OT Hydrogen economy, not?

[danny burstein]

Meanwhile, sunlight in space averages about 1366 watts per square meter.
The Earth is about 12740 km in diameter, or 1.274E7 meters. Square that,
multiply by pi/4 and by 1366 and by 1/2 (the other half gets reflected
back out) and by number of seconds in a year (3.16E7), and the result is
sunlight delivering 2.75E24 joules of heat per year.
Fossil fuel burning produces heat in the ballpark of .000142 times the
amount of heat that the Earth gets from sunlight if I did not screw up
anything here.

At first glance it looks to me like you've worked out
the figures for a "flat earth", so to speak, with
the entire disk facing the sun at 90 degrees.

Since it's a sphere, shouldn't you need to adjusy
adjust for the curvature, which would reduce the
net amount?



uldn'

 

[Don Klipstein]

Explosive mixture in air has a very wide range of compositions 4-74%.

Acetylene is worse - 2.5 to 80 %.

Slightest spark will ignite it too.

Acetylene is much worse in that area.

You cannot even park it in a bunker unless it is well ventilated.

http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/services/hydrogen.html

Hydrogen at high pressure will diffuse through steel. And worst of all
a pure hydrogen flame is almost invisible in daylight (this is good in
one sense in that it doesn't radiatively couple).

Blue flames in general are mostly faintly visible to invisible in
daylight. One classic example is the particular race cars fueled by
methanol crashing with fuel fires, with most visible sign of the fire
being "heat ripples" seen where viewing conditions favor visibility of
that effect.

Propane torch flames are very faint in areas illuminated by direct
sunlight. A natural gas stove flame is dimmer than a propane torch flame,
so a similar natural gas flame in a bright sunlit environment has a fair
chance of being invisible.

Fire fighters in a hydrogen risk environment have to be extremely careful
since even the tiniest static electricity spark will ignite a leak.

Ethylene is similar in this area, and acetylene is much worse than both
ethylene and hydrogen!

Failsafe systems are designed to vent flare the hydrogen upwards in
the event of a failure - which is fine unless you have rolled the car
over. Then the flame burns whatever it touches and becomes optically
dense.

The bulk of released hydrogen, whether burning or not, will still go
upwards because hydrogen is lighter than air.
Increasing optical density of the flame means the flame changing from a
dim blue one to a more ordinary whitish-orange-yellow one that is easy to
see in daylight.

<SNIP from here to concentrate on relevance to some fire safety/hazard
issues of hydrogen>

I see the more legitimate arguments against hydrogen being on other
grounds - such as how much can be practically stored on a personal
hydrogen-fueled vehicle, and after that arguments as to fuel cells
requiring (or not necessarily requiring) expensive materials with low
available tonnage worldwide or else figure out how usefully (or not) we
can burn it in an IC engine, a steam engine, or a Stirling engine, etc.
where gasoline and diesel finds IC engines practical.

Delivering/generating hydrogen from "whatever energy source" to a fuel
pumping station (whether it's a neighborhood or town "fuel station" or a
smaller device for most homeowners having garages to have) and
compressing the hydrogen into a car's fuel tank (or otherwise storing a
useful amount into the vehicle) are also significant arguments against
mass-market hydrogen-fueled vehicles.

If it can ever be be practical to use hydrogen to fuel cars, it's not
"a tall order" to make such a thing having reasonable safety along the
lines of safety of using gasoline as a fuel for cars.
So I expect hydrogen fueled cars to not have safety issues to be the
tallest hurdles that stand in their way!

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

 

[Don Klipstein]

Ugh, and that nasty High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Not that this is "health food", but I am easily "rubbed the wrong way"
by anyone and everyone saying, implying, hinting, whatever that HFCS is
outright poison but sucrose or even raw cane sugar or "brown sugar" is
"wholesome" or something along those lines.
Most "high fructose corn syrup" is HFCS-55, meaning sugar content
breaking down to 55% fructose and the other 45% glucose.
Latter are all generally 48-51% glucose 48-51% fructose as far as
calorie content goes.

