Clean energy claim: Aluminum in your car tank (Energy Dept Blocking?)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC

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."

Woodall says the method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen — two major challenges in creating a hydrogen economy.

"The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you need when you need it," he said in a statement released by Purdue this week.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18700750/

[bananas]

1. Did the MSNBC website just go down? nt

[bananas]

3. yes, it was

Some images still aren't showing
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Editor’s note
MSNBC.com was temporarily unavailable to many Internet users for a brief period Friday afternoon. The disruptions occurred as we were making adjustments to the site's servers. For an additional period after the site was restored, some images were not immediately displayed. We apologize for the disruptions and expect normal status to return soon.

[cosmicdot]

10. "Page cannot be found"

is what I'm getting
at this hour

I knr'd the thread just the same.

[sam sarrha]

2. takes WAY TOO MUCH ENERGY to make AL2 a metal

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Not new, not a breakthrough.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=96944&mesg_id=96958

[xxqqqzme]

5. so can we expect to see this on

Countdown tonight?

[webDude]

6. By-product can be recycled and made with cheaper Gallium

see Yahoo article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070518/sc_nm/fuel_hydrogen_dc

[IndianaGreen]

7. If we adopt this technology, there would be no need for Big Oil, or for troops in Iraq

I am surprised that professor Woodall has yet to be declared an enemy combatant and shipped to Guantanamo.

[sce56]

20. Think if we had not wasted all that money in Iraq we could have used it to build clean cars and

solar roofs generators here in the us eliminating the need for much of the imported oil.

[NickB79]

8. The question is, what energy source do you use to make the pellets?

The energy released by the pellets in a modified car will be less than the energy used to synthesize it due to the laws of thermodynamics, so this is not an energy source. It is merely an energy transfer medium.

Theoretically, you could use wind, solar, wave or nuclear energy to generate electricity to produce the pellets, but then you have to ask the question, "Wouldn't it be more efficient to just put that electricity onto the grid and drive an electric or plug-in hybrid car instead?"

[physioex]

9. Not that simple......

For simplicity let's assume gasoline has the approximate density of water. And you have picked up a gallon of water right? Now imagine a battery and try and store the same amount of energy in an equivalent battery. How much do you think that would weigh? Making the family trip to Disney out of the question. So the efficiency of hydgrogen comes from the amount of energy to weight ratio. Right now, there are very few alternatives when it comes to the amount of calories contained in a gallon of gasoline and hydrogen could be that alternative.

The enviromental friedliness of hydgrogen greatly depends on how it was produced.

[19jet54]

15. Better Battery - Chemical Battery of Al-Gal & H2O

Exactly as you describe - This is not really a new energy source as much as it is a way to store & produce large amounts of H2 safely in a vehicle (except maybe a car in the water accident). An H2 engine/fuel cell would produce water back into the storage of water device. The real device here is the pellets that absorb oxygen to release the Hydrogen, and would have to be replaced/recycled on a regular basis - requiring stations that sell this item just like gas maybe. The production or recycling of the pellets must be cost effective, as must be converting an engine to H2.

These guys are screaming because the DOE will not give them financial grants because they have a background in chip electronics vs energy or automotive design. They are trying politics to "strong arm" the government DOE - Good Luck Guys!

[krispos42]

12. Probably, but first

It would be more efficient to pump that clean energy into the grid and shut down all the old coal-burning powerplants. Save a lot of pollution that way.

Once that was taken care of, then the expansion of the various non-polluting power sources could be used to start making these metal pellets.

The Achilles heel of any battery-powered car is the ability to refuel quickly.

I discussed one possible, and I think very usable, electric-with-auxillery-engine car in my Journal. Later on, it occured to me that a 50-hp 300VDC generator on a small trailer could be rented for long trips for my car. Plug the output directly into the car's DC grid, and the trailer would generate the cruising and accessory power for the car, even recharging the car's battery pack if needed. Hills and merging power would come from the car's internal battery pack.

This system has the ability to be refilled quickly with some sort of auger and a garden hose.

[TexasLawyer]

11. from Scientific American

May 18, 2007
New fuel for 21st century -- aluminum pellets?

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Pellets made out of aluminum and gallium can produce pure hydrogen when water is poured on them, offering a possible alternative to gasoline-powered engines, U.S. scientists say.

Hydrogen is seen as the ultimate in clean fuels, especially for powering cars, because it emits only water when burned. U.S. President George W. Bush has proclaimed hydrogen to be the fuel of the future, but researchers have not yet found the most efficient way to produce and store hydrogen.

