#] #] ********************* #] "$d_vidHowell"'220331 Hydrogen future Alberta/scripts - hydrogen future Alberta.txt' www.BillHowell.ca 30Mar2022 initial To view this file - use a text editor (not word processor) constant width font (eg courrier 10), tab - 3 spaces For slides with no voice (had to skip these to under 10 minutes), I have simply copied-in preparatory text from : "$d_vidHowell"'220331 Hydrogen future Alberta/0_hydrogen future Alberta notes.txt' 48************************************************48 24************************24 # Table of Contents, generated by : # $ grep "^#]" "$d_vidHowell"'220331 Hydrogen future Alberta/scripts - hydrogen future Alberta.txt' | sed 's/^#\]/ /' ********************* "$d_vidHowell"'220331 Hydrogen future Alberta/scripts - hydrogen future Alberta.txt' Introduction - Hydrogen Future Alberta presentation Safety and hydrogen Economics and Risks Alberta roadmap - selected ideas [random, scattered] concepts Multi-edged heresy? Fun, crazy stuff Randell Mills hydrino - fractional electron quantum levels? (*) Aureon.ca in Toronto - mythology inspired, electric sun experiments (*) 24************************24 08********08 #] Introduction - Hydrogen Future Alberta presentation This presentation focuses on hydrogen safety and technical concepts. It is based on my own background from projects at work 10-20 years ago, as well as projects and investigations I've done from my own interests. To keep within my 10 minute time limit, Slides and Topics that are marked with a capital X in parenthesis will NOT be covered. But they are available via the webPage as listed at the bottom of this slide. A priority focus is Safety. The "[random, scattered] concepts" section looks at a few interesting technical concepts. The "Fun, crazy stuff" section goes beyond the edge. Answers are not my objective, rather I wish to provoke thinking and questions on topics that might not be familiar to everyone. 08********08 #] Safety and hydrogen +-----+ Topic slide : Safety is always a primary concern, and may be a determining factor for some commercial applications of hydrogen. However, hydrogen has been used commercially for perhaps a hundred years or more, and there is a wealth of experience and research behind both commercial and consumer use. I will make quick comments on 2 topics listed here that are not covered by other slides. +--+ Deploying a technology for public use is especially sensitive. I participated in an IEEE standards committee for developing "Canadian Electrical Code" standards for the setup of electric vehicle charging stations at homes. This sounds bureaucratic and simple, but I was extremely impressed the lead person, who was from GM, as well as the other committee members. "Fine-toothed comb" doesn't even begin to describe how they do this. It requires strong engineering and safety analysis skills. Imagination and vision are critical, as you are trying to anticipate rare combinations of events that will cause trouble. +--+ Global efforts on ensuring safety are key. Few nations could afford to do this alone AND reach the same safety level, plus allow for international business and trade. +-----+ At first glance - hydrogen is pretty mean stuff : This table show hydrogen characteristics in comparison to other fuels. Notice the extremely low flash point and very broad explosive limit, which is the worst-case of all fuels. "hydrogen stenches", like mercaptan for natural gas. At issue is that an ordinary person should sense if there is a hydrogen leak in their car, or at home, so they can do something about it (like run). The challenge is to have a stench chemical that is compatible with hydrogen fuel cells. But there had been active research on this 15 or so years ago, with some promising candidates. Perhaps they have solve this by now? My own experience is that a really small hydrogen explosion makes a really loud bang. When they warned us about this in a research lab and we braced for it, we all jumped anyways. That reaction in itself can be dangerous, but so would be a gasoline conflagration. +-----+ Second glance - do-able + some advantages? In spite of the obvious ignition and explosive hazards of hydrogen, it also has some advantages. Its extremely high diffusivity means that for moderate leaks in a well ventilated area, hydrogen will quickly dissipate below the danger point. Storage materials can be used that "absorb" hydrogen, slowing its release from a container. +-----+ Example - Underground hard-rock mining fuel cells (*) I spent several years as the Secretary for a project to prepare for the use of hydrogen fuels cells in underground hard rock mining. Apart from hydrogen use by astronauts, this has to be one of the scariest environments for hydrogen. Just think about it : miners work in tunnels that are essentially like the barrel of a shotgun, with very limited attentuation with distance. If something goes off, you will be like a shotgun pellet bouncing off the wall repeatedly Even if there is no explosion, fires are always a constant concern, even for hard rock mines. Mining equipment is bashed and banged all day long, vibrations regularly kill new electronics, and there is a large number of moving parts and people. Even so, both the mining