Energy II: Hydrogen, pie-in-the-sky-drogen

Since writing the first installment of this series, I came across this guy, whose website I have read with great interest. He concentrates primarily on energy production, so he has some great information on different forms of that as well as a set of predictions that I found instructive in making my own. This series, however, concentrates primarily on fuels for energy, and their development and use as part of a system of energy usage which argues against some sources as basically energy sinks.

Case in point: hydrogen.

Not too long ago, I was imagining my own private power plant, one with which I could generate income by selling electricity. The power plant would have solar panels and wind turbines to generate the electricity to electrolyze water, generate oxygen, which I would sell, and hydrogen gas, which I would use to run an array of fuel cells. It was at that point that I made the rather obvious realization that the amount of energy released by running hydrogen through a fuel cell (238 kiloJoules per mole [kJ/mol]) is exactly the same amount of energy required to liberate hydrogen gas from water. If I was already generating that much electricity, why recycle it into hydrogen?

This is the root of my impression that the hydrogen economy is a pipedream, at best: we can get no more energy out of hydrogen than we put into producing it. Electrolysis is the most efficient mechanism; the alternative is liberating hydrogen from other compounds, at greater energy expense. The most likely source is hydrocarbons, and breaking two carbon-hydrogen bonds (hydrogen being a diatomic molecule) takes no less than 712 kJ/mol (bond energy varies somewhat by position of the hydrogen atom in question on a complex hydrocarbon molecule). If one were to, as has been proposed, burn hydrocarbons to produce hydrogen to pass through a fuel cell, one would essentially waste 474 kJ/mol of hydrogen used, and would be better off just burning the hydrocarbon itself.

Add to this the fact that hydrogen must be compressed into usable density, or even liquid form, which compression also requires energy. This useful discussion, notably published by a strong hydrogen proponent, sets the amount at 9-12% of the energy value of the hydrogen produced -- that means that you get only the 88-91% of the energy from the hydrogen by the time you've compressed it to a usable density. Liquifying hydrogen takes 33% of the hydrogen's energy, but makes hydrogen much easier to handle -- and much more efficient by volume than compressed hydrogen (though still less than gasoline, for those interested: 1 gallon of gasoline has as much energy as 1.6 gallons of liquid hydrogen). Storing compressed or liquid hydrogen presents considerable hazards: temperature changes transmitted to the hydrogen by conditions outside the tank increases the pressure on the tank, resulting in explosion if the tank isn't vented -- resulting in more energy loss. There are some solutions being investigated (see this article, for example), but consider, for example, how variable are the levels at which individual car owners maintain their cars. You can't even be sure that the guy tailgaiting you has checked his brake pads in the last ten years. How confident would you be that the driver of the car driving or parked next to you was following the manufacturer's recommendations for maintenance of his hydrogen tank or mechanisms for temperature control thereof? Further, the tiny hydrogen atom, less than 1/20 the size of an octane molecule, can actually slip between atoms in a molecular lattice, so leakage is an issue that must be overcome when one talks about long-term storage. All of this means that we're effectively burning energy before we get one smidge of it from the hydrogen fuel itself.

Bottom line? We can't start up a fuel-cell, and use it to liberate hydrogen to both sustain the fuel-cell's operation and store for use in other motors. We have to therefore use something else to "create" hydrogen for fuel. The Rocky Mountain Institute, cited above, envisions thermonuclear plants to do that, but I alluded to the inherent inefficiency and danger of nuclear fission in the previous post (and I will explore it in a little more detail in the fourth installment of this series). I would prefer the wind/solar combination, given its much lower tangible and intangible cost to the energy system.

But that brings me back to the question I asked above with regard to my own imaginary power plant. The answer is this (at least based on these numbers): if I send electricity out into the power lines directly from wind and solar, the loss of energy from production to use at the other end of the line is about 8% -- or 92% efficient. If I put a bank of lithium-ion batteries in my plant to stabilize what is, admittedly, irregular power generation from wind and solar, I increase the loss to about 23%, for an overall 77% efficiency. With hydrogen as an intermediary, the loss is about 28% from inefficiencies in electrolysis, another 14% from storage, 20% from inefficiencies in the fuel cell, and 8% from power line transmission -- a total loss of 54%, or 46% efficiency. If we're talking about cars, charging a battery-electric vehicle (BEV) from the socket represents 77% efficiency from production to use in the car, while filling up a fuel-cell vehicle with hydrogen represents only 54% efficiency by the time the energy reaches the wheels.

