefficient.

I consider hydrogen half red herring to keep our febble minds off of better prospects, and half pork barrel. Whenever gov and industry gets together, it's never in our best interrests.

Nah, there's enough platinum, or lithium (for batteries) or whatever around, it's just that it'll get really, really expensive as that supply gets put into major use.

Tim

That's just about what everybody said about them 50 years ago.

Except for some control details, the internal combustion engine hasn't changed much in 100 years. Crank, pistons, rings, poppet valves, spark plugs, camshaft, clutch of some sort, geared transmission, water jacket, radiator, oil pump. That's impressive.

John

Now don't forget the Stanley Steamer:

Supposedly fine cars and if they'd had some more business savvy, who knows, the technology could have developed further. In fact they worked similar to a hybrid. The burn process only generated 25 horses or so but the boilers held enough for an extended sprint that would leave a few modern cars in the dust.

That's METHANE - a totally different animal. And ETHANOL can also be made from Cellulose - it is not simple, and not commercially feasible at this point.

Methanol is also terribly corrosive. Extremely difficult to make an internal combustion engine work well on it and also work long.

As a feedstock for a hydrogen fuel cell it can be decomposed - but you still have the carbon disposal problem.

"Hydrogen economy" is an oxymoron. Nobody wants to talk about the energy sources to *make* hydrogen, nobody wants to talk about the *energy losses* in making hydrogen, etc. And you rightly point out that there is no good way to store hydrogen, and no good way to distribute hydrogen (points usually avoided).

I was listening to a chemist say that they really didn't know whether or not there would be enough, given a strong enough commitment to using fuel cells. Not necessarily an absolute authority, of course, but good enough for conversation right now.

You have any figures to make a case one way or another? I'm curious if that guy was close to right.

Jon