Hydrogen

[Yenn]

Scomo's energy minister has told us today that the government is going to spend big dollops of money on Hydrogen and carbon sequestering.

He also said that there were two ways of making hydrogen, that is by treating natural gas and then having to do something with the by product of carbon, or by electrolysis. Electrolysis seems to be the obvious way to go. We have vast quantities of sea water which could be used and the by product would be salt, which i suppose could be taken back out to sea and dumped.

The minister said that it would not be all green hydrogen, which is hydrogen produced by electrolysis using solar electricity, but would include hydrogen from gas and coal produced electricity.

I cannot see much green or eco friendly in producing hydrogen for export to Japan and Korea unless we do it with our abundant solar power. Given that it takes a lot of energy to  get the hydrogen into a form that can be transported I would consider it more efficient and eco friendly for Japan and Korea to produce hydrogen using our coal at their point of use.

What our government is proposing is something to make us, the voters think they are doing something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while they are not really thinking through what it is all really about. No matter what happens Japan and Korea will be getting hydrogen from Australia at a cheaper rate than Australians will and once again our government is giving our industrial competitors a big hand out. just as they have done with the natural gas.

[Old Koreelah]

The Hydrogen Economy looks attractive, but several knowledgeable sources have poured cold water on its potential to be more efficient than renewable-charged batteries, where most of the smart money seems to be going.

 

The LNP always poured scorn on the idea of government “picking winners”, but that is exactly what they are doing here.

Despite the green rhetoric, they admit much of the H2 will be coming from fossil fuels. 

This is just another way of subsidizing their mates in that old sector.

[facthunter]

Another Con act directed at the "appearance of doing something" that will fool NONE of the knowledgeable people on the matter through out the world.  The Carbon sequestration red herring has been around for years now. They get their orders from the Coal and GAS lobby. It's absurd to get hydrogen from HydroCARBONS when it's in water and the O2 is needed and not a problem like Carbon is. . These con artist's should be locked up. They've already cost us untold  damage actual and reputational.. Nev

[pmccarthy]

To extract hydrogen you need very pure water. Not sea water. Water is already a scarce resource.

[octave]

13 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

To extract hydrogen you need very pure water. Not sea water. Water is already a scarce resource.

New catalyst efficiently produces hydrogen from seawater

 

Stanford researchers create hydrogen fuel from seawater

[onetrack]

You need water that contains an electrolyte to be able to electrolyse it - and a bit of salt in the water is ideal. But seawater contains around 3% salt, so that salt level is too high for effective electrolysis.

The catalyst experiment may work in a lab, but there's no indication it can be scaled up to be commercially viable.

 

The simple problem is, it take sizeable amounts of electricity to electrolyse water to get free hydrogen - and then you need complex systems to prevent it reforming into water again, if it comes into contact with air.

The hydrogen fuel proposals are simply costly and contain exotic solutions to major problems with hydrogen - in extraction, in storage, and in transport. I see no gain in trying to launch a "hydrogen economy".

 

Japan, and at least two of the major Japanese automotive manufacturers seem to be intent on chasing the hydrogen economy dream.

But I gather that Japan is intent on securing hydrogen fuel from the methane hydrates buried in the sedimentary deposits of many continental margins. But even then, mining these hydrates is a risky and expensive business.

 

https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/energy-production/frozen-fuel4.htm

[octave]

8 hours ago, onetrack said:

The catalyst experiment may work in a lab, but there's no indication it can be scaled up to be commercially viable.

 

I think it is a bit premature to rule it out at this point, certainly there are many people working on it and there seems to be great optimism.   I think the extraction is a little further on than just a few bubbles in a laboratory.         https://www.offshore-energy.biz/nel-hydrogen-to-deliver-poshydon-electrolysis-system/ 

 

I think the energy solution will not be one solution but many solutions.   Although I am not wildly enthusiastic about hydrogen at this stage it would be crazy to rule it out.   

 

 

This is quite interesting and shows that there is some use to this technology at least as a small scale demonstration.

 

First boat to make its own hydrogen fuel from seawater

 

 

I don't think there will be anyone solution to our future energy needs and it is definitely  too early to "wont work, so just don't bother" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[spacesailor]

My brother tried this hydrogen to elecric motor, without success, ' not enough umpth ' to push a 24 ft double Kauri planked heavy cruiser.

spacesailor

[onetrack]

And then we also have the HHO snake-oil floggers, who continue their speil and sales of their zero-value product, as if it's the biggest revolution the world has ever seen ....