As I was researching this, I was impressed by how cool hydrogen as a fuel could be. I even read that hydrogen subjected to extremely high pressure exhibits superconductive properties (the pressure I'm talking about is about 1 million atmospheres [atm], which has been reproduced for only short periods in laboratories). But it is not the replacement for gasoline: too much energy is lost in production, storage, and transportation of hydrogen to make it truly effecient system-wide.

Predictions, updated

Just wanted to drop this in. As may be recalled, I made a prediction on the occasion of Chief Justice Roberts' confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Contrary to what I would've guessed, it looks as though the first state to outlaw abortion, or "practically all" abortions, is going to be South Dakota. Who'd've thought it? And five months ahead of schedule.

As to my other prediction, on Iraq, we've got only a few weeks to go. Sage Thrasher has asserted that Iraq is already in civil war, and news less spectacular than bombings is would seem to support this. My prediction is particularly that the country will have disintegrated, or that a brutal autocrat would take charge, and neither seems likely to come to pass by mid-March -- but one never knows. As a fall-back position, I would hold that the civil war disintegration/strong-man autocracy prediction is valid for whatever point that U.S. troops leave -- no matter how far in the future that may be.

Similarly, the SD house may vote down the senate changes to the abortion ban. So let's just see what happens, eh?

Energy I: So long, petroleum. It's been great knowing you

Given that our President has advanced not one but two politically self-serving and practically unworkable "solutions" for our dependence on petroleum, I thought I would write up some of the issues and what I view as the real solution to our energy situation. This'll be over the course of, say, five posts: this introduction, a discussion of hydrogen fuel cells, a discussion on ethanol, a discussion on other energy sources, and a presentation of my solution.

To start, though, I want to present a couple of concepts that are essential to these discussions. The first is the idea of free energy -- not G, just energy we don't have to pay for -- energy that we get from sources that we don't have to replenish. Most energy comes from breaking or forming chemical bonds, and it is important to remember that the energy required to form a bond (or break it) is no less than the amount of energy we get when we break (or form) the bond -- and, because the initial energy comes in inefficient forms, much of it is lost in the process of forming or breaking the bond. So it's a pretty good expectation, going into any discussion of energy production, to expect that more energy has to enter the system than is actually and usably released through use of an energy source. In short, there's no free lunch -- not a new idea, but certainly one that has been left out of Bush's energy proposals.

That's because of the modern understandings of efficiency, which is the second concept that I wanted to introduce. Namely that, in a complex system such as ours, efficiency is primarily a matter of masking costs. For example, the Nuclear Energy Institute sets the costs of producing nuclear power at $0.0162 per kiloWatt-hour (/kWh). As it notes, however, this is only the fuel and operation/maintenance cost: not included in this figure are the costs of production and decommissioning of the plant, as well as disposal of the waste, which the NEI states drives the cost up to $0.021/kWh. It should be noted that this higher cost is borne out not in the price of a kWh of generated electricity, but in tax subsidy and funding by the U.S. government -- that is, by taxpayers. These costs are essentially masked, making nuclear energy look more cost-efficient than it is. Note that the NEI's figures do not include subsidies for uranium mining and the costs to clean up the effects of uranium mining, which do not figure into the cost of uranium (see this story); nor the cost of security of fuel in transport and mines, plants, and disposal sites in general; nor the liability insurance or clean-up of potential accidents -- all of these are funded directly by taxpayers, so the NEI can essentially ignore them when touting the cost-efficiency of nuclear power. Take a look at this discussion of the untabulated costs (10-12 cents per kWh?) of nuclear power. At the same time, the nuclear fission reaction is the most efficient matter/energy conversion reaction we currently have -- it just costs much, much more to establish, maintain, and clean up after the conditions for that reaction. In short, assertions of efficiency are at best contextual and at worst fraudulent.

