It's Like the Hydra

[lazs2]

uh...   ok..

I didn't understand any of that as having anything to do with what we were discussing.

You can have cheap medical if you aren't afraid to die.. I guess yu agree with me?

You can have free personal transportation right now if you plug a car into your personal grid.. it will cost you the price of an electric car and the cost of the solar panels that are available right now from a dozen companies.

http://www.mrsolar.com/

not sometime if the government lets us... right now.  cheaper every year.. every year...  and as oil gets more expensive.. more companies will get into the field and it will get cheaper.   right now you can be energy independent in your home for say.... $30K    maybe less if you shop around.  way less if you have it done as part of a new home.

Soon it will cost three grand and you can install it yourself with friends in a weekend...  

lazs

[Tigeress]

Originally posted by Jackal1
Oh it`s no problem......sweetie.
I just noticed you had your directions a little screwed up and had overlooked where we were located military wise.
I am here to help.

Tanks!

TIGERESS

[Tigeress]

Originally posted by x0847Marine
Its not about dealing with, rather disrupting the average persons day.

Remember the UNICEF report, half a million children under 5 died in Iraq thanks to US sponsored sanctions?.. and caused "..massive impoverishment.."

Then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on 60 min "... the price is worth it."?

Ya think those half a million folks, average ones, had their day disrupted when their kids rotted to death? and their quality of life took a giant crap? story

I mean whatever, they're 'only' 3rd world savage extremest who hate freedom, right? thry look like terrorists, are rude at 7-11, smell, and cant speak English... they should be begging us all knowing modern people to stay and show them how to make a flush toilet, use fire, and wear shoes. Screw those Geico cavemen looking freaks, the more filthy rock chucking Iraqi kids that rot to death, the fewer insurgents there will be to summarily slaughter on the road to victory!!!!

ohhhhh... god.

When human beings are de-humanized it makes it so easy for many to  carry out killing and slaughter.

Most people can not connect unless they are literally slapped in the face with it as have ground soldiers who have their humanity intact. I am thankful I have not had to deal with it directly but the pain of it still reaches me vividly.

War is a very ugly business.

TIGERESS

[Tigeress]

Originally posted by lazs2
uh...   ok..

I didn't understand any of that as having anything to do with what we were discussing.

You can have cheap medical if you aren't afraid to die.. I guess yu agree with me?

You can have free personal transportation right now if you plug a car into your personal grid.. it will cost you the price of an electric car and the cost of the solar panels that are available right now from a dozen companies.

http://www.mrsolar.com/

not sometime if the government lets us... right now.  cheaper every year.. every year...  and as oil gets more expensive.. more companies will get into the field and it will get cheaper.   right now you can be energy independent in your home for say.... $30K    maybe less if you shop around.  way less if you have it done as part of a new home.

Soon it will cost three grand and you can install it yourself with friends in a weekend...  

lazs

Yes we are in agreement... on the same page.

On a single case basis a personally owned/operated wind powered or solar powered generator would work battery charging for an automobile for short hauls.

A former colleague, years ago, had a personal wind powered generator and converted his house to DC. He didn't have an electric car though. He finally gave up on it due to the maintenance and expense. Solar was not workable due to weather in the area.

Problem is, personally owned/operated wind or solar generators won’t work for hundreds of millions of people on a macro-scale.
Wish it would.

TIGERESS

[lazs2]

actually.. you need to look at some of the sites.. there really is nowhere in the states where solar would not eliminate or halve your dependency on the power company at this point.. as they get better.. it will take less and less sun to do more and more...

sorta like the first solar powered calculators and such... they had to actually be in he sun...for some time.. now..  unless the room is pitch black they get enough energy from the light.

as for "short" trips?   how short is short?   There is no problem getting a hundred or more miles out of a charge for electric cars.. that is say..  3,000 miles a month.   lots of running around.   I would say that range will increase to maybe...  300 real miles per charge..  pretty much take care of 90% of our getting around.

