[Olorin]

Hello

I have never seen people that open, farsighted, considerate and critical in their thinking like all you folks. Hope you will be open to this one:
Don´t believe any “expert” who thinks inside the current energy system, because that´s what “they” want to keep up. Think outside of the system:

- All the hydrogen and alternative energy in the world won´t save us, if we continue operating within our current energy system. If we really want to do something against PO and GW, we have to establish a true hydrogen economy. One which is not based on hydrogen from fossil fuels (not even worth talking about) or electrolysis (too expensive and inefficient) but on hydrogen directly from biomass.
- Cut the electricity supply system, because you don´t need it anymore. Go from an electricity-based system to a heat-based system.
- Conversion of energy is not done by thermodynamic processes (which lose a lot of energy, because the heat can´t be utilised) but decentralised by electrochemical processes: Fuel cells in the homes and cars. This way you could cut your primary energy needs in half, because you use the power and the heat.
- Use the natural gas pipelines to get the hydrogen to the homes and fuel stations. It has been done before (Stadtgas, about 60% hydrogen back in the 60s in Germany) and can be done now with only minor switches in the pipelines and heating devices.
- Produce the hydrogen from biomass, dry and wet, use silage to store it. You don´t need fertiliser or pesticides because you can use everything that grows. You can have multiple harvests per year because you don´t have to wait for something to get ripe which is very inefficient. Just use the biomass and alternate the plants. You get biodiversity and soil improvement as a byproduct.
- The EU has about 5,5 Mio ha of agricultural land that produces a surplus of grain, meat and milk, or is not used so you could easily produce about 5000 PJ this way, which would be enough for the EU, considering the higher efficiency (see above).

All these things have been thought through, calculated and presented to the public. Here´s a link:

http://www.bio-wasserstoff.de/pdf/Hangz ... _paper.pdf

A few points to the article:

- Karl Heinz Tetzlaff, who is now retired, was the leader of the fuel cell and hydrogen division of Hoechst which is now Aventis and as such a process engineer well educated in engineering and calculating. He is a decent guy without financial interests and currently a consultant to the European Parliament.
- In the article mentioned above there are almost no footnotes. In his book “Bio Wasserstoff” there are over 140. In addition the book has a technical appendix with all the calculations for his statements but it has not been published in English I guess. His references and calculations are realistic and solid, but check for yourself.
- Still there is one major mistake in his calculations: a fuel cell stack cannot be produced for 12$/kw at the moment (instead ~73$/kw, Ballard Power Systems). But the price will come down dramatically due to lower platinum for the fuel cell stack (http://www.physorg.com/news90167618.html) and improvements in the membrane (http://technology.newscientist.com/arti ... print=true).
- The Fraunhofer Institut and the Max-Planck Institut, Germany´s most famous research institutes have formed an alliance to examine the process Tetzlaff proposed (steam reforming of biomass in “Wirbelschichtreaktoren”, either autotherm or allotherm). There are also working factories in Germany, Austria and other places. Also the National Institute of Renewable Energy currently examines the different versions of steam reforming.

Hard times are upon us.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

[BigTex]

The market has to believe in hydrogen and be willing to invest in it with a realistic time frame regarding when to expect investment returns. Read up on the U.S. hydrogen crash in the early 2000s and you will begin to appreciate the challenges facing hydrogen. It all boils down to impatience and a lack of appreciation of the technical difficulties involved in maturing this technology.

Sadly, hydrogen illustrates the problems all alternative energy faces. First there is the gee whiz period when switching out the new technology for oil seems amazingly simple. Then the problems begin to appear--more expensive than originally thought, production bottlenecks, unreliable, still dependent upon fossil fuels for production or maintenance, less efficient than originally thought, complicated for the end user, etc.

In sum, for a technology to be brought to market, it has to both work (and by "work" I mean work at a given price point) and investors have to believe it works. At this point, I think hydrogen is still struggling with both of these problems.

