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As I once served time as a chemist, I point out to you that the consideration, "if fuel cells run on hydrogen or natural gas, doesn't seem like a great leap to methane...?" is moot. Natural gas is almost pure methane. I also note that there are technologies that avoid the "liquification" problem of hydrogen by storing it in gels. For example, check our the stock MCEL.
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I haven't run any of the equations in years, but considering that avoiding the carbon compounds that gum up works and float off into the athmosphere to become green house gasses are an obvious culprit, completely avoiding any production or use of any carbon containing compound in the process would be a desirable approach to gaining an advantage in energy production. Pure hydrogen fuel cells will serve as one step. Producing the hydrogen and storing it are not necessarilly processes that require ANY need for the use of fossil fuel. I propose that it is possible to use electricity directly from windmills and solar cells passing through water to break it down into its two constituants, hydrogen and oxygen. Then, to avoid the need to use some outside source of energy to compress these gasses, the process should be carried out in containers so that the gasses become "compressed" due to the addition of molecules from the anode and cathode (or that discharge the hydrogen and oxygen into some form of gell, ready for use in the hydrogen fuel cell).
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for real, fuel cells gotta be the way to go. I read a coupla years ago about a police station somewhere in the US that converted to an on-site fuel-cell power plant so they'd never be down, regardless of the grid. Seems like the technology would be more widespread by now.
bdgee, love the hydrogen angle, but wouldn't splitting water eventually "use up" the water? OK, seawater...but still, water is finite...
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
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for pure hydrogen already compressed? it occurred to me in the 80's that the obvious place to put the electrodes would be in the Marianas trench....
CH4 is less of a pollutant than you are suggesting... in fact? it is a more significant pollutant as CH4 than if it is oxidised.....
there is a STRONG theory that underwater landslides off the coast of Norway triggered the release of enough of the gas to cause global warming and end the last ice age....
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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"Here's how they work: Pure hydrogen gas – or hydrogen extracted from a fuel like gasoline – is fed into a cell where a catalyst or membrane separates it into electrons and protons. The electrons are diverted through a wire, producing electric current that can be used to power electric motors in the vehicle. The protons are passed along to the end of the process where they are recombined with the electrons and oxygen to produce the fuel cell's exhaust: water.
(Another byproduct is heat, which in some applications, can be captured and also used for energy purposes.)"
posted
In January, for example, during his State of the Union address, President Bush proposed spending $1.2 billion on a plan to launch the first elements of a "hydrogen economy": "With a new national commitment," Bush said, "the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and be pollution-free."
think of what 20 or 30 billion$ would have done.....( this is one of the reasons i am so furious about Iraq. not because i'm anti-war or a peace-nik, but because it was a bad cost-benefit solution, we spent 10 time that and we probly won't get a significant return on our investment)
fuel cells have been proven reliable on the space shuttle for 113 missions, that amounts to over 90,000 hours, and require no backup system.... this page is very informative: http://www.utcfuelcells.com/space/spaceshuttle.shtm
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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this page give some idea of how the mebrane is constructed.... it's complicated...
an interesting note: there is some resemblance here to biological cells in the sense that bio-cells have complicated membranes for the exchange of materials into and out of them.....
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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Now I'll give you another "ingredint" in my world of "safe" energy production. If I were a man of unlimited wealth, I would start a program to develop roofing made of solar cells. There is already technology that can inexpensively construct solar panels in thin sheets that can be rolled up like a rug. Moreover, those solar panels are durable enough to withstand the elements for years, just like the artificial shingles we now shed water with on roofs. The cosrt of instillation shouldn't be much different than with shingles that only shed water. Then the resulting electricity can be fed into a unit that separates water into its elements, thereby avoiding all the horror stories the power companies foster about the need for batteries and their expense. That hydrogen can feed a fuel cell that powers the home. I've been constructing these notions for years.
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Yep, I do like that chart. But I don't keep enough funds in my account to play with stocks that expensive. Wish I'd known about them back in March of 04. If you'd bought then, it's sorta gone up up up since.
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