What happened to fuel-cell technology?

[rogerk8]

Hi!

I wonder what happened to fuel-cell technology.

Is it so simple that hydrogen just couldn't be kept non-hazardous in the cars?

Or what happened?

I mean, let's face it, what more environmental-friendly can a fuel be?

The only exhaust being pure water.

And in the same time we could actually make some use of those ugly and incredibly inefficient wind-mills.

The wind-mills producing hydrogen by electrolysis and, most importantly, not "just in time".

Because after the superconductor-coils fiasco, we still need the energy to be produced just when we need it while we cannot store it (the only exception being water-power plants).

Roger

 

[mfb]

"superconductor-coils fiasco"?
Currently, batteries are usually cheaper and more reliable for cars. Fuel cells have some applications, however.

 

[rogerk8]

"superconductor-coils fiasco"?
Currently, batteries are usually cheaper and more reliable for cars. Fuel cells have some applications, however.

Ok, but you still have to charge the batteries, right?

So where should we take that energy from, you mean?

It's like trains.

I love traveling by train.

But they don't go on air, unfortunatelly.

Roger
PS
Maybe I should explain your question. After superconduction was discovered everybody was excited about the possibillity to store energy in superconductive coils. But that failed, as you probably know.

 

[mfb]

Ok, but you still have to charge the batteries, right?

So where should we take that energy from, you mean?

You have the same question for fuel cells.
Power management is easier with hydrogen, but then you have conversion and storage losses.

Maybe I should explain your question. After superconduction was discovered everybody was excited about the possibillity to store energy in superconductive coils. But that failed, as you probably know.

Well, there are limited applications...
Better superconductors could change that in the future, but I don't think this is likely.

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi Roger. I work in the fuel cell industry and I can tell you it is still growing. A lot of the government grants and projects for fuel cell demonstrations have dried up but there is still lots of interest in both the automotive market and especially the material handling industry. Another market includes back up power for cell phone towers but I'm not as familiar with that one and I don't think they're as numerous. The automotive market will be slow to develop because of the high cost of the fuel cells and the need for significant infrastructure. For people using fuel cell cars right now, there aren't many places to refuel them. The cost for the fuel is where it needs to be but the cost of the fuel cells for mass production isn't there, and of course the infrastructure has to be developed.

The other industry that is developing is the material handling industry. You may have seen large warehouses with a few hundred trucks backed into loading bay doors. All the large chain stores have these huge warehouses where they pack trucks to go to local stores. The goods of one type come in from factories on one truck and get stocked in the warehouse, while other trucks get loaded with a wide variety of stuff and go out to stores for delivery. These warehouses can employ hundreds of 'lifts' (ie: forklifts) that normally would use batteries. Those batteries are large, heavy, expensive and require removal and charging overnight. Where fuel cells can make a difference is in providing the power for those fork lifts. The lifts are refilled just like your car at a gas station except they use hydrogen gas at pressures to 350 bar. The one company with most of the business providing fuel cell packs to this industry is http://www.plugpower.com/Home.aspx. I understand they're doing ok but not great because they have to compete with batteries and right now the fuel cell packs are a bit more expensive. Regardless, I suspect Plug sells many thousands of fuel cells to the material handling market every year. When compared to batteries, and when taking operations, maintenance and capital costs into consideration, the fuel cells are fairly competitive, but the price has to come down a bit further for them to really take the market away from batteries.

 

[rogerk8]

Hi Roger. I work in the fuel cell industry and I can tell you it is still growing. A lot of the government grants and projects for fuel cell demonstrations have dried up but there is still lots of interest in both the automotive market and especially the material handling industry. Another market includes back up power for cell phone towers but I'm not as familiar with that one and I don't think they're as numerous. The automotive market will be slow to develop because of the high cost of the fuel cells and the need for significant infrastructure. For people using fuel cell cars right now, there aren't many places to refuel them. The cost for the fuel is where it needs to be but the cost of the fuel cells for mass production isn't there, and of course the infrastructure has to be developed.

The other industry that is developing is the material handling industry. You may have seen large warehouses with a few hundred trucks backed into loading bay doors. All the large chain stores have these huge warehouses where they pack trucks to go to local stores. The goods of one type come in from factories on one truck and get stocked in the warehouse, while other trucks get loaded with a wide variety of stuff and go out to stores for delivery. These warehouses can employ hundreds of 'lifts' (ie: forklifts) that normally would use batteries. Those batteries are large, heavy, expensive and require removal and charging overnight. Where fuel cells can make a difference is in providing the power for those fork lifts. The lifts are refilled just like your car at a gas station except they use hydrogen gas at pressures to 350 bar. The one company with most of the business providing fuel cell packs to this industry is http://www.plugpower.com/Home.aspx. I understand they're doing ok but not great because they have to compete with batteries and right now the fuel cell packs are a bit more expensive. Regardless, I suspect Plug sells many thousands of fuel cells to the material handling market every year. When compared to batteries, and when taking operations, maintenance and capital costs into consideration, the fuel cells are fairly competitive, but the price has to come down a bit further for them to really take the market away from batteries.

