[Rhodes22-list] The Hydrogen Economy

Fri Jan 7 15:51:46 EST 2005

Brad,

If I were the energy czar of the United States, here's what I would do:

I would start building ethanol & biodiesel plants as quickly as possible.
As the ethanol production capacity is ramped up, the %wt ethanol blend in
gasoline would be gradually increased.  This would be completely transparent
to the average consumer.  The final optimum %wt ethanol in motor fuel will
be driven by market factors other than the transportation market.  You have
to understand that crude oil is a complex mixture of thousands of different
compounds.  The minimum amount of crude oil consumed in the United States is
probably limited by the market requirements for the heavy components like
asphalt and tar plus chemical feedstocks for other petrochemicals like
plastics and lubricating oils.  The heavy components in crude oil are used
for things like asphalt paving and roofing and would be expensive to replace
with other feed stocks like coal tar.  At the moment, we use much more crude
oil than we would need to provide these heavy components.  At present, the
excess heavy components are either burned as low grade fuels (bunker C) or
catalytically cracked to increase the yield of lighter components like
gasoline and fuel oil.  In the biomass economy, there would be just enough
heavy components.  The excess gasoline and diesel fuel components would be
catalytically cracked to produce important chemical raw materials like
ethylene, propylene, vinyl, etc.  I haven't done the global mass balance;
but, I would estimate the %wt ethanol "sweet spot" will be in the range of
70-90%wt ethanol.  As a spark ignited motor fuel, you don't want 100%wt
ethanol anyway.  You would blend in 10-30%wt light gasoline components in
order to have good winter running characteristics.  Also, in case of a fire,
you don't want 100%wt ethanol because the flame is invisible.  Blending in a
little gasoline will make the flame burn yellow, smoky, and visible.

There is no shortage of corn and other crops.  In 2002, US farmers grew
about 9E9 bushels of corn of which about 900E6 bushels were used to make
ethanol.(1)  US corn production is no where near maxed out.  Ethanol can be
made from other crops like sugar cane, sorghum, and wheat, which are also
available in large surplus and no where near maxed out on production
capacity in the US.  As energy czar, I would phase out crop subsidies as
ethanol production is ramped up.

As energy czar I would pump money into R&D on producing ethanol and
biodiesel from fast growing cellulosic crops like switchgrass plus crop
residues like wood trimmings and slashing from logging operations, bagasse,
crop fodder, etc.  I would slash spending on scale-up for fuel cells while
maintaining basic research funding.  This basic research would concentrate
on solving the difficult technical issues with the hydrogen economy that
I've discussed in previous posts on this thread.  I would maintain R&D
spending for wind, solar, geothermal, and would push for commercial
implementation of these technologies where it was appropriate.  I would push
for the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants.  I would
push for a massive upgrade in the nation's electric distribution grid.

The advantages to this strategy would be:

The same pipelines, tanker trucks, and existing filling stations will be
used.

Modifications to existing crude oil refineries will be minimal and readily
doable.

Ethanol has similar vapor pressure and flammability characteristics as
gasoline.  So the safety issues are essentially the same as now with
gasoline and become a nonissue.

Many modern computer controlled engines can already operate just fine on any
blend of ethanol/gasoline from 0%wt ethanol up to nearly 100%wt ethanol.
Required modifications to older engines are minimal, consisting of things
like upgrading certain components like rubber hoses and gaskets in the fuel
system and adjusting the spark ignition timing.

The net result of all this is that the switch will be transparent to the
average consumer when they visit the filling station.  Motor fuel prices
would gradually rise; but, would be much less subject to the wide price
swings they now exhibit.  As %wt ethanol is increased, the consumer would
notice a slight decrease in fuel mileage due to the lower energy content/lb
of ethanol vs. gasoline.

All this new crop production and new construction would have a tremendous
positive effect on the economy, much more than offsetting any negative
effects caused by shutting down unnecessary refineries.  It would be the old
inefficient big polluting refineries that would get shut down anyway.

If the United States were to embark on this strategy today, I bet we could
meet or exceed the Kyoto greenhouse gas emission targets while cutting our
imports of crude oil in half without harming our domestic economy within 5
years.

Reference:

(1) "Debunking The Myths of Ethanol", National Corn Growers Association,
Chesterfield, MO, 2003,  www.ncga.com

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium

----- Original Message -----
From: "brad haslett" <flybrad at yahoo.com>
To: <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 9:14 PM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] The Hydrogen Economy

> Roger,
>
> Things have been a bit hectic in the supply chain
> logistics business (we used to call it a cargo
> airline) lately and there hasn't been much time to
> participate in any threads.  However, I have followed
> your energy and job search thread and will quickly
> throw in two cents worth.  I couldn't agree more that
> the hydrogen economy is over-hyped.  At the current
> level of technology, the production of hydrogen relies
> on hydrocarbons and electricity produced from
> hydrocarbons - where's the gain?  The biomass energy
> field looks very promising, especially oil-seed
> produced biodiesel, but even if we turned all our
> agricultural land into fuel production and bought our
> food from overseas we couldn't replace our current oil
> consumption.  Wind is now economically competitive, in
> fact, the largest wind producing utility is Florida
> Power and Light using wind farms in North Dakota.
> However, wind is now facing the NIMBY's in California
> and the East Coast and future growth is threatened.
> I've been studying "Hubbert's Peak" for a few years
> now and am convinced that the hydrocarbon economy as
> we know it is coming to an end. The financial
> community is starting to accept Hubbert's theory as
> fact and that is part of the reason oil stocks are
> selling at such a premium, much more than even the
> current high crude price would demand. The ultimate
> solution in my humble opinion can be summed up with
> one word.  NUKES!  If I'm right we'll have to suck up
> to the French and ask for some help building them
> since we haven't constructed one in thirty years.
>
> Brad Haslett
> "CoraShen"
>
>
>
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