Not clean, green, cheap – Watt?

from masterresource

David R. Legates

When subsidies provided by governments around the world are provided to it, hydrogen energy will no longer become feasible. Hopefully the new government will recognize that hydrogen contains not only suitable for metals, but also for our economy. ”

hydrogen. The first element in the periodic table and the richest element in the universe. It is also the simplest element – the most common isotopes have only one proton and one electron. It is called the “future of energy”; after all, the sun relies on hydrogen to keep the light glowing, and if it's good enough for our sun, why isn't it good enough for us?

There is no doubt that you have heard all the noise associated with the hydrogen-based energy economy. Jeremy Rifkin published a book titled Hydrogen Economy: Creating a Global Energy Network and Redistribution of Power on Earth. He claimed that “globalization represents the end of the fossil fuel era” and that “turning to hydrogen is the promissory note for a safer world.”

In his ITU speech, the president said, “With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles” from the lab to the showroom, thus occupying the hydrogen car” to allow the first birth today. The first vehicle driven by a vehicle can be powered by hydrogen and pollution-free. “The government then announced a collaboration with the EU to develop a hydrogen economy, including “technology that requires mass production of safe and affordable hydrogen fuel cell vehicles” , and noted that this will “improve U.S. energy security by significantly reducing U.S. energy security requires imports of oil.”

this Chicago Suntime A claim was played: “The first step to what supporters say is the hydrogen economy is 1739916449 Being taken away. The U.S. House held two “the first of its investigation hearings on hydrogen, its production, utilization and its potential impact on our future energy economy.” The hearing president claimed that hydrogen “has the potential to play in our energy system with The same role of electricity today”.

Therefore, hydrogen is expected to be the silver bullet to solve the climate crisis and to eliminate us from the energy supply of fossil fuels.

But wait. Don't you remember all of this? Well, the Rifkin book was published in 2002. The administration is not Trump's second president, with Joe Biden as president, the first Trump or Obama's first or second president. This is George W. Bush's alliance in 2003. Chicago Suntime The article was published in 1996. Congressional hearing? Well, that was held on June 10, 1975.

But won't the sun run on hydrogen? Yes, but not in the same way. In the sunlight, by fusion, hydrogen atoms merge to generate a lot of energy in the process. Every second, about 60 billion kilograms of hydrogen are fused into helium, and about 4 billion kilograms of matter are converted into energy. On Earth, the fusion process is about twenty years off and as memes develop, it will always be. Obviously, the same is true for hydrogen as a fuel source.

How do we obtain hydrogen?

Is hydrogen or drilling a problem a problem? No. That's not how we get hydrogen.

Hydrogen is produced by separating it from other elements in various compounds. The most common method is electrolysis – in which water is separated to form hydrogen and oxygen – and steam – methane reform, where hydrogen atoms are separated from carbon atoms in methane. The former is usually a method of producing hydrogen in the high school chemistry category, but has recently been touted as the only “clean” way to produce hydrogen. The latter is the current process of commercial production of hydrogen in the United States.

But steam methane reform requires high temperatures (about 13 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit) and high pressures (three to twenty-five times the atmospheric pressure). This allows engineers to use steam as a catalyst to produce hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Therefore, hydrogen is reformed through steam methane, using methane, a fossil fuel, and producing carbon dioxide (the allegedly evil gas) and carbon monoxide (a truly deadly gas).

But there are some interesting things about the laws of physics. Right now, No free lunch. We often talk about the second law of thermodynamics, and unless energy is added from the outside, the system becomes more chaotic over time. We say that the entropy of a closed system increases over time. But there are other such methods. For example, we can say that we cannot create a heating engine that can extract heat and convert it into useful work. Explain this as our discussion that the energy contained in steam and methane cannot be transferred completely into hydrogen, some of which are used to produce carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, while others are lost with heat.

