Re: Hydrogen economy will never exist

From: william mook (william.mook_at_mokindustries.com)
Date: 07/02/04 

Date: 1 Jul 2004 18:12:16 -0700

Solar collectors collecting sunlight at a cost of $0.30 per Watt for a
period of 15 years in places that provide for 2,000 hours per year of
insolation have an energy cost of $0.017 per kWh. Add another $0.01
per kWh for chemical conversion and we have $0.0276 per kWh - which
obtains a price for gasoline equal to $1.87 per gallon - today's
price.

So, we can create solar alternatives to fossil fuels extracted from
the ground. We can create synthetic hydrocarbons from sunlight and
coal very efficiently. Less efficiently we can create hydrocarbons
from sunlight and CO2 from the atmosphere. At $0.15 per Watt for
solar collectors we can take CO2 from the air and make of it methane
and from the methane make synthetic liquid fuels like octane.

Of course it is the hydrogen that is energizing this whole process. A
hydrogen economy at $0.30 per watt requires we spend only $1.33 per
gallon equivalent - which means there is a positive incentive to adopt
hydrogen over time. At $0.15 per watt requires we spend only $0.67 per
gallon equivalent - enough to sustain rapid conversion to the new
technology to obtain the benefit of the lower costs.

So, this is the path to the hydrogen economy;

  (1) Create a solar power plant that is about 5% the cost or less of
existing solar power plants;

  (2) Use that DC power to electrolyze water in wet chemistry cells
(the lowest cost available), creating low-cost hydrogen;

  (3) Use the hydrogen to hydrogenate carbon sources, ultimately using
atmospheric CO2 as a resource;

  (4) The availabiity of low-cost hydrogen in large quantities to
support #3 will spur development of technologies to use hydrogen
direction where possible to gain the benefits of greater efficiencies
in the fuel production cycle, leading ultimately to widespread use of
hydrogen;

As costs for energy decline industrial expansion ensues. The world
could consume energy at 11x its current rate, if there was a supply of
energy large enough to provide it. There is. Humanity uses 5
trillion watts of energy currently, this could grow to 55 trillion
watts of energy within 20 years.

By comparison,the entire Earth intercepts 171,500 trillion watts of
power. So, 1/3100th the total. This requires 137,500 square
kilometer be tiled with collectors - an area already controlled by a
handful of mining companies.

This is how things will go. The $550 billion per year spent on oil
will grow to 6,000 billion as the world's economy grows from $40
trillion today to $440 trillion in 20 years. The bulk of that energy
will be delivered in the form of hydrogen with minor flows being
delivered in the form of direct beaming by laser beam and a very small
portion in the form of hydrocarbons derived from carbon in the air.
These hydrocarbons will total twice today's volume but CO2 levels will
actually be lower since the carbon for these fuels will come from the
air via solar powered processes.

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