[Olorin]

<<Olorin, the paper ignores an important energy accounting of the energy returned on energy invested or input (eroei) into the entire crop-fuel system.>>

Well the calculations are in his book (Bio-Wasserstoff, BoD Verlag, Norderstedt, ISBN 3-8334-2616-0). But how much energy does it take to harvest and transport the stuff about 15 km (that´s the radius of the ~300 hydrogen factories needed for Germany). Remember: no fertilizer, pesticides or irrigation needed.

<<unlike petroleum which flows under geologic pressure through refineries .>>

You need a lot of energy from the crude in the Rub al khali or the arctic seas to the petroleum at your local gas station.

<<similar biofuels operations this accounting has proven these schemes to be energy neutral at best, energy sinks most likely>>

These "similar" biofuel operations which you are referring to (probably ethanol or biodiesel) are indeed not even worth talking about. Agreed. Only that they are not similar. Totally different process and outcome (and these are not just hypothetical, they do work in real life).

<<Any transformation of energy is a thermodynamic process resulting in increased entropy.>>

Well I am no physicist. You probably got me on this one. But if you can use the power and the heat of the stuff you dramatically improve your efficiency.

@BigTex: I agree that there is currently no market, because Big Energy does not want it. But when the TSHTF we won´t be talking about profits but survival.

I can understand your doubts. I had them too. The problem is: We are so indoctrinated to think inside the system that we don´t even dare believe that hydrogen from biomass might be a solution. I personally let myself be convinced through his references and calculations (although as a reader of Heinberg, Deffeyes, Twilight, TOD, Limits to growth, Collapse, and all the other stuff the convincing took about one year and a lot of double checking).
I really hope that his book will appear in English in the future because I have only a limited amount of time to translate all his details.

I am looking forward to an open discussion about the topic, because as I see it, it might be the only way to prevent PO and GW.

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Olorin', '@')BigTex: I agree that there is currently no market, because Big Energy does not want it. But when the TSHTF we won´t be talking about profits but survival.

I can understand your doubts. I had them too. The problem is: We are so indoctrinated to think inside the system that we don´t even dare believe that hydrogen from biomass might be a solution.

[Olorin]

Here are some real life success stories concerning gasification of biomass:

link too long-jato

From the link:
Although there is no doubt of the important role of gasification for the introduction of biomass into our energy system the discussion about the further development of this technology is very controversial. One frequently given argument is that biomass gasification has got a lot of public funding over many years but the commercial break through has not been reached up to now. Even more, some of the leading projects with a lot of public attention had to be stopped due to various technical and/or non technical reasons.

On the other hand one can also recognize that in the field of biomass gasification an essential progress has been reached over the last years. The progress was made perhaps too slow but continuously. It is normal in live that a fiasco gets more public attention than a success. Nevertheless, there are certain applications where biomass gasification is already used successfully e.g. for co-firing in fossil fuel power stations for power generation. But there are also other gasification plants which are operated successfully and show a satisfying performance.

In the report - which can be downloaded below - some of this so-called “Success Stories” are presented of which some did not reach so much public attention. The idea is not to have a complete collection but only a selection made by members of GasNet. The presentation of each success story is structured in a similar way to get comparable descriptions. An extension of this collection by addition of further examples is possible without any problems. Furthermore, the description of each success story is written in a way that it can also stand alone and used as separate leaflet.

[Olorin]

http://www.gasnet.uk.net/

This one should be short enough (didn´t know that a link could be too long!)

And here´s another one. It´s a little old (2004) but still interesting:

http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/rev ... zernik.pdf

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Olorin', ' ')If we really want to do something against PO and GW, we have to establish a true hydrogen economy. One which is not based on hydrogen from fossil fuels (not even worth talking about) or electrolysis (too expensive and inefficient) but on hydrogen directly from biomass.

[Olorin]

In my opinion it´s not either powerdown or hydrogen economy, it´s both. We definitely will have to powerdown. This much is sure. And it is even good for us because it can improve our individualistic, greedy society. Cuba showed the way.