Hi Q_Goest!

Very interesting story!

But I must confess that I never would have thought of the material handling market. :)

Sounds exciting!

And I am very surprised and glad that the devepment of fuel cell has come so far as you describe.

I thought it actually was a dead technology because noone, not even scientific magazines, has talked about it in decades (there might be a gasoline-fuled/oil automotive lobby here though...).

So I wondered why because the concept is simply brilliant, I think.

Not just due to the only exhaust being pure water but due to the availability while making use of those wind-mills in the same time.

As I see it, anyway.

And this means that it is totally environmental-friendly!

Some people above has complained about the storage problem of hydrogen and such.

Thinking about it like the layman I am, I can appreciate that.

This is even why I ask my question.

Could perhaps you who work in the field perhaps tell me how you have solved the storage problem?

On the other hand, is hydrogen really worse than gasoline when it comes to explosive risks?

I really hope the price will go down so fuel cells will take over.

The capacity of batteries nowadays is astonishing but they are not so simple to produce and will definitelly involve more environmental-unfriendly components than fuel cells.

This is why my perspective on fuel cells is so "brilliant", if I may say so. :)

Because no environmental-unfriendly energy is needed.

And we all know that most of our energy production today is rather environmental-unfriendly.

Me, I hope for fusion power plants.

And it might not be so naive as it sounds. :)

Roger
PS
I think most people do not understand or refuses to understand that even if you have a battery-powered car, you are not so environmental-friendly when you charge it.

 

[kreil]

Hi!

I wonder what happened to fuel-cell technology.

Is it so simple that hydrogen just couldn't be kept non-hazardous in the cars?

Or what happened?

I mean, let's face it, what more environmental-friendly can a fuel be?

The only exhaust being pure water.

This is slightly misleading. Whether you're talking about gasoline, batteries, hydrogen, fuel cells, whatever, you need to consider not only the end fuel consumption, but the origin of the fuel itself. Gasoline may be dirty in end consumption, but in the end we are just pumping some liquid out of the ground and shuttling it around the globe. To synthesize some of the other fuel sources requires a great deal of energy. For example, huge excavators and other gasoline/kerosene/diesel/oil-powered mining equipment is used to harvest some of the metals that get put into batteries. I'm not saying I'm pro-gasoline, simply that there is a lot to consider.

So the reason it fell to the wayside is because of a simple physical fact: hydrogen is unstable, and thus scarce in the atmosphere. In fact, it's so unstable that even storing it after it's made is very dangerous and poses a different set of problems.

This means that the hydrogen fuel needs to be artificially made by any number of methods. So in the end, guess where the energy comes from to make mass amounts of hydrogen (enough to reasonably justify an entire emerging technology)?

Coal-fired power plants. And when you do the math, this whole process ends up being less environmentally friendly than jumping into your Chevy Suburban and gunning it down the road. That's right, the carbon footprint is larger.

This doesn't even take into account the fact that there is an existing economic infrastructure in place for gasoline that will not budge, much less die, easily.

Ultimately, if someone finds a way to produce hydrogen more cheaply, the idea could see a revival. More generally, if someone finds a better way to produce mass quantities of energy more cheaply than coal fired power plants, than you could see big shifts.

This could be as easy as making the efficiency of solar cells go from ~40% to ~80% (the maximum possible efficiency, given the temperature of the photons emitted at the sun's surface, is 86%. Thanks wikipedia.)

 

[rogerk8]

Hi Kreil!

I do not want to be mean but I kind of wonder if you might need stronger glasses ;)

The lines just after the one you so conveniently quoted reads, and I quote myself

And in the same time we could actually make some use of those ugly and incredibly inefficient wind-mills.

The wind-mills producing hydrogen by electrolysis and, most importantly, not "just in time".

Now quoting you

This means that the hydrogen fuel needs to be artificially made by any number of methods. So in the end, guess where the energy comes from to make mass amounts of hydrogen (enough to reasonably justify an entire emerging technology)?

Coal-fired power plants. And when you do the math, this whole process ends up being less environmentally friendly than jumping into your Chevy Suburban and gunning it down the road. That's right, the carbon footprint is larger.

Sounds like you actually are in the oil business...

Roger

 

[kreil]

I read the lines, but I should have emphasized this point more: "enough to reasonably justify an entire emerging technology"

The scope is huge. I don't know the numbers, but I would hazard a guess that wind mills can't make *nearly* enough hydrogen via electrolysis to not only keep up with potential demand, but to drive prices down to make it feasible. And that's the balancing act that must be done.

 

[jim hardy]

Folks far removed from the energy industry generally don't grasp the scale.

The world uses around a cubic mile of oil per year.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3084

From http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/fossil-fuels/joules-btus-quadslets-call-the-whole-thing-off

Prepare for your mind to be wonderfully sobered. To obtain in one year the amount of energy contained in one cubic mile of oil, each year for 50 years we would need to have produced the numbers of dams, nuclear power plants, coal plants, windmills, or solar panels shown here.

