How hydrogen technology suppression is keeping humanity from progressing - Part 1

Unfortunately, hydrogen requires building new pipelines for transport, so there is a very large initial investment there. Can't just use existing oil, gas or natural gas pipes. So you're stuck hauling it around in trucks like compressed natural gas.

The smarter thing to do would be get a home hydrogen system that uses solar panels to run electricity through water and collect the hydrogen in an at-home tank. There are some available on the Internet. Might even be able to build one if you're good at that kind of thing. No more trips to the gas station ever.

Yeah, there's a risk of explosion. But probably not much more than the risk of your water heater exploding.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
a reply to: bobs_uruncle
# awesome, Sir!

Do you mind me asking some questions? You can also point me someplace where I can study this myself so you don't have to waste your time. Ready? Here they come.

The cells:
How much does it weight as a 2.5kw setup, filled and with reserves?

P(kW) = 5V*120A= 600W electrical input plus some for the ultrasonic / LF vibration?

Would vibrations... from a small go-kart chassis disturb the reactions?

Would g-forces / directional acceleration disturb the reaction?

Can this be scaled to 20kW?


The generator you run:
When you write it runes a 2.5kW generator, you're saying it can provide enough hydrogen gas to really use it under full load?

What type of generator is this, I am personally very interested! 2 or 4 stroke? Pistons? OMG please let it be 2-stroke so I can scale this up into a ridiculous gokart.

1. It weighs about 25kg filled with a light mixture of sodium hydroxide and distilled water, ph=10.5
2. I used 6 computer power supplies tied to a power bar to get my 5volts@120 amps
3. Certainly vibration from an attached engine would help with bubble separation, however hitting the specific resonant frequency of the plates works a lot better. I used a both low (41.4hz) and high frequency (29khz)
4. G forces and both horizontal and lateral acceleration will effect performance as there must be a gap at the top of the cells for gas collection, so the liquid would move around possibly allowing bi-directional gas leakage through the permeable membrane.
5. It could be scaled up to 20kw, but it would require a lot more anode/cathode current and a lot more cells. I was running the equivalent of about 250watts per cell for a total of 5kw, which can run a 2.5kw generator.
6. I used a 2.5kw propane fueled generator as it was already partially set up to run a gas rather than a liquid. I modified the input and ran a 2.5:1 mixture to keep the temperature down and not melt the head (if you add water/steam injection you can increase the ratio slightly). I ran the computer power supplies from the generator output plus another 1800 watts of lights. I let it run for 1/2 an hour. To start it, I had to run propane in for 1 minute to stabilize the hydrogen, oxygen and O3 generation. To create the ozone I used a hand wound 75kv pulse transformer operating at 50khz. I wrapped a 1/4" polypropylene tube with foil for anode and ran a copper wire up the centre attached to the cathode, that gave me about 40% ozone by weight in 3 CFM (only need about 1/2 CFM of pure O3, but it's only at 40% so I adjusted with a flow meter down from 3CFM to about 1.2CFM).
7. It was a standard 4 stroke engine, 6.5HP.

Hope that helps ;-)

ETA: The 1/4" tube was 40' long and coiled so all the tin foil was touching and could be insulated easily.

Cheers - Dave

Phenomenal stuff, even more than usual

I dont have much to say on the tech itself, Im going to give it a bit more time. I will say that metallic hydrogen is a pretty cool topic too, and involves amazing possible pressures. Helium-4 also has some intriguing "known unknowns," so ya never know. As you mentioned, stuff like LFTR is very intriguing, as well as molten salt, and I do believe that some of the newer nuclear tech is very promising.

I think the best thing we could do moving forward is to build a framework that can easily integrate all of these diverse energy sources, as well as any that emerge as we organically progress our tools. I believe it to be a more universal concept too. In the energy sector.. It seems everything is judged in an all or nothing approach, but oil & fossil fuels are far, far too useful to just eliminate entirely regardless of alternatives. I dont believe they are inherently "bad," but I do think we could do so much more in increasing efficiency while minimizing environmental impact. Even stuff like the Volkswagen XL1 shows potential.

There are a lot of advantages in a grid that turns multiple processes and sources into a unified, universal power system. We already do it in some ways, but its more obscure and mainly involves different centralized power plant technologies or individual houses that tie back into the grid with a narrow set of technologies.

If we come at it from a decentralized foundation, we can still utilize larger structures where needed and it leaves much more potential room for advancement at a scale that limits "risk."

We could also easily integrate sources that harvest from the multitude of ambient sources all around us. From our own bodies to water flowing through gutters.. It would all come down to efficiency, but could easily be explored in a framework that encourages it.

