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Cheap hydrogen production.

RAMOSS

RAMOSS

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Now, one of the potential 'alternative energy' solutions is moving to a hydrogen economy. I don't know if solid state batteries would be better, but the potential for having fuel cell cars would be an interesting alternative. Cheap hydrogen coudl also replace natural gas, oil and methane for heating.. the trick is trying to produce it economically enough.

The commercialization of making cheap hydrogen from water is getting closer. A company that is trying to make hydrogen production from solar cells has adopted new catalyist technology in their efforts .. to replace platinum as a catalyst with common elements that are 20 times cheaper.

I don't know if they will be successful in the long run (until the products are actually sold, who knows).

But, here is the article about it.

http://www.hypersolar.com/news_detail.php?id=88
 
RAMOSS said:
Now, one of the potential 'alternative energy' solutions is moving to a hydrogen economy. I don't know if solid state batteries would be better, but the potential for having fuel cell cars would be an interesting alternative. Cheap hydrogen coudl also replace natural gas, oil and methane for heating.. the trick is trying to produce it economically enough.

The commercialization of making cheap hydrogen from water is getting closer. A company that is trying to make hydrogen production from solar cells has adopted new catalyist technology in their efforts .. to replace platinum as a catalyst with common elements that are 20 times cheaper.

I don't know if they will be successful in the long run (until the products are actually sold, who knows).

But, here is the article about it.

http://www.hypersolar.com/news_detail.php?id=88
Click to expand...

My feeling? Hydrogen is probably the best we can do using solar generated electricity to produce it. But the best way to go is via the market by increasing a tax on co2 in predictable increments.
 
joG said:
My feeling? Hydrogen is probably the best we can do using solar generated electricity to produce it. But the best way to go is via the market by increasing a tax on co2 in predictable increments.
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The best way to go to market is to have it be able to make money better than natural gas and oil.
 
Hydrogen generation and nuclear power would work great together.

Nuclear plants generally need to produce the same power all the time. So by using the excess electricity in off peak periods towards hydrogen production would work great.
 
countryboy said:
That's terrific! What percentage of Britain's total electricity needs were met by wind power?
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Google it. I can't be bothered wasting my time on pedantry and point-scoring. Last June, more than half of the power came from renewables.
 
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Manc Skipper said:
Google it. I can't be bothered wasting my time on pedantry and point-scoring. Last June, more than half of the power came from renewables.
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Since when are valid points considered "pedantry and point-scoring"? Ohhhhh, I get it, you're projecting again. I might've known. :roll:
 
Manc Skipper said:
Google it. I can't be bothered wasting my time on pedantry and point-scoring. Last June, more than half of the power came from renewables.
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Lol, looks like 11.5% of your electricity came from wind in 2016, down from 12% the previous year. Oh, and it also added about £18 on average to your electric bills. Yes! You guys are KILLIN' IT! :rolleyes:
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Hydrogen generation and nuclear power would work great together.

Nuclear plants generally need to produce the same power all the time. So by using the excess electricity in off peak periods towards hydrogen production would work great.
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Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima - what could possibly go wrong?
 
I think this approach has promise:

Solar Energy
Volume 78, Issue 5, May 2005, Pages 603-615

Solar Energy
Solar thermochemical production of hydrogen––a review

Abstract
This article reviews the underlying science and describes the technological advances in the field of solar thermochemical production of hydrogen that uses concentrated solar radiation as the energy source of high-temperature process heat.
=======================================================================
This approach uses solar radiation to 'crack' water molecules into hydrogen & oxygen, both products having commercial value. And such a process has none of the down side of nuclear, such as accidents, storing radioactive spent fuel rods, public opposition.
 
JacksinPA said:
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima - what could possibly go wrong?
Click to expand...

There is a huge difference between fission and fusion. If a fusion plant goes haywire, it goes out, and there is no radioactive nuclear fuel. There will be some short term (like in the decades) low level radiation due to the walls of the plant being irradiated, but that is extremely low level and short lived. It certainly won't go into meltdown or explode.
 
JacksinPA said:
I think this approach has promise:

Solar Energy
Volume 78, Issue 5, May 2005, Pages 603-615

Solar Energy
Solar thermochemical production of hydrogen––a review

Abstract
This article reviews the underlying science and describes the technological advances in the field of solar thermochemical production of hydrogen that uses concentrated solar radiation as the energy source of high-temperature process heat.
=======================================================================
This approach uses solar radiation to 'crack' water molecules into hydrogen & oxygen, both products having commercial value. And such a process has none of the down side of nuclear, such as accidents, storing radioactive spent fuel rods, public opposition.
Click to expand...

