Doak: Hydrogen project could point way to new energy paradigm

[jpak]

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070401/OPINION01/704010316/1035/OPINION

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One way to explore Iowa's hydrogen potential is to embrace a visionary proposal to build a pilot hydrogen pipeline from Fort Dodge to Ames. Having such a pipeline here would put Iowa on the cutting edge of the predicted "hydrogen economy."

The pipeline is the brainchild of Bill Leighty, a Stanford-educated engineer who grew up in Waterloo. He has a consulting business in Juneau, Alaska, and helps look after the affairs of the Leighty Foundation, begun by his father, H.D. Leighty of Waterloo.

The younger Leighty has presented papers at scientific conferences around the world on the problem of "stranded" renewable energy, including the vast wind resources on the Great Plains. Leighty says there is enough wind in 12 Great Plains states to supply all of the energy needs of the United States - not just electricity but "enough carbon-free energy to run the entire country."

The catch is that the wind is stranded far from population centers. There are no electric transmission lines to transport wind-generated electricity from the Plains, and building enough lines wouldn't be feasible.

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[yellowcanine]

1. I find it hard to belive that building a hydrogen pipeline would be more cost effective and have

less environmental impact than putting in a power line. Am I missing something here? Besides, aren't there already electric transmission lines connecting Fort Dodge and Ames? This doesn't make sense to me.

[jpak]

2. Apparently, existing transmission lines cannot handle loads from large wind farms

whereas pipeline distribution of electrolysis H2 could.

That's the way I interpreted it...

[yellowcanine]

3. Ok but I still question the efficiency of a hydrogen gas line over a power line.

Even if one has to build a new power line. Hydrogen gas takes up a lot of volume unless it is compressed - so the gas lines would have to be fairly large in diameter or in smaller diameter lines under pressure - either way fairly complex engineering/environmental impact. There is also the potential for leaks and explosions involving hydrogen lines.

[jpak]

5. The same applies to natural gas, propane and gasoline pipelines as well.

But hydrogen is safer in many respects than NG, propane and gasoline.

http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid536.php

http://www.fuelcellstore.com/information/hydrogen_safety.html

http://alternativefuels.about.com/od/hydrogen/a/safehydrogen.htm

There was a website (can't find it now - ugh) that showed the thermal effects of gasoline and hydrogen fires on identical test automobiles. The hydrogen fire was much cooler, shorter in duration and less damaging than the gasoline fire (and they pumped *a lot* of H2 through the hydrogen vehicle).

...and unfortunately there is not enough info in the OP to extract details on the pipeline specs...

[yellowcanine]

6. No question. But we aren't converting electricity to those products.

The question here is whether it is more efficient to transport hydrogen or electricity.

If you want to talk about gasoline or natural gas it is also a problem because the very low density of hydrogen means it is much less efficient to transport it in a pipeline (or a tank for that matter) - unless the hydrogen is compressed - and that carries with it its own inefficiencies. Article here discusses it:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/hydrogen.html

On edit: I would note that this writer is actually promoting hydrogen but still sees some difficulties that can't be ignored.

[freethought]

4. I have read a great deal about mid-western wind power potential

The potential, a key word, is tremendous for developing wind power in the midwest. But a big problem, and one that has dogged energy transmission of every sort, is Resistance to flow. If you run electric current through a wire, even the highest grade copper wire, there will be a certain amount of Resistance to the flow of that electric current, the same amount of current will not come out on the other end. This problem becomes amplified as the distance of the current flow increases.

Likely, many at DU already know this. The general public however, engineers and physicists aside, likely do not. The current loss from transporting that wind generated electricity from the midwest to the east or west coast cities or even midwestern cities would be huge. This would make a wind system built in the midwest nearly irrelevant to population centers.

If the technology existed you could run that electricity through superconductive transmission lines with no loss of current. There's the rub, we don't have superconducting transmission lines. There is a company that has developed an affordable type of conductive "strip" that is ALMOST superconductive, but not entirely. You would still have to the "strip" in a liquid nitrogen bath to reach superconductivity. If you could get room temp superconduction you would be golden, this country wouldn't need coal, gas, oil, or nuclear./
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