The Catch
I noted a report yesterday about a researcher at Purdue University who claims to have discovered a way to generate hydrogen on demand. I noted that I had a number of reservations about the practicality of the process. Some astute readers also chimed in with a number of very sharp comments that are worth reading. Well, the researcher is making even more extravagant claims today, including one that the man is keeping him down, man.
A Purdue University engineer and National Medal of Technology winner says he's ready and able to start a revolution in clean energy.
Professor Jerry Woodall and students have invented a way to use an aluminum alloy to extract hydrogen from water — a process that he thinks could replace gasoline as well as its pollutants and emissions tied to global warming.
But Woodall says there's one big hitch: "Egos" at the U.S. Department of Energy, a key funding source for energy research, "are holding up the revolution."
Now claims like this are popping up more and more and are being loudly proclaimed by - let's be charitable here - scientifically-challenged individuals, who really have no understanding of the process, the problems or the underlying equations.
Enter Ragnar over at the Jawa Report. He lays out the inconvenient facts that happen to make the good professor's wild claims of revolution seem like something that looks and smells a lot like snake oil.
Generating hydrogen fuel from water and metal sounds like a really good idea until you realize some troublesome facts, starting with…
TROUBLESOME FACT # 1 : By mass, water is mostly oxygen. There's not much hydrogen in water.
In fact, in 9 pounds of water, there's only 1 pound of hydrogen. Since a hydrogen-burning engine generates water as its waste product, this isn't as big a problem as it may first appear, as the waste water can likely be recycled.The other troublesome facts are, however, more "troublesome."
The article touches on the fact that this process consumes aluminum, but it fails to go into any detail as to how much. The article refers to the aluminum almost as if it were just some type of catalyst or something, but in fact this process consumes very large quantities of aluminum. I noted above that it takes 9 pounds of water to get 1 pound of hydrogen. This brings us to…
TROUBLESOME FACT # 2 : The process of reacting aluminum with water consumes roughly eight pounds of aluminum for every pound of hydrogen it generates.
TROUBLESOME FACT # 3 : The process of reacting aluminum with water generates roughly sixteen pounds of aluminum oxide waste for every pound of hydrogen it generates.
Now, 16 pounds of solid waste product may not seem like a big deal until you realize that the 1 pound of hydrogen fuel you've just generated is the energy equivalent of less than 0.5 gallons of gasoline. That's where the big, 350-lb. chunk of aluminum alloy comes in. The article mentions that there's a 350-lb. chunk of aluminum alloy added to the vehicle and that some aluminum is consumed by the process. The article fails to elaborate…
TROUBLESOME FACT # 4: At an average level of automotive efficiency, the 350-lb. chunk of aluminum will be consumed every few hundred miles.
This is an important fact that was left out of the article. Another thing…TROUBLESOME FACT # 5: Given the same assumption, the 350-lb. chunk of aluminum will be converted into a 700-pound chunk of aluminum oxide which will, again, have to be disposed of every few hundred miles.
Add to all that the fact that Jerry Woodall happens to be a computer engineer - which does not in any way disqualify him from working in the field. But it does say that his training and specialization is not in the energy field. The article makes much of the fact he won the National Medal, but kind of minimizes the fact that he got it for computer-related research. I pointed out yesterday that the energy equations for the entire cycle, including the manufacture of the aluminum-gallium pellets, need to be scrutinized very closely. I think they need even closer scrutiny now that Woodall is making accusations and extravagant claims.
The real problem, I think, is that the claims of a revolutionary process are all being made on the back end, so to speak. What is being left out is that a lot (a REAL lot) of energy is used in smelting and refining the aluminum in the first place. Woodall is then extracting a portion of that energy back out by reconverting the processed aluminum back into aluminum oxide. It isn't a miracle, it isn't rocket surgery and it is very likely completely impractical in the real world.
By NortonPete, Saturday, 19 May , 2007 @ 4:41 pm
>>What is being left out is that a lot (a REAL lot) of energy is used in smelting and refining the aluminum in the first place. Woodall is then extracting a portion of that energy back out by reconverting the processed aluminum back into aluminum oxide. It isn’t a miracle, it isn’t rocket surgery and it is very likely completely impractical in the real world.
By NortonPete, Saturday, 19 May , 2007 @ 4:44 pm
I was trying to add to that quote that I felt it was a very good analysis of the problem and a very good post.
By terrence, Saturday, 19 May , 2007 @ 8:37 pm
Come on, you guys. The EEVIIILLL Big-Oil-Big-Auto cabal is keeping down this unique discovery. Those EEVIIILLL capitalists do not want to lose control over the economy and us; they want our money, and are prepared to destroy the planet to get it, along with all of us, and all other living things.
By Gaius, Saturday, 19 May , 2007 @ 8:49 pm
That “The man is keeping me down” thing is especially annoying. This is a lot like the claims of perpetual motion that keep coming up.
By MikeO, Saturday, 19 May , 2007 @ 9:00 pm
Hydrogen schmydrogen. This reminds me of a comedy sketch in which a bum in the street sees a box fall off a truck, opens the box, tosses aside the expensive stereo that was inside of it, and then walks happily away with the empty box.
