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Though Hydrogen is the most abundant element on Earth’s surface, it mainly is bond with Oxygen in water, one of the strongest chemical bonds known. This means that it takes quite a lot of energy to split water into Hydrogen & Oxygen, around 120 MJ per kg. Do you follow? The same amount of energy is released, when Oxygen & Hydrogen recombine to water (combustion). Why the same amount of energy, one may ask?

The First Law of Thermodynamics says that if energy is applied to bring a system from one condition into another, the same amount of energy must be removed to bring it back into the original condition & this regardless how it’s done. If there would be any difference in applied & removed energy, then we could create energy from nothing, by adding (input) less energy to bring a system into one condition, than what’s removed (output) to bring it back into the original condition - a perpetual mobile of the first degree.

Thus let us consider an ideal hydrogen (water)engine, by which we poor water into it on one side & the same water (firstly as steam, but than condensing back to water at the original temperature), comes out on the other side. Then the first Law of Thermo says that there can not actually be any mechanical energy developed on the shaft of that engine - it would have been created out of nothing!

If there is an output of mechanical energy anyway, then this energy must have been added as an input as well. This is exactly what happened with the experimental cars, that were said to run on water only. No, they ran on the electrical battery in the system, that initially was charged from an external source. Claiming anything else, as the ‘inventors’ do, means to declare the First Law of Thermo to be invalid. None of the ‘inventors’ ever made such a declaration, has one? No, because they never considered the First Law & neither did “the Powers that Are”, who believed the ‘inventors’ & therefore allegedly threatened, imprisoned, or even killed them - what a waste, if it’s true.

Many researchers, car manufacturers, inventors, etc, erroneously bring Hydrogen forward as an energy source. From the above we can however understand, that whatever energy Hydrogen would develop in any kind of engine or device, originally came from other sources that were needed to produce & prepare that Hydrogen. Most likely these other sources were fossil fuels, so where is the environmental advantage? Moreover, as the total efficiency of the Hydrogen production process is far lower than 100%, these other sources delivered accordingly more energy, than what the Hydrogen can set free at combustion. Hence, Hydrogen is an energy converter & not an energy source. In terms of environment, the pollution with Hydrogen has moved from the engine to the production installations - it has not actually been eliminated, as erroneously is claimed by many.

How about using solar energy to produce electricity with photo voltaic cells & using that electricity in an electrolysis process to split water into Hydrogen & Oxygen? Well, know that the typical efficiency of voltaic cells is around twenty-five percent & that of electrolysis 60% & thus the overall efficiency is 0.25 x 0.6 = 0.15 => fifteen percent Then you just have Hydrogen & Oxygen gas, but especially the Hydrogen gas is very hard to handle. Its volume is around ten times that of air at atmospheric pressure & it exudes through most metals. Compressing Hydrogen gas to smaller volumes takes a lot of energy (that must be cooled off as waste heat). To distribute it to the consumers takes energy also & in the end, the overall efficiency may even become negative, or hardly more than a few percent. This all has to do with entropy. If you do not know what that is, read my article:”What is Entropy“, for an explanation.

Know that the World presently burns fossil fuels to the equivalent of around 100 million barrels of crude oil per day (60% is coal -still being the World’s main energy source). One barrel is 167 liter, ca 140 kg of mass & the energy content is roughly forty MJ/kg, whereas the average solar intensity at sea level is in the size of a few hundred watts per square  meter (around what the human body gives off in heat). Do you want to calculate on how big areas of photo voltaic cells would be needed to replace say only 1% of our present fossil fuel consumption? Even more, do you want to pay for it?

There is much expectation from fuel cells, that run on Oxygen & Hydrogen, converting them to water & electricity without combustion. Also here we’re talking about energy conversion, because where did the Oxygen & Hydrogen come from? A fuel cell is thus not an energy source. There’re concepts for fuels cells that can run on natural gases instead, such as Methane. Because the output is water(steam) & not the original Methane, the First Law allows a net energy output & so it does. However, it shows that the total cycle efficiency is somewhat less than burning the Methane directly in a combustion engine. The fuel cell alternative definitely causes less pollution than the combustion alternative, but the economics remain in favor for direct combustion. How much more do you want to pay for your environmental friendly car?

Rudolph Draaisma is a double graduated engineer in electrics & mechanics, specialized in energy conversion, refrigeration, waste-heat recovery & alternative energy systems.

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According to legend, Prometheus brought fire to mankind, sparking enlightenment. OK. Several millennia later, scientists are exploring wood chemistry to find new sources of energy.

Cellulosic ethanol, or “treethanol,” is a promising new energy source with the potential to mitigate high gas prices, national security concerns, & global climate change. Ethanol derived from cellulose?the complex sugar polymer that gives green plants their structure?has a smaller carbon footprint than other fuels & could be used to supplement or replace gasoline. But anything that requires cutting down trees while purporting to save the environment should attract a reasonable dose of skepticism.