While we could absolutely optimize the location of the centralized, larger structures, I do believe there are some potential harms there. If, say, we determine that a nation-sized plot of land would be the best location for a wind turbine farm.. the energy harvested from the natural processes may be enough to disrupt them to a noticeably negative degree. I dont see this as some insurmountable issue if its accurate though, we just have to watch for it and adjust as necessary.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle
First, I appreciate the amount of details you just dropped out of your sleeve. Deepest respect here for pulling this through and building it.

Yes you helped me a lot to understand the dimensions and number relations! Can you recommend a good forum about building these? I am sure I won't build one but for reading.

Although it wouldn't be a big deal grabbing a used motorcycle engine and welding a contraption for my dyno. Maybe I find someone at some University here has this in on the shelf. It's worth a few emails.

I am sure they toyed with engines before but never with the viewpoint of racing and acceleration Like putting one in a GoKart frame and try what works and what not.

a reply to: Serdgiam
Hey Serdgiam!
Finally I have the time to answer to one of your many thoughtful posts I saw lately!

Hope you are doing well

I agree and I don't want to focus on renewable alone. There's the topic e-fuels. The advantage of hydrogen, used in cars or for electricity generation is clearly the environment and our health too. Everywhere we can replace fossil fuel with hysrogen, the nature and ultimately humans would benefit from it.

I am sure once fusion kicks off we can forget all the unnecessary work and material for wind and solar, tear them all down and go forward a small step towards the next level of civilization. I do not prefer one or another and wanted to present both of these technologies neutral. They both are an eyesore though, seeing them in forests and such. I hope I did a good job in explaining their pro and cons neutrally though.

With fusion and hydrogen and the current technology we could transform the planet into a paradise for generations of every species to come.

There are a lot of advantages in a grid that turns multiple processes and sources into a unified, universal power system. We already do it in some ways, but its more obscure and mainly involves different centralized power plant technologies or individual houses that tie back into the grid with a narrow set of technologies.

I agree. We should also focus on fabricating the connections between them. We need underground connections between our big cities to lay cable and pipes for communication, electrification, and gas distribution. Underground, shielded, redundant.

We could also easily integrate sources that harvest from the multitude of ambient sources all around us. From our own bodies to water flowing through gutters.. It would all come down to efficiency, but could easily be explored in a framework that encourages it.

Can you think of a technology or physical mechanism that would allow the integration of said technology? Personally I think until we can influence matter in an easy robust way, then reverse the process to harvest motion energy, similar like from an electromagnetic field, there would be many different complicated technologies involved. Using turbines for harvesting flowing unfiltered gutter water in a highly reliable decentralized and downsized way seem far from possible currently.

Energy and data transfer from and to these integrated things (IOT on steroids) would need to be based on wireless communication. Do we want to bombard ourselves with even more frequencies? This will only be possible in cities. Small hubs and towns are too unattractive and costly to outfit, except planned from the beginning. Then say goodbye to individuality because you're going to get efficiency and that means people stacked in three dimensions. Where can we give nature it's place in these environments?

While we could absolutely optimize the location of the centralized, larger structures, I do believe there are some potential harms there. If, say, we determine that a nation-sized plot of land would be the best location for a wind turbine farm.. the energy harvested from the natural processes may be enough to disrupt them to a noticeably negative degree. I do not see this as some insurmountable issue if its accurate though, we just have to watch for it and adjust as necessary.

For that we would have to work together as humanity, impossible currently. I am thinking more decentralized, but at the places where the ROI is very good for each technology. I am not in favoring of terraforming the planet like Atlantropa.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
a reply to: bobs_uruncle
First, I appreciate the amount of details you just dropped out of your sleeve. Deepest respect here for pulling this through and building it.

Yes you helped me a lot to understand the dimensions and number relations! Can you recommend a good forum about building these? I am sure I won't build one but for reading.

Although it wouldn't be a big deal grabbing a used motorcycle engine and welding a contraption for my dyno. Maybe I find someone at some University here has this in on the shelf. It's worth a few emails.

I am sure they toyed with engines before but never with the viewpoint of racing and acceleration

Like putting one in a GoKart frame and try what works and what not.

The problem with hydrogen and oxygen producing cells is that the sodium hydroxide solution has to be at a "level" above the permeable membrane and if you are turning, accelerating or decelerating that permeable membrane will be exposed to the gases and reduce plate efficiency.

As far as a forum, I will check around. I did this work in 2009, so things have changed. If you can get acid etched plates and known how to do activated carbon deposition, you can increase the surface area of your plates by hundreds of times which of course increases your output of gases ;-)

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

So I looked up Magnesium borohydride and read a bit on that. So what you're saying is that there is something better than that for hydrogen storage and transport.

Some of these polymorphs possess a significant porosity, and on the other hand ultra-density with the second highest volumetric hydrogen content among all known hydrides.

