NASA Reports Vast Hydrogen Reserves in Earth's Crust 822
Garin writes: "The Vancouver Sun is reporting that NASA scientists have discovered vast quantities of hydrogen stored in the Earth's crust while they were trying to explain the presence of living bacteria. Could this be the beginning of the end for our dependence on oil? I hope so."
Article text (Score:5, Informative)
LONDON -- Scientists have discovered vast quantities of hydrogen gas, widely regarded as the most promising alternative to today's dwindling stocks of fossil fuels, lying beneath the Earth's crust.
The discovery has stunned energy experts, who believe that it could provide virtually limitless supplies of clean fuel for cars, homes and industry.
Governments across the world are urgently seeking ways of switching from conventional energy sources such as coal, gas and nuclear power to cleaner, safer alternatives.
Energy specialists estimate that oil production will start to decline within the next 10 to 15 years, as the economically viable reserves start to run out.
Hydrogen gas has been hailed as the ultimate clean fuel, as it produces only water when burned. Until now, however, moves to switch to a "hydrogen economy" have been dogged by the cost of making the gas. The two most common ways -- extraction from natural gas and sea water -- are expensive and create environmental problems.
Now scientists at the American space agency Nasa have found that the Earth's crust is a vast natural reservoir of hydrogen which has become trapped in ancient rocks.
The team made its discovery while trying to explain how bacteria live many miles below the Earth's surface. Such bugs have no access to sunlight, forcing them to rely on another source of energy for life. Scientists suspected that hydrogen was the source.
According to Professor Friedemann Freund and colleagues at Nasa's Ames Research Center in California, the gas is produced when water molecules trapped inside molten rock break down to release hydrogen.
"In the top 20 kilometres of the Earth's crust, the conditions are right to produce a nearly inexhaustible supply of hydrogen," said Professor Freund.
Studies by the team of common rock types such as granite and olivine have revealed extraordinarily high levels of trapped hydrogen. Professor Freund said that his team had "tantalizing evidence" that as much as 1,000 litres of hydrogen may be trapped in each cubic metre of rock.
Although formidable engineering problems remain to be overcome in abstracting the gas, the sheer volume of the Earth's crust means that such a high concentration would solve the world's energy problems.
"Everyone thinks of gas and oil as the main sources, and it's very difficult to get anyone to take alternatives seriously," said Dr. David Elliott, the professor of technology policy at the Open University in London. "The possibility of vast reserves of hydrogen in the Earth's crust could change that mindset."
The low yield of energy from burning hydrogen compared to gas, however, means that vast quantities of rock would have to be mined.
Professor Freund believes that the extraction and crushing of rock to extract the trapped hydrogen is likely to be prohibitively expensive. The reaction which creates the gas takes place at depths far below those involved in oil extraction, which are typically about two miles down.
The most promising source of the hydrogen may be geological "traps" similar to those now drilled for natural gas. Professor Freund said: "One of these natural hydrogen fields is already known to exist in North America, and extends from Canada to Kansas."
Re:Dependence on WHAT? (Score:5, Informative)
Economics. Oil is cheaper to use than any of those. Solar, Wind and Nuclear require big capital investments up front and provide electrical energy which can't be stored without a big drop in efficiency. Oil and hydrogen, depending on how difficult it will be to mine it, don't have this problem.
Are you sure? Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. If we've found a large, easily tapped reserve, this is a good thing, I think.
Re:Oxygen crisis in 3000 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Could it be? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oxygen crisis in 3000 (Score:2, Informative)
not from me: "The air column above 1 cm2 is 1/1.3 kg = ca. 0.77 m3 effectively, and 0.77 m3/(1 cm2) = 7700 m, so the effective thickness of the atmosphere is 7.7 km. This leads to a total effective atmosphere volume of 7.7 x 5 x 108 = 3.85 x 10^9 km3 = 3.85 x 10^18 m3"
4 x 10^18 x.01 x.21
OH NO! in year 3000 will have 20.8% of oxygen, not 21% WE ARE ALL DOOM!!! start stockpilling oxygen can right now before its to late!
Re:Oxygen crisis in 3000 (Score:2, Informative)
6CO2 + 12H2O -> C6H12O6 + 6H2O + 6O2
But then we may run out of CO2!
Re:Politics (Score:4, Informative)
How many people have been killed mining for coal?
