21 thoughts on “Desalinizing For Hydrogen”

  1. Electrolysis, combined with a hydrogen pipeline infrastructure, and fuel-cell electric generators at local terminals, might actually make wind and solar practical. Which means that the enviro-leftists will immediately oppose it.

    1. Only if they off-shore it so that can have nearly unlimited space for all those solar arrays or wind mills. The only energy source that makes a hydrogen “economy” practical is nuclear. The consumption side of the equation is just too high. And hydrogen is a poor substitute for electricity anyhow. Perhaps better than rare-earth metals, slightly.

      OTOH if we ramp up nukes maybe we could power up carbon sequestration plants. If saving the Earth from a climate crisis is a priority. If…

      1. “Electrolysis, combined with a hydrogen pipeline infrastructure, and fuel-cell electric generators at local terminals, might actually make wind and solar practical.”
        “David Spain
        October 2, 2020 At 4:06 AM
        Only if they off-shore it so that can have nearly unlimited space for all those solar arrays or wind mills. ”

        Well, if had ocean settlements, one could try solar and/or wind for the use of ocean settlements.
        Wind mills and their platform could be part of a floating breakwater. Or if make breakwater, you can put wind mills on top it. You might even try harvesting wave energy as part of breakwater or I think one should couple tiers defense against waves, so the frontline could have wind and wave energy generation, and second tier just wind. Or you make ocean wind farm, useful. Of course no one wants to live near a wind mills. But could put waste processing near wind mills, as no one wants live very near either of them. And same sort applies to floating nuclear power plant. And/or an airport.

    2. Electrolysis, combined with a hydrogen pipeline infrastructure, and fuel-cell electric generators at local terminals

      A “hydrogen economy” is really just an “electric economy” bottled. You’d be far better off using electrical transmission lines to push the electricity around the country for the long-hauls and then use these desalinizers or just electrolytic converters on-site locally (if using fresh water) to produce the hydrogen on-site for filling up a car tank. Filling/service stations would operate their electrolysis machines like they do their air compressors. Filling up on-site hydrogen tanks during the eve when the demand is low and then dispensing from them during the day for customers filling up. Possible if everyone is using those carbon hydride tanks that store the hydrogen bound up in in-tank absorbing metal beads of palladium or whatever (another rare-earth). Of course assuming you have a big base-line source of electricity in the first place. Like a couple hundred standardized big nuke plants, or geothermal plants. Sorry: hydrogen == nuclear.

      1. The advantage of hydrogen is that it’s very cheaply storable. The cost per kWh-equivalent storage capacity in underground hydrogen caverns would be about $1/.kWh. That means hydrogen would allow seasonal storage of electrical energy. The overall efficiency would suck compared to batteries, but for very long term storage efficiency is less important than minimizing capital cost.

        Hydrogen storage, with combustion turbines (perhaps combined cycle) to convert back to electrical energy, would allow renewables to push to 100% of the grid.

        1. I don’t buy that for a second. You have cites? The consumption rate would require vast amounts of renewable space to cover the demand. Esp at night in winter in a high latitude country. I’m willing to keep an open mind but I’ve seen nothing seriously proposing that with today’s tech.

          1. Space is not a problem, as you can easily figure out yourself with basic arithmetic. (The space complaint is a common anti-renewable dogwhistle from propagandists counting on their audience being numerically illiterate.)

            You DID run the numbers yourself before forming that opinion, right?

  2. I’ve decided to push a fuel infrastructure based on nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine, which combine to produce three nitrogen molecules and four molecules of water, with no CO2 emissions at all. Of course cars would have to use two separate fuel tanks and dual fuel-injectors, which would only be a minor expense compared to lithium batteries and rare-earth motors.

    But more beneficially, if the vehicles were primarily made from carbon fiber composites, plastics, and perhaps aluminum alloys, major car accidents would likely be self-sterilizing, if not completely self-cleaning, with both a nice fireball, a toxic cloud, and a big scorch to mark the spot. Plus, fuel leaks in transport, fueling, or use would be easy to spot because of all the dead bodies.

    If it reduces global warming by just 0.01 degrees C, California’s government would likely sign on to it.

    1. Daihatsu had been working on a hydrazine fuel cell vehicle for a number of years. One of their major breakthroughs is an encapsulation technology for the hydrazine which renders a spill harmless, and all of the handling hazards moot. Hydrazine offers the highest density storage for hydrogen possible, and its production cycle is carbon-less (if one uses the Raschig process). This would be a perfect replacement for fossil fuels. But again, the enviro-left aren’t interested in keeping civilization going, they are interested in stopping it. So don’t expect any workable technologies to be accepted. (Maybe they would like your solution, George – it has so much death and destruction potential!)

    2. Hydrazine..? *ugh* And I thought hydrogen was something I really, Really didn’t want to share a car chassis with.

      1. The only substance more demonized than plutonium has to be hydrazine, and it’s all b**shit. My wife an I both have worked with it in the field, without any PPE, for years. She, in fact, worked for Rocketdyne, and did a great deal of testing at Santa Susanna Field Laboratory, all of it on hypergol systems. UCLA conducted an extensive study of health effects at Santa Susanna, and it wasn’t a friendly study – they were looking to find horrific toxic effects from all of those dastardly chemicals Rocketdyne used. Nevertheless, they found no increase in cancer, or any other disease, among people working with hydrazine and its derivatives, no matter how long they worked with it. (There was a slight increase in the incidence of cancer among the people who worked on nuclear devices at Santa Susanna.)

        Beside that, the Daihatsu encapsulation technology is really spiffy. And it really reduces the risk posed by an already low-risk material to vanishingly small.

        1. The only substance more demonized than plutonium has to be hydrazine, and it’s all b**shit.

          Hmm. And here I thought the only substance more demonized than nitrogen tetroxide was hydrazine… 😀

          1. I’ve been sprayed with nitrogen tetroxide, not wearing any PPE. I was lucky. That’s one substance I would always wear a SCAPE suit to work with.

            IRFNA, on the other hand, is a pussycat.

          2. Fortunately I’ve had to deal with nothing more noxious than anhydrous ammonia. Back in my checkered past I had shut off the gas powered pump, closed the valves on the nurse tank and supply tanks but forgot to open the bleed valve before decoupling the feed hose between them.
            Talk about clearing nasal passages…

          3. IRFNA on the other hand is a pussycat

            “I” RFNA — inhibited with what in your case? Hydrogen fluoride???

  3. Hydrogen is great fuel. I have a way of storing it as a liquid at room temperature by attaching the atoms of hydrogen to sub nanoscale backbones of carbon atoms. I’m calling my invention “gasoline” or in slightly different form “diesel”.

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