There are a number of things they’ve been talking about since I was in grad school (and dinosaurs ruled the earth) including nuclear fusion, artificial intelligence, and the hydrogen economy. At Newsweek Ed Browne reports on an interesting development in producing hydrogen:
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) have found a way to produce hydrogen by developing a special type of aluminum composite that reacts with water at room temperature.
On its own, aluminum is a reactive material that splits oxygen away from water molecules, leaving hydrogen gas behind.
Aluminum won’t necessarily do this on its own, however. That’s because at room temperature the metal forms a layer of aluminum oxide, which essentially protects it from reacting with water.
What scientists have discovered is that by using an easily produced composite of gallium and aluminum, it is possible to get this material to react with water at room temperature, producing hydrogen.
“We don’t need any energy input, and it bubbles hydrogen like crazy,” said UCSC chemistry professor Scott Oliver in a university press release. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The fact that this aluminum-gallium mixture produces hydrogen has been known for decades. But what the UCSC team found was that increasing the concentration of gallium in the composite also increased the production of hydrogen.
“Our method uses a small amount of aluminum, which ensures it all dissolves into the majority gallium as discrete nanoparticles,” Oliver said.
What’s more, the composite can be made with easily accessible aluminum sources like foil or cans.
The downside is that gallium is relatively expensive, although it can be recovered in this process and reused multiple times.
That sounds very promising. Now let’s see if their results can be replicated and it can be done at scale. Hydrogen would certainly be a better solution for many uses than solar or wind power.
Something in this sounds very perpetual machine-ish.
Isn’t the electrolysis of water endothermic (i.e. it requires energy to break water into hydrogen and oxygen)?
If this doesn’t require an input of energy as they claim — we would be talking about burning “water” as a fuel — and that is a very fantastic claim indeed.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220218100644.htm
Curious. The energy required to separate oxygen from water pre-exists in the aluminum-hydrogen-oxygen system. The reactivity of Al and O is well known.
What these guys did was find the optimal aluminum/gallium ratio, and a better distribution pattern of Al.
This is criminally stupid, and it shows just how corrupt American science and American universities are. Congress and the military have nothing on our universities as to corruption and incompetence.
They are using powdered metallic aluminum, which is produced from bauxite ore by a highly energy intensive electric furnace process. Plus powdered metallic gallium, also produced by an energy intensive process.
Bulk aluminum rapidly reacts with atmospheric oxygen, but the reaction produces a tightly-adhering aluminum oxide coating that stops further reaction. Hence aluminum storm windows, beer cans, softball bats, B-52’s… (Rust does not adhere to iron, flakes off, and the reactions continue. Some iron alloys resist the flaking process.)
Powdered aluminum reacts explosively with oxygen, and it is a common ingredient in explosives and solid rocket fuels. The fact that it reacts with water, producing aluminum oxide and hydrogen is actually well known, a topic in freshmen chemistry 101, in high school.
The complete cycle here is bauxite (aluminum oxide) to aluminum (add lots of energy) to aluminum oxide plus hydrogen. Burn hydrogen with oxygen any way you like to get back water and energy.
The overall fuel cycle probably has an efficiency on the order of 10 to 20%, somewhat higher if you use fuel cells to burn the hydrogen.
(You have to make powdered aluminum from solid aluminum, which is the smelting product, and making powdered aluminum also requires energy.)
So this week the California air pollution board ordered a halt in the sale of gasoline/diesel powered vehicles by 2035. Right after that, the California energy regulator asked people not to recharge their electric vehicles over night because of electric power shortages.
(Last month, Connecticut ordered that all future state vehicles will be electric. Immediately after there was an electric bus fire (no injuries), and another state board ordered the grounding of all electric buses in the state.)
Currently, California gets 65% of its instate generated electricity from non-renewables: 50% from natural gas; and 8.5% from nuclear; 6.5% unspecified.
Repeat: That’s instate production.
California imports 43% of its total electricity consumption. Of the imports, coal contributes 9.5% (3.0% of total); natural gas contributes 9.5% (38% of total); nuclear 11% (9.3% of total).
See, from the horse’s mouth:
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/2021-total-system-electric-generation
PS. These are fine examples of regulators usurping legislator power. It’s not just a federal problem.
