Fwd from the Homestead mailing list: >Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 01:14:40 -0800 >From: Bill Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "Homestead mailing list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Fuel Cells: What's In It For Big Oil > >The oil companies are really pouring money into finding ways to >strip hydrogen off petroleum molecules using machines that would fit >inside a vehicle. Devices that do this are called "reformers" and >are pivotal to understanding where all this is leading. The key to >reformers lies in the nature of liquid hydrogen, which requires a >strong pressure tank to contain it. It even leaks slowly right >through metal, so it should never be stored for long, and the tank >must have a ventilated housing. > >Liquid hydrogen is really bulky compared to hydrocarbon fuels, >requiring a car with a 100 gallon pressurized gas tank in order to >have the same range as a regular car. Having this much pressurized >hydrogen on board would be somewhat more dangerous than gasoline in >the event of a collision, but I don't think modern city drivers >really need to have such a long range from a single fill-up. > >If the hydrogen atoms are stored in molecules like ethanol or octane >then the same number of hydrogen atoms can take up much less space. >This is the idea behind reformers. By heating the fuel with >catalysts like platinum, these miniature chemical factories produce >hydrogen as needed. > >As long as we're willing to accept either a larger, fortified >hydrogen tank or a car with a shorter range, we can use hydrogen >produced by "a variety of means" in our cars. There's a process for >producing hydrogen by splitting hydrogen iodide that can use waste >heat from a nuclear reactor as the energy source. Individuals could >use solar cells to power electrolysis right at home. There's no >limit to possible ways to produce hydrogen that don't involve the >oil companies at all. But all of these options require a hydrogen >tank. > >If they can only succeed in frightening people into turning against >the idea of a hydrogen tank, then there's a future for the oil >companies in a hydrogen-powered world. That wouldn't be hard at >all. I think the 100th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster isn't >far away. What a great opportunity for yet another generation to >learn that you should never carry hydrogen with you, but rather >should invest in a horrifically expensive refinery-in-a-box that >will produce hydrogen from things like ethanol, methanol, or >hydrocarbon fuel, or even sugar syrup. > >This is why I sometimes come down hard on posts glorifying reformer >technology. If we allow ourselves to think that you must have a >compact reformer in your car, whether for convenience or safety, it >will forever eliminate every really neat method ever invented for >producing hydrogen, and we'll be forced to make a Hobson's choice >among a tiny set of options. It's not hard to see that the fossil >fuel option will be the cheapest, just as it is now, and the oil >companies will be re-enthroned at a higher level. > >If they succeed in banning IC engines, which run fabulously on >hydrogen or virtually anything, and they succeed in banning hydrogen >tanks too, then we'll be locked into a system that puts more new >carbon in the air than we do now, since people will inevitably >choose the cheap fossil-fuel reformer from the tiny palette of fake >options. > >Bill >S. Oregon coast
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