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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries
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To: BubbaFred who wrote (46205)2/13/2004 5:41:35 PM
From: Raymond Duray  Read Replies (1) of 74559
 
HYDROGEN CONVERSION FROM HELL

OK, time for some basic physics. This hydrogen generator sounds like a ridiculous Rube Goldberg contraption to me.

In order to use the hydrogen to heat a home in northern Minnesota, for example, what is necessary is to spend a fortune in energy producing the component parts of the apparatus. Mostly this is in the form of electricity, which is now largely generated with fossil fuel. That's the first losing aspect of this proposition.

But what have they decided to use as a feedstock for this chemical craziness? Ethanol. What are the components of ethanol in today's corporatized production? First, there's a still involved in converting fermented corn into ethanol. Another energy cost. Then there is the diesel to truck to corn from the farm to the distillery. Then there is the diesel to plant, cultivate and harvest the corn. Then there is the natural gas used to dry the corn, to produce the ammonia fertilizer that makes the crop economically viable.

So when you done with this whole silly scheme, you've basically taken the natural gas and oil flowing in pipelines past that house in northern Minnesota and created a lot of economic activity while from an energy budget point-of-view, you've just created one of the silliest wastes of resources imaginable.

There is only one hydrogen generating scheme that I can think of that makes real economic sense. That is to convert the abundant wind power of the Northern Plains into electricity which then could power the reaction of a fuel cell separating H2O into its basic components, hydrogen and oxygen. But why bother? Why not just use the electricity? The only reason to convert to hydrogen, as far as I can tell, is to create an engineering boondoggle that would the 21st Century equivalent of the make-work projects of the FDR New Deal such as the WPA or CCC.
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