From my personal experience I found that you can halve your energy use without major decreases in the quality of life in as little as a few weeks (Mazda mx5->smart diesel, driving a little less and slower (but still driving), no long distance flights->holidays at home (still holidays)->use money for insulated windows, pullover->thermostat down 2 centigrades, burgers->more vegetables and fruit (home-grown), TV->reading, Energy-saving light bulbs, no more standby on TV etc.

So let´s assume we could cut our energy needs in half if we have to. And let´s further assume that we could use the electricity and heat generated from the biomass (fuel cells), we are at about a quarter of the primary energy needs.

Furthermore we could use multiple harvests from the land because we don´t have to wait for something to get ripe like for instance corn for ethanol.

Actually I watched a corn field every day this year, because it was on my way to work. The green stuff (biomass) grew in about 6 weeks from nothing to full grown. From then on it stood for about 10 more weeks and will probably be harvested in 2 weeks.

That´s just a rough estimate, don´t nail me on it, but it looks like we could have 3 harvests here and if we use plants that grow in fall or even winter, and there are plants which can do that, we would have 4-5 harvests per year.

In order not to deplete the soil you would have to give back the nutrients and ammonia, which you can do:

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/ener ... ls-su.html

(I know it´s from Iowa, but it is still right.)

So for a quarter of the energy needs and 4 times the biomass per land gives us a factor of 16! We are getting closer. Add to that improving the yields of the energy plants, reducing our consumption of meat, starting biointensive farming.......

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Olorin', 'F')rom my personal experience I found that you can halve your energy use without major decreases in the quality of life in as little as a few weeks (Mazda mx5->smart diesel, driving a little less and slower (but still driving), no long distance flights->holidays at home (still holidays)->use money for insulated windows, pullover->thermostat down 2 centigrades, burgers->more vegetables and fruit (home-grown), TV->reading, Energy-saving light bulbs, no more standby on TV etc.

[Olorin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'F')or you. What if everybody did the same? It would wreak havoc on the economy.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Olorin', ' ')First of all most of these things don´t wreak havoc on the economy. Driving less or slower has almost no impact at all on economic activity.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Olorin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he only way to increase the biomass share of primary energy use in the U.S. is to decrease the fossil fuel consumption.

[Sideous]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Olorin', 'H')ello

I have never seen people that open, farsighted, considerate and critical in their thinking like all you folks. Hope you will be open to this one:
Don´t believe any “expert” who thinks inside the current energy system, because that´s what “they” want to keep up. Think outside of the system:

- All the hydrogen and alternative energy in the world won´t save us, if we continue operating within our current energy system. If we really want to do something against PO and GW, we have to establish a true hydrogen economy. One which is not based on hydrogen from fossil fuels (not even worth talking about) or electrolysis (too expensive and inefficient) but on hydrogen directly from biomass.
- Cut the electricity supply system, because you don´t need it anymore. Go from an electricity-based system to a heat-based system.
- Conversion of energy is not done by thermodynamic processes (which lose a lot of energy, because the heat can´t be utilised) but decentralised by electrochemical processes: Fuel cells in the homes and cars. This way you could cut your primary energy needs in half, because you use the power and the heat.
- Use the natural gas pipelines to get the hydrogen to the homes and fuel stations. It has been done before (Stadtgas, about 60% hydrogen back in the 60s in Germany) and can be done now with only minor switches in the pipelines and heating devices.
- Produce the hydrogen from biomass, dry and wet, use silage to store it. You don´t need fertiliser or pesticides because you can use everything that grows. You can have multiple harvests per year because you don´t have to wait for something to get ripe which is very inefficient. Just use the biomass and alternate the plants. You get biodiversity and soil improvement as a byproduct.
- The EU has about 5,5 Mio ha of agricultural land that produces a surplus of grain, meat and milk, or is not used so you could easily produce about 5000 PJ this way, which would be enough for the EU, considering the higher efficiency (see above).