Recent progress in magnesium borohydride Mg(BH4)2: Fundamentals and applications for energy storage dated 2016.

I'm no chemist or anything like that, I don't understand the technical terms much. Mostly just posted this so that it's like a book mark.

a reply to: bobs_uruncle
What if we double the height of the cells casing, leave the rest as is, only fill them halfway and a bit extra, so they are always covered? They are flat pack design. The flat shape should mitigate a lot of disturbance.

The factor is time and energy here, it's all interesting but a wise man once said something like this to me, I heard it at different places too since but here it comes:

Never half ass something, always full ass it (just like you did).

You provided valuable input to the thread as an real world example, made by a member. I love ATS for this.

a reply to: pthena
Hey pthena

I brought up the Magnesiumborohydride as an example, there could be similar technologies with different materials but same concepts.

It's basically a material that has many pores like a sponge, where you trap the hydrogen and you can compress it further. The sponge like structure will help keeping it in with the two processes I described in my OP.

Imagine the sponge as a safety fuse for the hydrogen too. Some techniques allow electricity to be used to control the release.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
a reply to: bobs_uruncle
What if we double the height of the cells casing, leave the rest as is, only fill them halfway and a bit extra, so they are always covered? They are flat pack design. The flat shape should mitigate a lot of disturbance.

The factor is time and energy here, it's all interesting but a wise man once said something like this to me, I heard it at different places too since but here it comes:

Never half ass something, always full ass it (just like you did).

You provided valuable input to the thread as an real world example, made by a member. I love ATS for this.

LOL. You could double the height, half of which is permeable membrane and fill each cell to 3/4's, that might prevent any sloshing that might expose the plates or permeable membranes. It seems like such an inefficient waste of volume though that could be used to make hydrogen. I also made my cells out of acrylic and used methylene chloride to bond the cases together. Always use copper screws through the top plates otherwise if the resistance is too high, you'll get heating and melt the top plate. I found that out in my first test, didn't even think stainless steel screws that short would be a problem, was I ever wrong.

Be careful, hydrogen is extremely explosive, especially with oxygen. Don't smoke around it, don't even think of lighting any fire or extra heating around it.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

Just in theory, it would be a bit more inefficient in that term, I agree I rather thought of specialized purposes

Be careful, hydrogen is extremely explosive, especially with oxygen. Don't smoke around it, don't even think of lighting any fire or extra heating around it.

I won't touch hydrogen production, I don't want to blow myself up or harm others nearby, no worries. If such a test with an combustion engine (no chassis, just the engine) would ever happen it would be a team up with an existing unit and someone knowledgeable.

I didn't even look for hydrogen powered go-karts yet, sure someone did this already. My comment before was about University casually focusing on racing.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
a reply to: Serdgiam

With fusion and hydrogen and the current technology we could transform the planet into a paradise for generations of every species to come.

I think this is a critical notion, and is something to shift towards instead of "minimizing impact" as I termed. Perhaps is better not to visualize it as minimizing impact, but in creating *beneficial* impact. A lot of the things we already do can just be done a bit differently to get wildly different results, like going for creative aquaponics systems instead of traditional gardens or parks. Personally, Im looking to create something of a closed ecology in my living space. Combining the benefits of aquariums, houseplants, food, etc. into a new indoor environment. In these instances, we arent minimizing our impact at all, we are creating (largely) beneficial growth.

I believe that there are serious consequences like dysbiosis that occur when we are completely encased in manufactured environments.

Can you think of a technology or physical mechanism that would allow the integration of said technology? Personally I think until we can influence matter in an easy robust way, then reverse the process to harvest motion energy, similar like from an electromagnetic field, there would be many different complicated technologies involved. Using turbines for harvesting flowing unfiltered gutter water in a highly reliable decentralized and downsized way seem far from possible currently.

Im not sure that Gutter Turbines ( ) are as far away as they seem, if they are actually feasible. Maintainence would be a major factor, but a lot of this can be handled with automation, clever mechanisms, and self-cleaning designs. It certainly wouldnt be a primary power source or anything, rather used as supplemental or complementary power. Im not sure it would even require a diversion load, but itd be easy enough to have one.

I think that two things are going to be big factors moving forward: materials science and frameworks that facilitate rapid change and progress without sacrificing stability.

I think integration would probably be easiest around relatively standard lines. If we are looking to integrate a new system, it would just need to generate some type of voltage/current and we can build circuits to pretty easily shape that voltage as we want.

To facilitate this going forward though, we could look at stuff that goes in that direction of molecular manipulation. 3d printers and CNC can do a very significant amount, including printing the conductors of circuits directly into a plastic shroud. I suspect this will eventually advance to molecular printing, but thats still a bit of a ways away, and Im not 100% sure it will ever actually replace more traditonal 3d printing & CNC for a few reasons.

