kontiki
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Crazy Quad Rotor Video
- Thread starter kontiki
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People don't believe me when I tell them the technology to have an autonomous air traffic control system is right around the corner.
AggieMike88
Touchdown! Greaser!
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- The original "I don't know it all" of aviation.
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Blue Man Group would flip out for this!
Reminds me of http://www.Animusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR8Oz8Pp8hI
A real one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCIkbr9HCcw&feature=related
Reminds me of http://www.Animusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR8Oz8Pp8hI
A real one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCIkbr9HCcw&feature=related
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Holy crap! Thanks for that, the first two were amazing, the last made me wonder how seenig something like that, people could doubt we can make nuke->H2->fuel cell work.
AggieMike88
Touchdown! Greaser!
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- The original "I don't know it all" of aviation.
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Yeah, pretty cool stuff. More is available on YouTube if you search for "animusic"
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
Because the technologies involved are different?
Name a technical achievement we have set forth to conquer with a popular will that we have not achieved? Why would you be suspicious that we could not achieve this here?
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
Perpetual motion machines. People have been working on them for centuries. Some people work on them even now and believe they are possible to build.
Hydrogen is a fine fuel for fixed installations, piped in. The energy capacity of a "scuba tank" of hydrogen is very small, even if liquified. 1000g hydrogen has the same energy capacity as a gallon of gas, but 100g hydrogen takes a volume of 14 liters (3.72 gallons) as a cryogenic liquid at 20K (-423° F). It needs a much larger volume as a compressed gas. By piping it in, you don't need to replace a "scuba tank" every day (or sooner).
Just as we don't now use a single fuel source (we use natural gas, propane, gasoline, and diesel for road transportation now), there will probably be several energy sources (biodiesel, biodiesel derived fuels, including gasoline) that we'll use in the future. Hydrogen would be like the gas piped into my house. One may not even need to go nuclear- I've seen recent papers where water is split by sunlight into hydrogen and oxygen with catalysts.
ajstoner21
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Very cool!
Right, but perpetual motion violates the basic laws of conservation of energy, so I'll accept that as a concession to my point.
We have the current technology to run H2 at 6000psi, the technology to do it and pumps to run it at 10,000 psi is not far off. Hydrogen fuel cell is a currently economic and technically viable system to go to now. Think of it like the computer industry, it will develop at a similar pace with a dramatically greater resultant change to society on a global scale. It is the only thing we have on the shelf that will allow 9 billion people to be a viable population given current rates of fresh water depletion and population growth. The only thing else that will prevent a catastrophic result then will be an intervening catastrophe.
The decades after we adopt this technology will bring advances we cannot even imagine at this point. We are past the point of diminishing returns with our efforts to improve hydrocarbon technologies and we have no good economic answers to dealing with the carbon. We have not yet really begun to fully put an effort into exploring hydrogen, the funding has been dismal.
Now what really gets to me is that you're supposed to be one of the smarter people in our country, and you're arguing against me. FMD, If I can't get you to see it, it can't happen.
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airguy
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Curing the common cold/cancer/HIV.
Magic Johnston and many other people are leading lives for decades rather than years and growing old with the disease. This BTW is not necessarily good. Nature will keep seeking more and more aggressive ways to control our population with completely unpredictable consequences of our resistance to nature. We are far more technically capable in medicine than is good for us.
You have no idea what the purpose of the common cold is nor the consequences of its eradication.
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
You shouldn't accept it as a concession to your point because it met your criteria:
- A technical acheivement
- We set forth to conquer with a popular will
- We have not acheived it
That won't fix the poor energy density of hydrogen. The critical point of hydrogen is 33 K (see http://www.roymech.co.uk/Useful_Tables/Matter/Prop_Gas.htm ).
This means no matter how much pressure you apply above this temperature, the gas will not liquefy (see http://www.chem.purdue.edu/gchelp/gloss/crittemp.html ).
So you still have something with very low energy density. This means the best you can do is a scuba tank, liquified. A scuba tank of compressed hydrogen at room temperature will have much less hydrogen. A scuba tank that holds 20,000 PSI may be fairly heavy too (maybe less so with carbon fibers?) and would need changing at least twice a day.
Perhaps. There's still a lot of work being done on the fuel cells to make them as inexpensive and reliable as you think they are now. I read someplace that methanol based fule cells are starting to be used for cell phone tower back-up.
Funding has been dismal, by all countries, for all of the alternate energy ideas.
I never claimed to be one of the smarter people in the country. But I think I'm closer to the problem than you are. I've helped some of the biodiesel people to develop methods to isolate value-added compounds (such as tocopherols) from their oils. I also work with the petrochem industry ( http://abstracts.acs.org/chem/243nm/program/view.php?obj_id=135210&terms= ). I also noted recent research where they crack water with only sunlight and an appropriate catalyst. If they get this working, no need for nuclear.
Because of this, I feel hydrogen will be part of a total energy solution, distributed in a similar fashion as natural gas. You may have a fuel cell at the end of the pipe, but the energy density of hydrogen is too low to allow it to be a total replacement for hydrocarbons. The best way we have for distributing hydrogen right now for energy is...hydrocarbons! This could change if they get something like boron hydrides working, but they are a long way off right now.