,, "here" referring to this graphic from 'theoildrum'

So start today building a hundred windmills every day.
At end of fifty years, if they last that long, you'd have built enough (about 1.6 million) that you could shut off the oil spigot. Well for today's usage anyway (actually 2006's).
But the first half million you built will be getting might rickety by then...
And that's a technology problem not a political one.

But to the subject of the thread -
Hydrogen is awful stuff to handle. I would not ride in the same car with a bottle of 3000 psi hydrogen .
I do like the fuel cell idea when coupled with H2 production by reducing water with aluminum.
http://www.alumifuelinternational.com/company.html
old jim

 

[Q_Goest]

Could perhaps you who work in the field perhaps tell me how you have solved the storage problem?

On the other hand, is hydrogen really worse than gasoline when it comes to explosive risks?

Hi Roger. Regarding storage, there have been a lot of concepts attempted and tested but the primary means of storage today is simply high pressure gas or cryogenic liquid. BMW is toying with combining those two methods and having a cryogenic, high pressure (ie: supercritical) storage tank they call "cryo compressed". These methods all have drawbacks. Gas can be stored indefinately without loss of product but it is VERY high pressure so the potential for catastrophic leaks is significant. Cryogenic hydrogen is low pressure so leaks aren't as severe but it can't be stored for very long and the tank will eventually need to vent to prevent overpressurization. If that tank is in a garage or other enclosure, you end up filling that enclosure with flammable gas. BMW's concept has similar drawbacks to cryogenic storage but it clearly will allow for longer storage times prior to venting. The main issue is how to refill a supercritical, cryogenic storage tank. That for another day.

Other concepts that have been tested include metal hydride storage which has the advantages of low pressure storage at relatively high gas density, but they are expensive. The concept I like the best regards the use of a liquid phase carrier. Basically, the hydrogen is attached to a liquid molecule. When heated to ~ 200 C, the hydrogen is given off and used in the fuel cell and the depleted liquid gets passed on to a storage tank. That depleted liquid can then be removed from the tank, hydrogen 'added' back to it and the liquid recycled back into a vehicle storage tank. More detail here: http://chem.engr.utc.edu/Documents/FuelCell/Disk/Storage/ST9 Cooper.pdf These concepts are still years away from being practical.

Regarding explosive risk, hydrogen is easily ignited (ie: takes very little energy to ignite) and has a very wide explosive range, so even small amounts (~ 4%) of hydrogen in the atmosphere can ignite as can very high concentrations (75%). See for example:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/explosive-concentration-limits-d_423.html

So yes, it is very dangerous. The precautions taken to ensure the safety of the storage and delivery of hydrogen are extreme compared to gasoline for example. And that's an understatement.

 

[Q_Goest]

This is slightly misleading. Whether you're talking about gasoline, batteries, hydrogen, fuel cells, whatever, you need to consider not only the end fuel consumption, but the origin of the fuel itself. Gasoline may be dirty in end consumption, but in the end we are just pumping some liquid out of the ground and shuttling it around the globe. To synthesize some of the other fuel sources requires a great deal of energy. For example, huge excavators and other gasoline/kerosene/diesel/oil-powered mining equipment is used to harvest some of the metals that get put into batteries. I'm not saying I'm pro-gasoline, simply that there is a lot to consider.

So the reason it fell to the wayside is because of a simple physical fact: hydrogen is unstable, and thus scarce in the atmosphere. In fact, it's so unstable that even storing it after it's made is very dangerous and poses a different set of problems.

This means that the hydrogen fuel needs to be artificially made by any number of methods. So in the end, guess where the energy comes from to make mass amounts of hydrogen (enough to reasonably justify an entire emerging technology)?

Coal-fired power plants. And when you do the math, this whole process ends up being less environmentally friendly than jumping into your Chevy Suburban and gunning it down the road. That's right, the carbon footprint is larger.

Hi Kreil. I don't disagree with most of what you say here but today, the vast majority of hydrogen is produced from natural gas, not coal. Because it's made from natural gas, and because of the end to end efficieny of the entire process, hydrogen actually produces a smaller carbon footprint than gasoline powered vehicles.

Some years ago when the hydrogen fuel cell concept had just started out, we had a lot of customers asking for hydrogen that came from a renewable energy source such as an electrolosis process. But today, we don't see that at all. I think the intent has always been to find a renewable source of hydrogen but that's a long way off yet. There are some very interesting concepts out there such as the use of biomass and bacteria to produce hydrogen but they haven't really gone anywhere.

 

[kreil]

Thanks, Q_Goest. Good to know. My information was mainly based on what I learned in a 2006 physics class ("Energy and the Environment"), so I'm not surprised things have progressed a bit.

The scalability requirement just seems daunting. I mean finding a renewable process is difficult enough, but it also has to be one that could be scaled up to the proper levels in order to drive down costs for consumers. I'm rather skeptical that hydrogen can ever overcome such a hurdle barring a huge technological breakthrough.

