Re: Hydrogen

From: Jed Checketts (jedcheck_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/23/04 

Date: 23 Nov 2004 11:48:12 -0800

Fred Kasner <fkasner@enteract.com> wrote in message news:<28tnd.20829$
> >
>
> You've got to be joking. The unchallengable facts are that none of those
> portions of the "mixture" that you want to employ come any where even
> close to being adequate. Solar is totally hopeless at the lattitudes of
> the some of the biggest cities in the US.

I live 50 miles from the solar plant at Kramer Junction, California
which produces 150 MW of power.. That is 150,000 KW. And it is on an
incredibly small piece of land compared to the vast California desert
out here near Ridgecrest, California. That is more than enough power
to power every home in the city of Ridgecrest, California. Hence, the
reason the power is transmitted to Los Angeles via the grid. It is
becoming abundantly clear that technology does not stand in the way of
US independence from oil.

And in Europe the latitudes
> are even higher and the insolation totally inadequate. Sure nuclear and
> coal have problems, but it the petroleum and gas runs out it is all we
> would have. Get used to it. There is no technologically viable solution
> on the horizon that will produce the energy we need by any process that
> would not be more energetically expensive than the energy produces by
> running it.

Your pessimism does not assure failure for renewable energy. Kramer
Junction is proof positive that it can happen.

..snip..

 Your original statement required making an aluminum
> compound from some source of energy to later produce hydrogen to use the
> H2 to get back the energy. Why not use the original energy to produce
> electricity why go twice around the barn to get to the side of it? You
> are becoming a hopeless fool, Jed.

You have asked this question in many ways over the years. The answer
remains the same: ***Storage***. Running an extension cord from one
side of a barn to the other might work. Running an extension cord to
your car, coffee cart, or portable computer, however, doesn't work.
Energy Storage. Energy Storage. Energy Storage. Print it on a 3 by 5
card and read it back to yourself and maybe someday you will remember
that an extension cord from one side of the barn to the other doesn't
work for every application gramps.

>
>
> >
> >>>>And the anode is what? And you have found a way to make an air motot a
> >>>>high density energy device by what magical method? If you have found a
> >>>>way to make Al from bauxite in a molten cryolite solution without a
> >>>>carbon anode hide the secret carefully. The Al producers of the world
> >>>>will pay you mulit-millions of dollars and Euros for that secret. What a
> >>>>fool you have become.
> >
> >
> > Comments like the above really date you, grampa Fred. Many aluminum
> > producers have been using alternatives to carbon electrodes for years.
> >
>
> Why then are the Al producers the world's largest consumers of carbon to
> this day?

Wanna put your money where your mouth is Fred? They aren't even in
the top 5. Check Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.

>
> >>>
> >>>I certainly hope you realize that bauxite is a mixture of iron oxide
> >>>and aluminum oxide and would never be used in a molten cryolite
> >>>solution to produce aluminum.
> >>>
> >>
> >>Bauxite is a hydrated oxide of aluminum.
> >
> >
> > Utter hogwash. Bauxite is roughly 50/50 iron oxide and aluminum
> > oxide.
> >
> > As is so with most ore
> >
> >>resources it can have impurities in it rather than being a pure mineral.
> >>Iron oxide is NOT an inherent part of bauxite.
> >
> >
> > Yes it is. It is the very definition of what bauxite is, gramps.
>
> Sonny, you show your callow inability to reason by swallowing data that
> you never bother to verify. Bauxite is a ore that contains over 52% of
> Al2O3, some iron oxide, some silica, and some titania. The last three
> are minor consituents in bauxite.

Fred, give it up already. If the iron oxide in bauxite were a "minor
constituent" it wouldn't be called bauxite, but rather aluminum oxide.

>>
> Iron oxide is a minor constituent in bauxite. Some sources of bauxite
> type ores
> have almost no iron oxide in them.

Really? Wow, you should tell someone about this mystery location of
yours. Perhaps they could avoid the trouble of mining the bauxite in
Australia and then removing the iron oxide to obtain the aluminum
oxide. Sorry, Fred, you stepped right into this one and you are
covered with red mud (the slang term for the iron oxide left from
separating out the Al2O3).

..snip..

>
> > >
> Clear it is that this is all a dream. The energy costs to produce an
> aluminum producing device is very expensive. In point of fact several Al
> plants in the Pacific northwest were closed down and the electricity
> f0rmerly being used was more valuable from direct sale to consumers both
> commercial and noncommercial.
>
> FK

I agree with you on the above. In fact, I pointed this information
out on the net months ago. As I stated, in 2000 the aluminum
production in the USA was around 5 million tons per year and it is now
less than 1 million tons per year, mostly because of lower electricity
costs in other countries (mostly China). imo, solar energy and wind
energy in the USA should be developed to increase competition among
energy producers and lower the cost of energy to help maintain
American manufacturing competitiveness. This is the way to keep
manufacturing in the United States of America. Otherwise, energy,
food, cars, and all manner of manufactured goods will be produced
outside our borders. This has been an ongoing trend which continues.
The smoking gun for me is how products are advertised:

Hamburgers: buy more
Shirts: buy more
Computers: buy more
Housing: buy more
Entertainment: buy more
Electricity: **buy less**

In my opinion, until energy is a product handled by the market
economy, the costs will grow, the government will muck it up (power
outages, brownouts, rolling blackouts, etc.) and manufacturing will
continue to be sucked away, followed by lots of other industries which
rely on manufacturing to exist.

It is like the Phillip Morris ads encouraging people not to smoke.
And the Southern California Edison ads encouraging people to turn off
the lights. It is the coyote guarding the henhouse.

It seems like the government does a great job of breaking up
monopolies, unless of course, it owns the monopoloy itself. And you
may think that the government needs to own and sell electricity
because of humanitarian reasons.. ie, poor people shouldn't have to
pay as much for it. However, the reality is that Dupont Corporation
in Niagara Falls, New York continues to pay around 1 penny per KWH for
BILLIONS of KWH's of electricity used in salt electrolysis while the
poor widow next door pays $.14 per KWH (1400% higher).

We have to fight for the right of small business to exist.

Jed Checketts

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