Along with this, I see all-too-much the anti-carbers saying how carbs in
general and glucose make people overeat by being remaining hungry by
stimulating production of insulin, while also saying that fructose causes
people to overeat due to being remaining hungry from lack of insulin
production stimulus! That makes me think along lines of one having one's
cake after eating it?

The older I get, the fewer
processed foods I eat, not so much because I don't like cereal or so on,
but there is so much HFCS in the vast majority of products now that
they're inedible to me - I don't know how poeple can stomach the stuff.
Even something as simple as a Kaiser roll is now nauseatingly sweet.
I've gotten to where I'm starting to even make my own bread, that's how
disgusting most of the commercial items have gotten. And obesity is
described as being "an epidemic" among even young children. The last
thing we need is ever-more HFCS in everything. And studies indicate that
it is worse than regular sugar, something to do with it being iether
unrecognized ro poorly-recognized by the hormones that signal the brain
we're satiated. Not to mention that the hidden sugar only contributes to
obesity and type-II diabetes. I mean, why the heck does something like
*sausage* "need' to have HFCS added?

The low-carb advocates still advocate sausage! Not that I advocate
sausage due to high calorie density, mostly from fat, and due to sausage
usually having little other than fat and water!

Not that I favor processed foods!

IMO, it'd be a blessing if that crap was turned into ethanol, because
that'd mean less of it would be going into food products.

At least, that is my opinionated opinion

Certainly I think that if there was a way to put sausage (more
realistically fats in general) usefully into a car's fuel tank as opposed
to into human gigestion systems, then the world would be a better place!

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

 

[Don Klipstein]

Here, you can buy Mexican cokes, in glass bottles, made with real
sugar. They're pretty good.

I have found a slight difference between Canadian Cokes and American
ones, in favor of usage of "Real Sugar"!
Canada gets sugar from Cuba. Why does USA need to put a wall between
itself and Cuba while trading with China as "most favored nation"?

And sourdough bread is made from flour and water, with maybe a little
salt.

At least the trans-fat hydrogenated soybean oil is going away. That was
really foul.

Make that "partially hydrogenated" - fully hydrogenated (less common)
is 100% saturated (bad enough) but "trans" is much worse while being a
type of unsaturated, found mainly in "partially hydrogenated" vegetable
oils (especially of soybean).

I say good riddance to that poison, in the few cities of USA where that
poison has recently been banned.

I find "partially hydrogenated" vegetable oils to be the main poisoning
in processed foods - and after that high salt content, low fiber content
and low content of antioxidants - even the more notable ones.

So I munch a lot of veggies and also more than "my fair share" of
berries and fruit.

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

 

[Don Klipstein]

I get different numbers for the earth.

Diameter of earth is 12740 km.
Surface area of a sphere = 4 * Pi * r^2
Area = 4 * Pi * 6370^2 = 5.10*10^8 sq km

That part checks with me as good.

However, only half the globe is illuminated at one time, so the
effective illuminated area:
Area = 2.05*10^8 sq km

Where do you get that figure?

For one thing, half of 5.1E8 square km is 2.55 E8 sq km.

Frontal area to the sun is effectively half of that, as in pi times
square of Earth's radius being the sunlight-receiving "frontal area".
(oversimplifying the Sun to be a point source as opposed to a disk
slightly over half a degree wide.)

For now, I am getting 1.275E8 square km.

= 2.05*10^11 sq meters

Square meters is 1E6 and not 1E3 times square km. There are a million
square meters in a square km. 1,000 long by 1,000 wide!

1,275 E8 sq km is 1.275 E14 square meters.

Watts = 1.366 kw/sq meter * 2.05*10^11 sq meters
= 2.80*10^11 watts

1366 watts per sq meter times 1.275 E14 square meters is 1.74 E17 watts.

Energy = 2.80*10^11 watts * 3.15*10^7 seconds/year
= 8.82*10^18 watt-seconds/year (joules/year)

The average albedo of the planet is about 30% which is radiated back
into space:

Energy = 0.70 * 8.82*10^18 = 6.17*10^18 joules/year

Albedo refers to reflection, or unity minus absorption. I have heard
more like 50%.