I am an optimist I suppose but I see things only getting better..  

lazs

[FrodeMk3]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Too bad hydrogen is not an energy source.  It is a storage method.

If you had a hydrogen generator at your house and powered it off the grid, you would be powering your car with 50+% coal, about 10% nuclear, 5 or 10% Hydroelectric, 1 or 2 % wind and solar and other renewables, and the balance from Natural Gas and Oil.

If you convert energy from gas to electricity as we do at our plant, about 50% is a pretty good conversion percentage.  Then you convert electricity to hydrogen at your house, and maybe another 50% loss in that conversion process.  Then when you convert hydrogen to electricity again, the fuel cell gets 50 to 70% efficiency, an the other losses make your vehicle maybe 30 to 50% efficient.

So, 0.50 x 0.50 x 0.40 = 0.10 or 10% energy efficient, and still pumping out the carbon into the environment, just at the electric utility instead of your exhaust pipe.  

And that 50% is at a gas fired steam regenerated power plant.  Coal plants are more about 30-35% heat efficient.

Your present car, is probably about 20 to 25% heat efficient.  The best diesels are about 50% efficient.

Holden, are you sure Tigress' wasn't referring to something like this?http://www.hydrogennow.org/HNews/PressReleases/Ford/FordLaunchesProductionICEs-Jul17-2006.htm

Or this?http://public.ca.sandia.gov/crf/research/combustionEngines/PFI.php

Since it would not take a great deal of retooling, This might be much more practical than battery-powered electric cars in the near term. To tell you the truth, this is probably closer than than electric, and it's necessary infrastructure of recharging stations, will be. Given the speeds' and ranges of known battery-powered electric cars, This will be a lot easier to sell to the American public.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by FrodeMk3
Holden, are you sure Tigress' wasn't referring to something like this?

It doesn't matter how you burn or convert the hydrogen into rolling energy, you still have to manufacture the hydrogen.  It is not available just lying around in usable quantities like gas, oil, or coal is.  You can't drill for it, dig it up, or harvest it, you must manufacture it.

For every calorie stored and usable in hydrogen we will need to put in two or three from some other energy source.  Right now, the available, reliable source that could do it on an industrial scale without killing fish, birds, or adding to the carbon cycle is something called nuclear.  

We could have solar panels on our house gather energy to hydrolyse water, but 1 kilowatts of solar panel sets you back $6 or 8 thousand, and 12 kwhrs of electricity could get us (at a 50% efficiency) 6 kwhrs of hydrogen in the fuel tank.  Another 50% loss in burning, gets us 3 kw hrs of rolling energy.

Your 250 hp Lexus could run for 57 seconds at full hp on that amount of energy.  Lift your foot a bit and you might get 2 kilometers down the road.

[Tigeress]

Originally posted by lazs2
actually.. you need to look at some of the sites.. there really is nowhere in the states where solar would not eliminate or halve your dependency on the power company at this point.. as they get better.. it will take less and less sun to do more and more...

sorta like the first solar powered calculators and such... they had to actually be in he sun...for some time.. now..  unless the room is pitch black they get enough energy from the light.

as for "short" trips?   how short is short?   There is no problem getting a hundred or more miles out of a charge for electric cars.. that is say..  3,000 miles a month.   lots of running around.   I would say that range will increase to maybe...  300 real miles per charge..  pretty much take care of 90% of our getting around.

I am an optimist I suppose but I see things only getting better..  

lazs

mmmm... looks like I have some googling to do, thanks

TIGERESS

[Tigeress]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
It doesn't matter how you burn or convert the hydrogen into rolling energy, you still have to manufacture the hydrogen.  It is not available just lying around in usable quantities like gas, oil, or coal is.  You can't drill for it, dig it up, or harvest it, you must manufacture it.

For every calorie stored and usable in hydrogen we will need to put in two or three from some other energy source.  Right now, the available, reliable source that could do it on an industrial scale without killing fish, birds, or adding to the carbon cycle is something called nuclear.  

