How Do We Obtain Hydrogen?

There are a number of resources than can be used to produce hydrogen. These include but are not limited to using fossil fuels, natural gas, biomass, nuclear, and other alternative energy sources such as hydroelectric, solar, wind, and geothermal energy production sources. One of the reasons behind the significant amount of research into hydrogen as an alternative energy source is the abundance of the resource. When hydrogen is produced, it can be at a centralized plan that is hundreds of miles from where the hydrogen will be used or in small distributed locations such as a refueling station or local power site location.

How Do We Produce Hydrogen?

There area several methods and technologies used to produce hydrogen to include natural gas reforming, renewable elctrolysis, gasification, renewable liquid forming, nuclear electrolysis, and photobiological and photoelectrochemical methods.
Harvesting Hydrogen from Natural Gas
Hydrogen can be harvested from the methane found in natural gas. The process is referred to as steam methane reforming and is used to produce approximately 95 percent of the hydrogen used in the United States today. An alternative method is called partial oxidation which harvests the hydrogen by bruning methane in the air. Each of these methods creates a synthesis gas that is then reacted with water in order to produce even more hydrogen.

Renewable Electrolysis and Gasification

The electrolysis method of hydrogen harvesting makes use of electric current in order to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. An even greener manner of this type of harvesting is to use an alternative energy source such as solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, or wind in order to produce the energy used in the harvesting process.

Gasification is the hydrogen producing process that uses coal or biomass and applies heat while putting the substance under pressure with steam present. A number of chemical reactions then occur which produces a synthesis gas that is then combined with the steam in order to produce additional hydrogen. Using this method is more efficient than directly burning coal to harvest hydrogen. Researchers continue to work on new methods to separate and store the carbon dioxide that is produced in the currently used process in order to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that currently result from gasification.

What Are the Barriers to Hydrogen Harvesting?

The largest barrier to wide-spread hydrogen harvesting for energy use is reducing the cost of the harvesting process and transportation. The goal of research and development is to reduce the cost of a gallon of gasoline equivalent of hydrogen to approximately $2 to $3 USD before tax. Current technology is not quite there yet, but photobiological and photoelectrochemical harvesting techniques are still in the early stages of research and may have the most potential to be the cheapest and cleanest means of hydrogen harvesting for use in fuel cell technologies as an alternative energy source.

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How Does a Fuel Cell Work?

A single hydrogen fuel cell is an electrolyte that is placed between two electrodes, has an anode, and a cathode. There are bipolar plates located on each side of the fuel cell that serve as collectors of the current produced by the cell and help spread out the gases produced during the energy extraction process.

Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell

The PEM fuel cell is the most researched of the varieties of fuel cells for propulsion of vehicles. In this design, hydrogen gas is channeled to the cell anode where a catalyst is used to separate the hydrogen molecules into electrons and protons. The membrane then only allows protons to pass through it to the other side of the cell. At the same time, the electrons follow an external circuit to the cathode section of the cell and is the electricity that is produced by the cell. On the opposite side of the fuel cell, oxygen gas is channeled to combine with the electrons that creates heat from an exothermic reaction that can be used external to the fuel cell.

All hydrogen fuel cells to date have consisted of two electrodes and an electrolyte. The different classifications of cells is based on the type of electrolyte used in the cell. Different ones will result in a variance in chemical reaction within the call and temperatures produced by the fuel cell.

What Are Some Hydrogen Fuel Cell Applications?

Hydrogen fuel cells have been looked at for a variety of power options. Some of these include use in stationary power stations for remote power backup, distributed power generation, and cogeneration. On the smaller scale, miniature hydrogen fuel cell research has focused on being able to replace traditional batteries in order to provide power for portable devices and small generators. Probably the most well-known use of fuel cells has been as an alternate power source for automobiles and marine engine replacements.

Why Should We Develop and Use Hydrogen Fuel Cells?

Since hydrogen fuel cells directly convert the chemical energy stored in hydrogen to electricity with water and heat as the only waste products, it is significantly more friendly to the environment. Fuel cells also have been shown to have up to three times the efficiency of fossil fuel combustion. For example, the engine in your car is at most 20 % efficient when converting the energy potential of gasoline where an equivalent hydrogen fuel cell would be between 40 and 60 percent efficient. Fuel cells also require less machinery to use for conversion to power than a traditional gasoline-based engine and would require 2 to 3 times less the equivalent volume of fuel that a gasoline-powered car does.

Barriers to Adopting Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology

The most significant barriers to wide-spread adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology as a green energy source is the reduction of cost and improvements in the durability of fuel cell systems. At the time of this writing, fuel cell systems were still not cost-competitive with fossil fuel based propulsion systems. Current research in fuel cell technologies remains focused on trying to find new materials that will help reduce the cost of fuel cells and improve the durability of fuel cell systems.

