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-- Hydrogen's Dirty Secret

Hydrogen's Dirty Secret

from http://www.motherjones.com/news/out.../ma_375_01.html

interesting article...turns out he hadn't been as honest as he could've been abt his plan for hydrogen powered cars...

an excerpt:

According to the administration's National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap, drafted last year in concert with the energy industry, up to 90 percent of all hydrogen will be refined from oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels -- in a process using energy generated by burning oil, coal, and natural gas. The remaining 10 percent will be cracked from water using nuclear energy.

Such a system, experts say, would effectively eliminate most of the benefits offered by hydrogen.

That's what I said in a thread I made a while ago. The only way you can make hydrogen is by using vast amounts of electricity, and more than 50% of the US power plants are oil/gas/coal ones. Alternative sources like solar or wind power are very limited, so the only way to reduce pollution is to switch completely to nuclear or hydroelectric power.

quote:

Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 That's what I said in a thread I made a while ago. The only way you can make hydrogen is by using vast amounts of electricity, and more than 50% of the US power plants are oil/gas/coal ones. Alternative sources like solar or wind power are very limited, so the only way to reduce pollution is to switch completely to nuclear or hydroelectric power.

I think the initiative was undertaken to decrease our reliance on oil rather than to save the environment. Everybody knows Bush's stance on the environment hehe. At any rate Drug_Tito is right, the first step towards achieving a truly clean environment is to utilize nuclear power or some other form of clean energy. However, all is not lost as hydrogen production through natural gas and coal plants will likely be a far more efficient process than the utilization of gas in combustion engines.

http://www.fe.doe.gov/fuels/hydrogen/index.shtml

Unfortunately, the only way hydrogen technology will be adopted by the public is if we produce it with coal or natural gas. The costs of manufacturing hydrogen are huge enough as it is such that the use of America's abundant resources in coal and natural gas are needed to bring down the costs of hydrogen production. I still think that it's a worthy investment that will help the environment and reduce fossil fuel waste.

On a side note, I still don't know why the majority of the population is against nuclear power. It's so much cleaner than the coal and gas plants that we currentely have. Plus these reactors are much safer than they used to be back in the 80's. I think nuclear power has an undue reputation. It's too bad that people automatically think of Chernobyl whenever they hear the word nuclear power.

because it has a half life of 50, 000 years and we can't break it down. i dunno, i don't wanna be an unwilling participant in my own destruction...albeit coal and oil are doin it too. i guess it's the lesser of two evils, but both are shit...LOL!

quote:

Originally posted by occrider On a side note, I still don't know why the majority of the population is against nuclear power. It's so much cleaner than the coal and gas plants that we currentely have. Plus these reactors are much safer than they used to be back in the 80's. I think nuclear power has an undue reputation. It's too bad that people automatically think of Chernobyl whenever they hear the word nuclear power.

agree.

quote:

Originally posted by marcus82 because it has a half life of 50, 000 years and we can't break it down. i dunno, i don't wanna be an unwilling participant in my own destruction...albeit coal and oil are doin it too. i guess it's the lesser of two evils, but both are shit...LOL!

well i remember a scientist who worked on the original nucler program in the US saying that one house hold in the states produces sevral tons of pollution just to get their yearly power, and that with a nucler power, the waste would only be no bigger than a shoe box per house every 10?years.

Im not 100% sure on the numbers, or say its true since I havnt done any research into it, but it does sound reasonable.


I think a better solution at the moment is to increase fuel efficiency in cars. Like the desiel based Jetta (42/48MPG) or Honda/Toyota hybrid cars which do around 50MPG. The new SUV trend here is the Hummer H2 which does only about 13/15MPG!!! Countinue government discounts when you install solar cell panels on your house roof, maybe even do tv/radio spots Build more wind mills, theres a few hundred outside my city and just saw a GE tv spot the other day for this and of course we need to conserve more.

doesnt holland get most its powers through hydroelectricty?

well..u know what...in the end it's not about price or complexity. it's about unwilling, i bet if there were ton's of solar farms out in the mojave that it could provide enough power for a few outlying states. IMO...governments (particularly the current american administation) don't want to invest in clean technolody while large american corporations are prodominately invested in oil and coal.

it kinda coicides with the pot stance...while cigarettes are more destructive to your body pot remains outlawed because no american corp. can commercialize the industry to make tax dollars out of it.

thus, because no american corporation can effectively corner or retain a large share of hydrogen fuel cells the largest consumer market in the world will not buy fuel cells until an american corporate giant can effectively control supply and market share...

just my thought.