Reception of solar radiant energy is unity minus albedo.

Using my 50% albedo, my 1.74 E17 watts is halved to 8.7E16 watts.

Using your 30% albedo, retention of 1.74E17 watts is 70% of that, or
1.45E17 watts.

Using your value of fossil fuel heat of 3.91*10^20 joules/year, I get:
ratio = 6.17*10^18 / 3.91*10^20 = 0.016

More favorable to you is using 50% albedo, for 8.7E16 watts of solar
energy intake by Earth. Multiply that by number of seconds in a year and
I get for now 2.75E24 joules per year for solar radiation heating of our
planet.

My figure for fossil fuel heat as you quote just above is 3.91E20 joules
per year.

Ratio of fossil fuel heating to solar heating is 3.91E20/2.75E24,
which is 1.42E-4.

I haven't checked the fossil fuel part yet....(dinner first).

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

 

[Vaughn Simon]

Why does USA need to put a wall between
itself and Cuba while trading with China as "most favored nation"?

One word answer: Politics.

A couple of years ago, the wife and I took a Caribbean cruise. Twice, our
ship stopped for Cubans on makeshift floating objects. Although our crew tried
to convince the Cubans to come aboard to safety, they all preferred their rafts.
Coming aboard would have meant their ultimate return to Cuba.

I will never forget that situation: Us on our ship with *everything*; them
on their raft with *nothing* (perhaps not even their lives). We did not want
aboard their raft, they did not want aboard our ship. What was the barrier
between us? Politics!

A few days later, Hurricane Wilma swept through that area and likely made
fish food out of some of those poor people.

Vaughn

 

[Eeyore]

"Don Klipstein" wrote


One word answer: Politics.

A couple of years ago, the wife and I took a Caribbean cruise. Twice, our
ship stopped for Cubans on makeshift floating objects. Although our crew tried
to convince the Cubans to come aboard to safety, they all preferred their rafts.
Coming aboard would have meant their ultimate return to Cuba.

I will never forget that situation: Us on our ship with *everything*; them
on their raft with *nothing* (perhaps not even their lives). We did not want
aboard their raft, they did not want aboard our ship. What was the barrier
between us? Politics!

A few days later, Hurricane Wilma swept through that area and likely made
fish food out of some of those poor people.

It's nuts isn't it ?

If the USA would normalise relations with Cuba (hopefully extracting some 'human
rights' issues into the bargain) it could be a fantastic bonus for the entire
region.

Graham

 

[Balanced View]

He was right; see the map he posted. Dallas and its burbs are
enormous, but he could have done the same for a dozen cities.

We have parks that are bigger than a lot of European countries. That's
not to brag, it's just to point out that a lot of things that make
sense in small, dense places - like public transit, municipal heat,
rail travel, bicycle commuting - don't scale.

John

The Netherlands is 16,033 sq miles, the entire city of New York, suburbs
and all is 6,720 sq mi

 

[Eeyore]

For a person who doesn't intend to offend, you sure do it a lot.

I apologise for that.

How much time have you spent in the US?

As yet, my view is based only on popular media and its representation of the USA. I
would love to spend some time there but I must say that a film editor friend of
mine who did spend some years there on the West Coast found the culture ultimately
unsatisfying and returned to the UK.

He said it was all about money.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

He was right; see the map he posted. Dallas and its burbs are
enormous, but he could have done the same for a dozen cities.

The burbs must be damn huge in that case !

We have parks that are bigger than a lot of European countries.

Well, you have a wonderfully large country too.

That's not to brag, it's just to point out that a lot of things that
make
sense in small, dense places - like public transit, municipal heat,
rail travel, bicycle commuting - don't scale.

Yes, it's selective. Don't knock it entirely though.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

No.

Mixed civilian and military. The military bit is 'secret' AFAIK.

I partition military and civilian

OK, I said "Chernobyl". Was I supposed to feel or see anything? All I got
were fully looks from my cats.

