Hydrogen

In this page I will discuss the way hydrogen can be produced and used as a replacement for oil and natural gas.

Hydrogen will become the fuel of choice when oil reserves become in short supply and thus too expensive for common use. Under the hydrogen economy, pure hydrogen will be produced, distributed, and sold as oil is now. When this happens is not known. It appears to be on the horizon considering that oil discoveries and reserves are not keeping up with the world's demand. Even as oil reserves are dwindling, populous countries like China are now demanding significant greater amounts of oil.

Consider this. mankind has only been using oil and natural gas for about 125 years and we can see the end of these reserves. In a millennium there will certainly be no oil remaining. Will there be a population on the earth who lives like we do? The world will need a fuel for transportation. Nuclear power is the only energy source I can see that will be able to supply ample energy as far out as there will be people on this earth. I think we should fully develop it. Otherwise there will be wars on wars to fight for the last drop.

About 7.8 million metric tonnes (17.6 billion pounds) of hydrogen are produced in the United States today, enough to power 20-30 million cars or 5-8 million homes. Nearly all of this hydrogen is used by industry in refining, treating metals, and processing foods.

At the present time there is a lot of action towards fuel-cell automobiles. But several difficulties exist, as shown below. Fuel-cell engines are not yet very durable. They are still very expensive, and as shown below General Motors fuel cell engines are engineered for only a 50,000 mile lifetime. Coupled with a short life time and a very high cost engine makes the hydrogen fuel cell engine not yet feasible.

Also the supply of hydrogen is mainly achieved from steam reforming of natural gas. This is not a reliable future for hydrogen supply. Natural gas is not too plentiful in the United States and will be too expensive if expanded usage for vehicle fuels is enacted. Moreover, hydrogen made from hydrolysis of water is only about 60% efficient. This does not bode well as a method to obtain hydrogen. This is especially deleterious when using renewables, since they only have capacity factors of 20% or less.

Enabled by GENERAL MOTORS' fourth-generation fuel cell propulsion system, the Equinox Fuel Cell is a fully-functional crossover vehicle, engineered for 50,000 miles of life.

Hydrogen does not exist in a free chemical state on earth. It must be extracted from either water or fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, or coal. The latter are hydrocarbon fuels to begin with. To get great quantities of hydrogen, it makes no sense to take hydrogen from hydrocarbon fuels. These fuels give off their heat through the combustion process.

produces 51,571 BTU/lb or 120,000 kJ/kg of lower heating value energy. Splitting it to get hydrogen requires the same amount of energy. But the process of splitting it is not 100% efficient so it requires considerably more.

There are two methods available to obtain free state hydrogen from water, and there is a method to get hydrogen from natural gas. :

The current light water commercial nuclear reactors cannot supply heat energy high enough in temperature for the thermochemical process of splitting water to get hydrogen.

In any process of separating hydrogen from its water molecule, more energy is required then is gotten back from the hydrogen used as a fuel. But it is necessary to get fuel in a form that can be carried in a vehicle or airplane tank as well as a pipeline for home heating and cooking.

Comparison of the electrolysis, thermochemical methods to and SMR to produce hydrogen.

Electrolysis requires the generation of electric energy to produce hydrogen. Water electrolysis takes place as described in most chemistry books. Many commercial companies manufacturer electrolyzers to carry out the process of splitting water into its components of oxygen and hydrogen. The two step process is the following:

These efficiencies are given as examples of what they might be, recognizing that each can vary according to the individual system efficiencies.

I believe this is an over blown process to get hydrogen from water. It might be better than electrolysis, but at any rate no process can split water with out supplying the energy to do so. It would help full if the process is more efficient that electrolysis, but it may not be. Also it needs electric current to work and that will certainly not come from solar, which is not a cost effective method to get electric energy.

'Giant leap' for clean energy

Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year. (Yes but gathering and concentrating it is not an efficient or economical process).

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

'Just the beginning'

Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. (Did you ever hear of someone having excess solar from a PV system that has a capacity factor only 15%?) Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The project is part of the MIT Energy Initiative, a program designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. MITEI Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery in the Nocera lab demonstrates that moving up the transformation of our energy supply system to one based on renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic science."

The success of the Nocera lab shows the impact of a mixture of funding sources - governments, philanthropy, and industry. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years.

The Department of Energy’s multi-year research, development, and demonstration plan should address how best to partner with industry to create robust, efficient, and cost-effective wind-electrolysis-hydrogen systems that will be ready for deployment as the distributed hydrogen infrastructure begins to develop. This is particularly important as there needs to be a research and development emphasis on optimizing wind-electrolysis-hydrogen

My comment: Wind power operates in the US at only a capacity factor of about 20%. Wind will never produce a significant about of hydrogen. Why commit a lot of money trying to develop wind power to produce hydrogen? And distributed wind-hydrogen refueling stations? The wind site would take much to much area at each location. And the sites for refueling stations are not usually windy locations.

