NEWS: Stanford's nanowire battery holds 10 times the charge of existing ones - Page 3

 
The highest value of hydrogen in today's energy economy is to upgrade
the value of low rank carbon fuels to higher rank fuels.

Its easy to see how value may be created despite efficiency losses.
For example;

   Niagra falls from  1AM to 4 AM - $15 per MWh
             6,000 MWh
             $90,000

  Generate hydrogen 1 ton per 50 MWh = 120 tonnes hydrogen

  Store, retrieve, transmit hydrogen gas - 20 tonnes loss - NET 100
tonnes

   BURN 65 tonnes hydrogen in a thermal generator to make 40 MW
continuously - where its worth more;

            3,900 MWh ---> 960 MWh    Energy
               $15/MWh        $80/MWh   Value
             $58,500           $76,800       Net

So, here we've created nearly $20,000 per day...

  This power plant in this example burns 403 tonnes of coal before
switching to hydrogen.  The power plant when burning hydrogen created
1,400 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day.  Now it doesn't, at $20 per
avoided tonne, that's another $28,000 in added value...

  We still have the coal.  Most power plants buy coal on long term
contracts.  At $80 per tonne, the power plant used to spend $32,240
per day on fuel.  It now pays $28,000 per day carbon tax.  By
converting to $58,500 per day hydrogen fuel, it avoids the tax, and
earns the credits the taxes pay for.

But we still have the coal...

    Look at it this way;

    Coal   23 GJ per tonne   $80/tonne -->   $3.47 per GJ
    Hydrogen 143 GJ/tonne $950/tonne -->  $6.64 per GJ
    Gasoline  120 MJ/gal   $2/gal        -->  $16.67 per GJ

Now, I can take 14.3 GJ of hydrogen add it to 23 GJ of coal and get
35.3 GJ of gasoline.  This wastes 2.0 GJ in the process, but look at
the value created;

       14.3 GJ x $6.64 = $94.95  cost of hydrogen
        23.0 GJ x $3.47 = $79.81 cost of coal

       35.3 GJ x $16.67 = $588.45 value of gasoline

A modern Bergius process fed by electrolytically produced hydrogen
from low cost solar source (like Niagara) create huge value, while
building up a pollution free source of hydrogen.

Translating this to the global energy economy;

The world uses 28.3 billion barrels of crude oil
                        5.5 billion metric tons of coal
                        2.2 billion metric tons natural gas

For a total cost of $4 trillion.
                        $2.6 trillion for crude oil
                        $0.4 trillion for coal
                        $1.0 trillion for natural gas

The carbon foot print is:
                        11.8 billion metric tons from crude oil
                        17.4 billion metric tons from coal
                         1.7 billion metric tons from natural gas

Replacing ALL this coal with hydrogen requires 887 million metric tons
of hydrogen each year be burned in these plants that now use coal.
This eliminates all carbon emissions from all coal fired plants which
is more than half humanity's total.

Now, converting the coal to gasoline with the Bergius process produces
zero emissions and requires an additional 550 milion metric tons of
hydrogen and produces 38.5 billion barrels of gasoline!!!   This is
greater than today's demand for crude oil, so it gives the hydrogen
supplier the means to take control of the existing markets and turns
the coal supplier against the oil supplier - reducing energy costs for
both fuels.

The game plan then is to offer hydrogen to coal fired plants in
exchange for the price of coal plus half the carbon credits earned,
and taking the coal in trade and converting it to petrol.  The petrol
is then sold in competition with conventional oil.

The total amount of hydrogen needed to do this is 1.44 billion metric
tons per year.  Less than HALF(43%) the 3.34 bilion metric tons of
hydrogen needed for DIRECT replacement of ALL fuels, but captures 3/4
of the dollars and cuts out more than 1/2 the carbon emissions.
Since the world is set up to use petroleum, and not hydrogen, this is
the highest best use of hydrogen today and has lots to recommend it
strategically.

It is a simple matter to use the profits earned at this stage to
expand the ease of use of hydrogen while reducing its costs, run the
use of fossil fuels down to zero by squeezing profits out of their
sale by lowering their price (but not as fast as lowering the price of
hydrogen) - and in fact the end game is to use petroleum as a loss
leader to bring the few remaining petrol away from the dwindling
fossil fuel market.

