GAS-L: The "Hydrogen Economy": Bleak or Bright?

["Tom Reed" <tombreed@attbi.com>]

Dear Mr. Benemann:

I have long been a fan of methanol as the best replacement for gasoline.
However, you are correct in discouraging the idealists from thinking
backyard methanol - even small ethanol should be included. Backyard steel
mills and chemical plants went out with Mao.

Now let me disabuse you of the "Hydrogen Dream".  Hydrogen is a  major
component of most fuels, but by itself has never been considered as a fuel -
until atomic energy (with electricity too cheap to meter) and the hydrogen
fuel cell arrived.  Pure hydrogen is too expensive to make, too hard to ship
and store and often too difficult to use because of its 10X flame speed.

For an excellent, balanced, evaluation of the costs associated with
hydrogen, see
The Future of the Hydrogen Economy:
Bright or Bleak?
Baldur Eliasson1 and Ulf Bossel2
1ABB Switzerland Ltd., Corporate Research, Baden-Dättwil / Switzerland
2Fuel Cell Consultant, Oberrohrdorf / Switzerland
at
http://www.nrel.gov/ncpv/hotline/pdf/hydrogen_economy.pdf.

~~~~~~~~~

The October 2002 Scientific American had an article on "Vehicle of Change,
How fuel-cell Cars Could Revolutionize the World.  The article, by three
high level GM executives extolled the mechanical ingenuities of possible
hydrogen cars while skipping over the dark realities of generation, supply
and storage.

Then, in an amazing editorial the editors warned about "Greenwashing the
car".  They said "Two cheers for the fuel-cell-car pioneers.  But this
transformation will start to get serious only in a decade or so.  Until
then, industsry lobbyists will apparently continue to battle against
near-term measures to improve the environment.  Skeptics note that the
commitemnet to a far-off technology lets the auto industry earn
environmental kudos without necessarily incurring the cost of producing
high-mileage cars today.  Environmentalists have a name for a strategy in
which one flaunts green credentials while pusing to maintain the ability to
pollute:  "greenwashing."

I fear that this focus on the hydrogen dream will trump practical
development of practical fuels which we will need when worl oil production
peaks and begins to dwindle.  I fear the the Hydrogen dream will take over
in national energy plans and leave us with ... nothing.

Here's to our children and grandchildren's energy sources being as good as
ours have been...

Thomas B. Reed

Dr. Thomas B. Reed
1810 Smith Rd., Golden, CO 80401
tombreed@attbi.com; 303 278 0558 Phone/Fax
----- Original Message -----
From: <JBenemann@aol.com>
To: <enecon@ozemail.com.au>
Cc: <gasification@crest.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 2:11 AM
Subject: Re: GAS-L: Re: LPG and steam reforming


> Dear Mr. Bland:
>
> Thank you for your very useful, concise and instructive primer on
hydrocarbon
> gases.  In particular you laid to rest the old saw about making biogas or
> gasifier gas into methanol - the compressor costs become horribly
expensive
> at small scales and make such process only suitable for large-scale
systems.
> Of course you still have to clean up the gas to remove tars, etc....  I
hope
> this will lay to rest this whole business.
>
> One question though: what about making H2?  I would be interested in your
> answer.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> John R. Benemann, Ph.D.
> 3434 Tice Creek Dr. No.1
> Walnut Creek, CA 94595
> (925) 939 5864 Fax (925) 944 1205
> Cell (925) 352 3352  jbenemann@aol.com
>
> Gasification List Moderator:
> Tom Reed, Biomass Energy Foundation,  tombreed@attbi.com Biomass =
> Energy Foundation, www.woodgas.com
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> >
>
>



Gasification List Moderator:
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>