This means that hydrogen produced in the hydrogen molecules present in the original methane molecules produce less energy. How much less?

this The first The obstacle to hydrogen energy is its insufficient energy. To obtain enough hydrogen to produce two megawatts of energy, a total of three megawatts of electricity is required. This does not include energy loss, or interventions from the second law of thermodynamics – producing this power from other sources. In the words of Robert Bryce, hydrogen energy is “energically expensive to produce.”

So why don’t we just drop these three megawatts of electricity under the wires to heat and cool homes, cook food and perform other tasks that make our lives better? Because hydrogen is said to be a clean fuel source, even if the extracted energy is usually produced by methane and produces what we call the evil gas carbon dioxide as a by-product. In addition, hydrogen is green, not in the environmental sense, but subsidies from companies that want to pursue Hydrogen Spirit Natural.

Storage issues

this second The barriers associated with hydrogen as an energy source are difficult to deal with and difficult to store. Hydrogen plays a poor role in metals and something is called “hydrogenation”. As the name suggests, hydrogen containing hydrogen can cause the metal to become fragile and crack over time, especially when the metal is under pressure. As a small molecule, hydrogen easily escapes from the smallest cracks. Usually, hydrogen sugar content does not occur at temperatures above 300 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it is not feasible to heat the pipes and storage tanks to this temperature. Hydrogen sugars are an important issue for many metals at ambient temperatures and pressures found on Earth, such as steel, iron, nickel, titanium, cobalt, copper, copper and aluminum, as well as alloys containing them.

Proponents believe that hydrogen can be stored as a liquid. Although yes, this will require compression to seven hundred times the atmospheric pressure and refrigeration to minus 4002 degrees Fahrenheit. And, of course, it takes more energy to reach and maintain compression and cooling levels.

If we can’t transport and store hydrogen in existing trucks, storage tanks and pipes, how is hydrogen best used as an energy source? It can be mixed with natural gas and consumed by turbines and reciprocating engines. But this involves two drawbacks. One is that we lose energy by storing energy in the production of hydrogen – why not just use methane in the turbine rather than wasting energy by converting it into hydrogen? This has no advantage at all, and it will take our energy. Second, by mixing in methane, activists are no longer able to tout the hydrogen source as “clean and green renewable energy” because methane is still in the mixture. sigh. Virtue signal lifted his ugly head again.

The best way to use hydrogen is probably the fuel source in the fuel cell. But the fuel cell is already running on methane, and the energy loss of converting methane into hydrogen precludes any utility that can be provided by using hydrogen. Of course, except for activists and activists in the hydrogen production industry, it is impossible to tout its fuel cells as a “clean and green renewable energy.” However, in my hometown of Delaware, the state legislature declared that the methane consumed by Bloom Energy fuel cells is renewable. Ah, the all-around legislature that can simply change physics by a majority vote!

Dangers of use

one third The obstacle to using hydrogen as a fuel source is that it is dangerous to use it. Like methane, it is colorless, odorless, and undoubtedly to be a widely used fuel source, it must be mixed with odor, just as stinky ink tea is mixed with methane, so leaks can be detected. And, yes, hydrogen is highly explosive.

This is why the fleet of ships in the early twentieth century in the United States was built using helium rather than hydrogen, even if helium was produced at a higher price and less buoyancy. If you don't understand the explosion potential of hydrogen, the Hindenburg disaster should tell you everything you need to know.

Not cheap

at last, fourth The barrier should be obvious now. Using hydrogen as a fuel source is expensive – production costs, expensive storage and energy required for production. Hydrogen as a fuel source will enable the Virtue Signers to claim they have developed and use a “clean and green” fuel source that “saves the planet from the evil of fossil fuels.” But in reality, it only makes energy more expensive and sends a larger percentage of planets back below the poverty line.

As we often say here in the Cornwall Alliance, cheap energy has been the solution to keep billions above the poverty line and improve their living standards. When subsidies provided by governments around the world are provided to it, hydrogen energy will no longer be feasible. Hopefully the new government will recognize that the water content of hydrogen is not only suitable for metals, but also for our economy.

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Dr. David R. Legates is Director of Research and Education, Creation and Retirement Professor at the University of Delaware. He is Climate and Energy: The Case of Realism.

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