Regulations will also be promulgated to preserve carbon sources for
higher valued uses.  A ton of plastic produced today that lasts for 20
years is far more valuable to humanity than 44 GJ of heat energy and
3.1 metric tons of carbon dioxide produced today.

The big issue today is where do we get the 50 MWh per metric ton of
hydrogen needed?   Well, there are only so many Niagra Falls
situations around.  So, we have to create new clean sources of low
cost solar energy.  I have a solar panel technology that produces DC
electricity when the sun shines at $0.07 per peak watt - including all
balance of systems costs.  This includes the electrolyzer - variable
load - to efficiently produce hydrogen when the sun shines even as
lighting conditions change.  This produces electricity for less than
1/2 cent per kWh - and hydrogen is made for $200 per metric ton - and
with an extensive gathering system and hydrogen distribution system
across say North America - delivered costs of $270 per metric ton of
hydrogen - far cheaper than the example above.

To produce 1.44 billion metric tons of hydrogen with 240,000 sq km of
solar panels at a cost of $3 trillion.  This captures $3 trillion per
year in revenues.   To expand to 3.34 billion metric tons of hydrogen
requires that 556,000 sq km of land be converted to solar panels at a
cost of $7 trillion and an additional $1.5 trillion in distribution,
storage, and use infrastructure be added.  (this for 100% hydrogen
replacement)

Since crude oil and natural gas are peaking naturally, competing
directly on price with solar hydrogen produced or augmented supplies.
(hydrogen injected into old oil and gas wells to store the materials
geologically, mobilizes previously immobile supplies, producing new
oil and natural gas from expended wells, also carbon dioxide plus
hydrogen can be made to produce methane, the principal component of
natural gas

       CO2 + 4 H2 -->   CH4 + 2 H2O


One ton of hydrogen with 143 GJ of heat value is converted to two tons
of methane with 110 GJ of heat value a clear loss of 33 GJ per ton of
hydrogen processed.

Yet, a ton of hydrogen costing $270 , can absorb 5.5 tonnes of carbon
dioxide, creating a value of $110, and produce two tons of methane,
worth $760 - so, $870 in value is created at a hydrogen cost of
$270.

At $800 per ton retail for hydrogen, this is not efficient enough for
non hydrogen producers to engage in, yet competitive directly with
natural gas which costs $1,000 for an equivalent heat value.  In this
way efficiency and value differences inform not only what it
profitable, but also, price points that give hydrogen producers a
strategic lock on the market.

       1 ton of hydrogen = 143 GJ - selling price $800 per tonne

        Natural gas market value:   $7 / GJ -->   $1,000 per tonne
hydrogen equivalent

       $800 per tonne hydrogen + CO2 converted to methane-->  $760
methane value

as the price of methane falls, the process becomes more and more
economically favorable to just sell hydrogen instead of methane.

Similar analyses can be done for coal to liquids and coal substitution
and liquids substitution)

  Alex wrote:

At that, why all this hand waving about something that would take
decades even if it happens?

La, la, la, usenet.......

 
Do you have the same attitude for off-shore oil drilling platforms?
THESE take decades, cost billions of dollars, and oftentimes do not
pay for themselves.

Is that a reason not to spend hundreds of billions of dollars - and
hundreds of lives - a year building deploying and operating them?

http://www.rigzone.com/data/projects/project_list.asp

The answers are in the numbers obviously.  American Petroleum
Institute said $401 billion was spent last year to increase reserves
by a measly 2% - which is an all time high for spending and an all
time low for reserve increase.

Yet by your logic, if this were anything BUT petroleum, you'd be quick
to point out the tremendous costs, technical difficulties, limited
life span, and huge political and economic burdens this system
causes.

You seem to have two standards here.  One you apply to oil production
and use, another you demand for hydrogen.

Not only for investment, but also for safety.


Whether its major industrial accidents;

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/americas/03/20/oil.accidents/index.html

Or personal losses suffered by exploding containers of gasoline and
oil distillates.

