[Speed Gibson,
Sunday May 20, 2007 at 8:26pm]
How will they tax this?
I think this is a fascinating discovery. A Purdue engineer has discovered, quite by accident, a way to generate hydrogen on demand. An alloy of gallium and aluminum reacts with water, producing gallium, aluminum oxide, and - hydrogen gas.
This solves the problems of storing and transporting hydrogen safely. Hydrogen gas is produced on demand, for use either in a turbine, fuel injection motor, or a fuel cell. It's not a perfect solution, in that you need 2-3 times the weight of the alloy as the gasoline equivalent, but coupled with nuclear power, what carbon-phobic environmentalist can resist?
The process is clean and "closed" in that the "waste" is fully recyclable. The gallium is a catalyst and not consumed. The aluminum oxide (alumina) can be reprocessed into pure aluminum again. The car isn't really burning water per se; the energy is stored in the aluminum when refined or re-refined. What might make the most sense is doing this right by a power plant, avoiding the transmission losses.
It sounds promising. We'll know they're close when you see the DFL figuring out how to tax us when we add the water to our new Gallium-Aluminum cars.
This solves the problems of storing and transporting hydrogen safely. Hydrogen gas is produced on demand, for use either in a turbine, fuel injection motor, or a fuel cell. It's not a perfect solution, in that you need 2-3 times the weight of the alloy as the gasoline equivalent, but coupled with nuclear power, what carbon-phobic environmentalist can resist?
The process is clean and "closed" in that the "waste" is fully recyclable. The gallium is a catalyst and not consumed. The aluminum oxide (alumina) can be reprocessed into pure aluminum again. The car isn't really burning water per se; the energy is stored in the aluminum when refined or re-refined. What might make the most sense is doing this right by a power plant, avoiding the transmission losses.
It sounds promising. We'll know they're close when you see the DFL figuring out how to tax us when we add the water to our new Gallium-Aluminum cars.