They are orders of magnitude in difference yet no one is screaming to stop coal mining, which would save many more lives.
Modern nuclear power plants (unlike wheezy old vintage 1950's Russian Nukinators with big chrome tail fins) have so many protections against runaway reactions its not funny. The only real issues with nuclear power in the U.S. are heat pollution (_not_ radiation) in nearby water and what to do with the waste.
Back to biology class! (Score:3, Informative)
Photosynthesis takes CO2, H2O, and sunlight to produce carbohydrates.
However, new CO2 goes into the air, spreads out more or less evenly, and its precious carbon becomes available to plants around the world. So carbon balances itself pretty quickly, and you have to really work at releasing it faster than plants can suck it up. New H2O vapor mostly falls in the ocean (or winds up there, eventually), where there's plenty of the stuff already, and doesn't promote new plant growth. So there's not much reason to believe that hydrogen will balance itself out naturally.
Re:Could it be? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Could it be? (Score:3, Informative)
It looks like Saturn was the American manufacturer you should have mentioned for fuel economy.
more about oil dependence (Score:3, Informative)
According to Oilcrisis.com [oilcrisis.com], when we hit the point (within the first quarter of this century) that we need to switch over to an alternative energy source, it will be too late. Our infrastructure depends on oil, and switching every motor vehicle, truck, airplane, cargo ship, and train to an alternative energy source will be a massive endeavor. Perhaps impossible to perform without the support of the infrastructure itself.
I would like to encourage everyone to support alternative energy before this point. We can't afford to wait until it is cheap.
Re:..the next thing you know (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, a tank of gasoline probably has as much destructive force, but the potential to release it all at once is much, much smaller. Liquid gasoline won't even burn, and has a much higher vapor pressure. A bottle of compressed anything has a ton of potential energy, which is going to be released very quickly as soon as the containment unit is compromised. At that point, it will return back into the gaseous state, which only requires a small amount of energy to start a very large chain combustion reaction.
Is gasoline safe? No, it's fairly dangerous, but it's safe enough that we allow Joe Sixpack to go down to the Texaco and fill his car without any supervision, and in some places, without any vapor recovery. Even if a tank of gasoline catches fire, you still have plenty of time to escape from the area. It's only when you have a large area filled with gasoline vapor that it becomes extremely dangerous. That takes at least several minutes with gasoline, but only a few seconds with compressed gas.
Re:Could it be? (Score:3, Informative)
They do (well, I'm not sure it goes to alternative energy research, but the tax exists). This is why those ultra souped up sports cars cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Below a certain fuel efficiency level, there's something like a 100% tax. The problem is, if you eliminate the bottom half of vehicles in fuel efficiency, then the 25%-50% group will become the new bottom half. There will always be vehicles that seem fuel inefficient compared to their bretheren.
Re:Could it be? (Score:2, Informative)
Hydrogen Rotary Engine (Score:2, Informative)
They said the largest problem for them right now with hydrogen is delivery and distrobution. Mazda has the in-vehicle delivery system basically in place, and can, within a matter of months, crank out rotary powered hydrogen cars. "We are ready to go" he said, "If they distribution system was in place today, we'd be number one on the market.
Additionally, he said retrofitting older fuel injected rotaries (13b RX-7's from 1984 on) would only need the fuel tank replaced, injectors replaced, and computer repoogrammed.
The remaining problem: there is only 68k BTUs per ft3 for H2 compressed at 3500 psi. At the same ft3 for gas yeilds 922k BTUs. Increasing the PSI for in car storage is a major research focus for the auto industry right now... Hyundai has developed a 5000 psi tank, but that still falls short of the 922 BTU's that has has at 1 ft3
I Think That This is a Hoax... (no, really!) (Score:3, Informative)
As much as 1000 liters of Hydrogen gas may be stored in each cubic meter of rock!
Wow!
Let me see now... 1ml = 1cc
100^3 cc = 1m^3
10^6 cc = 1m^3
1L = 1000ml = 1000cc = 10^3cc
(10^6 cc/m^3)*(1L/10^3cc) = 10^3L/m^3
= 1000L/m^3
Gee, either that's some REALLY HEAVY hydrogen or som REALLY LIGHT rock!
1 cubic meter == 1000 liters (Score:2, Informative)
1 cubic meter = (100cm) ^ 3 = 1,000,000 cc = 1,000,000 ml = 1000 liters
upper bound indeed!