Someone I know got moderately irradiated from rain falling in East Anglia. That's
related to why why lamb was off the menu for years and costs a fortune now.

Or were you implying that they were recycling fuel at Chernobyl? If so,
that's still one of the best-kept secrets right up to the present.

No, they were just fucking up with a reactor that had no containment.

Graham

 

[You]

(stepping far outside my core expertise now) My guess is that if district
steam heat were to be provided from a nuke, it would come from a turbine
extraction point and not from increasing the condenser operating temperature.
The increased drag on the LP turbine blades would be huge. Extraction points
are already available in the turbine casing so accessing the steam would
amount to little more than welding up some piping.

Actually you would want any Offsite Heat to be from a Heat Exchanger,
that was removed from the Primary Coolant Loop by at least two stages.
This allows for a Primary Heat Exchanger leak from one side to the other,
without any radiation leaving the Plant, via a cross contamination.
Usually the secondary side of the Primary Heat Exchanger is what drives
the Turbine that produces electricity, and any Primary Heat Exchanger
leak would put some contamination into the Turbine Loop, which has
Radiation Detectors looking for just this type of leak, and if it is
Detected, Scram's the Plant.

 

[Bruce in alaska]

He was right; see the map he posted. Dallas and its burbs are
enormous, but he could have done the same for a dozen cities.

We have parks that are bigger than a lot of European countries. That's
not to brag, it's just to point out that a lot of things that make
sense in small, dense places - like public transit, municipal heat,
rail travel, bicycle commuting - don't scale.

John

and if we cut Alaska in half, Texas would be the third largest
State.......

 

[Bruce in alaska]

You've got to fly, or better yet drive, from coast to coast to
appreciate how big this place is. In a plane, you can go hours without
seeing more than sporadic signs of human effects. Driving Interstate
10 west from San Antonio, it can be days.

John

Texas ain't so BIG....

 

[Mark Zenier]

The 1366 watts is for a square meter normal to the suns rays,
so the area you want is the area intercepted by the earth,
just the area of a circle with the earth's diameter.

mzenier@localhost mzenier]$ units --verbose
1948 units, 71 prefixes, 28 functions

You have: pi*(6370 kilometers)^2
You want: m^2
pi*(6370 kilometers)^2 = 1.2747609e+14 m^2

You have: (pi*(6370 kilometers)^2)*(3600 s)*(24*365.25)*(1366 watts/m^2)
You want: joules
(pi*(6370 kilometers)^2)*(3600 s)*(24*365.25)*(1366 watts/m^2)
= 5.4951987e+24 joules

Energy = 2.80*10^17 watts * 3.15*10^7 seconds/year
= 8.82*10^24 watt-seconds/year (joules/year)

Hell, close enough for government work.

Mark Zenier [email protected]
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

 

[Calab]

| Let's see, we reform it into essentially the same material that we
| mined, but at a lower activity level. Then put it back from where we
| got it. Global effect: reducing background radioactivity. What is
| the problem?

Putting it all back in one place.

 

[Tim Williams]

It has made growing oilseed rape a lot more attractive.

IRTA, increasing frequency of raping oilseeds. Freudian slip? ;-)

Tim

 

[Tim Williams]

I think we've pretty well dispelled the corn-lobby theory--Mssrs.
Clinton and Gore launched the ethanol thing.

Now here's something I don't think anyone has considered yet in this thread
(probably because it implies some thought on Al's part). What if Al Gore
chose to persue corn ethanol because he knew the corn lobby was large and
would therefore be easily supported?

Tim

 

[Tim Williams]

Jalapenos? You wimp, try habaneros.

Heh heh, once upon a time Dad made some habanero salsa. Good stuff, really
sweet. And you'll die if you stop eating it and let your mouth warm up!

Tim

 

[Tim Williams]

Since it's a sphere, shouldn't you need to adjusy
adjust for the curvature, which would reduce the
net amount?

No, circular diameter is cross-sectional area. No need to integrate over
the sphere's entire surface area, multiplying by Lambert's cosine law to
account for less intensity around the edges.

Tim