Please read my posts again- Hydrogen probably will happen, but not in the way you think it will.
I never said anything about liquifying. As far as density issues, Ford right now has a fuel cell powered Expedition that does 350miles a fill. I think we're there as far as usability goes.
We don't have the time to wait for somebody to come up with an efficient way to use polluted H2 just so we can continue to use the petroleum infrastructure. We've been procrastinating far too long already. If we do not do it now, others will do it later and again we will be buying energy from foreign sources.
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Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
And you need a car that big to carry the tank too. It's not a scuba tank. I's a one-off because the fuel cell technology is still very expensive for reliable systems.
Like I said- I'm a bit closer to the research than you are...they are working on it but it's not there yet.
And hydrogen isn't the single-source fuel either.
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Dude, it has a fuel tank that fits the normal space, have you even bothered to look at the products that already exist on the market before you decry them as impossible or poor? Every major car manufacturer has stuff on the road, efficient, practical and economical. It's just waiting for clean H2 to develop into a burgeoning industry.
The other factor is that electrolysis provides enough waste heat, when combined, an algae fuel plant becomes economical.
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Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
Uh...no, it doesn't. The fuel tank takes the place of the transmission and the existing fuel tank.
References?
Algal plants are almost economical right now, in the southern USA. The people I worked with are getting algae to generate high-value compounds they can sell. The business model now is to make something valuable to make enough of a profit to attract the venture capitalists that then fund the the scale-up needed to make fuel (not just diesel).
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle:
Perhaps some day. And probably as part of other energy types as exists today.
NREL and basically every doctoral paper written on the subject (there's a good one from U.of Edinburgh that goes through the economics very well).
When you combine the waste heat from the electrolysis process for the drying, the economics of the algae fuel and H2 get even better.
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steingar
Taxi to Parking
Rather pointless arguing with Henning about energy. I do consider it ironic that we've gone from digitizing analog music to using digital technology to produce analog music.
Cool isn't it, a full circle of sound.
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
I didn't think you had citations. You claimed the auto manufactueres were working on it, I cited they were not.
Your saying you saw something doesn't mean much after this one: http://www.purpleboard.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19431&page=18
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Here's a few starters. The NREL report on the electrolysizers is a good one as it lays the toughest technical issues out the best. Note it's a few years old and even at the oil prices at the time they already made economic parity with gasoline. The Wind - H2 one is also pretty good as is the economics one.
View attachment Hydrogen Electrolysis Units.pdf
View attachment 20110630_preparh2_deliverable_2and4_final.pdf
View attachment Wind to Hydrogen.pdf
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Keith Lane
Pattern Altitude
For the current project I'm running, I bought a methanol fuel cell. So far it's been flawless. It's small, about the size of a home sewing machine, and produces 90 watts of power (7.5 amps @ 12 volts). it has been in some pretty harsh environmental situations, riding on a rail car all over the country for 60 days, getting slammed in every yard you can think of. We are monitoring the shock events, and also videoing the load movements. Our fuel consumption has been about .8 liters per kilowatt hour, and we are running about a 98% duty cycle. It keeps two 100 amp hour batteries charged. Silent, and produces a little water, a little heat and some CO2.
http://www.efoy.com/en/efoy-pro-2200-elektroroller.html
http://www.efoy.com/en/efoy-pro-2200-elektroroller.html
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
This, or something similar, is what the cell phone companies have been using. The report similar results as you do.
Not that the hydrogen is carried as methanol in these fuel cells and has a higher energy density compared to hydrogen gas.
Right, but it still carries carbon so it's only a half measure. More importantly than the carbon though, if it's using methanol from current growth vegetable matter (to be carbon neutral), it's a worse problem than fossil fuel because now we're wasting more fresh water to get it than it gives us back unless you're using a salt water crop.
The big issue facing us going forward is fresh water.
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Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
Nice. But none of these address the point I've been raising the whole time about the energy density of hydrogen, and unsuitability for mobile applications. I've been using liquid hydrogen in my discussions because it has the best energy density, but liquid hydrogen isn't consumer friendly. You can't pump gaseous hydrogen to a high enough pressure to get it liquidfied. Other than hydrocarbons (or alcohols), hydrogen can't be stored inside a scuba tank as yet. There' some interesting work using boron compounds but it's a long way off (if ever) from getting a reasonable energy density.
The second post addresses vehicle range as "...if the car had a range of X miles, would you buy it?" It doesn't address if a car could actually reach that range, or how to do it.
The last citation simply says we can make hydrogen using electricity from wind. Duh! I never attacked the method of hydrogen production, and also mentioned the possibility of solar.
You mention the "toughest technical issues"- you really don't know.
Also in the first citation, look what company makes some of the equipment listed. Also remember where I work. Perhaps, without divulging company secrets, you may understand why I say "I'm closer to the problem than you are."
For piped-in applications, hydrogen is a great idea. For mobile applications, gaseous hydrogen is 10 pounds of s*** in a 5 pound sack. A scuba tank of gaseous hydrogen is only good for a couple of hours of work.
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