The solution to our energy problem: Natural Gas!

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by joepistole, May 11, 2008.

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  1. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Natural gas is an old solution, used durring the 1970s and still used in some commercial fleets today. Its mpg productivity is similar to gasoline. It is less stressful on engines leading to longer engine life and it releases 75 percent few pollutants because it is a cleaner burning fuel.

    So why do you suppose we cannot get natural gas at the local gas station?

    http://www.naturalgas.org/business/analysis.asp#domesticng


    Now refilling your vehicle with natural gas is different that refilling with gasoline. But it is not at all difficult.
     
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  3. Echo3Romeo One man wolfpack Registered Senior Member

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    Pressurized fuel systems are harder to work on. LNG comes from the same place as oil, which gives Prius Patriots a sandy vagina as well as roping it in with the ZOMG PEAK OIL brouhaha.

    Another cool thing about LNG is its ridiculously high octane rating, which enables a very efficient engine if one is built with a high static compression ratio to take advantage of it.
     
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  5. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device. It produces electricity from various external quantities of fuel (on the anode side) and an oxidant (on the cathode side). These react in the presence of an electrolyte. Generally, the reactants flow in and reaction products flow out while the electrolyte remains in the cell. Fuel cells can operate virtually continuously as long as the necessary flows are maintained.

    Fuel cells are different from batteries in that they consume reactant, which must be replenished, whereas batteries store electrical energy chemically in a closed system. Additionally, while the electrodes within a battery react and change as a battery is charged or discharged, a fuel cell's electrodes are catalytic and relatively stable.

    Many combinations of fuel and oxidant are possible. A hydrogen cell uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen as oxidant.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell



    A hydrogen vehicle is a vehicle that uses hydrogen as its on-board fuel for motive power. The term may refer to a personal transportation vehicle, such as an automobile, or any other vehicle that uses hydrogen in a similar fashion, such as an aircraft. The power plants of such vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy (torque) in one of two methods: combustion, or electrochemical conversion in a fuel-cell:

    In combustion, the hydrogen is burned in engines in fundamentally the same method as traditional gasoline cars.
    In fuel-cell conversion, the hydrogen is reacted with oxygen to produce water and electricity, the latter of which is used to power an electric traction motor.
    The molecular hydrogen needed as an on-board fuel for hydrogen vehicles can be obtained through many thermochemical methods utilizing natural gas, coal (by a process known as coal gasification), liquefied petroleum gas, biomass (biomass gasification), by a process called thermolysis, or as a microbial waste product called biohydrogen or Biological hydrogen production. Hydrogen can also be produced from water by electrolysis. If the electricity used for the electrolysis is produced using renewable energy, the production of the hydrogen would (in principle) result in no net carbon dioxide emissions. On-board decomposition to produce hydrogen can occur when a catalyst is used.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle
     
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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Because there's no market for it. We can't use it without having specially modified cars. Here in suburban Maryland we don't even have natural gas service to homes, so it's not like the infrastructure is everywhere. Some of the buses run on it and a few commercial fleets, as you say. But for a near-term solution, biodiesel is probably somewhat more practical, if the United States will ever get over its prejudice against diesel engines that was orchestrated by General Motors in the 1980s with their deliberately shoddy engineering.

    But natural gas is still a fossil fuel like coal and petroleum and as such it's not a renewable resource. So it's only a short-term solution, and civilization needs a long-term solution. As I see it, the only viable strategy is to build nuclear power plants in the near-term, to reduce fossil fuel consumption and get us through the next hundred years or so.

    By then we can have giant solar collectors in orbit, beaming energy to earth in microwave frequencies. This is a clean, renewable, and surprisingly low-tech solution. According to calculations I read clear back in the 1960s, it can support a population in the trillions before our capacity to radiate waste heat back into space in infrared frequencies reaches its lightspeed limit.

    Then we just have to dispose of a hundred years of nuclear waste, and endure a hundred years of incompetent governments letting terrorists use it to build dirty bombs.
     
  8. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but my point is that infrastructure is fairly cheap to construct and engine conversion is relatively cheap. But no one is out their marketing or driving the change. It will take leadership to move us off of oil and that just has not happened despite all the talk in Washington from the president.
    It is a good short term solution. But as you say it is still a fossil fuel and we on the longer term need a better source of energy...like nuclear fusion.
     
  9. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Is there enough natural gas?
     
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    But how about delivery? Diesel fuel is a superior alternative but it's become exorbitantly expensive in the USA because it's not a simple process to convert gasoline refineries into diesel oil refineries. If we double or triple our demand for natural gas, how long would it take to double or triple our capacity for delivering it? As I said, they don't even have gas lines for home use right here twenty miles from the national capital. Are they going to have to dig a million miles of new ditches and lay a million miles of new pipelines to get the gas to the gas stations? That's not something whose environmental impact will be easily approved or whose cost will be easily funded.
     
  11. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    That is the problem with diesel is that it requires formulation. However natural gas is abundant as we source if from coal fields as well as oil wells ans other sources.

    It does not suprise me that access is so limited in the Washington DC area. There are a lot of vested interests that have no interest in pursuing natural gas who dominate that area. But in other areas of the country access to natural gas is fairly easy. It is in most homes, especially newer homes because it is so economiccal. It would not be hard to add to existing gas stations if the oil companies were required to do so.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas#Natural_gas


    We have trillions of cubic feet of the stuff. It used to be burned as waste. And we have not even touched the reserves at the bottom of the ocean.
     
  12. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    We have that here..
    But gas is also finite.
     
  13. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Granted Natural Gas is not the long term solution as we need to get away from chemical sources of energy and rely on more high tech sources. However, today we are not locked into oil as the only source of energy for our vehicles as some interests would have us believe. There is no real need for us to be dependent upon foriegn oil...except some interests benefit magnificently from this arrangement.
     
  14. draqon Banned Banned

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    cars would have to be modified to use natural gas
     
  15. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    about 1-1.5k dollar change
     
  16. draqon Banned Banned

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    I have seen hydrogen fuel cars, they are awesome deal.
     
  17. draqon Banned Banned

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    no way...that includes service and the pressurized tank?:bugeye:
     
  18. kmguru Staff Member

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    What about....

    methane hydride - A frozen lattice-like substance, huge amounts of which underlie our oceans and polar permafrost. This crystalline combination of a natural gas and water (known technically as a clathrate) looks remarkably like ice but burns when exposed to a lit match. Methane hydrate discovered only a few decades ago, with little research done on it until recently. By some estimates, the energy locked up in methane hydrate deposits is more than twice the global reserves of all conventional gas, oil, and coal deposits combined. However, no one has yet figured out how to pull out the gas inexpensively, and no one knows how much is actually recoverable.
     
  19. draqon Banned Banned

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    I read an article once that said it was either toxic or easily combastible...basically its also a safety issue.
     
  20. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    They ARE already !
     
  21. kmguru Staff Member

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  22. draqon Banned Banned

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  23. kmguru Staff Member

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    I agree. if we can strip hydrogen from water cheaply. Using a catalyst where Oxygen binds to the catalyst and later recovered is a good way. However making the steam and heating the reaction to strip hydrogen may cost some money unless one uses solar heat to make steam....those economies need to be worked out.
     
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