[Leanan]

No, I don't think hydrogen is the future. It may be part of the future, but it's not the future.

According to David Goodstein (a CalTech physicist and the author of Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil):

There’s a lot of talk about hydrogen because of the president’s initiative—the governor of California has also announced an initiative. I think what people don’t understand about hydrogen is that it is not a source of energy. You have to use energy to make hydrogen—it’s just a way of storing and transporting energy. And with today’s economics and today’s technology, it takes the equivalent of six gallons of gasoline to make enough hydrogen to replace one gallon of gasoline.

Remember, the energy crisis won't be due to lack of oil. It will be due to lack of cheap oil. Cheap oil is what we've built our society on. Hydrogen will never be cheap energy.

As for his comment about electric cars...I think he's right. There won't be electric cars. I suspect there won't be any cars at all. They just won't make sense, without cheap oil to fuel them. Asphalt is made of oil. Tires are made of oil. Our highways are funded by fuel taxes, a lot of them paid by the trucking industry. Once oil is no longer cheap, it just won't make sense to maintain the current road system. Instead, we'll go to a mix of public transportation and maybe the good old horse. Nuclear train to the nearest stop, then rent a horse to get you the rest of the way.

[JLK]

Hydrogen will ultimately become the portable energy carrier of choice after first oil and later natural gas become unavailable due to depletion. It has its advantages and its disadvantages, but it is better than any of the alternatives. Yes, it takes energy (electricity) to make hydrogen from water. This electricity could come from any source, but in the mid term most of it will likely come from nuclear reactors, and specifically breeder type reactors.

[Leanan]

Why hydrogen? Why not methane or ethanol?

[rowante]

Hydrogen because it can be made from coal or nuclear. Ethanol comes from plant material which for industrial production consumes oil and natural gas.

If we switched to hydrogen we would slow down the enevitable slide but only if it is produced from coal or nuclear electricity. Countries like the US do not have coal and nuclear electricity production on a big enough scale to replace petroleum with hydrogen as a transport fuel to my knowledge. Also clean coal burning is only in prototype stage in the US. Australia has made great in-roads in this technology but mass burning of coal will still result in tons of mercury and CO2 being released into the envirnoment. Not good.

[Pops]

But as leanan said:

“Remember, the energy crisis won't be due to lack of oil. It will be due to lack of cheap oil. Cheap oil is what we've built our society on. Hydrogen will never be cheap energy.”

If the number given is true (I don’t know) – 6 gal of gas to produce 1 gal of gas equivalent, I fail to see the point.

If gas is 20 bucks per gallon and hydrogen is $120 or even makes it down to $60 or $30 after we built the conversion plants, pay off the nuke plants, update the electric grid, add hydrogen pumps at the gas stations – a scary thought on it’s face, and perfect a way to prevent the vehicle tanks from going up like the Hindenburg in a crash…

Why would I own a hydrogen car if it’s still $30 a gallon? Why would I still own a car for that matter - can you imagine what that car will cost to manufacture with “cheap” oil at $300/bbl?

[MrPC]

Countries like the US do not have coal and nuclear electricity production on a big enough scale to replace petroleum with hydrogen as a transport fuel to my knowledge.

It's fairly simple to do a back of the envelope calculation as to how much surplus power you need to power hydrogen cars on a nationwide scale.

Take a car with 190kW of power to the wheel. Assume it'll be driving for two hours a day, and will be cruising or significantly powering for one of those hours (the possibility of regenerative braking helps bring the external power requirement down).

Now, the whole process of running power out of the plant to the grid to the hydrogen producer, converting it into Hydrogen, trucking it across town to the gas station and factoring in losses since Hydrogen is highly prone to leakage (it's too small a molecule to be viably contained) and efficiency losses in the engine itself, will give you a power plant to wheel efficiency of between 10-20%. Let's say 10%, since we know people don't tend to maintain their cars to exacting standards and industry is always cost cutting.

That means every car would have an averate power plant generation requirement of 1900kWh/day, or alternately, if you have a power plant producing 24/7, each car represents 70.4kW of power generation required.

Take Australia, we have about 10 million cars on the road. That's a requirement for 704GW of power should we attempt to move all private cars over to Hydrogen.

I would assume that the United States has about 130 million cars (give or take). That'd be 9152GW of surplus generation required nationwide.

How many nuke plants would be required then just for private cars? A 1400mW CANDU is about $3bn and would produce enough power for 19,896 cars (at an amortised cost of about $150k per car just for generation capacity).