Aluminum’s reaction with oxygen (either in water or the air) to form alumina is an enormously exothermic reaction. Think sodium and water. But the rapid formation of the alumina coating prevents the reaction from continuing under normal circumstances. You can almost ignore the hydrogen byproduct because that hydrogen contains around 15% of the energy expelled by the aluminum -> alumina reaction.
TANSTAAFL applies, of course, but the major benefit here would be the portability of the stored energy. It takes a lot of energy to make aluminum out of alumina, and the second law of thermodynamics guarantees that we cannot get all of it back, but there is a possibility that aluminum oxidation electricity generation plants (for instance) could provide savings over long-distance power transmission.
For all I care, the Bayer process plants making the aluminum (and turning the waste alumina back into aluminum) could be powered by burning rain forests, spotted owls on treadmills, or hippy body odor.
The potential of something like this is that we don’t have to go to the middle east to get bauxite. I am for just about anything that moves us toward the day when we can drop the pretense that those troublesome peoples have a place in the modern world, stop sending them money that props-up their worthless excuses for societies, and essentially defund them back to the stone age where they belong until their culture matures.
By Gaius, Saturday, 19 May , 2007 @ 9:27 pm
So we switch over to this. The price of oil falls. Developing countries buy cheap oil and become more efficient relative to US production. Companies go to those countries to buy cheaper goods because everything in the US costs more because of a much more expensive form of energy. The American consumer gets to refuel his car with 350 pounds of aluminum and has to dispose of 700 pounds of aluminum oxide every few hundred miles driven. While drivers in Bangladesh pump 20 gallons of gasoline and drive all week. But it really won’t matter for long as there won’t be a job to drive to for much longer.
Think the whole thing through. It really isn’t all about us. (And the developing countries will be paying for their gas with money we send them. Until we can’t afford to do that anymore. Which will be real soon.)
By MikeO, Sunday, 20 May , 2007 @ 11:08 am
Gaius,
Let me start by saying that I do not support imposition of automotive technology by federal government fiat. Period. For me, this includes even safety standards, fuel economy minimums, and pollution allowances.
What I was trying to say in my post, above, is that the energy available from the production of hydrogen is a small percentage of the amount of energy produced during the oxidation of aluminum.
Even if the claims are true, there is much to be worked-out yet, but please consider this: What if a power unit suitably sized for use in an electric automobile could be devised around the oxidation of aluminum in water? You would pull up to the service station, a robot would remove the half-ton spent fuel cartridge from your car, and snap a fresh cartridge in its place. The spent cartridge would get picked-up to go to a smelter powered by nuke, hydro, coal, or even oil to be turned back into aluminum metal.
There is another major factor to consider: The cost of an internal combustion engine and drivetrain. If a simplified electric car could reduce the actual sales price and lifelong maintenance costs of an automobile by $5,000, that would amount to $0.05 per mile if the car lasts 100,000 miles. At 20MPG, that’s $1/gallon.
There is a possibility (however slight) that this could make economic sense to the point of being a no-brainer. Sure, we have a distribution system in place for hydrocarbon fuel pumped from the ground, but that system costs us big. How big? The answer is posted in digits eighteen inches tall at each of the four gas stations at the intersection near my house.
I will say that Woodall deserves ridicule for at least the following reasons:
1. He cites anthropogenic global warming in his rationale
2. He is pitching the hydrogen production instead of the energy available from oxidizing aluminum
3. If he isn’t already reserving some of the aluminum for a hat, then he ought to be
But once you get past the moonbat nonsense, there might be something here.
By Gaius, Sunday, 20 May , 2007 @ 11:20 am
As I said in both of these posts, the energy equations need to be carefully - and completely - evaluated. But there are a host of factors to consider, Mike, not just the fuel itself but what the repercussions are in other areas as well. For the record, again, I think we should find a way to stop burning oil as transportation fuel. But I really do not believe there is a magic bullet in the offing - and this one is particularly annoying because of the fawning way it is presented without considering basically any of the drawbacks.
We really need much better reporting on this stuff instead of reporters uncritically accepting what the person with a dog in the race presents as true fact without question.
By MikeO, Sunday, 20 May , 2007 @ 1:44 pm
Gaius,
Upon review of what I’ve written, I owe you an apology. I’m sorry. I neglected to see that your post points to a different article from yesterday’s, and I should have prefaced both my posts with the following:
“If it is true that gallium, as a catalyst, can sustain the oxidation of aluminum in water, then. . . ”
I was thinking from the angle that aluminum would then represent a compact energy storage medium comparable to hydrocarbon fuels with the disadvantage that we would expend energy to make the aluminum metal but with the advantage that the waste alumina would re-enter the cycle.
As for the quality of the reporting, I (tongue-in-cheek, of course) would have to admonish you for expecting better. My default take when reading anything in a newspaper is what Mary McCarthy (the communist author/critic, not the treasonous leaker at the CIA) had to say about Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”