I agree with rizen. The best way to reduce the pollution caused by vehicles is to improve efficiency and move toward electric hybrid systems. Hydrogen, although attractive on paper, has its problems with safety and how to get it. Also, to have hydrogen replace internal combustion engines, you would have to revamp the entire fueling infrastructure (piplelines, gas stations, etc.) This simply isn't feasible. Ideally, I see a huge shift toward clean, safe, and efficient nuclear power generation combined with solar and wind operations to solve our energy problems. I believe this will eventually happen because it is really the only sustainable solution once oil and gas resevoirs are depleated.

Hm, as far as nuclear power goes, 1kg of coal gives us 4kWh of electrical energy, while 1kg of plutonium gives us 6000000kWh of it. So the statement about the household waste is pretty much true. Solar and wind power gives out far less energy than gas or coal power, so it is really out of the question as far as large-scale power generation is concerned. Besides, nuclear waste is burried deep below ground in sealed tanks, so it presents far less danger than regular power sources. It would be even better if it were to be recycled, but thanks to all those stupid green activists (mainly funded by the oil companies, without their knowledge) that is not the case.

Now, about Chernobyl, it's an interesting story about the stupidity of some government leaders. Most people don't realize it was not an accident. Some wise guys tried to see what would happen if the power plant were to drop out of the power system. All the scientists warned the government about possible consequences, but they were not listened to. Anyway, what happens when nuclear power plant drops out is that huge amounts of thermal energy arise, as no energy is being sent out. A safety mechanism exists when such cases happen, and it pushes the grapphite rods into the reactor in order to slow down or stop the reaction. Well, those bright people who orchestrated the whole thing told the workers at the plant to disable that automated system of protection to see how much power will be generated if the rods aren't inserted into the reactor. They said the rods could be inserted manually later, if the reaction goes out of hand.

Well, the power plant dropped out of the system as ordered, and the safety mechanism didn't respond as it was disabled. The heat inside the reactor became critical, and the workers tried to manually push the graphite rods inside to stop the reaction. But, it was too late, as the graphite caught on fire and the rods jammed. Temperature inside became so high that the hydrogen in the water separated from the oxygen. What happened then is that hydrogen blew up and broke the UO2 and lead casing, and the radioactive material leaked out. Note here that no nuclear explosion took place. There were 30 victims total. One died of a heart attack, one caught on fire, and the rest were the firemen which were uneducated on how to extinguish a fire with radioactive substances in it. Just for comparison, largest accidents in other types of power plants involved hundreds or thousands of victims.

quote:

Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 There were 30 victims total. One died of a heart attack, one caught on fire, and the rest were the firemen which were uneducated on how to extinguish a fire with radioactive substances in it. Just for comparison, largest accidents in other types of power plants involved hundreds or thousands of victims.

Well ... not completely limited to 30 people:

"There were 31 fatalities as of May 1987, all of whom were at the power plant, and most of whom were firemen fighting the blazes following the explosion. 237 persons were "removed to hospitals with acute radiation syndrome. About 500 were hospitalized altogether, including bus drivers who evacuated residents." An estimated 24,000 of the 116,000 evacuees received fairly serious radiation doses of about 45 rem. Thyroid doses from Iodine-131 as high as 250 rem were measured in children from Lelev, 9 km from reactor.

Levi gives an estimated long term total exposure is 29 million person rems with an excess of 3000 cancer deaths above the 9.5 million cancer deaths projected in the same population. Largest effect from cesium. The later estimates by Anspaugh, et al. suggest 93 million person rem and a projection of 17000 additional fatal radiogenic cancers out of a total of 123 million cancer deaths. 97% of the health effects are projected to be in the Soviet Union and Europe. "

quote:

Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 while 1kg of plutonium gives us 6000000kWh of it

i assume you mean enriched uranium? nobody every puts raw plutonium into a reactor and expects a stable reaction.

remind me never to hire drug tito at a nuclear power plant

No, uranium gives only 50000kWh. But yes, power plants no longer use plutonium as their fuel because of safety reasons.

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