I so hope I'm wrong here, and I am open to corrections, but the numbers just don't stack up from where I'm sitting. It looks like the forecasts a century ago that we'd be swimming in horse manure by the middle of last century will still happen, but will just be a tad late. It'd probably be preferable to swimming in nuclear waste.

Also clean coal burning is only in prototype stage in the US. Australia has made great in-roads in this technology but mass burning of coal will still result in tons of mercury and CO2 being released into the envirnoment. Not good.

And Uranium too.

However, as you said, scrubbers can be installed to filter out the particulates, so that really just leaves oodles of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.

[JLK]

But as leanan said:

“Remember, the energy crisis won't be due to lack of oil. It will be due to lack of cheap oil. Cheap oil is what we've built our society on. Hydrogen will never be cheap energy.”

Hydrogen isn't a source of energy; it's a carrier of energy. Like a battery. How expensive hydrogen will be depends on how expensive the energy used to make it is, plus the costs of storage and distribution.

If the number given is true (I don’t know) – 6 gal of gas to produce 1 gal of gas equivalent, I fail to see the point.

The point is to be able to have some carrier of energy that can be carried with a vehicle and replenished quickly at a filling station.

If gas is 20 bucks per gallon and hydrogen is $120 or even makes it down to $60 or $30 after we built the conversion plants, pay off the nuke plants, update the electric grid, add hydrogen pumps at the gas stations – a scary thought on it’s face, and perfect a way to prevent the vehicle tanks from going up like the Hindenburg in a crash…

Right now, it costs about $3.00 for enough hydrogen to be equivalent to the energy in a gallon of gasoline. I'm not sure whether this would increase or decrease in the future in a hydrogen based economy, but I think the numbers you used are not realistic.

Why would I own a hydrogen car if it’s still $30 a gallon? Why would I still own a car for that matter - can you imagine what that car will cost to manufacture with “cheap” oil at $300/bbl?

You might not own a car two decades from now, at least not a two-ton SUV. You'll be more likely to work at home or use public transporation. But you'll be happy that the local ambulance service can get around, and that the farmers can work their fields.

[Pops]

JKL, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. I’ll be brief.

I understand the difference between carrier and primary source, in fact that is my point.

We will not have cheap electricity.

I believe MrPC illustrated that - he ran out of envelope before he could finish his calculation.

[k_semler]

university students, (and I'm sure well trained scientists) have actually demonstrated that the worlds, so called "energy crisis" is actually just bull ****. We have the tech power to use hydrogen atoms to fuel our civilization indefinitely. well at least until our sun runs out of it...........

Really? Are there currently any Hydrogen powered airplane, trains, ships, submarines, electrical generators, tractors, semis, bulldozers, and other modern machines besides the personal horseless carriage in existence? Will hydrogen make a feedstock for plastics? Will Hydrogen be able to be fuel for camping lights? Can I use hydrogen in my camping stove? Can I use hydrogen to produce Nitrogen to use in fertilizers when it is 6 elements away? Can I use Hydrogen to fuel my lighter so I don't have to quit smoking and also have a portable source of fire? Can hydrogen heat my house like LNG can? Can I cook with Hydrogen? Can I use Hydrogen to lubricate a squeaky hinge? Can I use Hydrogen for a lubricant in my car? Can I as easily transport Hydrogen in a 5 gallon jug for possibly 1000's of miles like I can with oil based products? Is Hydrogen as dense in energy as oil is? Can Hydrogen be a complete solution to all uses that petroleum has?

[Falconoffury]

http://manila.servlet.net/fuelcellfolly/

There's an article that will explain fuel cells and hydrogen. Some interesting points I found was that Toyota and Honda are manufacturing fuel cell vehicles at a rate of 1 per month. These vehicles cost $1 million dollars each and they require platinum, which is a rare element.

Anyone who thinks we will replace 200 million gasoline cars with hydrogen cars is living in a dream world. Some geologists think peak oil is 15 years away, while others think it's 5 years. There is no way we will be able to adapt our entire society in time.

[MrPC]

Can I use hydrogen to produce Nitrogen to use in fertilizers

Actually, this is one thing that Hydrogen can and does do.