Taking Earth as a system, there are only a few sources of energy entering it. The biggest one is the sun, which provides not only sunlight and radiation (165 teraWatts per year), but changing temperatures from one location on Earth to another, generating wind. Another source is the moon, whose gravity causes similar fluctuations in the height of our oceans, the tidal forces. This energy is not produced by our system, but utilized; and it is not changed by our utilization, so produces no waste. All we need pay for is the cost of producing the means of translating that energy into usable forms, and of disposing of wastes from that process (making and recycling photovoltaic cells, for example). If we take our energy infrastructure as a system, there is another source of such energy: the Earth itself, whose gravity creates pressure, translated into heat, and rotation also influences the winds and generates a magnetic field. All these energy sources have their shortcomings, but they are distinct in being essentially free to use and lacking in waste.

Within our system, our primary sources of energy since we started using non-biological energy (beasts of burden, etc.) have been essentially batteries that were charged by the sources outside our system: hydrocarbons from organisms that feed on solar energy as well as chemical nutrients (that is, firewood); hydrocarbons from such organisms that have been transformed by the heat and pressure of the Earth's gravity (coal and petroelum); and materials formed from other processes outside our system, like uranium. These sources impose the costs of extraction of both the source and the energy from the source; and, because these sources are transformed by our extraction of the energy, they impose the cost of disposing of waste -- all of these apart from the costs of producing, maintaining, and recycling the means by which we extract the sources and the energy. If we were to try to manufacture these materialss -- synthesized petroleum, for example -- it would be we, not the Earth and Sun, that would have to pay the cost of "charging" those materials with energy for later use, making them essentially impractical.

That's what's great about petroleum. There is enough energy in petroleum to run the means of its extraction (drilling), the means of its refinement, and the transport of refined and unrefined products to where they need to go -- and still run a chunk of our electrical generation and heating and nearly all of our transportation. A truly self-sustaining system.

Except we know that it's not. We all know the general truth, if not the specifics: petroleum is finite. Technically, I guess, it is a renewable resource, and we could conceivably reach an equilibrium in which our usage of petroleum would be no greater than its production by the Earth during a given period of time. Of course, such a level would be utterly impractical, hence the effective exhaustability of the fuel. I have read figures that put the complete exhaustion of known oil supplies in the 2050s or so, and while it is unlikely that we shall ever see the last drop of oil pumped from the ground, it is pretty clear that, in the lifetimes of almost everyone reading this, we shall see the marginalization of oil from primarily an energy source to primarily a production material (for plastics and the like). I see this happening as follows.

the price continues to rise, as world demand overtakes the upper limit of supply

the increased price makes profitable previously impractical extraction of petroleum from difficult sites

the increased price makes other sources of energy more cost-efficient

the rise in other sources of energy decreases demand on oil, leading to a stability in price

finally, either demand of oil for energy completely collapses, or the price of extraction becomes prohibitive again and thenceforth; extraction of oil for energy ends, even while oil yet remains to be drilled

So we now have to find sources of energy to replace oil in home heating, electricity production, and most especially transportation. The problem is that we can't rely on an external source anymore to charge the "batteries" that we put into these roles -- whether those batteries be pure hydrogen, metal hydride slurries, ethanol, or biodiesel. That means that we must be mindful of the system-wide costs of these energy sources, and not mindlessly assume that any of them is the new gasoline -- that'll lead to a cycle of energy waste and loss that'll cripple our energy system. We have to change the way we understand the usage, in all sectors, of energy, and make the choices that shall lead to the most sustainable energy system possible.

In the next few posts, I'll discuss why hydrogen, ethanol are will-o'-wisps, why nuclear, coal, and natural gas are dead-ends, and finally what our best options are.

The Olympics: a showcase of unrestrained nationalism

Okay, I have virtually no interest in the Olympics, and if they were to cease to exist tomorrow, I wouldn't much notice. In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I worked three Olympic Festivals (1989-1991) for ESPN or a thereby contracted production company, so I used to be able to talk relatively intelligently about Olympic sporting events -- this was, of course, before snowboarding got added, so it was some time ago. I have almost no use for the Olympics now.