I've always felt like we should be investing *heavily* in solar cell research to improve efficiency. The energy is there, and there's plenty of it. We just need a bigger rake:

Quick and dirty reference: http://www.ecoworld.com/energy-fuels/how-much-solar-energy-hits-earth.html

"In full sun, you can safely assume about 100 watts of solar energy per square foot. If you assume 12 hours of sun per day, this equates to 438,000 watt-hours per square foot per year. Based on 27,878,400 square feet per square mile, sunlight bestows a whopping 12.2 trillion watt-hours per square mile per year.

With these assumptions, figuring out how much solar energy hits the entire planet is relatively simple. 12.2 trillion watt-hours converts to 12,211 gigawatt-hours, and based on 8,760 hours per year, and 197 million square miles of earth’s surface (including the oceans), the Earth receives about 274 million gigawatt-years of solar energy, which translates to an astonishing 8.2 million “quads” of Btu energy per year.

In case you haven’t heard, a “quad Btu” refers to one quadrillion British Thermal Units of energy, a common term used by energy economists. The entire human race currently uses about 400 quads of energy (in all forms) per year. Put another way, the solar energy hitting the Earth exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by a factor of over 20,000 times."

 

[mfb]

Put another way, the solar energy hitting the Earth exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by a factor of over 20,000 times.

That is true, but what is the relevance of that number? Solar radiation is not a power socket where you can connect your battery.
By the way, I think this calculation does not include all the radiation needed to grow plants (for humans, or for Earth in general), which is way more than humans need in a direct way.

 

[rogerk8]

I read the lines, but I should have emphasized this point more: "enough to reasonably justify an entire emerging technology"

The scope is huge. I don't know the numbers, but I would hazard a guess that wind mills can't make *nearly* enough hydrogen via electrolysis to not only keep up with potential demand, but to drive prices down to make it feasible. And that's the balancing act that must be done.

Hi Kreil!

I want to apologize for the way I expressed myself. It was a bit harsh.

I just found it strange that you didn't even consider my naive(?) idea.

Having said that, I find this discussion very interesting.

Jim Hardy above explained the huge scale in a very pedagogic way and I must confess that I was too much of a dreamer to even consider that.

Even though I thought that there are quite a few wind-mills in the world and many of them are located along the coasts.

Roger

 

[Q_Goest]

I do like the fuel cell idea when coupled with H2 production by reducing water with aluminum.
http://www.alumifuelinternational.com/company.html



old jim

Hi Jim. Any idea what the cost per kg is for that technology?

 

[rogerk8]

Hi Jim!

Very interesting picture!

Thank you for supplying it.

It really sobered me up ;)

With regard to the picture, I once calculated that it goes around 10000 wind mills in a nuclear plant.

Your nice picture shows some 660 "only".

I think it is even worse.

Anyway, some 50 nuclear plants as substitute for the huge qubic mile of oil consumed each year is astonishing to say the least.

It is a pity that we can't build cars with fission reactors in them.

Actually, some crazy folks in the DDR did that once :)

And we will probably not be able to build cars with fusion reactors either.

At least not in the near future...

But I strongly believer in the fuel cell technology.

And I am glad to hear Q_Goest telling me lots of interesting details regarding how far that technology actually has come.

Brings hope for the near future.

Finally, your link regarding "AlumiFuel" was very interesting.

This while thinking that my idea still would be feasable.

At least as a complement.

Because it is no lie that wind mills really do not contribute that much to the world's energy demand. Not even if we build millions of them. That would just consume natural resources and "polute" the environment (and bird life) simply by being so ugly :)

So instead of "poluting" our coasts even more, the ones that already are standing there could use the water right next to them for electrolysis.

Being picked up by pipes or fuel cell driven boats ;)

Roger

 

[jim hardy]

Hi Jim. Any idea what the cost per kg is for that technology?

Sorry, but I do not.

I have pestered that company trying to interest them in powering things like this Aeros cargo blimp

http://aeroscraft.com/ (you got to see the pictures there !)

and I get back polite emails saying their product line is aimed at small scale applications like weather balloons.
Yet their website does speak to transportation market... ?
http://www.alumifuelinternational.com/ourtechnology.html

I never thought to ask them about cost.
My Dad was a weatherman and I remember as a kid watching him fill some weather balloons. NOAA used high pressure hydrogen from bottles in an outdoor shed with vented roof in case of leaks..
So if this little company is penetrating that market their cost must be not too bad.

I believe economy of scale could make this technology go. I also believe it'd be far safer than these exotic batteries.

We don't often think of aluminum as an energy storage medium.
But the tight Al-O bond is so energetic that aluminum was a precious metal until late 1890's when electrolytic refining was invented. That's why so many aluminum refineries are found in regions served by hydroelectric generating stations.
Now - if you have to put in that much electrical energy to separate the aluminum atom from its oxygen , you should be able to get a lot back by letting it recombine. That's what these guys do except they let the energy dissociate water instead of making electricity.