All these things have been thought through, calculated and presented to the public. Here´s a link:

http://www.bio-wasserstoff.de/pdf/Hangz ... _paper.pdf

A few points to the article:

- Karl Heinz Tetzlaff, who is now retired, was the leader of the fuel cell and hydrogen division of Hoechst which is now Aventis and as such a process engineer well educated in engineering and calculating. He is a decent guy without financial interests and currently a consultant to the European Parliament.
- In the article mentioned above there are almost no footnotes. In his book “Bio Wasserstoff” there are over 140. In addition the book has a technical appendix with all the calculations for his statements but it has not been published in English I guess. His references and calculations are realistic and solid, but check for yourself.
- Still there is one major mistake in his calculations: a fuel cell stack cannot be produced for 12$/kw at the moment (instead ~73$/kw, Ballard Power Systems). But the price will come down dramatically due to lower platinum for the fuel cell stack (http://www.physorg.com/news90167618.html) and improvements in the membrane (http://technology.newscientist.com/arti ... print=true).
- The Fraunhofer Institut and the Max-Planck Institut, Germany´s most famous research institutes have formed an alliance to examine the process Tetzlaff proposed (steam reforming of biomass in “Wirbelschichtreaktoren”, either autotherm or allotherm). There are also working factories in Germany, Austria and other places. Also the National Institute of Renewable Energy currently examines the different versions of steam reforming.

Hard times are upon us.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

[Ming]

Excellent post, Sideous.
I fully agree that hydrogen as a fuel for general use is a hype, no more.
(And, of course, there are important financial motivations behind it - besides those you cite, one of the most important is the maintenance of research groups that don’t have other competencies.)

And hydrogen, in general and massive use, would also have important long term sustainability problems:
Hydrogen escaped to the atmosphere raises and escapes the earth system, being lost forever (from our point of view).
Over a very long time frame, that raises the oxygen content of our atmosphere, and reduces the total of water available on earth.

[Revi]

I love the nickel-metal hydride battery in my electric bike, but I have doubts about the feasibility of making all that hydrogen to send through leaky pipelines. I think that hydrides may make the best battery around.

I like the idea of everyone making some of their own power and having a grid that distributes it in a smaller area. Skip the liquid hydrogen completely. People could have the hydride batteries as energy storage in every home. They could have solar, hydro and wind feeding these microgrids, which would make a much more robust power system than the centralized one we have now.

[Ludi]

I agree, Revi. That's a solution which actually can be implemented.

[MonteQuest]

Yes, decentralization is part of the powerdown solution.

If hydrogen had such a bright future, then the leading fuel cell company wouldn't be a penny stock with BLDP @ $4.48/share.

[Revi]

I like your title for this forum. Think outside the system. I think that hydrogen is the darling of the Bush administration because it's in the system. The idea of running cars on hydrogen and having filling stations appeals to them.

The fact is that to think outside the system requires us to scrap most of the infrastructure we have built in the past 100 years.

Richard Komp, solar energy pioneer, said yesterday that the present system of delivering electricity is already obsolete. After thinking about it I had to agree. I would add that our transportation system is also obsolete.

People may have had a sentimental attachment to horses, but their numbers still dwindled into the middle of the 20th century.

This whole mess we've made won't be worth much very soon.

We won't be able to feed the electric grid, and maintenance will be an increasingly difficult problem. Will hydrogen save us from that? I don't think so. Fuel cells might be a great way to store energy, but they don't make any.

Our cars and SUV's will be useless if gas goes much above $5 a gallon. Right now a lot of them are selling for around the scrap metal price.

The car of the future weighs around 350 pounds, and has a range of around 30 miles between electric charges. The house of the future is around 500 square feet and is oriented to the sun, for heating and cooling. The house provides at least half of it's own energy, from passive and active solar. The person of the future will use far less of everything than us. If they are lucky!