Electric & Hydrogen ,hybrids too inefficient. Use hydrogen for hydocracking feedstock?

Question

A lot of Energy is lost, with each conversion. I mean that the more steps you take, then the more energy will be needed to drive the conversion process? Also producing more CO2. This link has (plausible, alarming)FIGURES for waste at each step. His idea: producing fuel oil by reacting hydrogen with coal (hydrocracking) would be much less wasteful, than liquifying the hydrogen, and using it as a fuel. Or converting it to electricity , and charging electric cars with it.

http://www.recoverybydiscovery.com/hydrogen.htm

Answer 1

you're still using coal and producing CO2, which you don't want to do.

the link is to some degree bush bashing, which i should confess i've engaged in.  no, it's not in the cards.  just like large scale ethanol isn't in the cards.  but ethanol uses just as much oil to produce as it saves, so you give a bonus to farmers, and don't reduce the need for oil either.  everybody wins.  well, except you, that is.

i think fusion is still too far off.  containing a 10,000,000 (or is it 100,000,000) degree reaction just ain't all that easy.

i think we've not yet figured out what we're going to be doing.  i'd suspect that what ever it is, it will use out current gasoline infrastructure.  i'd guess that we'll be using atomic energy to produce something that we can pour into gas tanks to power cars.  but that's just my guess.

okay,  "For the cores of main-sequence stars, the relevant temperatures are between 10 and 30 million degrees."

Answer 2

how about compressed air

Answer 3

if you say so...at this point we [regular citizens] have little control over anything much less what fuel we will use in the future....all i want is that there IS fuel...i say drill ANWAR and every where else in the USA,,,build some nukes, some solar,some wind farms,some clean coal ,,and oil shale/tar sands,,,i know all the talk of all the oil we get from [fill in blank] will only give us...[fill in blank] months.years of power...so? any power helps,,,and the excuse "it will take 10 yrs to get oil from{fill in blank]  all the more reason to start today

Answer 4

The ONLY way ethanol requires as much oil to make as normal  fuelling methods is with CORN ethanol. Sugar cane and sugar beet are far more efficient, as are ALL forms of cellulose generated ethanol. And all that needs to get started is a few crushed termites!

Answer 5

Possible, but I prefer nuclear power and electric cars.

By using electric cars for commuting, we could reduce co2 emissions by over 65%.

Answer 6

The key point of the various people that have studied the hydrogen economy is this:

Unless we use methanehydrates, hydrogen is a power container, not a power source.  When used as a power container, there is a massive amount of energy wasted in making it, a massive amount of energy wasted in transporting it, and a massive amount of energy wasted in using it.  The end result is that producing hydrogen from water will be the least efficient use of any energy source compared to what we could have done with it.  This includes producing hydrogen for hydrocracking.  

It will always be more efficient to use the electricity to run our houses, charge our cars, or plant biofuels than to make hydrogen to then do those things.  It will always be more efficient to dump the coal into a furnace and use the electricity directly, than to produce hydrogen to hydrocrack the coal or heavy oils into methane and use the methane.  

However, if we find some efficient means to produce hydrogen (i.e. ultimately without electricity), it will be most efficient to use it to hydrocrack heavy oils, coal, or charcoal to produce something like compressed natural gas or liquid propane, and then use it in our cars or kitchens.