The one thing I do find interesting, though, is the opening ceremony march-in of the various national teams. NBC provided useful information such as the location of the country in question, its population, and the number of atheletes competing for that country. There was the standard run of American atheletes who could never have competed in the Olympics if they didn't have dual-citizenship with a country that doesn't see much snow or ice in winter: downhill skiers for Ethiopia and Thailand, for example. These are interesting in that they're a refreshing break of the unrelenting nationalism of the Olympics, but more interesting still are all the examples of nationalistic conflict among existing nations.

For example, Macedonia -- or, rather, the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. Why such a long, ungainly name? Because Greece sucks.

How about "Chinese Tapei"? We all know the answer to that one, but let's repeat it anyway: The People's Republic of China sucks. It sucks so much that a chunk of it's populace still would rather compete on the "Hong Kong" team.

I don't even want to start on the Koreas. Um, so I won't.

Nationally-based medal counts, national anthems, blah, blah, blah. And the most irritating example of nationalism is the French insistence that they are still relevant to world affairs by pasting their language -- which I loathe even more than that of the Russians -- on top of every single pronouncement. English is international in part for the same reason French is: conquest and rule by force of folks outside their rather small countries. But English also has the virtue of being attached to a chunk of music, movies, and other entertainment from a country of tremendous size and power that until recently made a show of multi-lateralism and limited its depradations on smaller nations to very specific (if still unjustifiable) cases. English also is not in the strait-jacket of a central government department, preserving anachronism by the will of the state and stifling the dynamic growth and and evolution that languages must undergo. So, yes, France sucks.

Lest there be any doubt, I speak five to seven languages beside English, and I would be willing, even happy, to learn another if its utility so argued. This is not an "English ueber ". . . er . . . " over all" rant.

And I don't give a fart how many medals some individuals who happen to be other Americans happen to win. That sort of feel-good-ism, based on essentially taking credit for somebody else's achievement, is best left to those who have no achievements of their own. The only value I could see in the Olympics would be the quality of the athletic performances, which can only be hampered by the participation of athletes based on national affiliation before individual skill.

No, the Olympics don't suck, but they are too steeped in national chauvinism to be something that interests me much.

Building a better mousetrap

So I guess it's time I waded into the general babble on those cartoons depicting Mohammed (piss be upon him) and the demonstrations and violations thereto attributable.

I think we should have more Mohammed (piss be upon him) cartoons. Then, when sub-humans start burning down an embassy, or committing some other violence against a person or property, we can gun them down like the animals they are. I think the term is "baiting" -- if you use the right cheese, the mice cannot resist.

Okay, that woudn't really work: a lot of persons who have no intent to actually harm anyone or destroy property join demonstrations all over these countries (like journalists covering the demonstrations, for example). "Death to America", even "Death to America", are as often as not simply expressions of anger and frustration (like the WWII Japanese soldiers' oath, "To Hell with Babe Ruth"), and if an actual American showed up in the middle of one of these things, the worst that would happen to him or her would be bruises as he or she was shoved out of the camera shot -- and the demonstrators might offer the American tea. The point is that it is not appropriate to assume intent from rhetoric in most situations (I, for example, would probably not urinate on the Prophet Mohammed), and with the "Arab street", it can be especially misleading. So gunning 'em all down, while admittedly fun, would hit too many individuals guilty only of being loud and annoying.

Still, property has been damaged by these buffoons. And, like many others, I wonder where the moderates are. When watching The News Hour's selected moderate Islamic spokesguy, all I heard was that it was wrong to publish inflammatory cartoons -- burning down embassies and consulates in response is apparently okay. So, apparently, is promoting anti-Semitic lies (like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion).

Note that I'm not just singling out the Muslims in this. It is the logical extension of all religious ideas to convert, drive off, or kill individuals who do not believe in a given religion, even if the religion is a "secular" one, like communism or fascism. Consider the response to Corpus Christi and The Last Temptation of Christ: bomb threats at the very least (some sources claim that theaters were burned down, but as believable as that is, I can't find documentation of that). Indeed, for every individual out there, there is some image or statement that would be offensive. But anyone who carries out violence against persons or property -- especially, as the Muslim demonstrators, or those who rioted in the wake of the acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney King, against individuals not directly or even indirectly responsible for the offense -- are subhumans who are unfit to live in human society.

