Here's an idea: What about turning all of that electricity generated by a wind turbine into hydrogen? Right there in the wind turbine itself. Using water and electrolysis. If hydrogen truly is going to be the portable energy source (for fuel cells) would it not make the most sense to produce the hydrogen at the source rather than losing electrical energy as it is transmitted through transmission lines? (Producing massive amounts of hydrogen would probably also be a great idea at the site of nuclear reactors. Free oxygen released into the atmosphere would probably not hurt either!) The concept is already in play. One interesting obstacle is what occurs when metals are exposed to hydrogen. I think the process is called "hydrogenation" and it makes metal brittle and weak. But isolated from the tower by an isolating layer of plastic, the large mast that makes the big wind turbine tower becomes a nice storage tank for compressed hydrogen. Compressing the metal tube from within would actually make the mast stronger - but only up to the point that the stress might make the tower stressed - but otherwise would make the tubular mast stiffer.
On 6/21/08, Louise Power <power_lou...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > From what I hear, one of the really big problems in the US is that no new > refineries have been built here in 30 years. What's up with that? Answer: > NIMBY. Even if we get more oil, what are we going to do with it? > > Also, think oil shale and oil sands. I hear that they're doing some > imaginative things with oil shale, such as heating it while it's still in > the ground and then pumping from there rather than excavating huge holes in > the ground.. Also, apparently Canada is right on top of the oil sands > business. > > > From: quinta@clearwire.netTo: power_lou...@hotmail.com; > fh...@townandcountryins.com; ot@texascavers.comDate: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 > 06:56:29 -0500Subject: Re: [ot_caving] an option to drilling > > > > Fritz, > My complaint is that we started after many and did not devote enough > government resources to it. Most of Europe did. Even Spain was ahead of us > at one time and still is I think. We lost sight of the OPEC oil problem in a > hurry. There is a new company in Idaho? (if my memory is right) that is from > Spain and is building turbins. I think it opened in the last year. We are > behind on a lot of this. The states that are doing well are the ones with > state incentives. There was a new Senate hearing on this sort of thing - > ummm! > > This is from the BWEA in the UK. > > It is clear to see how much wind energy has taken off in some countries, > notably Denmark, Germany and Spain, the first of which now gets 20% of it's > electricity from wind turbines, compared to our 1%. However, the UK has the > largest wind energy resources of any country in Europe, and now that the > European market's economies of scale have driven the price of wind energy > down, the UK is set for a massive expansion of clean energy. > For more information about wind energy in Europe read this report > commissioned by the European Union in 2004. Also visit www.ewea.org our > European sister organisation. > They speak in terms of TWh - I need to look up what that is past MW. > The exploitable onshore wind resource for the EU-25 is > conservatively estimated at 600 TWh and the offshore > wind resource up to 3,000 TWh; the upper end of this far > exceeding the EU-15's entire electricity consumption. > The European Wind Atlas produced by the Danish national > research laboratory, Forskningscenter Risø, gives a > good overview of the EU potential. An offshore version is > also available. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Give this to a friend: ot-subscr...@texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: ot-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: ot-h...@texascavers.com
