Re: Summation of Dr Olah's interview on Methanol

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006 01:25:05 -0700, AKA Gray Asphalt wrote:

"Charlie Edmondson" <edmondson@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:44c80063$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Josh Hill wrote:

- It seems highly likely that when extrinsic factors are taken into
account, hydrogen from wind will cost about the same as gasoline now
does on an MPG basis. When combined with coming plug-in hybrid
technology, the cost will likely be lower.

Are you aware of any other practical technology with equivalent
benefits? Methanol fuel cells aren't yet economically practical and
release CO2; the supply of biofuels is currently limited; large-scale
sequestration proposals and the technologies dependent on them don't
seem to be practical given that the CO2 would leak out again; and
economical full-sized, full-range battery powered vehicles don't exist
yet.


Nor do economical full-sized full range hydrogen fuel cell vehicles,
either, but I can build a battery powered vehicle TODAY that would be
affordable and usable by 90% of commuters in this country. I sincerly
doubt that H2FC vehicles will ever be more than fancy demonstration
vehicles.

And Josh, suppose I came into possession of 20 acres just to my southwest,
which is prime wind power land. I have two choices: I can hook to the
grid and sell my wind power directly to the consumers, probably at
something like five cents a KWH, or I can use it to produce hydrogen. To
produce hydrogen, I will need to invest in an electrolyzer, run in a water
line, or put in a well, and either invest in some sort of on-site storage,
or put in a gas pipeline to ship the hydrogen I produce. I have plenty of
buyers for my electricity directly, but will have to go through middle men
to market my hydrogen.

So, do I spend the extra millions to produce hydrogen? Not in this
century! I take the easy money and run. Unless the PROFITS from making
that hydrogen become a lot greater than just selling the electricity,
hydrogen from wind will remain just another green fantasy.

Charlie

Isn't it important to distinguish between grid electricity and vehicle fuel?
Another important thing is the use of petroleum in the production of
plastics.


Read carefully. A quad a wind would produce a fraction of a quad
of methanol. A quad of wind will displace three quad of coal
if used on the grid. That's not going to change as long a coal is
on the grid, and coal can be used to prouduce liquid hydrocarbons.
The amount of coal displaced will decrease as the efficiency of
the coal plants increase, but your always going to displace more
than one quad of coal with one quad of wind, and you'll always
produce less than one quad of liquid fuel with electricity even
after decades of improvements for both fuel cells and coal burning.



I mean that if you produce electricity through wind, it can't be used
directly for vehicles.


EV's typically use 0.3 to 0.5 kwh/mile. Using electricity
with Olah's reverse fuel cell, electrolyis at 67%, reverse
fuel cell at 35%, fuel cell again at 35%, you need 3.6 kwh
to finally get 0.3 kwh to the wheel. Batteries and electric
drivetrains aren't 100% efficient but they certainly beat
those figures.


In the above scenario, you could use the electricity from the wind
powered turbines to produce methanol for storage in batteries or
as a fuel.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

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Relevant Pages

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