[Bruce Tuncks]

Once I tried making hydrogen from a Dunlite wind-generator. You can electrolize water quite easily, and I found that the carbon rode from dry-cells were good electrodes. Alas, the efficiency was about 3 percent from my crude setup.  I have read that much higher efficiencies are possible, so hydrogen will be a future fuel for sure. 

But I remember that NASA tried fuel-cells in satellites for years before abandoning them...  does anybody know about this?

Edited April 22, 2021 by Bruce Tuncks

[octave]

53 minutes ago, onetrack said:

And then we also have the HHO snake-oil floggers, who continue their speil and sales of their zero-value product, as if it's the biggest revolution the world has ever seen ....

 

So to be clear the Poshydon test will definitely fail?    What will be the way in which it fails?    I find it amazing that you can pronounce that the technology to electrolyze sea water either by coated electrodes or forward osmosis to be totally commercially impossible ever.  Whether it could ever be a productive contributor is something yet to be proved or disproved.   The boat travelling around the world at the moment utilizing solar and hydrogen produced from seawater filtered through forward osmosis is intriguing and surely must have some commercial use.  

[facthunter]

When you have extra power at times when it's a nuisance that is the time to make your hydrogen by electrolysis. Solar is DC current already.  Nev

[Yenn]

Joh b'Jelke Peterson is laughing in his grave. maybe he was correct after all.

[nomadpete]

Coal fired power stations, generally have a hydrogen generator. I know this because, years ago, there were a couple of explosions in power stations. . Apparently, the membrane between the electrodes failed and the transducers monitoring the process also failed. The failure mode allowed storage of the last received valid data ( a common thing). So after the transducers failed, the readings remained 'normal'. Then the membrane failed. Nobody knew that the oxygen produced was mixing nicely with the hydrogen until it exploded.

 

Just saying that hydrogen has been commercially electrolysed for many years. Its viable when nobody is metering the energy used in the process. Excess solar power comes to mind as a viable source.

[octave]

The thing I love about these forums is that it prompts me to do a lot of reading.   

 

I have been reading about pilot plants that produce hydrogen form treated wastewater using renewables.   An added bonus is the the oxygen created is used in the aeriation process in the water treatment.  

[onetrack]

Octave, no I wasn't putting down the Poshydon test. I was making the point that many labs in Universities come up with solutions in their labs that, many times, do not become commercially viable.

 

As to the "HHO floggers", I was referring to the people selling hydrogen generators for cars and the people selling "Carbon Clean" systems to decoke engines - with mysterious descriptions, stating they use a special, British, "Hydrogen-Oxygen" process to decoke engines. What they simply do is trickle water through the idling engine, and make it sound like it's an exclusive, newly-discovered, exotic process. 

[facthunter]

I had a real dog Chevrolet (6) motor that had more carbon in  than I've ever seen before and I got it hot and revved it and poured water down the carb for about a minute or five and later took the head off and most of the carbon was gone. I reckon water Meth would do this and use on take off. Nev

[spacesailor]

Is that Subaru preasure can, that you spray into the carburetor, also, 'Water + Alcohol ' ?.

I've only one can left !.

So

It,s Mine, not to be shared !. LoL

spacesailor

[Bruce Tuncks]

Yep, I reckon the time I foolishly ran a borrowed lawnmower on methanol, I inadvertently gave it a de-coke. But to this day, I dunno why the governing mechanism failed with the methanol, such that it over-revved on the stuff.

[facthunter]

Two strokes when leaned right out will do revs you wouldn't believe. Even IF the plug is shorted out the motor just revs like mad and it often chucks a rod.  Nev

[Yenn]

That is how I can tell that I am running out of fuel with my chainsaw and whippersnipper. Revs go up, then it stops.There was never any hydrogen when I was working around power stations in the sixties. Don't know why they would need it. They pulverise the coal, so it is nearly an explosive when injected into the boiler.

[facthunter]

Wheat dust will explode. Nev

[spacesailor]

Even ' soap powder '.

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Really?   Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

You can drown in wheat , so if you ever fall into a silo, don't struggle!

If you consider the density of wheat and the density of a person, this is obvious.