Making hydrogen from water & DC

[sofaspud]

I simply pointed out an apparent correlation.
Unknot your undies.

[philba]

gawd, chris. maybe you should get a soap box in the park and let every one know that they need to change their evil ways.

[Chris Smith]

Your funny, innacurate but funny. <p>Thanks for the laugh! <p>Dont stop now, your tarrot cards are calling you!<p>And where I grew up it was “knickers in a knot” and I never get them that twisted. <p>I merely corrected your inaccuracy, and filled in the blanks. <p>I may be getting old, but I refuse to grow up.<p>[ July 13, 2005: Message edited by: Chris Smith ]</p>

[HighFrequency]

Maybe the rise in gas prices will wake more people up. I like the sound of my gas powered 1100cc V-twin motorcycle flying down the highway at 140 km/h as much as the next guy, but is it necessary? I think we seriously need to work away from fossil fuels as a primary power source. Don't ask me how to do it though. Maybe if we didn't need all the gasoline, the states would leave the middle east alone for a while.

[sofaspud]

Gasoline prices are up, and there was a four month gap in postings to this alt-energy thread. So what "inaccuracies" could have possibly been found??
BTW I'm also quite an independent thinker, capable of creating my own alliterative metaphors.<p>[ July 13, 2005: Message edited by: sofaspud ]</p>

[Gorgon]

When you say prices on gasoline is up, what is the price in the US now. As an reference I tried to convert our prices to dollar. 1l of unleaded 95 cost about NOK 11.10.
If your gallon is 3.79l this computes to $6.48 pr. gallon. Is this high?<p>TOK

[sofaspud]

I believe the average gas price in the U.S. is currently around $2.35 per gallon.

[jwax]

There is the advantage of "buying in quantity"!
Gas is cheap in the USA relative to other countries because we consume 9.0 million bbl/d (or 44% of the total).

[jollyrgr]

I don't really think that the pollution problems are nearly as bad with biofuel as what can happen with oil spills and deep sea drilling. I live in an area where corn, soybeans, etc. are major crops. I pass dozens of farms growing all of these and have a corn/soybean farmers less than a quarter mile in every direction except south from me. Going south less than a mile from me is a grain elevator. I have city water and none of the run-off (so far) has made it into the city water wells. <p>The guy to my east raises dairy cattle as well as soybean and corn crops. (I think that a number of the farmers that have both livestock and corn do so for three reasons. The cows produce milk which can be sold. The corn can be used to feed the cows and the excess sold. Plus the cows produce a very useful, shall we say nutrient, for the crops. True it is not a closed system but things do get recycled! But this is just a guess as I've never asked them why they have both.) This is within one mile of one of my town's water towers. So far the city has not reported any contamination of the water system.<p>North of me into Wisconsin and beyond are mostly corn and bean farms. The same thing happens to the west and east (until you get into the Chicago suburbs). Travel a couple miles south you hit one town then outside the town more crops. I have yet to see a major chemical contamination or evacuation because of a corn spillage. And corn spilling does happen from time to time. The clean up is simple and can be done in regular clothes and not biohazard suits. Although in the fall you risk the hazard of corn cobs on the road ways as farmers drive their product to the mill. (They make a neat crunching sound when you run them over.) The waste from the grain process does leave a dirty film on windows and car paint. But it has not killed the birds, rabbits, and squirrels like an oil spill kills water foul and fish. And it can be washed away by rainstorms. Thus I feel extremely safe that I'm not going to be poisoned by the crops all around me.<p>Per the USDA ethanol can be made for a cost of $1.40 per gallon. (See page six of the PDF here: http://www.usda.gov/oce/forum/speeches/ ... orn%20cost'). I've seen estimates where ethanol could be made cheaper. <p>Just some numbers on this subject that might be of interest:
A barrel of oil is 42 gallons of oil.
When processed you get 20 gallons of gasoline and a number of other products. Crude oil is running around $60 per barrel now. Not counting processing, transportation, etc. cost and assuming an even distribution along the price range this means that 47% of the barrel of oil is gasoline. Thus it cost $28.20 for 20 gallons of gas or $1.41 per gallon JUST FOR THE CRUDE! And ethanol can be produced for the final output for about the same price.<p>I don't have all the answers. No, I'm not a farmer and am not from a farming family. But I think that the fuel problem could be solved with a renewable energy source in the form of biofuels. The scare tactics that they used on me as a school kid still irk me to this day. I was a grade school kid during the 1970's gas crunch. I remember teachers telling me I'd never drive a car as we would be out of oil by the time I'd be old enough to drive. I still recall an article in a weekly reader for school kids that they made us read. Some kid somewhere had a father that could not afford gas. So he took an electric car an put a motorcycle engine in it to save gas. Do any of you remember those cars from the '70s? (Basically golf cars with a wedge shape.) The thought of having to ride around in one of these because of lack of gasoline was scary. I believed my teachers until I got older and could understand the real facts. <p>There are still people that think we will be out of gas in only a few years. Two hundred years ago there were no oil wells per se. I don't think in two hundred more years there will be any. Not because we will be out of oil, but because there will be something different. Right now I see the oil prices being the way they are as being artifical. The rising prices did not cut oil demand; in fact demand is actually up this year over last year.<p>Oil consumption in the US is about 19 million barrels of oil a day. Recall that 47% of the barrel produces gasoline and there are 42 gallons in a barrel. This means 380 million gallons of gasoline a day. Or about 139 billion gallons of gasoline per year. (These numbers might be off by a small margin.)<p>According to this page of the USDA: http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/public ... 115=128706 the yield of 1.8 billion gallons of ethanol came from 700 million bushels of corn. To meet the demand of 137 billions of ethanol to replace gasoline will take 53 billion bushels of corn. The US produces about 9 to 10 billion bushels of corn each year. Can we increase this production to meet the demand for oil? I don't have an answer to this. <p>But this makes more sense than trying to go to a hydrogen based fuel system (the delivery system is not available), solar (solar cells won't do it), wind power (battery technolgy isn't here yet), hybrid cars (takes about ten to 12 years before you get a return on the investment). Maybe I'm wrong but I already see gas stations, tanker trucks, and the very vehicle that would use ethanol already heavily developed. With over 100 years of automotive technology based on gasoline, I don't think five or ten or even 20 years of development will produce a viable alternative to gasoline. And I will be the first to agree that the internal combustion engine is one of the least efficient inventions. But it is still one of the most useful.