We could have solar panels on our house gather energy to hydrolyse water, but 1 kilowatts of solar panel sets you back $6 or 8 thousand, and 12 kwhrs of electricity could get us (at a 50% efficiency) 6 kwhrs of hydrogen in the fuel tank.  Another 50% loss in burning, gets us 3 kw hrs of rolling energy.

Your 250 hp Lexus could run for 57 seconds at full hp on that amount of energy.  Lift your foot a bit and you might get 2 kilometers down the road.

Hi Holden,

I understand what you are saying and don't disagree.

It is not cost free to extract hydrogen from compounds... reducing the cost is part of the research going on. There are microbes which produce hydrogen, for instance.

Yes, uncompounded hydrogen does not exist on the surface of the earth due to its light weight... it just floats away into the upper atmosphere... but it exists in compound with other atoms. I view hydrolizing H2O as analgous to refinement of gasoline from oil.

In your estimate, what is the cost assessment of refining a gallon of gasoline from oil vs hydrolizing the same number of joules of energy in the form of hydrogen from H2O? (The energy in one gallon of gasoline is roughly equivalent to 1 kg of Hydrogen)

TIGERESS

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Tigeress
In your estimate, what is the cost assessment of refining a gallon of gasoline from oil vs hydrolizing the same number of joules of energy in the form of hydrogen from H2O? (The energy in one gallon of gasoline is roughly equivalent to 1 kg of Hydrogen)

TIGERESS

Water is the result of the oxydation of Hydrogen.  It is the ashes of burning that has already taken place.

For every calorie you get from the hydrogen split from water you must put in more than one calorie into the procuction process.  If you could go below unity, a perpetual motion machine would result.  The second law of thermodynamics is quite strict on no perpetual motion.

On the other hand I can start a fire with crude oil.  It has an abundance of energy as it flows from the ground.  Refining only makes the fire more pure.  Kind of like knocking the mud off the wood I am about to throw into the campfire.    You may be able to get 10 calories out of refined oil for every calorie consumed in the refining process. (it would not surprize me if the ratio is much higher)

I am not saying hydrogen is a bad technology choice, it is just that the true solution is not in the hydrogen in a cars tank, it is in how the hydrogen is manufactured.

The main source of hydrogen these days is oil and gas production, not hydrolyzing water.  With our current production methods we solve nothing with hydrogen.

[AKIron]

If I understand it correctly, perpetual motion does not require a gain above unity, only that entropy is absent.

[Holden McGroin]

the 2nd law forbids this also.

[B@tfinkV]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Water is the result of the oxydation of Hydrogen.  It is the ashes of burning that has already taken place.

For every calorie you get from the hydrogen split from water you must put in more than one calorie into the procuction process.  If you could go below unity, a perpetual motion machine would result.  The second law of thermodynamics is quite strict on no perpetual motion.

On the other hand I can start a fire with crude oil.  It has an abundance of energy as it flows from the ground.  Refining only makes the fire more pure.  Kind of like knocking the mud off the wood I am about to throw into the campfire.    You may be able to get 10 calories out of refined oil for every calorie consumed in the refining process. (it would not surprize me if the ratio is much higher)

I am not saying hydrogen is a bad technology choice, it is just that the true solution is not in the hydrogen in a cars tank, it is in how the hydrogen is manufactured.

The main source of hydrogen these days is oil and gas production, not hydrolyzing water.  With our current production methods we solve nothing with hydrogen.

interesting stuff you seem to know what youre talking about, as usual, but i put it to the posters here that humanity's lifestyle is what needs changing, not where we derive the fuels from for said current lifestyle.

[AKIron]

Some lifestyles definitely need changing imo but I'm not going to try to tell anyone how to live, much less how much fuel they can consume.

[Arlo]

Rationing and lifestyle change was part of the homefront during WWII. People adjust to handle a crisis. And anyone selfish or criminal enough to fight society when such measures are deemed necessary don't seem to have a firm basis to avoid prosecution when caught. So the moral excuse of not imposing on people just because you don't like to impose isn't a strong argument - even historically within American ideology.