On Jun 21, 2006, at 8:52 PM, Shane Mage wrote:
Eugene Coyle wrote:
The electricity for producing hydrogen is most likely to come from
coal or nuclear generation. Hydrogen is not a panacea -- it is not
even an energy source but rather a storage medium.
It is precisely because hydrogen is a storage medium that the
electricity
to produce it (by electrolysis) on a mass scale will come, will
have to
come, from wind turbines and solar cells. Because the best wind and
solar locations are far from the main energy-usage centers and the
inputs are irregularly available, wind and solar energy are relatively
uneconomic as inputs to the grid (which is anyway, because of wastage
in the transmission process, an inefficient means of supplying
electricity). But since hydrogen can be delivered, with insignificant
losses, to its point of use, the solar/wind/hydrogen process becomes
the only practicable solution to the energy/global warming crisis. Of
course monopoly capital, totally invested in nuclear/petroleum/coal,
will never in time consent to the massive Manhattan Project-scale
investments needed for the solar/wind/hydrogen transition. Either
it gets overthrown or, as Michael said
(4) we're screwed.
Shane Mage
Well, we are screwed if, is you say, the only practible solution to
the energy/global warming crisis is solar/wind hydrogen. Luckily it
is not.
I believe the limited production of hydrogen in the future will come
from coal and nuclear generated electricity. I hope that doesn't
happen, but we can see it pre-figured in the production of ethanol.
Coal is the current choice of energy to turn corn into ethanol.
That may be constrained because a lot of the corn grown -- in say
Illinois - is in non-attainment areas for air quality.
I'm not sure what you have in mind when you say hydrogen can be
deliverd to point of use with insignificant losses. It is said to be
very hard to deliver by pipeline without large losses -- so if it
were produced by wind power in the Dakotas it couldn't be delivered
in LA for automobile use.
To me hydrogen seems to be another technological fix held out to
amuse and divert us from any significant change.
Gene Coyle