The metal compound pellets may offer a way, said Jerry Woodall, an engineering professor at Purdue University in Indiana who invented the system.

<snip>

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=new-fuel-for-21st-century&chanId=sa003&modsrc=reuters

[originalpckelly]

13. In other words the fella claims to have made a car that runs on water.

I wonder if this research has been reviewed by others in the same field to determine its validity.

[TreasonousBastard]

14. OK, so what happens to the oxygen in the water? Do we...

want to drive around with a tank full of hydrogen and oxygen just waiting for an excuse to get back together?

And, there's that energy density thing. Water weighs more than gasoline, about two pounds a gallon, and the hydrogen is only 1/8 of the weight or volume of the water.

So, a tankful of water gets you not very far-- most likely far less than an eighth of a tankful of gas after considering the effiencies of gas and hydrogen engines.

[19jet54]

16. Aluminum Oxide

... it bonds with the Aluminum per their article, which requires the pellets to be replaced when used up - I assume the Gallium is just the catalyst for the action?

[calteacherguy]

17. That's part of the problem.

"Right now it costs more than $1 a pound to buy aluminum, and, at that price, you can't deliver a product at the equivalent of $3 per gallon of gasoline," Woodall said.

That cost could come way down, he figures, if the recycling is done with electricity from nuclear power plants, wind turbines or even solar power plants if economically viable. The aluminum oxide and gallium would be shipped to such plants, using electrolysis to break the oxide back down to aluminum, Woodall said, "and we start the cycle all over again."

If used in fuel cells, the process would be economically competitive with gasoline, Woodall noted. "Using pure hydrogen, fuel cell systems run at an overall efficiency of 75 percent, compared to 40 percent using hydrogen extracted from fossil fuels and with 25 percent for internal combustion engines," Woodall said.

But the fuel cell systems themselves are still much more expensive and less reliable than internal combustion engines. "When and if fuel cells become economically viable, our method would compete with gasoline at $3 per gallon even if aluminum costs more than a dollar per pound," Woodall said.

[19jet54]

18. $10,000 Fuel Cell Engine Cost

... Tonight on the PBS NOW show (Miles to Go - http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/320/index.html), these topics were discussed and the cost for a viable fuel cell for a Ford Focus was quoted as $10k. Plus the cost of the pellets, and their conversion cost from Aluminum Oxide back to pellets, not to mention they are highly reactive to water, which is everywhere (air, ground, falls from sky, lakes, ocean and so on) and when it comes in contact with it reacts violently producing hydrogen (remember the Hindenburg). I doubt that anyone in Government DOE would approve that type of risk - a real CYA crowd for sure.

So, they have the DOE to overcome, costs and safety ... that sure looks like 3 strikes to me?

That damn "stick in the mud" & Murphy are everywhere?

[Sirveri]

21. They would probably use a hydrogen turbine.

Hydrogen reciprocating engines don't really make too much sense, much better to use a turbine in this case.

[TheMadMonk]

19. Sorry folks it's not a goer.

It takes electricity, lots and lots of electricity to turn alumina, into aluminium. That electricity has to come from somewhere.

This hydrogen generator does not burn water. It "burns" the aluminium with water as the oxidiser releasing hydrogen which is then oxidised in either a fuel cell or combustion engine to produce work (move the car).

Hell, you might as well use sulphuric acid (industrial waste) and scrap iron (much cheaper than aluminium + gallium)to generate hydrogen. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper, if a little more problematical in handling and disposal.


Then there is hydrogen's dirty little secret. There are not enough platinum group metals on this planet to come within cooee of making enough fuel cells to "power" a hydrogen economy. Except by taking the efficiency (and hence range) hit of burning the hydrogen in a combustion engine.


For short haul work, compressed air offers the convenience of quick refills at a very low price, but at the cost of limiting range to roughly 100km (60 miles). However it's still perfect for a shopping cart/commuter vehicle. A further advantage is that they are mechanically and electronically simple. And thus cheap to build.


One promising technology which gives the best of all worlds, reasonable range, clean electricity and quick (as in minutes or less) charging, is the flow battery. "charged" electrolyte is pumped through the battery to generate electricity. The "discharged" electrolyte is stored in a separate tank. At a service station the "discharged" electrolyte is drained and fresh "charged" electrolyte is pumped into the vehicle. At the service station, the electrolyte is "charged" using grid electricity, or power generated on site (preferably green power).

They also work well for static installations to store power generated intermittently (solar, wind, wave).


Or, if you want to be outre, there is shoehorning a tabletop nuclear reactor under the hood.