companies and trade unions were supportive, keeping in mind that they are NOT pushovers, and they will decide. One mine manager stated quite simply from the start "They are never getting those things in my mine." These guys have been around the block many times... Please note two things : a consortia of diverse organisations with varying skills and responsibilities Chief Inspectors of Mines - good luck going anywhere without their approval, MSHA is the American equivalent 08******08 #] Economics and Risks There is NO VOICE for this slide (had to limit presentation to 10 minutes). At least incomplete preparatory notes below give you some idea of what I might have said. Will "blue hydrogen" (natural gas based) be accepted after 2050? if natural gas is accepted, then coal will too? (later slide...) does it matter if oil & gas are eliminated anyways internationally? "life cycle analysis" old phrase : very problematic (*) Will hydrogen fuel cells be a strong competitor of batteries for passenger cars? regional energy factors, consumer vehicle preferences, optics of hydrogen double conversion costs etc think Not : Elon Musk, Volkswagen & several European experts what about [truck, train, planes]s https://open.alberta.ca/publications/alberta-hydrogen-roadmap roadmap : Fig 1 2020 GLOBAL HYDROGEN PRODUCTION COSTS (Uof Alberta) https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydrogen-or-battery--that-is-the-question.html# "... Prof. Maximilian Fichtner, Dep. Director of the Helmholtz Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage and designated expert in hydrogen research, lately told the “Wirtschaftswoche”, the “very poor energy efficiency well-to-wheel” of the fuel cell car make sure that battery-powered e-cars “order a multiple of more efficient”. Fichtner continues: “I'm not against hydrogen as an energy storage medium at all. We just should make use of it where it makes sense – and that's not in the car, but in the stationary area.” With battery-powered e-cars, only eight percent of the energy is lost during transport before the electricity is stored in the batteries of the vehicles. When the electrical energy used to drive the electric motor is converted, another 18 percent is lost. This gives the battery-operated electric car an efficiency level of between 70 to 80 percent, depending on the model. With the hydrogen-powered electric car, the losses are significantly greater: 45 percent of the energy is already lost during the production of hydrogen through electrolysis. Of this remaining 55 percent of the original energy, another 55 percent is lost when hydrogen is converted into electricity in the vehicle. This means that the hydrogen-powered electric car only achieves an efficiency of between 25 to 35 percent, depending on the model. For the sake of completeness: when alternative fuels are burned, the efficiency is even worse: only 10 to 20 percent overall efficiency. ..." [Russia, China, India, Arab, Persia] other competitors : solar panel example - China dominance current trend of backtracking from globalization could be a huge opportunity for Alberta in USA? substitute "energy carrier" technologies (later slide) Crushing new priorities, FAR beyond all this??! (**) 08******08 #] Alberta roadmap - selected ideas (ideas that have been around, but with advances) There is NO VOICE for this slide (had to limit presentation to 10 minutes). At least incomplete preparatory notes below give you some idea of what I might have said. Alberta hydrogen roadmap : https://open.alberta.ca/publications/alberta-hydrogen-roadmap roadmap : Fig 1 2020 GLOBAL HYDROGEN PRODUCTION COSTS (Uof Alberta) CertiHy :FIG. 2 CARBON INTENSITY OF HYDROGEN PRODUCTION IN ALBERTA Natural Gas Decomposition (NGD) – thermal decomposition of methane into hydrogen gas and solid carbon (also known as carbon black), then a direct carbon fuel cell When I worked at Alcan in Arvida Quebec, the joke was when our health went down, we would be moved to the carbon anode plant http://standingwavereformers.com/about/ Standing Wave Reformers - ?location? https://www.ekonapower.com/contact-us Ekona Power - direct carbon fuel cell - solid carbon by-product to electrical power many previous variations going back decades, low temperature problems of solids poisoing is this a high temperature process? many examles of high-T batteries too (very high power rates) (*) hydrogen fuel cells are best known, but [natural gas, ammonia, etc etc] fuel cells have also been worked on Underground Gasification (UG) – of [crude oil, bitumen, coal] integrated with CCUS. Can natural gas storage formations be adapted to hydrogen? (**) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_hydrogen_storage "... The Chevron Phillips Clemens Terminal in Texas has stored hydrogen since the 1980s in a solution-mined salt cavern. The cavern roof is about 2,800 feet (850 m) underground. The cavern is a cylinder with a diameter of 160 feet (49 m), a height of 1,000 feet (300 m), and a usable hydrogen capacity of 1,066 million cubic feet (30.2×106 m3), or 2,520 metric tons (2,480 long tons; 2,780 short tons). ..." https://www.lindehydrogen.com/technology/hydrogen-storage "... Linde has been operating the world’s first commercial hydrogen high-purity cavern for over a decade and we supply some of our pipeline hydrogen customers out of this hydrogen storage facility in Texas. ..." Alberta roadmap (p30h0.95) - Research phase!?? 