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Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

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Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#101

Post by panick21_ »

zopa wrote: post #37
panick21_ wrote: post #8

Why this is interesting, we already have such a fuel, we found it 80 years ago and its called Thorium. And Uranium isn't bad either. And we don't have to find it, every rare earth mine thorws out absurd amounts of it. We have to much of it without even trying. We just to dumb and lazy to anything with it.

So many people here cheering for their preferred carbon-free energy source like it’s a sports team. It’s bizarre. We’re going to need to do lots of different things. There’s no need to fight about it; everybody’s favorite will have a chance.

> We’re going to need to do lots of different things. There’s no need to fight about it; everybody’s favorite will have a chance.

Actually this isn't the case. Funding choices matter. And not all technology can get funding. Hydrogen investment for the last 40 years has cost untold billions, and has led to almost nothing. Its has actually delayed real efforts in places like Japan.

Here we have an article asking for investment to find some almost mythical hydrogen that might somehow exists and if only they got money they would find it. Thorium doesn't really need that, we have mines now that produce enough of it that they basically don't know what to do with it.

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#102

Post by [deleted] »

senectus1 wrote: post #69
Rimintil wrote: post #27

I think this is important to note about hydrogen as a 'clean' fuel source: > Today’s hydrogen is “gray,” made by reacting methane with steam at high pressures or using fossil fuels in other ways. Those processes emit some 900 million tons of carbon dioxide every year, almost as much as global aviation. In principle, that carbon could be captured and sequestered underground, yielding “blue” hydrogen. But most hopes re…

this is like saying that the knife industry is setup for murders. your statement completely ignores the rapidly developing green hydrogen industry. Those are TODAY sources. just because there are large number of non-clean doesn't mean the clean ones dont exist.

[deleted]

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#103

Post by Moissanite »

panick21_ wrote: post #99
flangola7 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 pound of resources used to build a solar panel will provide power for years or decades. 1 pound of gasoline might provide power for 30 minutes. Yes they both run out, but one will run out in the 21st century and the other will run out in the 210th century.

1 pound of uranium ...

...and you'll be warm for the rest of your life.

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#104

Post by senectus1 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #70
senectus1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is like saying that the knife industry is setup for murders. your statement completely ignores the rapidly developing green hydrogen industry. Those are TODAY sources. just because there are large number of non-clean doesn't mean the clean ones dont exist.

Green hydrogen is not a fuel source. It takes more energy to create green hydrogen than it provides as a fuel, so green hydrogen is a energy transport mechanism, not a source.

this is so much bullshit.

Green Hydrogen is just as much a fuel source as Gasoline is. Do you think it takes no energy to mine, refine and transport gasoline?

It might not fit in your current view of the world where the cost of our environment is zero sum to you, but that cost MUST be factored into it.

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#105

Post by hasmanean »

MarkusQ wrote: post #85
hasmanean wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that oil and gas come from decaying organic matter is the prevailing theory in the west but some people including Thomas Gold had the idea that they come from the primordial material the earth is made of, and seep up to the crust. If that is the case then there could be vast quantities of hydrocarbons inside the earth. https://youtu.be/lr42BP3wvOw

It's the prevailing theory because there's so much evidence for it. We have good models for how it works, they are predictive, we find deposits at various stages in the process, we find fossils of the expected sort throughout coal fields, we find other bio-markers, isotope ratios, as we would expect, etc. We even know why the bulk of the deposits formed when they did -- after plants had evolved cellulose, hemicellulo…

Somehow I find geologists unconvincing ever since they drove poor Wegener to suicide.

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#106

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hasmanean wrote: post #105
MarkusQ wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the prevailing theory because there's so much evidence for it. We have good models for how it works, they are predictive, we find deposits at various stages in the process, we find fossils of the expected sort throughout coal fields, we find other bio-markers, isotope ratios, as we would expect, etc. We even know why the bulk of the deposits formed when they did -- after plants had evolved cellulose, hemicellulo…

Somehow I find geologists unconvincing ever since they drove poor Wegener to suicide.

> I find geologists unconvincing ever since they drove poor Wegener to suicide

You’re rejecting an empirical and tested field of science because of a single incident?

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#107

Post by JumpCrisscross »

senectus1 wrote: post #104
bryanlarsen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green hydrogen is not a fuel source. It takes more energy to create green hydrogen than it provides as a fuel, so green hydrogen is a energy transport mechanism, not a source.

this is so much bullshit. Green Hydrogen is just as much a fuel source as Gasoline is. Do you think it takes no energy to mine, refine and transport gasoline? It might not fit in your current view of the world where the cost of our environment is zero sum to you, but that cost MUST be factored into it.

> it takes no energy to mine, refine and transport gasoline

The fact that these systems often burn their own fuel as power while exporting a premium should show that yes, extracting and producing oil and gas is net energy contributing in a way green hydrogen is not.

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#108

Post by hasmanean »

MarkusQ wrote: post #85
hasmanean wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that oil and gas come from decaying organic matter is the prevailing theory in the west but some people including Thomas Gold had the idea that they come from the primordial material the earth is made of, and seep up to the crust. If that is the case then there could be vast quantities of hydrocarbons inside the earth. https://youtu.be/lr42BP3wvOw

It's the prevailing theory because there's so much evidence for it. We have good models for how it works, they are predictive, we find deposits at various stages in the process, we find fossils of the expected sort throughout coal fields, we find other bio-markers, isotope ratios, as we would expect, etc. We even know why the bulk of the deposits formed when they did -- after plants had evolved cellulose, hemicellulo…

A whole lot of evidence=a lot of hysterisis. That evidence may have been misinterpreted to support a wrong theory.

While coal might actually come from organic matter from the Carboniferous era as you suggested, I think oil and gas may not. Hydrocarbons are the most abundant things in the solar system (the Oort Cloud might outweigh the entire solar system) and the outer planets are mostly hydrocarbons… and yet all the hydrocarbons on earth come from fossil plants?

Thomas Gold wrote a book about it. It’s fascinating reading. Here is a review.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1701266114

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#109

Post by bryanlarsen »

fortran77 wrote: post #74
bryanlarsen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green hydrogen is not a fuel source. It takes more energy to create green hydrogen than it provides as a fuel, so green hydrogen is a energy transport mechanism, not a source.

If bursty, uneven sources of energy like wind and solar can be used to produced hydrogen via electrolysis, it could still be a win for reducing carbon emissions even though more energy was used to separate the water than can be achieved by burning the resulting hydrogen. It is a way to store the energy, admittedly at a loss, from wind and solar.

You're reinforcing my point by showing that green hydrogen has similar use cases to batteries. Nobody considers batteries a fuel source. Batteries and green hydrogen are energy storage, not fuel sources.

And as you said, energy storage is a crucial part of decarbonization.

Re: Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?

#110

Post by dontlaugh »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #81

Today's magic hydrogen story! Please stop building cheap renewable alternative energy! Keep using fossil fuels while we wait for the hydrogen breakthrough that hasn't happened in the past 20 years but is right around the corner! Enjoy FUD and lies from pro hydrogen lobbies and startups! Listen to mendacious exaggerations of solar panel / battery / fiberglass disposal/ bird deaths! Listen to dismissal of fundamental e…

Indeed. It’s especially ridiculous since there is a much more straightforward short term solution: biofuels.

All diesel engines run on biodiesel (or almost any oil) and almost all petrol engines run on ethanol. Both can be obtained from growing a variety of plants.

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