Nucular Hydrogen Economy 668
Mark Baard writes "The hydrogen economy will at least in part be based on nukes. The DOE will build a pilot high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), which theoretically can co-generate electricity and hydrogen, side by side, inside a cheap modular unit."
Revival of a Program (Score:5, Interesting)
Where do you think H2 comes from? (Score:5, Interesting)
Natural gas, mostly methane (CH3) is reacted with steam (H2O) such that CH3 + 2H2O = CO2 + 3.5H2
So, when somebody says he wants a hydrogen powered vehicle, what he really means is he wants a natural gas powered vehicle.
-AD
Temporary ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Still, what's worse, depending on foreign oil from the volatile middle east, or dealing with radioactive waste here in the states ? I'll bet Nevada isn't too happy about all this.
Nuclear waste (Score:3, Interesting)
The only safe way of getting rid of them would be to send them into the sun, but that would take (with today's technology) make more waste than what it would get rid of.
Re:Where do you think H2 comes from? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, AFAIK, there is a much smaller supply of natural gas than of H2O to make H2 from.
mark baard is a whore (Score:4, Interesting)
observe...
submitter: Mark Baard
url: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0322/baard.php
the story:
It's Nucular
by Mark Baard
May 28 - June 3, 2003
two birds with one stone. (Score:4, Interesting)
So you shoot it out of the solar system (delta v for that is actually smaller than dropping it into the sun). When you reprocess the waste to reduce its mass, you make it hot enough for use in RTG power sources that can run sensors and a transmitter. You wind up with a large number of space probes to explore near interstellar space and you get rid of the waste.
Re:Where do you think H2 comes from? (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I would be perfectly happy with nuclear power of the types that are being discussed today: small scale, small risk. Running 10 small reactors instead of 1 large light-water reactor means less centralized risk and so on. I could stand behind something like that alot easier than three mile island.
$0.02 deposited.
Iceland and H2 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bubba Notices The Irony (Score:3, Interesting)
What does this have to do with a cleaner world? Crack water with electricity? Why would you need nuclear power plants to do that? (unless some of the people who gave you money during your election need some PR!) This is a non existant industry. GIVE the nuclear power industry ONE BILLION DOLLARS to do research?
The Bush administration and Senate Republicans want to give billions of taxpayer dollars to the nuclear industry
This says it all right here. This is CORPORATE WELFARE.
Re:Importance of research and computer modeling (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FINALLY! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd really just like to hear proponets of nuclear energy production talk about all the costs involved in generation, vs competing technologies.
Re:Stupid people in charge!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to see your calculations on this. What are the kw/person rate you are using? What efficiency are you using for the technologies?
If the people pay for the research (Score:3, Interesting)
None of this "donated to the public" bullshit.
If some chiseler is going to get a free ride on government patents, he's going to pay a cash license fee for it.
Re:Coal powered car? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a big fan of hydrogen... but (Score:2, Interesting)
I must admit though, the fixed powerplant makes a fair amount of sence, as present technology is pretty prohibitive regarding pure electricly driven vehicels. Chemical power, wether it be hydrogen, or hydro-carbon chain provides far more power per weight.
I personaly feel that we shouldn't persue our quest for hydrogen in this way. Not when we do have the ability to produce alcohol or methane. The jump to nuclear should be seen as a "last resort" unless we can actually create a viable nuclear waste management program.
"People automatically picture vast quantities of drums, oozing green slime and ruining our lives," said John Ritch, director general of the World Nuclear Association. "But the truth is that all of the waste produced by all of the world's nuclear reactors could fit in a two-story building, on an area the size of a basketball court."
If that was the only issue, then we would build a two story building to house the size of a basketball court. Problem solved? Yea right! If we were talking about something that it takes liters to be deadly, then yea. But something that it takes miligrams... no dice.
Now IF these mini-powerplants could generate enough in the way of hydrogen an oxygen to rocket the worlds nuclear waste to mercury, then you might have something. Not sure if i'd agree, but it would at least be a game plan.
Re:It is a scum! (Score:2, Interesting)
it's better to leave gas cars alone (may be
modifying them like Toyota Prius), and
use http://www.changingworldtech.com
to get oil from waste.
Re:Revival of a Program (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider the amount of dioxins and radioactivity produced by a coal plant. Is that better?
Some people put granite in their houses. It is radioactive but people do not seem to care. The Sun emits radioactivity. In fact if it was not for radioactivity we probably would not even be here because evolution would have been slower!
The fact is humans tolerate a certain amount of radiation. Regarding Plutonium being poisonous do you know Caffeine is more poisonous than Plutonium? Think about it next time you have a cup of Coffee or drink Jolt.