I think I'm on Alumifuel marketing department's 'nuisance list' -
maybe somebody else would shoot them an inquiry as to cost?

old jim

 

[rogerk8]

Hi Roger. Regarding storage, there have been a lot of concepts attempted and tested but the primary means of storage today is simply high pressure gas or cryogenic liquid. BMW is toying with combining those two methods and having a cryogenic, high pressure (ie: supercritical) storage tank they call "cryo compressed". These methods all have drawbacks. Gas can be stored indefinately without loss of product but it is VERY high pressure so the potential for catastrophic leaks is significant. Cryogenic hydrogen is low pressure so leaks aren't as severe but it can't be stored for very long and the tank will eventually need to vent to prevent overpressurization. If that tank is in a garage or other enclosure, you end up filling that enclosure with flammable gas. BMW's concept has similar drawbacks to cryogenic storage but it clearly will allow for longer storage times prior to venting. The main issue is how to refill a supercritical, cryogenic storage tank. That for another day.

Other concepts that have been tested include metal hydride storage which has the advantages of low pressure storage at relatively high gas density, but they are expensive. The concept I like the best regards the use of a liquid phase carrier. Basically, the hydrogen is attached to a liquid molecule. When heated to ~ 200 C, the hydrogen is given off and used in the fuel cell and the depleted liquid gets passed on to a storage tank. That depleted liquid can then be removed from the tank, hydrogen 'added' back to it and the liquid recycled back into a vehicle storage tank. More detail here: http://chem.engr.utc.edu/Documents/FuelCell/Disk/Storage/ST9 Cooper.pdf These concepts are still years away from being practical.

Regarding explosive risk, hydrogen is easily ignited (ie: takes very little energy to ignite) and has a very wide explosive range, so even small amounts (~ 4%) of hydrogen in the atmosphere can ignite as can very high concentrations (75%). See for example:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/explosive-concentration-limits-d_423.html

So yes, it is very dangerous. The precautions taken to ensure the safety of the storage and delivery of hydrogen are extreme compared to gasoline for example. And that's an understatement.

Hi Q_Goest!

Thank you very much for your reply!

Very interesting!

So yes, it is very dangerous. The precautions taken to ensure the safety of the storage and delivery of hydrogen are extreme compared to gasoline for example. And that's an understatement.

Sorry, I knew my question was stupid but yet I asked it anyway.

The only excuse is that I am an amateur and a dreamer regarding these things :)

One of the bold things above do however make me kind of proud.

I have actually thought in kind of those termes ("Liquid Phase Carrier", LPC).

I thought "could you not mix some kind of gas with the hydrogen to make it safe to store/use".

I did however not think so far as to use a liquid as carrier and (thereby) being able to reuse the carrier and thereby not polute.

I thought more like "this could not be done because burning the combined fuel/gas would polute" and I want only water as exhaust.

Another thought has been "could you not distribute the gas inside the canister/tank with some kind of spunge" (sounds rediculous, right?) :D

Roger
PS
I'm from Sweden...:)

 

[rogerk8]

We don't often think of aluminum as an energy storage medium.
But the tight Al-O bond is so energetic that aluminum was a precious metal until late 1890's when electrolytic refining was invented. That's why so many aluminum refineries are found in regions served by hydroelectric generating stations.
Now - if you have to put in that much electrical energy to separate the aluminum atom from its oxygen , you should be able to get a lot back by letting it recombine. That's what these guys do except they let the energy dissociate water instead of making electricity.

Hi Jim!

This was very interesting to read.

The nice link you supplied did however not explain this.

Fascinating!

Roger

 

[jim hardy]

Hi Jim!

This was very interesting to read.

The nice link you supplied did however not explain this.

Fascinating!

Roger

That piece of trivia about aluminum I picked up from an Isaac Asimov article decades ago...

I think "The Mispronounced Metal" in his collection "Of Matters Great and Small"

Asimov's essays on science should be collected someplace as a national treasure.
He had a logical yet conversational way of developing ideas that certainly influenced how I think, and several of my contemporaries say the same thing. IMHO he should be part of all education curricula.

From WIKIPEDIA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martin_Hall :

The Hall-Héroult process eventually resulted in reducing the price of aluminum by a factor of 200, making it affordable for many practical uses. By 1900, annual production reached about 8 thousand tons. Today, more aluminum is produced than all other non-ferrous metals combined.

Hall is considered the originator of the American spelling of aluminum. According to Oberlin College, he misspelled it on a handbill publicizing his aluminum refinement process. The process was so revolutionary, and brought the metal to such prominence, that Americans have spelled aluminum with one "i" since. In the United Kingdom and other countries using British spelling, only aluminium is used. The spelling in virtually all other languages is analogous to the -ium ending.

The Asimov essay is way more interesting. He relates an anecdote that the spire atop Washington Monument is made from aluminum which at the time was more expensive than silver. It was on display in Tiffany's for a while.