Traditional Uses of Tidal Energy

There are three traditional ways to use the ocean to harness or create energy: using the ocean’s waves, the temperature differences in the ocean water, and leveraging the high and low tides of the ocean. Successful use of tidal energy has normally involved placing a small dam across an open area leading to a tidal basin. There is a small opening or sluice that is moved or opened to let the tidal flow move into the basin and then is closed. Once the tide recedes, the water is let out through specialized turbines modeled off of those used in traditional dams to created electricity. Using tidal energy requires at least a 16 foot difference between low and high tide in order to provide scalable power production. The largest such plant is located in France and produces enough power for more than 230,000 homes. Disadvantages for this type of power generation plant include the start-up cost, and only having approximately 10 hours a day available to produce power.

Other models that make use of direct wave energy include those that use the natural wave action to power a piston which moves a generator. This variant is not as scalable, but can be used for small power needs. This method can also be used on a bit larger of a scale to move turbines as waves move into and out of the facility to make use of the kinetic energy for piston movement. These can be installed cheaply though the use of offshore or vertical-axis turbines, but if you place them in a river can have a significant ecological impact.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion is one of the newer alternative energy methods making use of ocean energy to create energy. This method takes advantage of the water temperature differences in the ocean to make energy. This type of energy creation plant requires water temperature differences of more than 38 degrees Fahrenheit. This type of temperature difference is found where there are rapid changes in sea depth such as that found by the Japanese and Hawaiian islands where on-going testing is being conducted.

Tidal energy production systems remain a popular area of research and development since the tidal periods are predictive and regularly occurring on the world’s coasts. With current technology, the use of tidal pools to turn hydroelectric turbines still requires a significant tidal range of 16 feet which is not a common difference found throughout the settled part of the planet, but research continues into developing scalable and affordable means to use tidal energy as a renewable energy resource.

What Are the Different Layers of the Earth?

The Earth layers are logically split into:

Core: Consists of two layers, one that is solid, and the outer core that is made of molten lava or magma

Mantle: The mantle surrounds the core and is approximately 1,800 miles thick. It is comprised of lava and solid rock

Crust: This is the outer layer of the earth and is 15-35 miles thick on the continents and 3 to 5 miles thick on the ocean’s surface. Magma comes to the surface near the edge of the crust’s plates.

Jeremy Kemp, Wikimedia Commons

Where Are Geothermal Resources Found?

Most geothermal resources are found near the boundaries of the plates with many of these locations occurring around the Ring of Fire in the Pacific ocean. When there is a large area of hydrothermal or geothermal resources, the area is referred to as a geothermal reservoir. When geothermal energy finds its way to the Earth’s surface, it does so in the form of volcanoes, geysers, and hot springs. When geologists are searching for geothermal reservoirs, they will drill a well similar to those done when searching for water and test the ground temperature. In the United States, the majority of geothermal resources are found in Hawaii and in the western states with California having the largest dry steam field in the world.

How is Geothermal Energy Used?

Depending on what the energy is going to be used for, it may not be necessary to drill too deep to make use of geothermal energy. Some of the primary uses of geothermal energy are:

• Direct Use – Make use of hot water from springs that are naturally heated for heating systems or water use.
• Electrical Power Generation – At this scale of use, the water/steam has to be between 300 and 700 degrees Fahrenheit. These types of plants will normally be built where the geothermal reservoir is less than two miles deep.
• Geothermal Heat Pumps – Use the ground temperature to control the building temps above ground for heating needs.

Use of Geothermal Energy in the United States

The United States is the world leader in geothermal energy production, but it is only 0.5% of that produced in the United States. The five states with plants include California, Hawaii, Montana, Utah, and Nevada. California has the most capacity with 34 geothermal production plants, followed by Nevada with 15 plants, and the remaining three states have one plant each respectively.

Wind Energy Facts

・    For each megawatt of energy produced by the wind, approximately $1 million USD in economic development is produced. This includes all phases of construction and maintenance of building the associated wind turbines and infrastructure.
・    Using wind energy helps rural communities by bringing added revenue to depressed areas that would not otherwise have additional revenue.
・    Farm owners can supplement their income with wind power generation at rates equivalent to approximately $14,000 USD per year per 2/3 acres of wind turbine deployment.
・    The costs of electricity produced by wind power is more stable and better supports consumers who are on fixed incomes.
・    Wind energy is a renewable resource with 46 states in the U.S. having the capacity to develop significant wind power generation resources.
・    A greater adoption of wind energy by the U.S. Could help eliminate carbon dioxide emissions by up to one third of current emission levels.
・    Wind energy farms do not emit air pollutants or greenhouse gases.
・    Approximately 80% of the cost of developing wind power is in the wind turbine machinery.
・    The greatest barriers against widespread construction of wind turbine farms are potential noise, visual impact of the installation of wind turbine farms, and birds flying into moving windmill blades.
・    The U.S. Department of Energy has a stated goal of 5% of the U.S.’s electricity to come from wind energy by 2020 and to increase the federal use of wind energy to 5% in 2010.
・    Wind energy accounted for 1% of all electricity production world-wide in 2005
・    Germany is the leading producer of wind energy. The U.S. Is third.
・    Wind energy produces more than 20% of the electrical consumption in Denmark and is growing.
・    Wind turbines produced 52 billion kilowatts of power in the United States in 2008 for a total of 1.3% of total U.S. Electricity production. This was enough to power 4.6 million houses equivalent to the state of Colorado.