Ammonium Nitrate

The plants were able to form ammonia by using the the Haber-Bosch process developed by Nobel Prize winner, Fritz Haber and later industrialized by Nobel Prize winner, Carl Bosch. The process combined hydrogen and nitrogen under extreme high pressure to form ammonia.

http://www.dohacollege.com/ppoints/The%20Haber%20Process.pps

N2(g) + 3H2(g) = 2NH3(g) (NH3 being Ammonia)

Uses of Ammonia
1. Manufacture of nitric acid
2. Manufacture of polyamides such as NYLON
3. Manufacture of fertilisers such as ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate:
NH3 + HNO3 → NH4NO3
NH3 + H2SO4 → NH4SO4

However, yeah, the rest is pretty much true. I'm particularly interested in the Hydrogen equivalent of a Jerry-can. How do you refuel your vehicle when it's stranded remote from a gas station?

[k_semler]

Can I use hydrogen to produce Nitrogen to use in fertilizers

Actually, this is one thing that Hydrogen can and does do.

Ammonium Nitrate

The plants were able to form ammonia by using the the Haber-Bosch process developed by Nobel Prize winner, Fritz Haber and later industrialized by Nobel Prize winner, Carl Bosch. The process combined hydrogen and nitrogen under extreme high pressure to form ammonia.

http://www.dohacollege.com/ppoints/The%20Haber%20Process.pps

N2(g) + 3H2(g) = 2NH3(g) (NH3 being Ammonia)

Uses of Ammonia
1. Manufacture of nitric acid
2. Manufacture of polygamies such as NYLON
3. Manufacture of fertilizers such as ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate:
NH3 + HNO3 → NH4NO3
NH3 + H2SO4 → NH4SO4

However, yeah, the rest is pretty much true. I'm particularly interested in the Hydrogen equivalent of a Jerry-can. How do you refuel your vehicle when it's stranded remote from a gas station?

Cool. So 1 of the questions I asked do have an answer. Although ammonium nitrate is an excellent fertilizer as well as explosive, (it was used to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City), the process required to do so requires heavily invested energy necessary to create the pressures required to manufacture NH4NO3.

For the survival of humanity, we must find a less energy intensive method for producing the required Nitrogen. Legumes such as beans and peanuts produce Nitrogen also. Animal fecal matter also contains Nitrogen Given this fact, wouldn't it just be easier to grow crops of legumes, and harvest animal waste to provide the nitrogen instead of relying on a process that requires an incredible amount of energy investment?

The proposals I just mentioned have been used for thousands of years, and it is a well-known method for increasing nitrogen levels in soil. An easy way to increase the nitrogen content in soil is to grow a crop of legumes, and fertilize it with manure. After the plants are ready for harvest, sell some to make back your money invested in the land, and then grind up the dried legumes and spread the excess over the land that the Nitrogen levels needed raised in. The plant matter will decompose, and the Nitrogen will be placed in the soil helping ensure a bumper crop next harvest. Now we have to figure out how to make pesticides out of components not reliant on petroleum, or find a way to make pesticide out of Hydrogen.

[MrPC]

Yes, traditional soil nigrogenation means do exist and can improve crop yields above what would be achieved by planting in an otherwise untreated field. However, they can't compare with the yields achieved by artificial fertilizers, and certainly can't sustain such a high global population.

[Leanan]

Hydrogen because it can be made from coal or nuclear. Ethanol comes from plant material which for industrial production consumes oil and natural gas.

It does, but we'll be growing crops anyway. Some of the plant waste could be diverted to ethanol or methanol. Ethanol is "cheaper," energy-wise, than hydrogen. By some estimates, you actually get a slightly positive return with ethanol. The most negative say it takes the equivalent of three gallons of gas to produce two gallons gas worth of ethanol - much better than the 6 to 1 ratio of hydrogen.

We won't be able to fuel cars that way, of course. There are just too many of them. But that's true for hydrogen, too. We can't afford it, when it takes six times the energy to create it as you get back. The point is to have small amounts for things that can't easily run off other power sources. For planes and the like.

Countries like the US do not have coal and nuclear electricity production on a big enough scale to replace petroleum with hydrogen as a transport fuel to my knowledge.

Not nuclear, for political reasons. But we've got a lot of coal. The U.S. and Russia have the biggest coal reserves in the world. We've got some coal-burning power plants, and with "coal gasification," we could probably convert our many natural gas plants to use coal instead more easily than we could build nuclear plants.

But coal is strictly a short-term fix; it, too, is a fossil fuel. Nuclear may last longer. But it's expensive. By some estimates, the energy return from nuclear fission isn't any better than for solar or wind. It's not cheap energy, like oil is.

Nuclear fusion might do it. But so far, practical nuclear fusion is still a just a dream.

Right now, there is nothing that can replace petroleum as a transport fuel. Certainly not hydrogen, despite Arnie and Dubya's fantasies.