So let's have some more of these offensive images: Mohammed (piss be upon him); Jesus butt-fucking a boy; a Jew . . . geez, there's already so much Jew-baiting literature out there, so pick something. Um, the Buddha . . . eating a cheeseburger, I don't know. The point is, find something that'll piss off some persons so much that they'll commit violence, then let the trap slam shut on their sub-human heads.

NSA surveillance: a complex legal issue?

I'm tired of certain individuals, most recently the Attorney General, saying that the legality of the NSA warrantless electronic surveillance is a complex issue. FISA, Authorization of Force, blah, blah, blah.

It's quite simple. The Constitution does not provide authorization for surveillance, and the Fourth Amendment forbids "unreasonable" search and seizure. The Constitution is not amended or altered by legislative act, but by a 2/3 majority in both houses followed by majorities in 3/4 of the states' legislatures. None of these occurred. The War Powers Act, FISA, S.J. Res 23, and H.J. Res 114 cannot grant authorities to the Exectutive Branch that the Constitution does not, and where they attempt to do so, they are null and void. It is not the authority of the Legislative Branch to interpret "unreasonable" -- its clarifications of the Constitution come in the form of Constitutional Amendments. The Judicial Branch may choose to interpret "reasonable" in the context of a given judicial case, and the Legislative Branch can opt to impeach the President for unreasonable use of surveillance powers, but that's it.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. The President of the United States has violated his oath to defend the Constitution, has violated the Constitution, and is a traitor to the United States. He must be impeached, at least.

Further, it's a load of crap that the President can be trusted to administer this program without providing full disclosure on it to anybody outside the Executive Branch. Maybe all surveillance has occurred in accordance with a procedure that protects civil liberties -- the issue is that we don't know; and, as with searches and what-not under the unmodified Patriot Act, we can never know. It is possible for this information to remain hidden forever, unless a hero releases information to the press so we can become suitably outraged and take action for abuses.

As I write this, Daschle and some other folks are on Meet the Press arguing that the program should continue. Why? Is there any evidence that it has been of any use, or that it is truly needed? The only example Bush has provided, that LA building airplane crashing plot, was foiled without any reference to the NSA surveillance of Americans. In fact, the plot could have been carried out, and it still would have failed: in the post-9/11 world to which Cheney and other ideologues constantly refer, airline passangers know that they cannot allow anyone to take control of an aircraft, lest they and innocent persons elsewhere. It's hard to be heroic if you think you'll live through a situation without heroism; it's easier if you figure you'll die either way; and it's much easier when you'll die either way, and heroic action can protect others. Shoe bombs notwithstanding, hijackers can no longer seize control of any passenger aircraft -- at best, they can render the plane unflyable, which still means dead passengers and a downed plane -- but there can be no more 9/11-style attacks. So Bush, by advancing not one valid example of the necessity of either this program of the authorities under the Patriot Act, has as good as said that there is no justification for this problem.

But, as the irritating fat guy on McLaughlin Group noted, Bush and the Republicans shall sail through all this, because the American majority is composed of woefully underanalytical or downright stupid persons. When survey results can change based on whether the question is, "Can the U.S. government monitor U.S. citizens without a warrant?" or "Can the U.S. government monitor suspected terrorists without a warrant?", it's pretty clear that far too many Americans are not thinking too clearly.

Oh, and one more thing: Congress can make all the laws it wants governing "whistle-blowing", but it is the responsibility of juries to decide not only if an individual "whistle-blower" has violated those laws, but whether that individual should be found guilty for doing so. Yes, FIJA, and jury nullification, are extremely important to protecting us from abusive governmental authority at all levels.

Whew, I think I just lost, like, 10 pounds from all that spleen I just vented. I don't know about you, but I feel better.

And, in the name of bomb Allah the just chemical weapons and merciful nuclear.