The Thermochemical process is in a development state. The high temperature heat output from a nuclear reactor can be generated without going through a heat to work cycle. In thermodynamic terms the heat energy is not diminished by the Carnot Cycle efficiency. More information about this subject can be obtained from the report Efficiency of hydrogen production system using alternative nuclear energy technologies, By Bilge Yildiiz, and Mujid S. Kazimi, MIT nuclear engineering department.

This is the most used process today. It supplies more than 90% of the hydrogen produced in the United States. Natural gas and steam are heated in a tube containing a chemical catalysis. The products are hydrogen and carbon dioxide CO2. SMR is not a desirable method to produce hydrogen for auto hydrogen fuel or electric energy production because it uses natural gas which is in short supply and also produces the green house gas CO2.

The Nuclear-Hydrogen Economy?

Some good news, and some bad news . . .

One of the crucial limiting factors for converting to hydrogen-powered energy now is the (primarily energy) cost of producing hydrogen. The good news is there seems to be a way to do it efficiently using current technology. The bad news is, it involves nuclear power

Link: Green Car Congress: Milestone for H2 Production by High-Temperature Electrolysis.

This is a lousy and wasteful way to get hydrogen, but they have more natural gas then they know what to do with so why not waste it?

Hydrogen Power Plant Plan for UAE

Jan 17 - Independent, The; London (UK) Hydrogen Energy, a joint venture of BP and Rio Tinto, is in talks to build what would be the world's first hydrogen power plant in the United Arab Emirates.

The $2bn (1bn) project, which is being studied by the BP-Rio venture and Abu Dhabi Future Energy, the Government-owned alternative energy company, is seen as a possible answer to the emirate's rapidly rising energy needs. Demand for oil and gas in the Middle East has skyrocketed in recent years as massive profits derived from rising oil prices - Brent crude closed yesterday at $88.72 per barrel - has fuelled a construction boom.

The hydrogen power plant, which converts natural gas into hydrogen that can be burned to generate power while the resulting carbon dioxide is pumped underground using carbon capture and sequestration technology, would be the first of its kind in the world. It could produce up to 7 per cent of the power needs of the emirate, which is expected to announce Hydrogen Energy as its partner next week

Hydrogen has physical properties that may cause embrittlement of some high-strength steel piping materials and components such as compressors and valves that are commonly used today to transport natural gas. Even if these problems could be overcome, today's natural gas pipelines may not be available or capable of handling the additional volumes of hydrogen projected. Therefore, it is likely that significant capital investments in a dedicated hydrogen delivery infrastructure will be required before a hydrogen economy is practicable.

My comment: This means that the hydrogen electrolyzers to convert water to hydrogen by electric energy should be located on the refueling sites.

Thermo to hydrogen overall efficiency using Modular High temperature gas cooled reactor (MHR-ST)

The comparison of these two are quite revealing in that the Thermochemical conversion of generated heat or electric energy strongly favors the Thermochemical process. As usual, the advantages are encumbered by much more difficult to construct high temperature gas cooled reactor system.

Of course the generation of electric energy by wind or solar does not suffer the Carnot Cycle efficiency, but I do not believe that either of these methods could generate enough electric energy to operate our transportation fleets. And the cost of electric energy from the renewables is too high.

Equivalent cost of hydrogen energy to a gallon of gasoline using electrolysis of water at 50% efficiency

It is obvious that reliance on wind or solar trough, solar PV's to energize a hydrogen refueling station is not a wise choice.

Here is the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CAFCP) explanation of where hydrogen comes from.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and can be found in water, fossil fuels and other sources. It bonds with other elements to form commonly known molecules such as water, methane (natural gas) and methanol. Hydrogen is produced by unlocking the chemical bonds in the molecules that form these substances. The water molecule (H 20), for example, consists of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom. One way to produce hydrogen is to break water apart through a process called electrolysis. In this process, electricity is used in the presence of a catalyst to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in the water. Another approach is to liberate the hydrogen by "reforming" fuels such as natural gas, gasoline or methanol. Currently, our members are exploring many options for producing hydrogen.

My comments: Liberating hydrogen from reforming fuels such as natural gas, gasoline, and methanol is wasteful. These fuels are expensive to get in the first place and are in short supply. To reform them further reduces the energy yield of these items. They did not say what many options their members are exploring to produce hydrogen. At a meeting I attended they emphatically ruled out the nuclear option. I suspect they intend renewables as the energy source to provide hydrogen. Of course renewables will not begin provide a significant energy base for transportation vehicles.

The CAFPC considers it a major accomplishment when they get a lot of people showing up to ride in fuel cell powered autos.

To those in the know, "hydrogen economy" has always meant nuclear power. The idea dates from the early 1970's and was developed by engineers; it goes like this. We're running out of oil, but breeder reactors will give us almost unlimited, cheap nuclear power. The problem is that nukes make electricity, which is not so good for cars, trucks airplanes etc. So lets make hydrogen with nuclear power and have hydrogen cars. In 1973, Scientific American published this plan for "Freedom CAR."

"The Economic Future of Nuclear Power" by the University of Chicago, August 2004

This study reviews the prospects of hydrogen as a transportation fuel that would reduce U. S. dependence on foreign oil and have potentially large environmental benefits. Mass production costs need to be reduced by roughly one-half to two-thirds to achieve widespread adoption of hydrogen.