Nagasaki was nuked with Plutonium and people live there now. A nuclear plant meltdown makes way less radiation than any nuclear weapon.
There are nuclear plant designs which are inherently safer. They shutdown automatically without outside control when there is a problem.
If we actually recycled nuclear fuel there would be less or even zero waste. But due to some peaceniks with fear of proliferation we do not and the waste is piling up.
I am politically left oriented and, yes, green. I think we should spend more money on renewables. I think we should introduce measures to reduce CO and CO2. I think we should ban single-hulled oil tankers and if possible reduce oil consumption.
Being against nuclear power of any form whatsoever is blindingly dumb and I am glad people are starting to smart up.
Nobody wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard but no one wants a water treatment plant in their backyard either. Maybe you would prefer we went back to the time honoured tradition of dumping untreated sewers directly on the river?
No kidding... AND... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where do you think H2 comes from? (Score:2, Interesting)
We talked about this in a class I took last semester, and we ran some numbers on the "steam reformation" process... It turns out that A) you still get the same amount of CO2 emissions as if you had used the methane directly, and B) you end up with enough H2 to genererate slightly less energy than burning the methane directly. The electolysis method is worse, using around twice as much energy to generate the H2 as the H2 itself can produce.
The whole "hydrogen economy" thing that the Dubya is selling is just a scam to make him look more "green".
Re:Temporary ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Still, what's worse, depending on foreign oil from the volatile middle east, or dealing with radioactive waste here in the states ? I'll bet Nevada isn't too happy about all this.
That would work just awesome, if it wasn't for thermodynamics. You see, to extract hydrogen from water, which has no chemical energy, you need to use electrolysis. Guess what you need for electrolysis?
Electricity!!
So you need an actual power source for a hydrogen economy. Remember: Hydrogen is not an energy source. It is more of a really good battery. Thus, we need a clean source of energy to get us our hydrogen such as nuclear power. Nuclear power has a wonderful safety recor, better than coal or oil power for sure. It is very cheap as well. And if we use breeder reactors instead of our current wasteful reactor designs, our high level nuclear waste would by reduced by a factor of 100. (By the way, our current waste problem isn't so bad. All of our waste could fit into 2 small high school gyms.)
Re:Trot out the scary "Nuclear" word (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been near coal. I'd rather have the sneaky cancer of possible radiation leakage than the nasty lung cancer of coal. It's dirty, ugly, messy, and
Of course, solar cells cover hundreds of acres and don't do much; they generate tons of nasty by products for the silicon, and wind turbines aren't much better.
Hmm, there's geothermal (if you're lucky), there's hydro-electric (but that kills the fish, etc).
Looks like we're screwed. How about we try building A MASS TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE. Perhaps if we reduced the number of cars by a whole heck of a lot, we could use a combination of resources more easily. Easier to retrofit one bus that hauls 500 people a week than 500 cars when the latest eco-FUD technology comes out.
-WS
Look at the economies of scale though (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, yes, the startup costs for the process are greater for the nuclear route, since building a reactor is more costly than building an equivalent methane processing chemical plant.
However, on the grand scale needed to provide hydrogen as a significant fuel source to the nation, the cost of the source of the hydrogen will be significantly greater than the cost of production.
With the nuclear route, the bulk of the costs is up-front, and semi-annual for nuclear fuel. With the chemical route, the costs are linear, and grow in proportion to production.
Water is infinitely cheaper, and more abundant, than natural gas.
Consider also the cost of the infrastructure needed to transport the source of the hydrogen. Gas pipelines are more expensive, and more dangerous, than water pipes. And you only need the pipelines when you can't drill for water. But you can, almost anywhere.
Re:nucular??? (Score:2, Interesting)
I had great hopes after the speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln where I'm pretty sure he pronounced it correctly. Alas, during the recent press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister it was back to nucular.
How much power? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I found on the web says that a car moving at highway speeds uses about 15 kW of power. The standard estimate for domestic power use is 1 kW averaged throughout the day.
Back of the envelope, let's say 10 million Californicators spend an hour a day in their cars. Averaged over 24 hours, this is over 6 GW. Entire daytime power usage in CA is about 35 GW (depending on season). And this doesn't account for SUVs using more power or commercial trucking.
I would be interested in seeing a real estimate, but it looks like this would require a substantial increase in power production facilities.
And this leads to a sticky question. If we can provide electricity via renewables to generate hydrogen, as the administration suggests we can, why aren't we using using renewables for half our energy now!
because wind costs much less (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, the new wind turbine models can power the entire U.S. in only 14,000 acres [slashdot.org]. If trends continue, by this time next year, wind will be approaching two cents/kwh, placing it firmly under European coal, and in two years it will be on parity with dirty U.S. coal, which is presently running around 1.5 cents.