In the US alone, there are 140,000 gasoline explosions, 120,000 of
them involving vehicles.  That is nearly 330 vehicles EACH DAY are
destroyed by gasoline in their tanks!!    6,000 homes each year -
nearly 1 every hour - are burned to the ground by gasoline
explosions.   500 people a year die of burns they recieve in gasoline
explosions and 10,000 each year receive disfiguring burns.

www.ameriburn.org/Preven/2001Prevention/Educator's%20Guide.pdf
http://www.burnsurgery.org/Documents/gasoline_safety.doc

The US Fire Administration reports higher numbers, nearly 300,000
vehicle fires, but not all of these relate directly to gasoline
explosions, though once a fire gets started, gasoline generally
becomes involved.

http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/statistics/national/vehicles.shtm

Since the US is likely one of the safer better policed, and better
equipped and capitalized nations in the world, we can expect that the
numbers world wide are 10x this figure or more!!!

Vehicle fires are so common, that they are rarely reported in the
news, yet when a natural gas tank explodes, or a chemical fire occurs,
it makes the news.

We also hear a lot of urban legends that marginalize the idea that
gasoline can explode on its own.  The idea that gasoline may not be
safe never occurs as we argue about whether or not cell phones can
cause gasoline fires during refueling.  Static electricity has been
known to start fires at the gas pump.  Not cell phones that don't
cause the explosions.  Yet I can find lots of speculation about things
that don't happen, and not find much high-quality statistics in the
industry (outside hospital burn units and insurers which DO keep
statistics) - yet here is a company that sells fire supression systems
for gas stations and offers discounts on your fire insurance for
installing it.

www.pyrochem.com/pdfs/attendant/PC2002038.pdf

Obviously, there is a concerted effort to minimize the dangers costs
and limitations of gasoline, diesel fuel jet fuel coal and natural
gas, combined with a dedicated effort to increase the perception of
risk and cost and dangers associated with fuels like hydrogen.

This sort of thing has been going on since the time of Edison.
Edison's electric light produced 10x the light power for a dollars
worth of electricity, and a dollars worth of gas made in a gas lamp.
The gas companies tried to compete with improved mantles and other
technology, but in the end, they failed.  As a result, they tried to
get the newfangled and dangerous electricity, outlawed resulting in
restrictive safety codes for houses built with electrical wiring.  The
gas companies also ran stories about house fires due to electricity,
and held public safety demonstrations where stray dogs were rounded up
and electrocuted in Central Park.

Edison was no slouch.  He started a newspaper, and every day, it
reported a house fire, industrial fire, asphyxiation, or disfiguring
accident caused by dangerous unreliable and inefficient gas!   He also
introduced the electric heater, to provide a direct head to head
competition with gas in all its market areas.

When Nikola Tesla started competing with AC electricity versus
Edison's DC electricity for long distance power transmission, Edison
did the same things the gas companies did to him years before.  He
created an electric chair that used AC electricity to show the grave
dangers of the new form of electricity, and HE in turn started
electrocuting stray dogs in Central Park, but this time, using AC
electricity, but not before applying the same voltage of DC
electricity to the poor beasts.

So, we shouldn't expect human nature to change that much in the last
century and a half, but certainly, we should be wise enough to
discount obviously slanted views and claims like that offered by
Bloomquist and company.

 
Willie.Moo...@gmail.com wrote:

2112 is great, though what about the decade before right now?

Have the laws of physics changed?

Has your expertise changed?

Has the need for environmentally clean energy changed?

The good new for Mook's offshore bank accounts, by 2012 the crude
barrel should be worth at least $200, and worth a whole lot more if
your friends can manage to get WWIII going.

- Brad Guth

 

One thing about environment or human habitate....on virtually any hibitate
there is hard consideration on how
many can fit in a square mile except humans .
Big government does not want to give up that revenue from you stacking 100
stories or building on a volcano.
So zoning never really considers what XXXpeople in an area will do to the
air ,water,or much of anything  else ....
except thier tax rolls.Maybe it is getting time to be like the ag extension
agent or game warden looking at that as well.
Look at where the dirtest areas of the country are and it is usually an
overpopulated land mass.
Look at areas like California that are having houses fall off a hill that
never should have been there in the first place.
That alone should do as much or more for the environment than much of the
gee whiz circling around.