08********08 #] [random, scattered] concepts +--+ Hydrogen [combustion engines, turbines] for transportation? (roadmap) (*) Your car could simply combust hydrogen, just as many engines have long burned natural gas and propane for [vehicles, compressors, etc]. This is mentioned in the Alberta hydrogen economy roadmap. Even better, you can use mixes of fuels, including hydrogen, even to the extent of flexible fuel vehicles. You don't need high purity hydrogen, and you will have a much more robust system than battery or fuel cell, depending on the application. +-----+ Caterpillar's global initiative for electric battery huge mining trucks Caterpillar's recent announcement to work with mining companies to develop electric monster mining trucks, surprised me. Normally in the past, the typical assumption was that batteries are appropriate for smaller vehicles and shorter distances, fuel cells are better for higher-[distance, energy] vehicles and trucks, and hybrids are a nice combination of both. Has this now changed? Or perhaps one can charge monster mining trucks whilst they are being loaded, or are idling (ie extra trucks and tag-team)? 08******08 #] [battery, fuel cell, flywheel, ultracapacitor] comparison (*) There is NO VOICE for this slide (had to limit presentation to 10 minutes). At least incomplete preparatory notes below give you some idea of what I might have said. https://www.garrettmotion.com/news/media/garrett-blog/hydrogen-fuel-cells-vs-battery-electrics-why-fuel-cells-are-a-major-contender/ Garrett Motion image of energy/volume of [PbA, NiMH, Li-ion] batteries vs "fuel cell + hydrogen tank" "... Despite the enormous efficiency advantage BEVs have over conventional vehicles lithium-ion batteries – the best batteries in high-volume production today – only store 1/100th, or 1 percent, the energy density of gasoline. Hydrogen also has higher energy storage density than lithium ion batteries, both in terms of energy stored per unit weight and energy stored per unit volume. At Garrett Motion, we generally believe that lighter, smaller vehicles are better candidates for battery electric powertrains, while heavier, larger vehicles are better suited for fuel cells. But not only are BEVs best suited for lighter vehicles that require much less energy than larger/heavier vehicles, but BEVs are best suited for travel within cities, rather than between them, in part because of recharging times and in part because of this disadvantage relative to fuel cells on energy storage. ..." >> But Caterpillar, with experience with BOTH bat and hydrogen fuel cells, is working with the former Flywheels : IF rare lab results can be translated into viable product ... ? seems to be common in electrochemistry, photo-voltaic [solid, liquid, gas, but also plasma?] = "Earth, water, air, fire" of ancient Greece? "elements versus phases" : similar to : Ptolemy's many mis-interpretations and "corrections" mini-Earth diameter versus Arabs always knowing the right diameter from Erastothenes (famous historian Ibn Khaldun ~1410 AD) Lucio Russio's science history provide a beautiful description of many of these, including the possibility of ancient maritime clocks for navigation. Recent retrieval of something from sea. Ultra-capacitors : Sharp pause during work on the underground hard rock mining "hydrogen fuel cell" project" - a mine engineer from our Val d'Or research mine alerted us to stunning lab results of ultra-capacitors. If [reproducible, viable], the whole project could be upset (not really - perceptions change glacially) search "ultracapacitors versus batteries in electric vehicles" traditionally : ultra-capacitor [higher [power, cycle life], lower energy] density battery [lower [power, cycle life], higher energy] density ultra-capacitors much greater : - temperature range (eg -40 to +65 Celsius) - shelf life (some of them) - benefit to cost ratio - much lighter (important for vehicles!) caps sometimes higher self discharge? capacitors used by some [electric, hybrid] vehicles - acceleration, deceleration battery-capacitor hybrids 08********08 #] Multi-edged heresy? You can ignore my mumblings on this slide. My main point is to warn you that this presentation is now stepping into the unkown, beyond the range of accepted science today, but perhaps not tomorrow. As usual, there are thousands of ideas like this. But it's fun, and often beautiful, math and science. Hopefully this section will provoke [question, thinking], and not just outrage. 08********08 #] Fun, crazy stuff The first two points are covered by later slides. +-----+ Joke : best hydrogen [storage, transport] is to attach it to long carbon chains or oxygen! While working for a half year on funding follow-up for [electric vehicles, batteries], I sat in a cubicle beside "Mr. Hydrogen", who always impressed upon me that "hydrogen is the answer, Bill". Rumour was that he chose Ballard in the early days for funding based on the team that they had. Apparently a black engineer there was a genius. One day, looking for trouble, I excitedly commented over the cubicle wall that they had found a vastly superior solution for hydrogen storage. Knowing me, he was suspicious, but keen on any progress. When I told him that the approach is to attach hydrogen to long carbon chains, he frowned, told me that I was evil, shook his head, and went back to work. All joking aside, there has long been serious research into hydrogen storage. There are also simple conventional approaches. Alberta hydrogen roadmap mentions ammonia for shipment,as one example. 