[Robert Reed]

Just jumped in on this post. Wow--must be a record. Do we need a moderator?

[Newz2000]

I've just moved to Iowa, a state whose primary produce is corn. Here they give a $0.10 per gallon price break if you use the gasoline with 10% ethanol. (corn based) It is 89 octane (compared to the 87 that costs $0.10/g more).<p>Most cars run fine with ethanol, I hear. Some high performance engines don't like it; my father's truck, a Dodge Hemi, is one such.<p>I think that its hard to get facts on these matters because they're so politically charged. I think every tidbit of info you get will have some spin.<p>Gorgon, gas costs much higher for you. We, in the last 15 months or so, had a dramatic increase in gas prices though. In Florida, where I lived previously, we went from about $1.25/g to $2.10/g. While still being very cheap compared to you, it's quite a shock to see a "staple item" jump so much. <p>Ironically, in order to make room in my family budget for me to return to college, we sold our big car and bought a little Toyota (used) that had 75% better fuel efficency. One month after we bought the car, gas prices rose by about the same amount, completely nullifing the savings in our gas budget. I guess its a good thing we had the smaller car, or we'd really have been in trouble.<p>Here's an interesting thought process, a little off topic. I mentioned my family's budget cuts; we've tried to minimize all of our re-occurring budget items, and this got us thinking about the cost of owning a car. Lets say you buy a car outright, no car payment.
$ 80 /mo for gas
$ 50 /mo for insurance
$ 70 /mo budget for maintenance
=======
$200 /mo total<p>If you have a carpayment for a new car we'll compute it:
$330 /mo car payment (many pay more!)
$100 /mo insurance (full covg needed)
$ 80 /mo for gas
$ 50 /mo budget for maintenance (newer cars need less)
========
$560 /mo total<p>Lets say that a family has one used car, and one new car. They pay about $750 /mo for their transportation. (actually, many people dont budget for maintenance, but they pay for it even if they don't budget)<p>Lets say that the cars are each driven about 1,100 miles/month, for a total of 2,200 miles. That means car owners pay about $0.35/mile. If you drive 10 miles to work then another 10 miles back, that's $7 each day. If you drive more than 1,100 miles/month, your cost per mile goes down, but probably not below $0.25/mile. That's still $5 per day for a commute. If you have two used cars instead of one new, one used, you're at $0.18/mile or $3.60 for a 10 mile commute - almost $20 per week just to get to and from work!

[sofaspud]

Gorgon, the direct fed tax to the consumer on a gallon of U.S. gasoline is a little short of 50 cents. What is it in Norway? There is an advantage to "taxing in quantity". For gov'ts, that is.<p>quote: "...yield of 1.8 billion gallons of ethanol came from 700 million bushels of corn. To meet the demand of 137 billions of ethanol to replace gasoline will take 53 billion bushels of corn. The US produces about 9 to 10 billion bushels of corn each year. Can we increase this production to meet the demand for oil? I don't have an answer to this."
I understand this to mean that approximately 9.3 billion bushels of U.S. corn was used to can niblets, provide movie theater snacking, exports to foreign countries, etc. And that "ethanol corn" production would need to be increased by over 7500%. Is the Midwest big enough?<p>Well, I found the answer to the first question.
It's equivalent to approximately US$4 per gallon.<p>[ July 14, 2005: Message edited by: sofaspud ]</p>

[Gorgon]

Hi Sofaspud,
I think you are correct on the direct oil-tax, but we also have 25% VAT on top of that, another tax! So the mathematics is more like this. Numbers for one gallon:<p>($1.20 + $4.00) x 1.25 = $6.50<p>The total tax is then $5.30. A gold mine for the government!! <p>On top of that we produce our own oil from the North Sea!

[Chris Smith]

From the first post.....page one........<p>"By applying DC to water you can make a combustible hydrogen-oxygen gas, ....."<p>
To this,.... is a leap beyond faith, it’s a leap of English? <p>"Interesting, isn't it, that gasoline prices are on the way up again and this topic is revived?
........................."<p>
Im sure the topic wandered off to Alternative Ideas, but not Gas prices? <p>And no Ill will was ever intended. <p>
AND While ......Gas prices are up, so in the same spirit, lets see if solar discussion is back on the table? <p>"Is it still too expensive to produce solar cells?"<p> Excuse me while I duck and hide from all the flack and fall out.<p>Wooden spoon award is still open for placment, the only requirement is how good you can stir the pot.<p>[ July 14, 2005: Message edited by: Chris Smith ]</p>

[Dimbulb]

I like that the hydrogen is concidered.
Pure water may not be the one to crack.
I think the long term effect of concidering fueling more hydrocarbons is not as valiant as hydrogen.