Maybe it never will make commercial sense, but my point was that it does not require fossil fuels to power the electrolysis to make hydrogen.
And then they went and sold off the generating capacity to private entities who have no interest in really cheap electricity - other than gaining market share. Hydrogen from nuclear would be great - hydrogen from nuclear fusion plants would be even better but is long way off. I was in the JET reactor at Culham some years back and that was one hell of an impressive piece of kit. Shame it took more power to get it working than it could ever produce though. I hope the ITER project goes well.
Mind you - it all still misses the point (that i think you agree with) that however you get the hydrogen, it is more efficient just to use the electricity directly in the first place for all but a few applications.
Well ......yes. But they primarily want somebody else's oil now and want to save their own for later for when the other stuff runs out. Which of course plays right into the hands of certain rather wealthy oil producers linked to or directly in the American government. It just doesn't make sense for them to sell their own oil now at a relatively low price, when they can sit on it for another few years and then sell it for many times more.
That's just good business sense, and sod the people whose countries get invaded in the process.
I dont argue with you on this, Duane. Using fossil fuel to make hydrogen is gilding the lilly.
I have always said that hydrogen is a good fuel, but getting it cheaply is the problem. Transportation and storage are issues, but can be achieved, in time.
We are lucky that we havent had queues to any great extent since the Arab oil embargo. (Temporary upsets after the American hurricanes Katrina and Rita not counted).
WE (the USA) have a shortage of oil and gas. Yes, we can still buy it, import it, etc but the shortage here is real. Demands are being met, at present, but world consumption is still on a faster track than world oil discoveries.
I am looing 'down the road', not 'down the road to the nearest gasoline station'.
This has never been my position, and I agree with you, in spades. There has to be a better way, but 'outside the box' thinking and research are needed to solve eventual problems.
The problem with reports like this is the operate in a contrived vacuum. Here are the facts (although they may be a year out of date).
12% of the corn crop goes to ethanol plants. The ethanol plant not only produces ethanol it produces a variety of other high quality feed products such as corn gluten and corn oil. The value of those other products (in dollars not BTU's) is equal to 80% the original value of the grain. So simply put 98% of the corn crop value goes to various products (mostly food) and 2% goes to ethanol. If you look at the cost of growing that 2% (in dollars) compared to its sale value the numbers look very good. This is why ethanol plants are being built and production is increasing at a rapid clip. Now obviously there is a limit to how much of the various co-products that an ethanol plant produces that the market will bare. Obviously if you create a scenario where you attempt to replace all of the transportation fossil fuel consumption with ethanol from corn it is going to look ridiculously hopeless (measured in dollars or BTU's). In other words, your study is a very complete and thorough analysis of "pie in the sky"
I lived in Venezuela for 3-4 years in the late 70's, and at that time there were three grades of gasoline. The cheapest was about 7 cents ber gallon and the best was perhaps 25-30. I was told that this was a promise from the government to the people, and if they tried to get the price up, it could spark a civil war.
Communist Chavez took over Venezuela by the vote of the poor people. He is now virtually a dictator and he hates George Bush in specific and the USA in general.
Other governments in Latin America have recently elected similar presidents, including Bolivia with Evo Morales, in Chile, etc. Mexico was a near miss in the last election. If things get worse for the Mexican poor, they might actually elect one of these Socialists/Communists in the next election. It is not unthinkable.
This is my point. It is not hard to come up with a few scenarios of what could happen.
Which guy? It's clear you don't want to show anything.
I've long ago posted the numbers.
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Venezuela's proven oil reserves currently are estimated at about 77.2 billion barrels, but if undeveloped deposits of extra-heavy crude are factored in, the number would jump to 270 billion barrels.
That alone would vault Venezuela past Saudi Arabia, which has 262 billion barrels in reserves, but Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez told 'The Guardian' that the government wants OPEC to recognize the country's total reserves as close to 312 billion barrels.
While Venezuela is home to the largest proven oil reserves in the Western hemisphere, most of its oil consists of extra-heavy crude that is too expensive to pump out and refine -- unless market prices are at least $40 per barrel.
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There are 175 billion barrels of proven oil reserves here. That.s second to Saudi Arabia.s 260 billion but it.s only what companies can get with today.s technology. The estimate of how many more barrels of oil are buried deeper underground is staggering.
But then $40 a barrel happened and the oil sands not only made sense, they made billions for the people digging them.
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Analysis: Israel sees shale replacing oil
"Hom Tov isn't worried, however. "This is a much lighter (substance) than what gradually comes out of an oil field," Aizenshtat told UP"
"It would cost about $17 to produce a barrel of synthetic oil at the Hom Tov facility, meaning giant profit margins in a world of $45 to $60 per barrel crude."
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Large Oil Field Is Found in Belize; the Angling Begins
And then along came BNE which, backed mainly by Irish investors, drilled five successful wells. Now the combined production is almost 3,000 barrels a day of sweet crude -- so low in sulphur that some farmers pump it directly into their tractors.
I'm sorry to be so blunt but a little misunderstanding such as yours goes a long way to fuel widespread ignorance of the facts.
For the record, it's *current* that's the relevant factor. The more current that passes, the more electrolysis takes place. For optimal efficiency the electrolysis should be at the lowest possible voltage to avoid generating waste heat.
The USA has precious little capacity to invade many more countires.
In fact by going 'hi-tech' the US military is at a relative disadvantage in the kind of wars that the neo-cons want in the future. These wars will require ppl to die ( for oil ? ) in their tens of thousands.
but if you can build a digester that will produce enough energy to run the sewage treatment plant then are you are reducing the amount of oil used. If a pig farmer runs one that will do nothing more than make enough energy to run itself he is ahead of the game because he gets rid of a problem (pig crap) and winds up with something useful (fertilizer) with a zero or near zero energy output.
Long ago I read about using heat to break down H2O. I looked into some, thinking solar thermal, but from my little research (this was back before the internet or even computerized card catalogs) it seemed the energy could be used a better way. Such as using the solar thermal to make steam to run a generator.
There's a problem with your thinking. Have you noticed that we are having no prob getting oil now? That's because a lot of the OPEC members were afraid of Iraq and its nutty government. They are also afraid of Iran and its nutty government.
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