08********08 #] Randell Mills hydrino - fractional electron quantum levels? (*) +-----+ Comparison of classical to quantum mechanical performance Randell Mills, a star graduate of MIT, has [concepts, mathematics, theories] to replace standard quantum mechanics. He also built a company in 1991 to pursue his concepts both theoretically and commercially, so quite naturally he is an outcast. Many scientists dispise him. This first slide is just one of a great many results where he claims to beat quantum mechanics. Without going into details, notice that Mills' modelling generates a nice straight red line, compared to the mess on the right. +-----+ Physical image compared to physical solutions Another pretty molecule, another quantum mechanical challenge. +-----+ Hydrino energy release of water Mills' 250 kW [thermal, photovoltaic] engine concept is based on fractional quantum levels of electrons, meaning that we are dealing with chemistry, not nuclear reaction. Still, this is a VERY high energy chemical transformation when dealing with hydrogen! Wouldn't it be horrible if you were driving non-stop across remote areas of the Saharah desert, and your passenger-friend drank the only bottle of water in the car, just when your car needed it? 08********08 #] Aureon.ca in Toronto - mythology inspired, electric sun experiments (*) +-----+ Intro slide The SAFIRE electric sun is a story with hydrogen at its core. [psychiatrist, mythologist, scientist]s all contributed over decades as a basis for the SAFIRE project. Here I show only Kristian Birkeland, a Norweigian scientist who did "torella" experiments on geo-magnetism in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The objective of the SAFIRE project was to experimentally prove concepts underlying the "Electric Sun" hypothesis. Project results went FAR beyond expectations and scope. +-----+ "Nuclear Valence Excitation" (NVE) - elemental changes under vacuum and at modest temperature (80kC?) Here is a huge surprise from the project, one that the project team didn't declare for several years until thorough checks of [materials, experiment, analysis] were verified, and multiple experiments were carried out. Elements not present at the start of each experiment were generated by SAFIRE, and are highlighted in the periodic table. Aureon energy discusses the potential of producing rare earth elements in one of their videos. Elemental transformations shouldn't happen at these levels, or should they? "Nuclear Valence Excitation" is a known process. +-----+ Initial commercial emphasis Three initial business concepts were : area heating for homes & communities, fusion energy, and the removal of radioactivity from materials. By that I mean the removal of radioactivity from materials. The current [priority, focus] is on "the removal of radioactivity from groundwater injections, presumably before injection, but that wasn't clear from my quick recent check. +-----+ [psychiatrist, mythologist, physicists] and petroglyphs Now for the fun part, which is directly related to the SAFIRE project. Some ancient petroglyphs clearly match high energy plasma physics lab results, and these petroglyphs occur all over the world. Ancient drawings were taken as evidence of lower intelligence of primitive people. The ancients weren't so stupid after all, and their drawings are highly accurate. We were the childish ones who wouldn't listen. Look closely at the overlay of the breakdown of a conic plasma into Birkland current filaments (the concentric circles of dots) overlaid on Stonehenge. Who knows? +-----+ Petroglyphs - Where were you when all hell broke loose? The events related to these petroglyphs predate 2,500 years ago, and may go back 10s of thousands of years. It's hard to tell. Maps of the petroglyph sites show this to be a global phenomena, but they are clustered in regions, as compared to being spread randomly. Anthony Peratt was not young at the time of his petroglyph survey. How would you like to climb up to the band of light on the mountain side by the Zanskar River? Many petroglyphs are apparently in perilous places, perhaps by intent, and perhaps because those are the only people who survived? +-----+ Electric scarring of Earth, Alberta equivalents Related [concepts, hypothesis] blanket [physics, astronomy, geology, biology]. Here are Alberta locations that resemble the concept of electric scarring of geology by SAFIRE project core team member Paul Anderson. The conventional explanation of our coulees is that they were carved by vast torrents of glacial melt, followed by normal weathering. Possibly all three processes contributed to what we see today. By the way, there is substantial support for electric scarring from the surface geology of planets and moons. # enddoc