I need to check Howard Dean's web site [deanforamerica.com] to make sure he knows all this.
Re:coal safer than nuke? (Score:4, Interesting)
Aug. 15, 1999. Myrna, Georgia (near Atlanta). At least that is the lastest one I know of.
I was almost killed in a coal boiler explosion in Tennessee in 1993, but that probably didn't "endanger" anyone outside the facility.
Most coal disasters are actually at the mines (methane or coal dust) not at the plants (coal dust or steam pressure). Of course, many people have their life expectancy reduced by polution from air and groundwater pollution that comes from using coal for power, but those deaths are spread out over distance and time so they seem less important.
For destructive potential to nearby residents it is hard to beat hydroelectric dams, though.
http://www.uic.com.au/nip14app.htm
http://www.msha.gov/S&HINFO/TECHRPT/FANDE/CDUST
http://www.msha.gov/S&HINFO/TECHRPT/P&T/COALDUS
Re:Revival of a Program (Score:5, Interesting)
Whoa, I just went to do some googling to prove you stupid but all I could come up with are this [ox.ac.uk], this [oism.org], and this [ox.ac.uk]. These give the LD50 data for both of these substances. LD50 means the lethal dose that kills 50% of a given population within 30 days (given in milligrams of substance per kilogram of body mass).
Caffeine has an LD50 of 57-260 mg/kg, while plutonium has an LD50 similar to that of pantothenic acid which is up to 10 g/kg (if taken orally) or 820 mg/kg (if injected). Caffeine is clearly more toxic than plutonium according to this! I still don't quite believe this, so can someone come up with better numbers or a good reason why this isn't the case?
Article is not true .. (Score:1, Interesting)
not true. Coal burning produces sulfur and
carbon oxides - millions of tons of it - much
more than nuclear waste. Also they should take into account waste related to coal mining
Also they should compare loss of lives in
the nuclear and coal industry - there are hundreds
of coal-miners dead every year in China,
South Africa and other countries
In one year more coal-miners loose their lives than all the people that died due to nuclear
power plants.
SPS - Solar Power Stations (Score:3, Interesting)
Whilst the original designs for these were costed in the billions - intelligent design and utilisation of space bourne resources would reduce the costs by orders of magnitude.
No more pollution. No more need to build new power stations (coal, gas, nuclear, wind, solar, wave, etc). Just a few fields of photovoltaic arrays a few square kilometres across and the use of existing distribution networks.
Re:FINALLY! (Score:2, Interesting)
Ironic isn't it? Indeed, we already have *BOTH* of those things! We have a nice, safe (assuming we get real about greenhouse gasses or start wearing a lot of sunscreen) space-based solar power from, get this, nuclear FUSION. As a bonus, it's 93,000,000 miles away in case something goes wrong. Plus, we all have great view seats so we can keep an eye on things.
Other benefits: CLOSED LOOP Energy (use this solar income to convert to H2 via Hydrolysis) 2H20 + Fusion --> 2H2 + 02. No changing to the balance of sequestered carbon, distributed conversion plants (could be rooftop-based micro plants), and worldwide, to benefit all.
To paraphrase Bucky Fuller, here goes mankind, drawing down our energy endowment savings account (oil) while our paychecks (solar energy) go un-cashed. Sad, really.
It's high time we work on getting a real energy policy--something that works for all humankind, sustainably, forever.
I keep hearing about a "Manhattan Project for Energy" [worldfuturefund.org], and now an Apollo Project for Energy. [nwsource.com]
Why not? Spread the idea! It's catching.
Re:Revival of a Program (Score:2, Interesting)
Record so far (Re:coal safer than nuke?) (Score:3, Interesting)
Most fatalities from coal are not from power-plant accidents but from mining. Mining accidents mostly kill miners (who cares about them?), but also can kill many people who live near the mine. The 1972 flood at the Buffalo Creek Coal Mine [marshall.edu] in West Virginia killed 125 people living nearby, injured over 1000, and completely destroyed 500 homes.
Worldwide, tens of thousands of deaths per year occur from coal-mining accidents, and that doesn't count slow deaths from black-lung and other chronic conditions that afflict miners. In India, the death rate is equivalent to one Bhopal per month [flonnet.com]. In China, around 5000 people per year [disasterrelief.org] are killed in coal mining accidents.
Compare all this to the estimated 2500 deaths [chernobyl.co.uk] due to Chernobyl.