Harnessing energy from the sun in the form of biomass isn’t new. For centuries, man has used wood to provide warmth, cook food, & forge tools. New enzyme technologies now enable scientists to break down wood cellulose into glucose, its component sugar, which is then converted to ethanol through fermentation, turning this age-old energy source into fuel for the new global economy.

Cellulosic ethanol differs from the most common biofuels?sugarcane-based ethanol from Brazil & corn-based ethanol from the United States?in both its net energy yield & its fuel conversion process. There is more. Traditional ethanol & cellulosic ethanol are chemically equivalent: Both produce two-thirds the energy of regular gasoline. But not all ethanol is created equally. The energy balance (or energy yielded over energy added during production) for corn ethanol is roughly 1.3 & an estimated 8.3 for sugarcane. For cellulosic ethanol, the ratio can reach as high as 16. When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, traditional ethanol shows a reduction of ten to twenty percent compared to gasoline, while cellulosic ethanol reduces emissions as much as eighty to 100 percent.

Using trees or other biomass instead of food crops for ethanol production also has its advantages. There is more. Trees make up roughly ninety percent of the world’s terrestrial biomass, grow all year round, require fewer inputs than food crops, & yield more energy. Switchgrass, a native North American plant, shows great potential for cellulosic ethanol: It can produce twice or two times as much ethanol per acre compared to corn, it requires less water, & it can grow in places otherwise unsuitable for food crops. Poplars & other fast growing trees are also being explored as potential sources.

Food price volatility, highlighted in a report by UN-Energy, is a concern that doesn’t apply to cellulosic ethanol production. As demand for cleaner energy grows, ethanol production increases & therefore commodity prices rise for corn & sugar. Some developing countries have already felt these effects. As Adam Dean writes elsewhere in Policy Innovations, “Due to its use in the production of ethanol, corn prices have risen more than eighty percent since last summer, from $2.17 to nearly $4 a bushel. This increase has caused tortilla prices in Mexico to rise by nearly fifty percent over the same period.”

Replicating the success of other biofuels, cellulosic ethanol could also play a role in promoting rural development. Increases in commodity prices generally benefit rural farmers who rely on those prices to make a living, even though this benefit is hindered by agricultural subsidies in developed countries. Ethanol production also creates more jobs for low-skilled laborers.

Domestic production of ethanol in developing countries is also an opportunity to correct trade imbalances & spur foreign investment. This is especially true if those countries are now able to take part in the higher value-added production process. Annie Dufey of the International Institute for Environment & Development writes, “Domestic biofuel production offers an opportunity to replace oil imports & improve the trade balance.” By example, it’s estimated that the replacement of gasoline by sugarcane ethanol in Brazil saved some $43.5 billion between 1976 & 2000.

High gas prices & national security concerns have precipitated a favorable change in the political & economic climate for alternative fuel sources such as cellulosic ethanol. Policymakers around the world have made reducing reliance on foreign oil a high priority. If the price of ethanol can compete with gasoline, the effects of political volatility in oil-rich regions such as Russia, Venezuela, & the Middle East will lessen.

Because oil has a high price elasticity of demand, countries that rely heavily on oil stand to lose dramatically if demand drops: During the 1997?1998 Asian financial crisis there was a ten percent drop in oil demand which sent oil prices plummeting 75 percent. But according to Thomas Friedman’s “First Law of Petropolitics,” this could also be a boon for the development of democratic institutions. Friedman claims that oil prices & the pace of freedom are negatively correlated.

Despite its benefits, cellulosic ethanol is no magic elixir for the world’s energy woes. So… Significant hurdles hinder its adoption on a commercial scale, including feasibility, production costs, & environmental degradation. Achim Steiner, executive director of UN Environment Programme says, “Investments need to be planned carefully to avoid generating new environmental & social problems.”

High cost of production, almost synonymous with any new technology, is one of the greatest barriers to the adoption of cellulosic ethanol. Right now, methods of producing cellulosic ethanol are expensive & complex, involving a multi-step enzymatic process. So… Significant R&D investment is needed to generate more efficient production methods, particularly better enzymes. There is more. This month, researchers in Brazil announced that they had done just that, perfecting a method of producing cellulosic ethanol that reduces its costs of production from about $2.25 cents per gallon to roughly forty cents per gallon. If verified, this would mark a great advancement in cellulosic ethanol production.

Many argue that there is simply not enough land to meet the world’s food needs & provide energy if ethanol is added to the mix. It would take about 100 million acres of switchgrass?roughly the area of California?to replace just 25 percent of the petroleum use in the United States.

Cellulosic ethanol production also promotes exploitation of forests, which threatens the climate change benefits from reduced greenhouse gas emissions. One proposed solution is to use fast-growing grasses, like switchgrass, or leftover biomass, such as corn stalks, instead of trees. But if trees are cleared to grow other biofuels, both the forest as a carbon sink & the higher energy yield of the treethanol will be lost.

Governments have an important role to play, encouraging development of this new technology through incentives & sustainable policies, but they must do so with caution. An imprudent rush to reduce reliance on fossil fuels is likely to have its own environmental & economic side effects.

For more articles, please visit: http://www.policyinnovations.org Innovations + Ethics = Better Globalization