Clean energy claim: Aluminum in your car tank

[IDemo]

Prof claims hydrogen breakthrough, but says Energy Dept. 'egos' in the way

MSNBC
Updated: less than 1 minute ago

A Purdue University engineer and National Medal of Technology winner says he's ready and able to start a revolution in clean energy.

Professor Jerry Woodall and students have invented a way to use an aluminum alloy to extract hydrogen from water — a process that he thinks could replace gasoline as well as its pollutants and emissions tied to global warming.

But Woodall says there's one big hitch: "Egos" at the U.S. Department of Energy, a key funding source for energy research, "are holding up the revolution."

Woodall says the method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen — two major challenges in creating a hydrogen economy.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18700750/

There may be one other 'hitch'. Aluminum is an energy-intensive thing to process.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

1. Just Got Done Reading The Article On CNN Too. I Was Fascinated. Seems Really Cool!

I love new ideas like this.

[Up2Late]

2. I don't doubt it, the scientist at Purdue University have made several other breakthoughs...

...over the last few years too.

This whole Hydrogen Conversion "issue" is all a question of will. We DO have the technology to start making the switch, the Oil Cabal that controls this country just doesn't what that to happen, for obvious reasons.

[mainegreen]

3. Aluminum/Gallium pellets. Isn't Gallium a bit too rare and pricey to make this a workable solution?

Hope they find another workable alloy.

[IDemo]

7. I think gallium arsenide (arsenic) was used in chip fabrication

back when this guy was involved with it. Not so much anymore, if I'm not mistaken, but I think more so due to safety concerns than price.

[lynnertic]

8. It seems like the gallium is .. inert?

since the byproduct of the reaction is aluminum oxide and hydrogen gas, could it be that the gallium remains..?

Can you imagine a generator made of this stuff? I wonder if the recycling reaction is easy and safe enough to perform at home? We'd be able to make electricity from the rain as well as the sun...

(daydreaming - this is an exciting story to me)
:hippie:

[MadHound]

4. The guy mentions two speedbumps on the road towards doing this

The first being the cost of recycling and creating these aluminum pellets, the second being the cost of building a fuel cell car.

I would like to propose a third, and that is developing an internal combustion engine that will actually work with hydrogen. It isn't as simple as "replace the gasoline fuel injector with a hydrogen injector." as this fellow claims. Hydrogen is much more volitile than gas, and an engine that runs on hydrogen must be able to take the stresses that will be inherent in burning hydrogen. This will mean bigger, more massive engines.

Then there is an issue of safety. If everybody is going to running around with a supply of hydrogen in their car, the crashes are going to be horrific. A crash that would normally result in minor injuries with a gas vehicle could very result in explosive, fiery death with a hydrogen vehicle.
Call me a Luddite if you wish, but if these come out, I'm going to wait for a few years before buying one, just to see how they work out in the long run.

[Skidmore]

6. Man, people will be killing each other over pop cans.

[Ezlivin]

9. And if we start cranking out fuel cells, we'll run out of platinum

It's all well and good to posit a future with fuel cell cars, but one has to take into account the need for platinum in each of those fuel cells.

So we go from Peak Oil to Peak Platinum. Not to mention the outrageous costs associated with building fuel cells.

[IDemo]

10. BMW created a dual-fuel prototype

BMW 7 uses a variable valve system but otherwise is fairly standard internal combustion.

On the safety issue, it's not necessarily instant Hindenberg effect in a crash for a H2 vehicle:

Hydrogen has some attributes that make it safer than gasoline in a car accident. For example, any hydrogen escaping from a crashed car rises and disperses faster than any other gas, moving away from crash victims and reducing the chances of further injury from fire. Gasoline fumes, on the other hand, are heavier than air, and can actually linger in the vicinity of a crash, putting any trapped survivors in jeopardy for long periods of time. The lower flammability limit of gasoline is four times less than that of hydrogen, further increasing the risks of a fire in a gasoline crash scenario compared to an equivalent hydrogen car crash.

http://www.h2gen.com/pages/hydrogen_economy_subpages/sub9.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. This eliminates the supply of hydrogen

it means you're running around with a supply of aluminium in your car. There's the hydrogen in the middle of production, but then there's petrol vapour in your car - also explosive.

The MSNBC site isn't responding to me, but the same story here - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070518163146.htm - say he wants to convert the alumina to aluminium on site at generating stations so "the electricity would not need to be distributed on the power grid". But that would mean carting huge amounts of alumina to the stations, and the aluminium back again, so it doesn't seem that great to me.

[MadHound]

12. I understand that hydrogen is being produced in the car

But there will still be a supply of hydrogen on board at anytime, and hydrogen is much more volitile than gasoline.

[liberal N proud]

5. Funding! - The oil barons Cheney and the rest will block any funding.

They are not going to let anything get in the way of the profits for their constituents, Exxon-Mobil, BP and Shell.