How Does a Wind Energy System Work?

A system designed to create energy from the wind will take the movement of the wind, or kinetic energy, and use it to create either mechanical or electrical energy. The traditional usage of a windmill in the United States was to help move water, but today includes generating electricity on the individual or regional scale. There have been two designs of wind mills or wind turbines that have become prevalent in use: the horizontal-axis or traditional looking windmill, and the vertical axis or egg-beater style windmill. Each wind turbine system will consist of a rotor that is used to take the wind’s energy and create rotational shaft energy, a nacelle that has the drive train and generator, a support tower, and various electronic equipment depending on how the electricity is going to be used. As the energy is created and transferred to the drive train and generator, it can then be part of the electrical grid in your home once converted to 120 V AC current or stored as DC current in a battery for future use. On wind farms, it will be mixed with the electricity produced by other power plants to be delivered to customers. Some of the larger wind turbines being tested in the later 2000′s can produce 5,000 kW of power. Most windmills have towers that are made of steel with fiberglass poly or wood-epoxy blades.

How Large Does a Wind Turbine Have to Be?

The windmills or wind turbines used for large scale commercial purposes will range from a 50 to 90 meter diameter of the blades with towers approximately the same height. The larger windmills would stand at approximately 440 feet in height. There has been testing for off-shore windmills to stand another 60 feet in height. Wind turbines for use at the home are normally much smaller and have a diameter of 8 meters and smaller depending on the amount of electricity that needs to be created.

How Much Power Do Wind Turbines Make?

The total output of a windmill or wind turbine will depend on how big the turbine is and the wind speed in the area. The current windmills being produced have a rating of 5 MW. These turbines can produce up to 15 million kWatts of power in a year which can power up to 1,400 average households in the United States. The average electrical consumption in the United States is approximately 10,000 kWatts. In order to produce electricity near the total rating of the wind turbine, an average annual wind speed of more than 9mph is required, so wind turbines are not necessarily suitable for use in all areas.

Facts about Solar Energy:
-As fossil fuel reserves become increasingly depleted with the associated costs rising, developed countries are beginning to put more effort into developing solar energy capabilities on the national level.

-Developing countries are starting to turn to solar energy as a means to avoid significant infrastructure cost of centralized power grids.

-The sun’s surface temperature is more than 5,700 degrees Celsius. The average temperature on Earth by comparison is only 20 degrees Celsius.

-Solar cells have an average efficiency rating of 15% for converting energy.

-1 KW solar energy unit is approximately equal to the same amount of energy produced by 170 pounds of coal.

-At the time of this writing, the one of the largest solar electric system installed world-wide is in Germany at Bavaria Solarpark. It covers 62 acres of land and has 57,6000 PV panels. The Germans have since opened the Arnstein solar electric plant that produces 12 MW of power from 1,400 moveable solar panels.

-The world’s largest solar power plant is located in the Mojave Desert covering 1,000 acres of land with solar reflectors.

-The Sahara desert could generate more than 300 times the world requirement for power if it was covered by solar panels.

-Japan consumes more than half of the solar panels produced world-wide for home use.

-2 Billion people in the world live without power

-The U.S. Consumes 25 % of the world’s power.

-Photovoltaic (PV or Solar Panels) installations increased by almost 6,000 MW in 2008 doubling the amount installed in 2007. The demand in 1985 by comparison was only 21 MW.

-All solar energy production world-wide still only amounts to less than 0.01% of world-wide energy consumption.

-Solar energy demand has grown at a rate of 30% annually over the past 15 years.

-The U.S. Market for solar power grew to 357 MW in 2008.

• Asia Pacific, Europe, and the United States are forecast to have the most growth in solar energy over the next decade.

How Do Solar Panels Generate Energy?