[k_semler]

Yes, traditional soil nigrogenation means do exist and can improve crop yields above what would be achieved by planting in an otherwise untreated field. However, they can't compare with the yields achieved by artificial fertilizers, and certainly can't sustain such a high global population.

Very true. The only problems with modern fertilization techniques lie in generating the required power to manufacture the fertalizer, and application of the fertaliser. In a world with depleting oil supplies, chances are, Fly-It-On Spray Service would not be able to operate due to the extrordinarily high cost of aviation fuel. Normally by now, the field next to my house would have been sprayed twice so far this year, but no crop dusters have yet sprayed this field. This is highly abnormal.

Also, unless we devise a method to apply fertilizer via tractor without running over some of the crops, (doing so at this early in the growing season would kill the growing pea plants), we cannot yet apply fertilisers without sacrificing at least some of the crop (the immediate area under the path of the tractor). Yes, later in the growing season it is easy to spray with tractor without having to worry about the ability of the crop to recover from having 10 tons pass directly on top of it, but this early in the season it must be fertalised by plane.

Also, even if the distribution problem were solved, where would the energy come from requred to operate the ammonium nitrate factory? The energy must be available somewhere.

[Aaron]

For example, nuclear Plant Hatch in Georgia withdraws an average of 57 million gallons per day from the Altamaha River and actually "consumes" 33 million gallons per day, lost primarily as water vapor, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

http://www.cleanenergy.org/programs/water.cfm

[Leanan]

We won't be swimming in horse manure. Fertilizer will be too valuable to swim in.

That, I think, is the real crisis we face. If push comes to shove, we can do without cars. We can even do without electricity. We can't do without fertilizer.

Back in the '60s, people predicted that we'd soon be facing Malthus' doom. Heck, my dad became an agronomist for that reason; his advisors all told him that feeding the world would be the major problem of the future.

It hasn't happened...yet. The reason was the "Green Revolution," that used technology to triple food production. Especially petroleum-derived nitrogen-based fertilizers.

But we're hitting the limits of the Green Revolution now. Even though we still have relatively cheap and plentiful oil. World food production has fallen for five straight years. Because the weather is growing less predictable, the soil is becoming exhausted, and water is becoming scarcer. The UN predicts that by 2050, we'll only be able to feed half the world's population. (And that's assuming oil doesn't peak.) CNN's finance show, "Lou Dobbs Tonight" ran a story not long ago about how Canada and the U.S., the only major food exporters left in the world, will soon not have enough to export. Again, that's assuming oil doesn't peak.

Without oil, the problem becomes much, much worse. Yes, there are organic sources of nitrogen available. There are nitrogen-fixing crops. We could remove the heavy metals from sewage sludge and use that. We could produce it using massive amounts of energy. But it won't be enough. And it will be too expensive for many farmers to afford.

Without petroleum-derived nitrogen-based fertilizers, we would be hard pressed to feed our current population, let alone any increase due to immigration or birth rates. We certainly wouldn't have anything to export, though many people depend on our exports. Moreover, without cheap oil to run farm equipment, and without the transportation system to ship food cheaply, most of us will probably be forced back to a rural lifestyle. One in which most of our time is spent farming. (In Cuba, mentioned in another thread as a country that survived an oil crash, people spend 2/3 of their time farming, and people who farm have three times the income of those who do not.) Without oil, we simply can't expect 2% of the population to create enough food for everyone. It will be like it was before industrialization, when 90% of the population were farmers.

And that might actually make our problems worse. The population bomb everyone worried about so much in the '60s and '70s has been defused. Oh, we're still growing, but not nearly as fast as predicted. Birth rates are falling all over the world. And a big reason why is industrialization. Rural families have lots of kids, because it's free labor. Even in China, rural families are exempt from the one-child policy. In the city, it's a different story. With families crammed into small apartments and few jobs suitable for kids, it just doesn't make sense to have a large family.

But if we go back to a rural lifestyle, suddenly having lots of kids will make economic sense again. For individuals, anyway, though not for society as a whole. I suspect it will mean a further drop in our standard of living, and likely a high death rate from disease, violence, and starvation.

[Pops]

Good post Leanan.

I too had read of recent falling production. Per capita global consumption of both food and oil indicates to me however that we may have diverted the population bomb but we haven’t defused it by a long shot.

Although we’re a little off topic, without constraint, world population will double in the next 40 years and as you say we can barely feed those alive today. Starving to death 6 b people doesn’t sound like we’ve averted the problem.

Lots of good points!

(Edited for spelling)