Energy and data transfer from and to these integrated things (IOT on steroids) would need to be based on wireless communication. Do we want to bombard ourselves with even more frequencies? This will only be possible in cities. Small hubs and towns are too unattractive and costly to outfit, except planned from the beginning. Then say goodbye to individuality because you're going to get efficiency and that means people stacked in three dimensions. Where can we give nature it's place in these environments?

Very relevant concerns. While I suspect that much more of the EM spectrum causes us damage than we currently accept, I also believe there are segments that are beneficial. Particularly if we include the possibilities in combining multiple ranges or sequences. I strongly, strongly believe this is a field/specialty that needs to be established ASAP! It needs a lot more research.

I think the answer would be in combining point-to-point antennas and mesh networks though. The actual communication and signal protocols would be determined by the above research. The mesh networks are distributed at the node, and communication between nodes is carried out by focused microwave beams or an assortment of other technologies. All of this is currently feasible, other than crafting signal protocols that are "healthy" for us. Including good ol wire where it works. Wire is reliable and effective, afterall, and as material sciences improve the situation might change dramatically. Satellite is a complementary option too.

For that we would have to work together as humanity, impossible currently. I am thinking more decentralized, but at the places where the ROI is very good for each technology. I am not in favoring of terraforming the planet like Atlantropa.

Thats super interesting, and I hadnt heard of it before

I do agree though. We are essentially talking about "globalization," just not the corporate, bureaucratic mess currently being marketed so pervasively.

I think we can get there, as long as we dont completely succumb to the current momentum going towards centralized dependence.

Humans are derpy af, but pretty amazing too.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

I have to disagree.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

I love how the other side starts on about efficiency while completely ignoring the in-efficiencies of diesel and gas.

They never want to look at the industry as a whole.

They don't talk about exploration ships, drilling rigs, super tankers, oil refineries, fuel trucks or gas stations.

Fossil fuels are referred to as hydrocarbons. Energy does not come from the carbon part, it comes from the hydro part. Hydro is water. H2O.

What many are missing is that the hydrogen is the chosen storage medium, ie, think of a tank of hydrogen as just another storage medium.

Solar gives power during the day, excess power not required by the grid is used to create hydrogen which is used to generate power when the sun is not shinning.

If one looks at the entire oil and gas industry, it is no where near as efficient as some make out.

P

One question I have is that if the walls of the pipeline of the aforementioned sequestration technology material were used, would a pipeline be "quenched" and therefore limit further pipeline leakage of hydrogen? As an easier viewpoint if you built a tank lined from the material once the walls were quenched would seepage be reduced or eliminated? Perhaps not but I thought it an interesting perspective. I suspect it wouldnt work as such but thought it worth asking.

a reply to: Morbidlynx
A coating made out of the porous Magnesiumborhydrid that then saturates and binds every hydrogen atom, in return building an impenetrable barrier, sealing it up? That's a good idea, if it's not too brittle and made flexible so connections and seals benefit too, and vibrations are not affecting it, maybe!

I may not work in real life though, construction sites do not exhibit clean room and lab like conditions.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
a reply to: JIMC5499

...would be allowed to.

This right here.

To support your statement I offer the following current dumpster fire underway in the alternative energy transportation market.

EV vs Hydrogen

i.e. Tesla vs Nikola

Tesla (i.e. Elon) is the "chosen one". $450 billion in tax payer subsidies and Tesla Gigafactories world wide also subsidized by the host countries tax base. The clear path has been identified.

Trevor Milton (former Chairman of Nikola) is now and finally under indictment. He lied about EVERYTHING. He has no hydrogen fueled power plant and no means to produce hydrogen, etc. and the list goes on. I don't see why he would so blatantly lie KNOWING eventually the truth would come out. You can't cover up lies of this magnitude. It's just not possible. So he was cut a deal of some type. He's not a stupid person.

I believe the intent from the beginning from TPTB was to allow this scenario to unfold so the energy sector could eliminate hydrogen as the next gold standard in transportation. Hydrogen is an industry killer for fossil fuels. EV is not. EV consumes MORE fossil fuels to produce.

TPTB wanted a public execution of hydrogen for all to witness so there would be no resistance.

Fossil fuels still run the planet and now will continue to do so under the out in the open moniker more commonly known as "electric vehicles".

The irony.

a reply to: Type1338

Sharp observation! The second irony is that only with nuclear energy we could satisfy the demand if we would exchange every ICE driven vehicle with EV.

Could. Because my country is going away from nuclear and away from the combustion engine. So how would we be able to satisfy this demand? There's a huge calculation error in their math or they plan with way less permitted EV.

There's two situations I can think off from the top of my head why this is allowed to happen: We are not allowed to be as mobile as we are today or there will be a lot less people around, in future.