Hydrogen and Reality: A Space Engineer's View
Jeremy Rifkin is an opportunistic fool who could only prosper in an environment
where intent trumps rationality.
Among
other things that prove his incompetence was his citing the ability to park a
hydrogen powered vehicle in front of your house and using it to power your
home. (LA Times)
What
'hydrogen economy" advocates seem to have overlooked in their enthusiasm
is the storage, distribution and
servicing problems that would arise if we attempted to transition to hydrogen.
The only
really economically and technically practical method for generating the
quantities of hydrogen needed is to build many new, current design nuclear
power plants ... something I support anyway as an escape from foreign
hydrocarbon dependency.
We have
already invested billions and decades in tokamaks and their ancillary equipment
and totally failed to produce any net energy. Though we may eventually succeed,
throwing more money at it has not been shown to correlate with progress,
nor is waiting for a fusion breakthrough a reasonable course for solving our
foreign oil dependency in the near future.
And just
how will the "Greens" greet that solution? We can't even agree to use
that New Mexico mountain repository to sequester the nuke trash we are
generating now. And the tokamaks will also generate nuclear waste, if only from
the worn out tokamaks themselves. But let's say we did build the necessary nuke
power plants. How will we get the hydrogen to the hundreds of thousands of
distribution points (all existing gasoline stations as well as
industrial plants now burning natural gas and other hydrocarbons)? We
absolutely can not use the present pipe lines. The hydrogen would all leak out
before it got there, as hydrogen, the smallest molecule, is extremely
difficult to transport by piping.
As an
example, one reason that the X-33 rocket failed was that Lockheed-Martin was
unable to eliminate hydrogen
leaks from the SR-71 test aircraft that was to test the 1/4 scale linear
aerospike engines ... and those hydrogen lines were less than ten feet long!
But for
the sake of argument, let's assume hydrogen arrives at the service station or
that electricity is conducted there and the hydrogen is generated at the
"points of service". Who will do the servicing? Some numb nuts high
school drop out? Or we auto drivers, ourselves?
Are you
aware of the training and equipment used by the people who service the Space
Shuttle with hydrogen, including "SCAPE" Suits that are provided with
breathing gas to isolate them from the environment? Can you imagine the
insurance costs of operating a "hydrogen gas station"?
But
there's more. The "gas station" will have to store hydrogen, as it
will be impractical to generate it for each vehicle as it pulls up to the
"pump". To store hydrogen at anything less than very high pressure or
at cryogenic temperatures would require immense storage tanks because of
its very low density. And it would have to be liquefied or highly compressed to
allow a sufficient amount to be stored in a vehicle anyway. Either compressing
it or cooling it will require very significant additional energy, as well as
very expensive and technically
challenging equipment and equipment operators.
Recall
that in August 1985 the US Air Force was ready to launch Shuttles from
Vandenberg. The "Slick Six" launch tower and all the rest of
the billion dollar facility was ready to go. In fact, Sec. Aldridge (then USAF
Secretary) was preparing to fly on board that first polar launch to prove his
confidence. Then the Challenger blew up at the Cape.
Afterwards the Vandenberg facility and all USAF, as well as commercial Shuttle
pay loads were reassigned and the Shuttle devoted to scientific launches only.
The reason given for not using the polar orbit launch capability out
of Vandenberg? Hydrogen gas was detected leaking into the blast tubes through
which the rocket exhaust flows during launch!
But there
is still more. It is claimed that fuel cells with burn hydrogen in air and produce
only electricity and water. In the Space Shuttle that is true, because the
oxygen and hydrogen are
metered out under control in the exact stoichiometric mixing ratio so that
there is exactly one oxygen molecule for each two hydrogen molecules. But guess
what? When hydrogen is burned in air (that is 78% nitrogen) there are
several very unfriendly nitrogen compounds formed, some of which will damage
the ozone layer! Has Rifkin ever said anything about that? Does this
"expert" even know about it?
The once
well supported and quite recent battery driven automobile fad is now largely
forgotten, and the General Motors "Impact" cars are all scrapped.
Aside from the very unsatisfactory performance of battery driven cars,
there was the then largely ignored problem of the environmental impact of
aggregating and recycling tens of millions of worn out batteries every year.
The
present enthusiasm for the "hydrogen economy" is equally unrealistic,
but the Rifkins do not care. They will ride the latest wave of uninformed
cheerleading until it too dies, and then find yet another hairbrained cause to
surf.
Meanwhile the real solution to our dependence upon foreign oil and for reducing
carbon monoxide by about fifty percent, all without any draconian changes in
logistical or generating systems at all, and with no loss of performance
by our vehicles ... in fact, achieving cruise ranges of 450 miles per tank ...
is already alive and increasingly popular in show rooms and on streets and
highways all over the USA. I have not run the numbers, but it may be that the
USA could achieve the Kyoto Treaty reductions and more, simply by switching to
this
available and proven technology.
I am
referring, of course, to the hybrid engined automobile. There surely will be
problems with the advent of these fuel miserly vehicles (even the new Ford
Escape hybrid powered SUV will get an estimated 25 miles per gallon), but not
because of ridiculously impractical logistical requirements. The problems will
arise from the drastic reduction in income for the petroleum producers. OPEC
will see a drastic and potentially very destabilizing reduction in the
demand for oil, with consequences that can now hardly be foreseen, but
should occupy a growing place in the deliberations of our State and Defense
Departments, as well as financial and shipping interests world wide.
For example, the current shortage of double bottomed oil tankers will rapidly
become a surplus.
And what
of the gasoline taxes? We've seen what happens to politicians who triple auto
registration
taxes. Will the public hold still for doubling the gasoline tax? And won't we
see a halving in the number of gas stations needed to support the same fleet?
Instead
of going on about the glories of a never-to-be-realized hydrogen economy, our
financial gurus should be thinking about the draconian side effects of the
total replacement of the current fleet with hybrids within ten years ...
and all that that will mean. -- Bill Haynes