Again Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument :

The building of the monument proceeded quickly after Congress had provided sufficient funding. In four years, it was completed, with the 100 ounce (2.85 kg) aluminum apex/lightning-rod being put in place on December 6, 1884.[25] The apex was the largest single piece of aluminum cast at the time, when aluminum commanded a price comparable to silver.[citation needed] Two years later, the Hall–Héroult process made aluminum easier to produce and the price of aluminum plummeted, making the once-valuable apex nearly worthless, though it still provided a lustrous, non-rusting apex that served as the original lightning rod.[30] The monument opened to the public on October 9, 1888.[31]

Thanks for the kind words !old jim

 

[mfb]

Anyway, some 50 nuclear plants as substitute for the huge qubic mile of oil consumed each year is astonishing to say the least.

50 nuclear power plants built per year.

1 cubic mile of oil (the type is not relevant here) per year corresponds to ~6TW, that is the electricity output of roughly 6000 reactor blocks.

 

[rogerk8]

50 nuclear power plants built per year.

1 cubic mile of oil (the type is not relevant here) per year corresponds to ~6TW, that is the electricity output of roughly 6000 reactor blocks.

Hi mfb!

Please excuse a stupid question.

Jim pointed out that the world uses the amazing amount of one cubic mile of oil per year.

With "per" I assume "every" (in the near future, anyway).

He did not say that the world's energy demand increases by one cubic mile per year.

So why can't the 50 nuclear plants just continue to run as long as they can?

Producing that cubic mile of energy every year.

Roger

 

[mfb]

So why can't the 50 nuclear plants just continue to run as long as they can?

They get old and rusty after a while, as all power plants do.
There is no consensus how long power plants can be operated, but more than some decades is not a good idea.

 

[jim hardy]

Furthermore it takes a few thousand plants not fifty.
Authors of that article were trying to show what a momentous project it will be to get us independent of oil in even fifty years -

mfb's 6 terawatts is 6000 gigawatts, and the biggest nuke I know of is about 1.2 gigawatts.
The one I retired from was a dual unit, each ~ 3/4 of a gigawatt.
So it'd be five or six thousand big of nukes, and to build enough of them in fifty years would be one or two per week.

Just like the windmills - you'd have to build a big nuke or two every week for fifty years...how long can they run?
The plant I retired from has 40 years under its belt now.
When you run a plant that long maintaining it gets sort of like in "Space Cowboys" -
it outlives its workforce .
It increasingly difficult these days to find people skilled in maintaining 1960's equipment because it's not computer based. Not to mention spare parts.
Some other plants of similar vintage are being "retired" .

old jim

 

[rogerk8]

Furthermore it takes a few thousand plants not fifty.
Authors of that article were trying to show what a momentous project it will be to get us independent of oil in even fifty years

.

Jesus Christ, is it that much?!

how long can they run?
The plant I retired from has 40 years under its belt now.
When you run a plant that long maintaining it gets sort of like in "Space Cowboys" -
it outlives its workforce .
It increasingly difficult these days to find people skilled in maintaining 1960's equipment because it's not computer based. Not to mention spare parts.
Some other plants of similar vintage are being "retired" .

Interesting and awesome experience!

It increasingly difficult these days to find people skilled in maintaining 1960's equipment because it's not computer based.

Me, I build tube amps. Maybe I could help? :)

Roger

 

[jim hardy]

Me, I build tube amps. Maybe I could help? :)

If you like big machinery and basic physics too, you might fit right in !

 

[Electropioneer]

There are some interesting things happening in the UK on the Hydrogen storage front.
I am waiting for the paper with results discussed in this video.
It got me excited when i first saw it, but since then i couldn't find any new information about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzqAkHPnpJM

 

[rogerk8]

There are some interesting things happening in the UK on the Hydrogen storage front.
I am waiting for the paper with results discussed in this video.
It got me excited when i first saw it, but since then i couldn't find any new information about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzqAkHPnpJM

Hi Electropioneer!

This was extremely interesting!

It seems like I actually was not that far off with my "spunge"-idea after all.

Fascinating!

Roger

 

[mheslep]

...
But to the subject of the thread -
Hydrogen is awful stuff to handle. I would not ride in the same car with a bottle of 3000 psi hydrogen .

But 20 gallons of gasoline in a plastic tank is ok? There are over 100K car fires every year in the US.

 

[mfb]

The plastic tank is safer than hydrogen under pressure. It won't explode (as we are not in a movie). A burning car is bad, but an exploding car is worse.

 

[mheslep]

Folks far removed from the energy industry generally don't grasp the scale.

The world uses around a cubic mile of oil per year.
...

From http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/fossil-fuels/joules-btus-quadslets-call-the-whole-thing-off


So start today building a hundred windmills every day.
At end of fifty years, if they last that long, you'd have built enough (about 1.6 million) that you could shut off the oil spigot. Well for today's usage anyway (actually 2006's).
But the first half million you built will be getting might rickety by then...
And that's a technology problem not a political one.

50 nuclear power plants built per year.

1 cubic mile of oil (the type is not relevant here) per year corresponds to ~6TW, that is the electricity output of roughly 6000 reactor blocks.

Furthermore it takes a few thousand plants not fifty.
Authors of that article were trying to show what a momentous project it will be to get us independent of oil in even fifty years -

mfb's 6 terawatts is 6000 gigawatts, and the biggest nuke I know of is about 1.2 gigawatts.
The one I retired from was a dual unit, each ~ 3/4 of a gigawatt.
So it'd be five or six thousand big of nukes, and to build enough of them in fifty years would be one or two per week.