Re:While I'm not surprised... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got quite a functional sense of humour, thanks. Can't say the same for the writers, if this was his intention. First off, it's just not funny. Second, if it was intentional, the convention would be to write it in quotes.
As it is, they just made themselves look illiterate, or humour-impaired, take your pick.
Re:Gee...imagine that! (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be more accurate to say that Bush is in bed with the energy comapnies. Enron was the most famous example of a company non-oil energy company (though they certainly had oil related holdings) that basically bought GWB the election. Most large companies in the energy industry are diversified, so if they have oil holdings, thay likely have nuclear holdings as well.
If you had read the article, you would know that it isn't critical of Hydrogen power, it's critical of the Bush plan to create the hydrogen. If you can't do that cleanly & safely (something the nuclear industry's record suggests they can't do), then what's the point of switching to hydrogen in the first place? The only group that will benefit from this plan is the energy industry who will get billions of dollars of free money for so called "R&D".
Finally, as for the spelling of "nucular" in the title... Get the joke, people! It's a rather obvious parody of GWB & his well known inability to pronounce nuclear. Just because there's an apparent error in slashdot, doesn't mean that you should immediately post pointing it out. Perhaps if you spent thirty seconds thinking about it, you'd see that it was intentional.
Power problems (Score:2, Interesting)
Generate power by walking and driving (Score:4, Interesting)
IIRC, this doesn't offset the energy cost to actually move the cars on the road or whatever, but it's simply a supplemental return. I have no idea how viable the whole thing would be, it just felt pertinent to mention again. Comments, corrections, etc?
Re:Coal powered car? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are also deposits of frozen methane under the ocean floor. If an easy way could be found to mine this it would provide a pretty much limitless supply of hydrogen.
Re:Nucular? (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember where they are planning on making the next big nuclear waste storage facility? Yeah, inside an 'extinct' volcano. Yucca Mountain. and everyone in the area is fighting it for all they're worth.
If we had some way of safely launching the waste into the sun, I would be all for nuclear power generation. But the way it is, we have literally thousands of tons of hot waste sitting around in pools of water, waiting for a place to put it. And noone wants to take care of it. It's the "hot" potato that noone wants to end up with.
Re:You want to do *what?* (Score:3, Interesting)
Reactors are quite safe. Furthermore mankind will either enjoy a nuclear future or freeze in the dark. Fossil fuel energy resources are quite limited.
The US DOE for instance forecasts that by 2020 the consumption of natural gas will be up about 489%. They actually forecast that much of this gas will come from Canada.
Well completions have doubled in the last few years and the result of this was a rather modest supply increase in 2001. In 2002 the supply dropped slightly. There is just no way on earth that the Exploration and Production industries can increase gas supplies by any significant amount.
American companies are welcome to come up here and look. Many are. Many are also buying reserves, companies like Burlington for instance who just bought Canadian Hunter Exploration Limited are an example.
The issue is that there is a supply side crunch on its way and we are totally unprepared for it.
So, nuclear will find its way back in rather soon I think. But - I do expect that it will be a ways past 2015 before this happens. Also - I do expect that before nuclear starts comming back there are going to be some rather sharp supply problems and some rather panicy people sitting in rather long line ups.
I expect there will be backouts due to insufficient gas supplies to co-generators as well. This could even start to happen say about 2005 and it is always possible that it will happen sooner. But I think 2005-2010 is the most likely time frame that these ugly problems start to be visible over the horizon.
Nuclear + Modular = Nucular? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a thought, seeing as the article is about modular nuclear power. Quite a clever play on words if that's what it is.
Coming next: Jewlery, certified kosher earings.
Re:Gee...imagine that! (Score:2, Interesting)
GWB is nothing comparied to Jimmy Carter, who did graduate work in nuclear physics, he pronounces the word nook-ee-uh [theworld.org]
Re:Nucular? (Score:3, Interesting)
The hot waste hanging about now is as much a social and political problem as anything else. It needs to be fractioned into new fuel, high level waste, and low level waste.
Obviously, the fuel can go back into production, and the hot waste stored until it cools. If we put our minds to it, it should be possible to extract energy from the hot waste. That's important since turning it into a resource rather than a liability will immediatly improve it's handling. It's the low level waste that will be around for thousands of years unless we can find a way to bombard it and make it into hot (and so short lived) waste.
All things considered, I would rather fence off all of Nevada and have a cheap source of power whose pollution is kept in Nevada rather than a more expensive source, surrounded by political uncertainty that spews its pollution all over everywhere indiscriminantly.
Of course, the people living in Nevada wouldn't (and don't) appreciate that very much!
Re:Nucular? (Score:3, Interesting)
Erik