PPS. Usurpation by unelected officials is the long standing Progressive goal. Woodrow Wilson’s favorite book, supposedly:
https://www.amazon.com/Philip-Dru-Administrator-Tomorrow-1920-1935/dp/143441633X
PPPS. Russia and China are winning, and they deserve to win.
Bob –
What you are describing is the entire energy cycle. Which is absolutely the correct fundamental concept. The very same could be said of batteries for EV’s, in which the uninformed assume away the energy consumption (and other environmental costs) to produce batteries, and that magically you just get energy from the wall socket, assuming away where the socket gets energy.
But the fact remains, as I said, they apparently have come upon a way to most efficiently produce hydrogen. It could be beneficial for fuel cells. In other words, a transportable energy source. That’s a different question than total, cradle to grave, system energy consumption.
I’m sure you know, and I find it fascinating, that otherwise bright people, don’t recognize that fossil fuels already have the chemical energy in them (it having been provided mostly by the sun millions of years ago), just waiting to be released through oxidation – “burning.” Steve, for example, must be a bright guy to do what he does, and yet he blathers incoherently about “new, advancing battery technology” that will magically save the world. Never realizing that that most batteries basically store energy, not create it.
Conversion to electricity implies conversion energy losses. Said another way, fossil fuel driven electric power plants must be more efficient (or better able to prevent C escape) than internal combustion engines, with total system energy consumption in mind.
I know of no such studies. As I pointed out here months ago, the most recent study I know of calculated that an EV must be driven for 125 – 150k miles to breakeven with an internal combustion engine in total energy and environmental impact. That’s a tall order, and a small benefit. And we haven’t even started on recharging stations……..
To transmit power over distances we generally convert it from direct to alternating current and then convert it back to DC to use it. The power loss in each of those conversions is substantial. In addition there’s a wire power loss. That might be avoided with superconductors but that would require a technological breakthrough. Room temperature superconductors are another of those things that have been just around the corner for decades. There are countries that have been on the verge for most of the last century. One of my favorite wisecracks: “Brazil is the country of the future and always will be”.
Also note the words “some uses” in the conclusion of my post.
@bob sykes & @Drew
Leave the science to the experts – Al Gore, Joe Biden, Leonardo DiCaprio, ER Doctors, and gamers.
@Drew
Put down the putter, and turn off the Zeppelin. Finally, I get to quibble with you. I know you know this, but for everybody else, fossil fuels get the vast majority of their from millions of years of gravity compressing biomatter.
(If anybody is confused, coal has far more stored energy than a tree.)
Thanks to Bob and Drew, your comments explain the “we don’t need any energy input”.
If I reading the literature correctly; the main cost factor to producing hydrogen from water currently is energy.
“Never realizing that that most batteries basically store energy, not create it.”
Nope, just realizing that energy sources like wind and solar have become more efficient and cheaper. If you have a lot of electiricy you can make cheaper than with fossil fuels, and cleaner, then you need to be able to use that electricity. Batteries let you do that. Could also help with intermittency.
Steve
Dave, on energy conversion.
Yes, yes, and, um, yes.
Tasty –
I knew you were out there. First, I play with my putter every day (heh)…….a Bettinardi Studio Stock 28. A modern day Ping Anser. If you are not a golfer you can look it up.
But I did chuckle at your comment. Yes. I thought about commenting on compression, but opted to keep it simple. Are you sure on compression, though? I’ve never seen an authoritative split between compression and sun.
Oh, and the best live Black Dog I’ve seen. I saw them live twice, but not at Erdogan’s concert. I know some don’t appreciate the genre, but their loss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpigDGf6vXM
@Drew
Sorry for the late reply, but being on the government dole is a lot of work.
Goofy Golf is all I know, but with your putter, I should be able to make a hole-in-one on the windmill shot. Honestly, I do not get golf, but if you are happy, I am happy.
I have written some of my best code with Led Zeppelin II cranked up. I prefer punk rock and speed metal, but the code does not flow. Except for drum circles, I like almost all genres.
When a tree or bear dies, it will never gain any additional energy. Gravity turns a dead bear into a chunk of coal. Gravity is increasing the energy density, but it takes a lot of energy to make coal.