Just like the windmills - you'd have to build a big nuke or two every week for fifty years...

The cubic mile of oil (CMO) per year is 1.6*10^20 joules/year, or a bit over 5 TW. Now that's primary energy, about 80% of which goes out the metaphorical tail pipe of the transportation sector it overwhelmingly supplies - more still if the in-the-loop refining overhead is included (10-15%). So the useful power from oil, i.e. that which would be replaced, coming from that CMO/yr is more like 1 TW.

The graphic would also better compare like to like if the reference was made to the size of the existing global capacity in each case.

For nuclear, the world installed base is about 430 reactors. To replace the useful oil consumption, another 1000 1GWe reactors are required, or a more than tripling of the existing global fleet. In the 1980's, global reactor construction peaked at ohttp://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Plans-For-New-Reactors-Worldwide/#.UlVvtVCUSmw At that pace 1000 reactors require a 10 year pipeline, plus the construction period for a plant, and a bit more still for replacements.

Global installed wind capacity as of 2011 was 282 GWpeak or about 90 GW avg. A TW of average wind power would require a ten fold increase of global capacity. The current rate of construction is ~ 45 GWpeak (14 GW avg) per year, requiring ~70 years at that rate to install a TW.

The oil industry hashttp://www.worldoil.com/February-2012-US-oil-well-counts-rise-in-all-regions.html, with, what, maybe 2 million wells worldwide; there must be global refining capacity of 80-100 million bbls/day globally, shipping to carry a ~quarter of that, and miles of pipeline that likely would reach the moon, and back, if so extended.

 

[mfb]

The cubic mile of oil (CMO) per year is 1.6*10^20 joules/year, or a bit over 5 TW. Now that's primary energy, about 80% of which goes out the metaphorical tail pipe of the transportation sector it overwhelmingly supplies - more still if the in-the-loop refining overhead is included (10-15%). So the useful power from oil, i.e. that which would be replaced, coming from that CMO/yr is more like 1 TW.

You cannot stop transporting things. If you just replace the power plants, you still burn 80% of the fuel of today (plus something to account for the increasing demand for transportation).

 

[rogerk8]

Might not the difference be that hydrogen does not pollute the air?

 

[mfb]

Hydrogen is nothing you can just find underground, you have to produce it - this needs oil, electric energy or more research in biological production to be efficient.

 

[Integral]

Wind plants require a LOT of concrete, due to this they start with a CO₂ deposit that takes years to climb out of.

 

[rogerk8]

My idea was originally to make all those wind-mills that already are placed near the sea to produce hydrogen via electrolysis instead of electrical power (while they are so inefficient anyway).

I have however understood that those wind-mills will not suffice for my vision of future need for hydrogensubstitution of oil. This was naive in the first place.

With the aid of nuclear plants my vision however holds. I say that we should build as many nuclear plants as we can while waiting for fusion power to work. Which it will. There's no doubt in my mind.

Please keep in mind that there is such things as transmutation reactors http://www.frc.gatech.edu/Transmutation-Reactors.html that actually can make nuclear waste less hazardous.

Because let's face it, I read somewhere that China builds one coal plant every week. I can bet that they do not filter the exhaust whatsoever.

But that's China, right? Wrong, we only have one atmosphere!

And we can't demand that China, like all other developing coutries, may not become industrialized like we are, right?

So what to do? The way we are living right now simply do not hold in the long run. And the generations to come will suffer from our lack of responsibility if we don't do anything about it!

Roger
PS
I say that right now the only sensible power source is nuclear plants. And regarding the transportation sector I really hope for fuel cells.

 

[mheslep]

You cannot stop transporting things. If you just replace the power plants, you still burn 80% of the fuel of today (plus something to account for the increasing demand for transportation).

I recognize that, as a practical matter, the current transportation system is overwhelmingly dependent on liquid fuels.

However the OP referenced an article that implies replacement of oil is ruled out not by practicality and economics but on the physics of the energy tally. The article implies nuclear power (among other alternatives) is inadequate to the task. In so doing that (http://spectrum.ieee.org/images/jan07/images/ncmo01.gif) article goes too far. First, it erroneously compares primary and secondary energy. Second, it misleads in comparing the production of the global oil industry to a different, piecemeal standard for alternatives.

Finally, if the argument is to be a theoretical one of counting joules as per the IEEE article , then there's little or nothing physically intrinsic to transportation that can not also be accomplished by, say, nuclear power plants charging batteries or synthesizing methane, etc, etc.

 

[mfb]

Finally, if the argument is to be a theoretical one of counting joules as per the IEEE article , then there's little or nothing physically intrinsic to transportation that can not also be accomplished by, say, nuclear power plants charging batteries or synthesizing methane, etc, etc.

I think that is the idea. And you would need a lot of power plants to do so. Sure, batteries plus electric motors are more efficient than current cars (as the power plants are rated by their electric output, as far as I see), but that does not change the main conclusion.

