Why are power stations not run on Hydrogen engines?

Question

Britain & America are responsable for the delvopement of high power hydrogen engines that can be used in power stations & ships & burn clean

Answer 1

You have to ask where the hydrogen would come from.

Currently, hydrogen is produced using a chemical reaction to strip the hydrogen atoms off molecules of oil. (Not by electrolysis, that would be daft because you would use more energy to produce the hydrogen than you would ever gain from burning it) You end up with less energy in the fuel than if you used the oil, but at least it has no carbon in it. You could use this to run a power station, but what would be the point as long as we need to make up any of our electricity generating needs by burning coal?

The point about hydrogen fuelled vehicles is that they run off fuels cells. A fuel cell is much more efficient than an internal combustion engine, so even though you lose some of the energy available when you make the hydrogen, you get it back from the increased efficiency of the fuel cell. Using hydrogen fuelled vehicles does not save oil, but it does reduce carbon emissions.

As yet, it is impractical to make fuel cells large enough for an electricity generating station. We may never get there before the oil we need to supply the hydrogen gets to scarce to make the idea worth while.

Good question though.

Answer 2

solosail

Hydrogen is a great option for the concept of free energy.     I built my first hydrogen cell about 5 years ago and now currently run 2 trucks, my home hot water heater, home stove and home generator on hydrogen for free with caught rain water and the help of a $10 solar panel.  I offer a step by step DIY guide to walk anyone interested threw the process. You can find it at http://www.agua-luna.com/hydrogen.html or you can email me.

There are basically 3 safe ways to make and use it... chemically, electrically and molecularly, the first 2 being easier so I'll only discuss them here. The fallowing steps were taking directly out of a DIY guide I offer to those who would like to run their vehicles or home on hydrogen safely. The entire guide is available at http://www.agua-luna.com/guides.html

    On demand h2 generators are a bit different from the Hollywood versions like seen Chain Reaction with Keanu Reeves, that tend to explode violently every time a film is being made. However when used in an on-demand system there is no storage of hydrogen and oxygen in its gas form, only liquid (water) and is only transformed into gas “on-demand” in small cylinder size amounts. It’s actually safer then gasoline as it doesn’t evaporate, creating explosive fumes in the tank like gas.

    Chemically

    1. You’ll need a 6inch x 1ft schedule 40 pvc pipe. With pvc cement glue a cap on the bottom and use a s***w on cap for the top. Drill a small hole (1/4inch or so) in the side close to the top, s******g in a small copper shut off valve. Place a few feet of stranded (food grade is good) flex hose to the valve and into the air intake of your engine (carburetor or fuel injections).

    2. Now crunch up a couple aluminum cans (beer cans, soda cans etc) and drop them into the pvc pipe, along with a couple cups of lye (Red Devil drain opener has lye in it, some Clorox and Drano’s do to).

    3. Then simply add water, s***w on the top and wait a few minutes.

    What happens in simplicity is that aluminum and lye don’t really get along so they battle, and as always the innocent civilians (water H2O) that the most casualties, by giving up its hydrogen and oxygen. This then builds up in the void of the pipe and is ready to be vented into your engine, by opening the valve. You may need to start your engine on gas then switch it off after the hydrogen starts burning.

    Electrical is a bit easier then Chemically.

    1. Simply take a small solar panel 1.5 amps is what I use ($9 at harborfreight.com), connect the 2 wires from the panel +- to 2 conductors (carbon cores of batteries work well, just be careful removing it from the jacket), but any conductive material will work ie. Copper, aluminum, steel, etc.

    2. Drop the wires into a water tank (I use 55gal drums), make sure they don’t touch each other.

    3. Drill a small hole (1/4inch or so) in the side close to the top, s******g in a small copper shut off valve. Place a few feet of stranded (food grade is good) flex hose to the valve and into the air intake of your engine (carburetor or fuel injections).

    4. Then simply add water, s***w on the top cap and wait.

    After a few hours tiny bubbles will form and rise off one conductor (that’s hydrogen) and even smaller bubbles that just looks like foam will rise off the other (oxygen). I don’t remember which likes the positive and which likes the neg hydrogen or the oxygen.

    The third method is more complicated and is what I use for my vehicles. It’s just a modified Joe’s Cell, there’s a step by step DIY guide available to walk you threw the process here http://www.agua-luna.com/hydrogen.html It also covers the other 2 methods described in more detail.

Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions if you’d like assistance in making your first self sufficient steps, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process. I’ve written several how-to DIY guides available at http://www.agua-luna.com on the subject. I also offer online and on-site workshops, seminars and internships to help others help the environment.

Dan Martin

Retired Boeing Engineer now living 100% Off-the-Grid with my family, using Alternative Energy & loving every minute.

for more info visit agua-luna com or email me at [e-mail]

http://www.agua-luna.com

Stop Global Warming, Receive

Answer 3

hydrogen could provide power in 3 ways

1) burning in a turbine

2) in a fuel-cell

3) nuclear fusion

the first problem is getting the hydrogen. it does not exist on Earth except in compounds, and more energy is required to break up these molecules than you would get back by methods 1&2.

It is a bit like asking could a power station be run on batteries.

If we ever manage to get fusion then great, but until then we must rely on the big fusion reactor in the sky to provide all our energy (oil is just stored sunlight)

Answer 4

Because the process to electrolyze hydrogen from water is not efficient enough yet.

Answer 5

The government is not interested in new types of power plant apart from nuclear due to the obscene amounts of money they take from all of us from landfil taxes. If you think they will give this up to save the world, your mistaken. BACKDOOR TAX and CRIMINALS comes to mind.

Pete

Answer 6

Power stations generally run on steam turbines, these are engines, but probably not the type you mean when you say hydrogen engines.  The process (in simplified form) is as follows.  Combustion of fuel (or some other source of heat such as focused solar energy or nuclear fission) is used to generate high pressure superheated steam.  The energy in this steam (both pressure and temperature) is then used to turn a large turbine, and the turbine drives the generator.

Hydrogen can be used as the fuel, and in fact there are a number of projects in the U.S. and other locations to build hydrogen fired power plants.  The hydrogen will be produced either through steam reforming of hydrocarbons, or by partial oxidation of high carbon fuels such as coal or coke.  The CO2 produced by these processes will be captured and sequestered.

The US is also the largest single producer of electricity via solar thermal generation.  France is probably the largest producer of electricity via nuclear power as roughly 80% of their power is produced in nuclear plants.