I thought the point wasn't to get hydrogen across. I mean seriously, a hydrogen pipeline is a ridiculous waste of money. You can set up a massive power line for the same money, and have hydrogen processors installed right at the refuel stations. Getting power can be solved by non-fuel methods that are location-based, like HEPPs and windtraps. And those massive solar power stations, which will require water to be delivered to them, since they can handle the heating at much less expense than any other powerplant.
That kind of deppends on the economy of scale at work here. If there's little efficiency drop from producing hydrogen on-site that would be an option. But if the efficiency drops steeply for small units, then producing it on site still is a problem
Getting hydrogen to a decent density is also the key to getting it to be safe. There was some research on solidifying it somewhere, but I can't remember where it was or what it involved. Ideally, you'll be carrying it around liquid or solid, in some sort of a supersponge that will keep it contained, but release it when "squeezed". And hydrogen-fueled cars won't be any more dangerous than cars on natural gas, that share a lot of the same problems with safety. Except containment, of course.
My dad worked on sollidifying it. That requires a HUGE amount of pressure. At his lab, they used diamonds as the press heads. The alternative was steel drums fed with pipes, but the pipes could decapitate someone if they yielded under the pressure.
But the fact remains that the energy density per volume unit's quite low, as opposed to, say, glucose solutions (biologically available) or methanol (readily synthesized out of syngas, which is biologicaly available, and water. Alternatively, it can be directly formed by bacteria. Only problem is that it's toxic, so it's brother ethanol could be a better participant)
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Topic: Natural Gas pipeline explodes in Texas..... times 2! (Read 2779 times)