Robert Zubrin, the engineer with an obsession about going to Mars, has been thinking about the establishment of a hydrogen economy, and is more than sceptical. Have a look at his article in The New Atlantis, which seems to be a pretty interesting site in its own right.
His objections about the economics of making, transporting and storing hydrogen all sound pretty convincing, but it would be good to see who disagrees with him.
His suggested practical solution to US dependence on oil sounds somewhat more credible: the government to mandate "flex-fueled" cars, which can run on any mix of alcohol or gas. Interesting, although it doesn't help that much on the greenhouse gas issue, does it?
Meanwhile, Zubrin's ideas about terraforming Mars are set out in Popular Science here. All it takes is a 1,000 years to have a habitable atmosphere. (Mind you, it also involves things like crashing 40 asteroids on the planet.) It is, perhaps, the plan you would use if you had unlimited money and foolproof technology.
At least you can't accuse him of thinking small.
UPDATE: the prospects for a legislative requirement for flex fuel cars are looking up. See this CSM article which goes into some detail.
1 comment:
http://HydrogenTRUTH.info
A few facts are in order:
* Hydrogen is not a fuel source. Hydrogen is at best an inefficient battery.
No. Hydrogen is itself. It can store energy for 1,000,000 years, something no battery can do. When oxidized it makes pure water, something no battery can do.
* Hydrogen is a highly reactive element and cannot be found in its pure form anywhere on the planet. Nobody mines for hydrogen.
Nobody mines for gasoline either. Gasoline does not exist anywhere in nature in it's pure form. It requires $100,000,000 to get the first gallon of gasoline out of a new refinery, but hydrogen can be gotten from water with solar panels and a few relatively inexpensive things.
* Hydrogen must be produced from an existing media such as water.
So. You make that sound like a bad thing. Fortunately 70% of the planet is covered with water, an inexhaustable supply. When you burn the hydrogen you get the water all back again. Isn't that wonderful?
* Hydrogen must be extracted from water with the use of energy.
Wireless fusion power is delivered free daily from the closest you ever want to be to a dirty nuclear reactor like the sun. One acre of PV is 13 times more efficient in converting sunlight to power than the best crop in the world. One acre of PV cell surfaces mines the energy equvalent to one ton of coal every 11.7 hours, or 26 tonnes of hydrogen by electrolysis every year. Compare that to cotton that makes $300 per acre out of 1,000,000 gallons of federally-subsidized vote-buying irrigation water.
* The amount of energy used to create hydrogen is always greater than the amount of energy that can be utilized from the hydrogen produced.
True of all energy. It takes one third of the barrel of oil to make the products extracted from the oil. You end up with less than you started with. Why did you think hydrogen would be different? Do you believe in energy fairies? Ever heard of the laws of thermodynamics?
* Because of this, hydrogen is actually what is called an “energy sink.”
It's only called that by OILY INC shills. Nobody else in the world uses that term. Honest people call it clean renewable energy that outputs no greenhouse gases and serves just fine for transportation and other essential purposes.
http://HydrogenTRUTH.info
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