There are better cataylsysts out there that make that sort of obsolete. For example https://phys.org/news/2018-01-catalyst-hydrogen-production-fuel.html
 
RAMOSS said:
There is a huge difference between fission and fusion. If a fusion plant goes haywire, it goes out, and there is no radioactive nuclear fuel. There will be some short term (like in the decades) low level radiation due to the walls of the plant being irradiated, but that is extremely low level and short lived. It certainly won't go into meltdown or explode.
Click to expand...

The DOE has a big fusion experimental plant in Princeton, NJ. See https://www.pppl.gov/about/learn-more/fusion-energy.

The Tokamak reactor experiment was shut down in 1997. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak_Fusion_Test_Reactor
 
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JacksinPA said:
The DOE has a big fusion experimental plant in Princeton, NJ. See https://www.pppl.gov/about/learn-more/fusion-energy.

The Tokamak reactor experiment was shut down in 1997. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak_Fusion_Test_Reactor
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My uncle helped build the tokamak generation in Princeton. However, there are many better designs, mainly of cheap off the shelf superconducting tape makes generating the magnetic fields much simpler. One interesting experment is the stellerator, which is an alternate design from the tokamake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X
 
RAMOSS said:
There is a huge difference between fission and fusion. If a fusion plant goes haywire, it goes out, and there is no radioactive nuclear fuel. There will be some short term (like in the decades) low level radiation due to the walls of the plant being irradiated, but that is extremely low level and short lived. It certainly won't go into meltdown or explode.
Click to expand...

Yeah, once we actually get fusion to work, it will be great.
PS: There ARE newer and more advanced small scale fission nukes now.
Large scale centralized utility plants suck. And on that score, large scale centralized fission nukes like the kind we built back in that era suck harder, it's true.

There's also a third type of nuke worth investigating: THORIUM
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Yeah, once we actually get fusion to work, it will be great.
PS: There ARE newer and more advanced small scale fission nukes now.
Large scale centralized utility plants suck. And on that score, large scale centralized fission nukes like the kind we built back in that era suck harder, it's true.

There's also a third type of nuke worth investigating: THORIUM
Click to expand...

Small decentralized fusion reactors would be fantastic. The skunk works is working on one too.. as well as a number of other companies. It's gotten close enough that the private sector is jumping in on it.
 
RAMOSS said:
Small decentralized fusion reactors would be fantastic. The skunk works is working on one too.. as well as a number of other companies. It's gotten close enough that the private sector is jumping in on it.
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I said "small scale fission".
But yeah sure, small scale fusion would be great, just as soon as we can get ANY fusion at all to actually run and produce.
The day someone finally succeeds with a prototype working and producing and commercially viable fusion reactor will represent the largest technological leap forward in the entire history of mankind.
Up till now that honor goes to the Space Race to the Moon.
It's almost impossible to tally up the number of technological achievements and benefits to the entire human race made possible by that.
Workable fusion will actually be even bigger.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
I said "small scale fission".
But yeah sure, small scale fusion would be great, just as soon as we can get ANY fusion at all to actually run and produce.
The day someone finally succeeds with a prototype working and producing and commercially viable fusion reactor will represent the largest technological leap forward in the entire history of mankind.
Up till now that honor goes to the Space Race to the Moon.
It's almost impossible to tally up the number of technological achievements and benefits to the entire human race made possible by that.
Workable fusion will actually be even bigger.
Click to expand...

The fun thing is workable fusion is getting closer than people think. Due to advances in technology (in specific the off the shelf superconducting tape for magnets), prototypes can be made with off the shelf materials , smaller, and for a lot less money than previously possible. In addition, we have gotten enough data and information about how plasma reactions act that a lot of it can be done via computer simulation before actually attempting the build a reactor (A lot of false starts can be avoided)
 
RAMOSS said:
If you noticed, he is 'retired'.. a lot of the recent developments happened after he retired.
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Well, I'm not attempting to minimize recent developments. I want fusion to be feasible. But read the article very carefully anyway.
The golden meatball is fraught with a lot of side issues.
Just the fact that we're still trying for tritium-deuterium reactions is problematic.
Recent developments are still in the area of tritium-deuterium reactions, yes?
 
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