When the sun’s rays impact solar panels, they are then absorbed by semi-conducting materials such as silicone. The process used to convert the light from the sun into electricity is referred to as the photovoltaic or PV effect. This occurs when the electrons are broken away from their respective atoms allowing them to flow through the solar panel to create energy. When solar panels are installed on a home or business, they consist of an array of panels that is used to convert the sun’s rays into direct current (or DC for short) electricity. The electricity is then routed through an inverter that turns it into 120 volt alternating current that can be used in your home. The AC electricity is then routed to the distribution panel in your home to be used in place of traditional power. If solar panels are crating more power than can be used, it can be stored in a battery as DC electricity to be used at a non-peak time.

How Do You Value Solar Energy?

It depends really on the conversion rate of the solar panel. Legacy panels convert at 20% or less, which makes one hour of sunlight on one square meter panel worth about $.06 USD. If you are using solar panels to collect and generate heat, then the value goes up a bit to around $0.14. There is much less latent loss in the heat transfer of a solar panel than in direct electricity conversion. The heat transfer efficiency of a solar panel is equivalent to that of an oil burner. If you were to cover a 20 ft x 50 ft roof with solar panels for a year, you would be able to generate approximately 1500 KWH, or the equivalent of approximately 3,200 gallons of heating oil which would save in excess of $6,000 USD per year.

Why Does it Cost So Much to Get Started in Solar Energy?

There are a number of reasons that solar energy is still cost prohibited for it to become a main-stream technology. There is still not a large amount of competition in the industry. Also, many areas in the United States will not allow you as a home owner to install your own solar panels on your home. Also, many architecture firms have found that its just not profitable for them to make and keep plans on file that incorporate solar energy into the initial design of homes (although this is changing for the better). And of course, the relatively low cost of oil within the United States is another barrier to wider spread adoption of solar power within society as a renewable energy source.

Facts About Solar Energy

Some interesting facts about solar energy if you are considering using this green technology in your home or at work:
-It takes about Eight minutes for the sun’s rays to reach Earth from more than 93,000,000 miles at 186,282 miles/second of travel.
-The greater the rate of pollution, the more the sun’s rays are prevented from reaching Earth.
-There are more than 2 billion people in the world (almost 1/3^rd) who do not have reliable electricity every day.
-Americans consume more than ¼ of the world’s energy even though the U.S. Has less than 10% of the world population.

Alternative Energy Sources

Solar Energy

Solar energy has been used in various forms over the past several decades. The amount of energy potential from solar energy exceeds the world’s energy consumption by a factor of 35 or more. Unfortunately, the cost of entry into the solar market has precluded average consumers from being able to adopt this power resource to supplement that received from traditional power sources. It has been used successfully for home furnaces and water heaters. Another advantage of solar power is that there are no harmful by-products from use of the sun as a power source. As the cost for solar panels decreases, solar energy has the potential to become a replacement for power plants, homes, and beyond.

Wind Power

Wind power or wind energy is an alternative energy source that has been used for a number of years. Using wind power to help you Go Green for your home power needs has become increasing popular as the cost to build wind power generation units, or small windmills has significantly decreased over the past decade. The primary idea behind harnessing wind power is through the use of a windmill. As the wind goes across the blades of a windmill, it rotates and can be used to generate electricity. Wind power has been used at two different levels over the past several years: 1 – through large windmill farms, and 2- Building small wind generators for home use.

Geothermal Energy

Geothermal energy refers to using the heat of planet Earth to make steam that can then rum a steam turbine to make electricity. The Earth’s radius is approximately 4000 miles with the temperature at the core being approximately 4000 degrees Celsius. The temperature of the Earth mantle and surface crust boundary is approximately 375 degrees Celsius. If you drill approximately three miles into the Earth’s surface, the temperature is approximately 100 degrees Celsius which is hot enough to create steam. This is still pretty deep, however, so focus of geothermal energy has been on using geothermal hotspots located throughout the world. A hotspot is a volcanic feature where there is a reduced thickness in the Earth’s mantle that results in excessive heat to be transmitted from the Earth interior to the crust. Some examples of these hotspots include Yellowstone National Park and the Hawaiian islands. Geothermal energy sites do require extensive maintenance and cost more than other forms of alternative energy.

Harnessing the Power of the Ocean

Similar to the technology behind hydroelectric dams, harnessing the power of the Earth’s tides can be used to create energy. This method uses the natural motion produced by tides to fill reservoirs which are then discharged back to the sea to turn turbines that produce electricity. Although renewable, this method incurs a large cost but is used.

Hydroelectric Power

Hydroelectric power or energy is created from damming a river and then releasing the water stored behind the dam to generate energy through the turning of specialized turbines. The United States currently produces up to 60,000 MW of power through the usage of dams. Constructing a dam results in a large up-front cost, and also can play a significantly negative role on the surrounding environment. Once constructed, however, the hydroelectric energy produced by a dam has low maintenance and production costs.