 

[SteamKing]

My idea was originally to make all those wind-mills that already are placed near the sea to produce hydrogen via electrolysis instead of electrical power (while they are so inefficient anyway).

The problem with electrolyzing seawater is that you can't just split the water molecules apart. You also split the salts apart (primarily sodium chloride), which makes for some nasty waste products. If you want to avoid this unfortunate outcome, you have to purify the seawater first, which adds a lot of additional energy input into the process.

 

[mheslep]

I think that is the idea. And you would need a lot of power plants to do so. Sure, batteries plus electric motors are more efficient than current cars (as the power plants are rated by their electric output, as far as I see), but that does not change the main conclusion.

The IEEE article didn't make a concise conclusion. Instead the article implied a conclusion based on some hand waiving and a faulty comparison (inputs to outputs): a 'cubic mile' of oil is a huge iconic irreplaceable figure requiring some unreachable number of power plants ("a lot" if you like) so move along, can not be done, nothing more to discuss.

As established, most oil use, especially in the US, goes to transportation. US miles driven is 3.1x10^12. Replacing all of it with an all electric fleet at 300 Wh/mile requires 106 GW average power delivered, or ~112 GW generated at the bus bar before transmission. The US has at least twice that much average power plant capacity idled, today. Or, if you like, don't use the idled capacity and double the number of US nuclear plants.

Building another hundred plus US nuclear capacity might be politically difficult, impossible, etc, which is certainly arguable. But one can not argue the required nuclear plants are physically untenable, as IEEE implies, since visibly that fleet has been built once already with 1970's technology.

 

[mheslep]

The problem with electrolyzing seawater is that you can't just split the water molecules apart. You also split the salts apart (primarily sodium chloride), which makes for some nasty waste products. If you want to avoid this unfortunate outcome, you have to purify the seawater first, which adds a lot of additional energy input into the process.

Though a small fraction of the current fresh water withdrawal (<<1%) would suffice to generate sufficient hydrogen to replace oil (joule for joule), not that hydrogen, as is, would be a practical substitute for current liquid fuels.

 

[mheslep]

Wind plants require a LOT of concrete, due to this they start with a CO₂ deposit that takes years to climb out of.

Years? Apparently a common 1.5 MW turbine requires http://windsystemsmag.com/article/detail/48/concrete-proof-the-majestic-wind-farm for its foundation, which at ~400 lbs CO2 per yd³ of concrete is ~60 tons of CO2 per turbine.

The power from a common coal plant produces 8.5 thousand tons of CO2 per MW per year (3.5x10⁶ tons/year/600MW @69% capacity factor). If the wind turbine is used to displace coal power, a 1.5 MW turbine at 30% capacity factor displaces ~4 thousand tons-CO2 per year, i.e., the turbine pays off its 60 ton CO2-from-cement debt in 6 days of operation.

 

[rogerk8]

The problem with electrolyzing seawater is that you can't just split the water molecules apart. You also split the salts apart (primarily sodium chloride), which makes for some nasty waste products. If you want to avoid this unfortunate outcome, you have to purify the seawater first, which adds a lot of additional energy input into the process.

Interesting but then you could use part of the wind-mill power or the nuclear plants to purify the water first.

 

[mheslep]

The plastic tank is safer than hydrogen under pressure. It won't explode (as we are not in a movie). A burning car is bad, but an exploding car is worse.

I missed this earlier. A gasoline tank won't explode? You mean it won't explode from pressure as would a structurally failed 3000 psi tank (with whatever inside)? Yes I recognize gasoline needs to be vapor and mixed w/ O2 to explode (as does H2), but there's no need for movie fiction to demonstrate exploding gasoline tanks.

 

[russ_watters]

Car fires are rare enough - I'm not sure I've ever heard of a car explosion happening in real life.

 

[mheslep]

Car fires are rare enough - I'm not sure I've ever heard of a car explosion happening in real life.

http://www.nfpa.org/research/fire-statistics/the-us-fire-problem/highway-vehicle-fires in the US. Used to be half a million decades ago.

 

[UltrafastPED]

http://www.nfpa.org/research/fire-statistics/the-us-fire-problem/highway-vehicle-fires in the US. Used to be half a million decades ago.

Keep clicking and you find the breakdown by cause:
http://www.nfpa.org/~/media/Files/Research/Fact sheets/vehiclefactsheet.pdf

Only 3% are due to collisions; 5% are due to other fires; 8% are intentional.

That leaves 72% due to mechanical or electrical failures/malfunctions.

And then there is the Tesla ... three complete burnouts in the last few months.

 

[mfb]

And mechaniccal/electrical failures and malfunctions are usually not in the gasoline tank.
Sure, if a tank gets damaged, and there is a fire, this is really bad (but still without an exploding tank). Well, in that case hydrogen is not better.

 

[mheslep]

Keep clicking and you find the breakdown by cause:
...

The only relevant point would be fires that did not involve the fuel tank, regardless of the cause. Other components might burn, but no fuel tank, no gasoline/diesel fire.