Hydrogen Power for Dummies

Solar farm

Something for nothing: that's what we'd all love to find in our back yard tomorrow morning, eh? Well, according to one of the fine stable of freelancers over at HubPages, ngureco, that's precisely what's available for those who electrolyze hydrogen from plain old water for their power source. According to "Electrolysis of Water -Make Hydrogen from Water – and Hydrogen Cars," it's very simple:

1. use solar energy to produce electricity
2. run the current through plain old sea water, which - through electrolysis - will liberate hydrogen
3. use the hydrogen to power cars and rid ourselves of those nasty fossil fuels

The idea always sounds great, but the problem is (as always) one of implementation, even after you get past the hash ngureco makes of all the "science-y bits"; misinformation such as 

"When hydrogen burns in air, it produces a frame which is heat and water."

We'll freely admit we don't know what a "frame" is in this context, but neither does our dictionary. Perhaps he meant "flame," though we wouldn't describe a flame as "heat and water"... All that aside, ngureco's thesis is simple: do what she says, and when it's all over,

"...we would have clean hydrogen to power our cars without generating any greenhouse gases from the process..."

As is so often the case, ngureco's research is incomplete. Manufacturing the infrastructure -- solar panels, for instance -- needed to convert solar energy to electricity generates greenhouse gases. Ditto the large-scale containment for hydrogen (highly flammable - explosive, in fact, should you recognize the name Hindenburg). And ditto again for the mining of the elements used in the manufacture of solar panels, batteries, the electrolysis equipment, the conversion of motor vehicles to run on hydrogen... But if you believe the author, it won't cost you a penny: "The best things in the world are free. These three things (salt, water and solar energy) are provided in abundant and free... by God/Mother Nature and if man was fair to himself, he need not spend even a cent to obtain any of the three products."

Yeah: right. If you believe that, you're a Dumbass of the Day like ngureco.  

copyright © 2015-2022 scmrak

SI - RENEWABLE ENERGY