Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Monday, May 01, 2006

Pope Benedict XVI

"Hey, it's Joey Rats from the old neighborhood, he made good!"

Ok, maybe I should just let this go, but I can't. Hydrogen is crap. It is just a way for the oil and nuclear industries to get more money from the federal government. Let me explain.

Most hydrogen is acquired through the cracking of natural gas. Converting natural gas releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and it lowers the overall energy content; natural gas has more BTUs than hydrogen because of its carbon content.

So, right off of the bat, we have pollution, and thermal loss. Hydrogen then needs to be transported from its production facilities to a distribution point. Hydrogen is a gas. The most efficient way to transport it is to compress it. This takes energy.

Finally, it needs to be decompressed from a liquid in order to be combined with oxygen in the air. So, all of the energy used to compress it? Thermal loss.

So, the cracking, compression, and deocompression all lower the efficiency of hydrogen. Add to the fact that the most efficient hydrogen engines are around forty percent efficient, comparable to a stand alone compression engine, one tends to think of hydrogen as crap.

Look, a diesel electric hybrid with a stirling engine converting the thermal loss of the diesel into electric energy is sixty five percent. I remember reading about a vehicle of this configuration, but for the life of me, I can't find it. Trust me, though, using a stirling engine to complement a diesel and electric motor removes a great deal of thermal loss from the equation.

I can grow algae in a pool in my backyard, using my own sewage as fertilizer (but I'm not gonna), use an oil press to get the oil from the algae, use anhydrous ethanol and an appleseed reactor to convert the oil into biodiesel, and use that in any diesel engine.

I guarantee you, that is more renewable, and more thermically efficient than hydrogen ever will be.

Discordant thought; have you ever seen a cat in a sweater?

5 comments:

Drunken Chud said...

or there's water. simple water. 2 hydrogen molecules to one oxy. put simple water into your tank, add an elctrict charge and you seperate the molecules. now, you have two seperate but equal fuel sources. fuck cracking petrol.

Stepho said...

My dad thinks we should use methane. Although every time he brings that up I think about strapping a cow to my car and I laugh. It's one of those bad things about being from Ohio, most thoughts lead to cows.

Amy said...

I haven't seen a cat in a sweater, but my sister buys all sorts of ridiculous clothes for our dog. (My least favorite: purple velour jumpsuit, complete with hood).

evilsciencechick said...

yes

Rev said...

Wow.

Hydrogen sucks......Way to take a hard line on that one.


Oh, the humanity....