The environmental benefits of hydrogen would be tempered if fossil fuels, with their attendant carbon emissions, were used to produce the hydrogen. Carbon emissions from oil would then simply be replaced by emissions from fossil-fuel power generation or steam methane reforming.

Nuclear energy, on the other hand, would provide a pollution-free input to hydrogen production. A hydrogen economy, accompanied by more stringent control of carbon emissions, could greatly expand the demand for nuclear power.

Below is a is a published paper by a group of scientists from the US and abroad. The paper describes a nuclear reactor plant which has the ability to provide hydrogen for the worlds future energy needs. This concept will be necessary some day when oil and natural gas reserves no longer meet the energy needs of the US and the world as well. It is a concept we should have started yesterday to get a leg up in the problem.

Bruce W. Spencer, Richard D. Doctor, and David C. Wade, Argonne National Laboratory

The goals of the proposed concept are to achieve an expanded role for nuclear energy; to extend its applicability into the non-electric two-thirds of the primary energy market; and to provide a sustainable global energy supply architecture with fission generated heat coupled to those modern energy converters (gas turbines and fuel cells) that will already be in widespread use in the decades following 2020.

A system is proposed for the utilization of nuclear energy to produce hydrogen, electricity, potable water and other marketable resources in a self-contained, modular plant featuring zero carbon emissions. The reference process for hydrogen production (and oxygen byproduct) is the Sulfur-Iodine thermochemical water cracking cycle. This cycle requires process heat at up to 900 C temperature which is provided by a fast neutron spectrum, heavy liquid metal cooled converter reactor designed for near autonomous operation during a 15-year refueling interval. The reactor is radically simplified and of modular construction for economic competitiveness, and is additionally designed for proliferation resistance and passive safety. It features maximum fission conversion of fuel, and operating lifetime, minimum waste. The reactor heats a gaseous heat transport medium for operation of the water cracking cycle, The waste heat is used for desalinization and process heating. The potable water produced is used for local consumption and to feed the water cracking process. A fraction of the hydrogen and oxygen products of this process are used to power a combustion turbine cycle for high efficiency base or load-following electricity generation. The main portion of the hydrogen is available to power fuel cells envisioned to be used in the transportation sector.

The Generation IV Roadmap identified reactor system concepts for producing electricity and hydrogen that excelled at meeting the goals of superior economics, safety, sustainability, proliferation resistance, and physical security.

One of these reactor system concepts, the Very High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor System (VHTR), is also uniquely suited for producing hydrogen without the consumption of fossil fuels or the emission of greenhouse gases.

DOE has selected this system for the Next Generation Nuclear Power (NGNP) Project, a project to demonstrate emissions-free nuclear-assisted electricity and hydrogen production by 2017.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He stated the following:

Here's why the environmental community isn't ecstatic over President Bush's call to spend more than $1 billion over five years to develop a hydrogen-powered car to wean us from our addiction to Middle East oil. Certainly, fuel cells that use renewable resources like wind and solar power to extract hydrogen from water promise America a safe, clean energy solution. However, in a SOP (standard operating procedure) to the energy industry, the White House wants to extract hydrogen instead from coal and natural gas (without controlling carbon emissions), thereby increasing global warming and fouling our landscape. Worse, the president wants to build a new generation of nuclear power plants specifically for hydrogen production.

This is the same Robert Kennedy Jr. who preaches conservation and renewables, and then flies around the country in his private jet and rails against the 130 unit wind turbine installation proposed for installation off the coast of Martha's Vineyard where he lives. Along with John Kerry, they don't want a wind farm in their back yard. The Kennedy's live abundantly off of old Joe Kennedy's ill gotten gains, but they want us to conserve and live like paupers.

It is not possible to take the environmentalist's proposals seriously that wind and solar can produce hydrogen to power even a single city. No conceivable mix of solar and wind could adequately produce electric energy and hydrogen quantities sufficient for our transportation vehicles.

Now if we can keep the Democrats out of the presidency long enough so they will not be able to scratch the progress of nuclear power hydrogen/electric energy production systems as payback to the environmentalists, we can make real progress. This my friends will wean us from Mideast oil.

Throughout this web Site it can be seen that everyone including the religions and environmentalists talk about the fuel cell-hydrogen system holding the future to our energy supply. However, the method of procuring hydrogen as a fuel has been left out. Also I believe that hydrogen should be not be obtained from fossil fuels. These are not capable of fulfilling the worlds long term energy supply.

Over time the proposed nuclear-driven energy supply architecture would displace fossil and provide energy to support a global energy infrastructure meeting all aspects of sustainable development - secure longevity, ecological compatibility and social acceptability. With concomitant institutional innovation it might succeed to fuel an increase in GDP/capital for the 80% of humanity which was not reached by the Industrial Revolution. [1]

REFERENCE [1] G. Bruntland, Chairman, World Commission on Environment and Development, (1987), Our Common Future (The Bruntland Report), Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom.