US Energie Ministerium : 2015 statt 2050 steigt America auf Wasserstoff um !!! - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[M_B_S]

OIL ECONOMY TO PHASE OUT IN 12 YEARS!
Depatment of Energy Moves Hydrogen Infrastructure Readiness Date Forward to
2015
Jumps ahead 35 YEARS from earlier estimate of 2050!

"We`ve concluded that unless we work on parallel tracks, developing the vehicle and the infrastructure concurrently instead of consecutively, this process would take 3 decades or longer. But with full government backing, helping to coordinate both avenues of research and development simultaneously, we believe that a decision to go forward with commercialization could be made as early as 2015."

Das ist eine der grössten Sensationen seit Mahhatten I

[Tutnix]

Tja, da staunste? Aber es ist eigentlich auch nicht so schwer einzusehen, dass das Öl mal zur Neige gehen wird, und dagegen wird sich jeder mit allen Mitteln zu wehren versuchen.

[HappyVienna]

Planen die den Krieg gegen den Irak zu verlieren? Nur dann wäre das eventuell notwendig.

Glaube ich nicht, bitte um Quelle!!!

Liebe Grüsse aus Wien

[der_esel]

Thread: Bush stellt 1,2 Milliarden Dollar für die Brennsfoffzellen - Forschung zur Verfügung

[M_B_S]

Und was für eine Quelle !

http://ogj.onlinearticles.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?…

[HappyVienna]

@der_esel
1,2 billions oder hier sagt man 1,2 Milliarden USD in 5 Jahren sollen da helfen?

Liebe Grüsse aus Wien

[der_esel]

@HappyVienna

ist immerhin ein anfang.

es ist aber auch beruhigend zu wissen,dass in österreich wesentlich mehr zur verfügung gestellt wird.

[HappyVienna]

@der_esel
Ich lerne Dich immer mehr zu schätzen wegen Deiner sachlichen und fundierten Beiträge. Was würden wir ohne Dich tun?

Liebe Grüsse aus Wien

[HappyVienna]

@M_B_S
Sag, hast Du den Artikel wirklich gelesen?

Liebe Grüsse aus Wien

[M_B_S]

Wien sitzt da nicht die OPEC

Wohl die Hosen gestrichen voll ?

Gruss M_B_S

[HappyVienna]

@M_B_S
Jetzt kenne ich mich wirklich nicht mehr aus, wenn Du willst übersetze ich Dir den Artikel zwischen den Zeilen.

Liebe Grüsse aus Wien

[M_B_S]

So? vielleicht hilft Dir dieser Link ja weiter

http://www.ch2bc.org/indexh.htm

Das Oelzeitalter geht zu Ende !

[HappyVienna]

@M_B_S
Du hast vollkommen Recht. Jedoch nicht weil es der Wunsch ist sondern weil der Saft irgendwann zu Ende geht.

Die Relation ist schon beeindruckend, wie die USA diese Projekt unterstützt, mit 1,2 Milliarden USD in 5 Jahren. Für Rüstung wird derzeit 1 Milliarde pro Tag ausgegeben. Also über 1000 mal mehr!!!

Und der Artikel soll uns nur suggerieren, Öl ist nicht so wichtig. Wie haben Lösungen!

Liebe Grüsse aus Wien

[M_B_S]

Wunschdenken ?



Bei einem Oelpreis von 100 $ ( Flächenbrand in Nah Ost ) steigen die USA in 10 Jahren um allerdings ohne Oelmann Bush der ist dann längst beerdigt !

[Joerver]

Und wo wollt Ihr den Wasserstoff herbekommen. Mit dem Schiff aus der Sahara.




Bei der amerikanischen Variante wohl Öl oder Kernkraft, also auch wieder Primärenergien.
J.

[HappyVienna]

@Joerver
Ich wollte M_B_S nicht überfordern. Ich habe das schon in anderen Threads gepostet. Man bekommt aus 100% Primärenergie ca. 33% Wasserstoff. Das ist jedoch ein technisches Problem und es gibt andere Lösungen.

Dies ist der politische Teil.


Liebe Grüsse aus Wien

[Joerver]

Ich hatte auch mal geträumt.
J.

[M_B_S]

http://www.bmu.de/download/dateien/wasserstoff.pdf

[Bodenseemann]

Tja, wenn der Wasserstoff aus der Wüste kommt weil dort die Sonnenkollektoren für die Wärme oder die Solarzellen für den Strom viel Platz haben und man somit riesige Anlagen bauen kann, was ist die Konsequenz?

Die Energie ist wieder bei den Arabern. Oder denen, die dann die Gewalt über dieses Land haben. Vieleicht ist es dann ja schon Groß-Israel oder eine US-Kolonie???

Eine Rakete auf die "Plantage" und alles ist weg!
Dann haben wir die gleiche Situation wie heute! Ein Irrer, der versucht die Weltherrschaft zu übernehmen oder zu verteidigen (Hello Mr. Bush!), reicht um die Energievorräte zu senken.
Da muß man forschen:
Photovoltaik, Windenergie, ... effizienter machen. So, daß auch schon mit weniger Fläche in unseren Landen genügend Strom produziert werden kann.

Wasserstoff ist hoch explosiv. Aber es gibt auch dazu schon eine Alternative, an der geforscht wird. Hab da mal einen Artikel gelesen Irgendwas mit Silizium und Stickstoff. Ausgangsstoff ist nicht Wasser sondern Sand. Und der Energieträger kann im LKW ohne irgendwelche Risiken transportiert werden.
Mehr dürft Ihr mich aber nicht dazu fragen.


BM

[HappyVienna]

@M_B_S
Danke für dieses schwachsinnige Dokument, nach Dosenpfandstudie etc. Da hat man wirklich die Gelegenheit sich mal wieder über Jürgen Tritt-Ihn mit fachlichen Argumenten durchzusetzen.

Für weitere Dokumente dieser Richtung, die zur Volksverblödung beitragen sollen, bin ich sehr dankbar.

Liebe Grüsse aus Wien

[Joerver]

Wie der Bush-Plan in Usa gesehen wird.



A greener Bush

Feb 13th 2003
From The Economist print edition


George Bush deserves praise for his recent environmental moves—but he could be bolder still
Getty Images




“THE American way of life is not up for negotiation.” That was the stance struck by the elder George Bush at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. He was responding to the thousands of green, anti-capitalist and other activists who were claiming that the United States, then as now the world`s biggest energy consumer, was also its biggest polluter. That makes it all the more striking that his son has just proposed environmental policies that, he says, will “fundamentally alter the American way of life in a positive way.”

In recent days, Mr Bush has unveiled a vision of a clean-energy future based on two ideas: promoting hydrogen and constraining carbon. His administration has declared its unqualified support for a shift from the internal combustion engine to fuel cells, which use hydrogen to produce energy without harmful emissions (see article). And this week it gathered a group of industrialists in Washington to declare their support for Mr Bush`s policy of pursuing voluntary cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases as a way of responding to climate change.

Mistrustful environmental groups immediately denounced both policies as chicanery. By talking up a hydrogen future that may be many years away, they argued, the president was seeking to distract attention from short-term measures, such as the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) law that dictates car fuel-efficiency standards. They point accusingly at the fact that Mr Bush`s vision of hydrogen energy allows the continued use of fossil fuels such as coal—albeit in a cleaner way, by “sequestering” the carbon emissions—and at the support he has received from the oil and car industries. As for climate change, they insist that Mr Bush, who summarily rejected the Kyoto Protocol two years ago, cannot be trusted to push his industrial friends into accepting enough voluntary cuts to make much difference to America`s rising emissions of greenhouse gases.



Outflanking the greens
The environmentalists are wrong to be so sceptical. Mr Bush is unlikely ever to be a born-again green—or so we must hope—but there is no reason to dismiss his ideas for a shift to clean hydrogen just because car and oil companies may benefit. Their support is necessary if hydrogen is ever to take off. The shift from internal combustion engines to hydrogen fuel cells envisaged by Mr Bush could eventually lead, in the words of a senior administration official, to a “low-carbon energy system” in America. Moving away from CAFE would be welcome in itself: it is an overly bureaucratic, inefficient law whose objectives would be better achieved through the tax system. So far as climate change is concerned, economical cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions are surely to be welcomed, notwithstanding the continuing controversy over the urgency of tackling the problem (see article).

Even so, if Mr Bush is to burnish his green credentials, he needs to do more to turn fine visions into practical actions. He has given a glimpse of the right strategy by declaring that “we have a chance to move beyond the...command and control era of environmental policy, where all wisdom seemed to emanate out of Washington, DC...we can move beyond that through technology.” He is spot on in denouncing an overly centralised approach to greenery, and in pushing instead for market-based solutions. The success of pollution taxes in Europe and of emissions-trading systems for sulphur dioxide in America show that these are a far better way of encouraging innovation than technology mandates or direct subsidies.

On hydrogen, Mr Bush has offered much talk and $1.2 billion in public money. That is unlikely to be enough to spur industries with hundreds of billions of dollars in sunk assets to think of shifting to hydrogen—especially when petrol is so cheap. On climate change, his insistence on a voluntary approach alone runs counter to the experience of the past decade, when greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to rise despite a string of voluntary initiatives to reduce them.

The best way forward, on fuel cells as on climate, would be through the use of taxes. A higher petrol tax, or better still a tax on all carbon emissions, would mean that the full cost to the environment and human health from the use of petrol (and other fossil fuels) was reflected in the price. Unlike the CAFE law or any other central target, taxes of this kind would encourage the development of cleaner energy without biasing energy users in favour of any specific technologies or energy sources. Best of all, Mr Bush could use the extra revenues to finance tax cuts elsewhere, or to trim looming budget deficits. An intelligent green policy that improves America`s fiscal position—now that really would be visionary.





Copyright © 2003 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

[Joerver]

These fuelish things

Feb 13th 2003 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition


AP





The fuel cell is enchanting politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. It is too soon, though, for them to dream of freedom from fossil fuels

Get article background

WHERE in the world can you find hydrogen? At first blush, that might seem a ridiculous question: hydrogen, after all, is the commonest element in the universe. The problem is that it is rarely found in its free state on earth. If you want to get your hands on some hydrogen, you generally have to strip it away from carbon, as found in hydrocarbon fuels, or from oxygen, as found in water. Either way, energy is required to produce it. And that, in a nutshell, is the big drawback lurking behind all the recent hoopla surrounding the charms of hydrogen energy.

The hoopla began at the end of last year, when the European Commission unveiled a grand, euro2.1 billion ($2 billion) “hydrogen vision”. Romano Prodi, the commission`s president, even declared that he wanted to be remembered for only two things: the European Union`s eastward expansion, and hydrogen energy. Now, George Bush, America`s president, has produced his own $1.2 billion hydrogen plan (he even examined a hydrogen-powered car, and made sure he was photographed doing so). In speeches directed at the car industry in Detroit and, on February 10th, at the oil industry in Houston, Mr Bush and his team have been making the claim that the rise of the fuel cell will consign the internal-combustion engine to the dustbin of history. And if that were not enough, Democratic rivals in Congress—trying to keep up—have just unveiled their own hydrogen initiative.

Fuel cells are devices that work rather like batteries, converting chemical energy into electricity and heat. All fuel cells combine hydrogen with oxygen to produce power. These nifty power plants can be used to run anything from a mobile phone to an office complex. Their greatest attraction is that they can do all this without generating emissions any more harmful than water vapour.

(100 Gigajoule= 28000 Kilowattstunden)
The catch, of course, is that it is first necessary to find a source of hydrogen. If renewable energy is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, then the energy produced by a fuel cell is genuinely emission-free. But if energy from a hydrocarbon such as petrol or coal is used, there will still be some unwanted emissions. That applies even if the route taken is steam reformation, in which the hydrocarbon is reacted with water vapour to liberate the hydrogen in both, rather than being used to make electricity for the electrolysis of water.

The emissions from steam reformation, though, are less than those created when the same amount of hydrocarbon is burned in today`s combustion engines. This is because fuel cells produce electricity efficiently, without combustion. And, if techniques for capturing and “sequestering” the carbon dioxide produced by hydrocarbons are perfected, it would make hydrogen from fossil fuels a great deal cleaner still.



How the ghost of you clings
Europe and America do not see eye to eye on the question of how best to generate hydrogen. Europe is putting more emphasis on renewables; America, by contrast, is keen on the possibility of deriving hydrogen from fossil fuels.






At the moment, using renewables is an expensive way of generating hydrogen (see table). So why is Europe heading in this direction? Alessandro Ovi, one of Mr Prodi`s advisers, explains that Europe`s push for hydrogen is motivated largely by a desire to meet its commitments to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto treaty on global warming. Accordingly, the EU has adopted demanding targets for increasing the share of renewable energy to 22% of the region`s electricity supply by 2010, up from about half that today.

Such a target for renewable energy sounds pretty green, but there is a snag: wind and solar energy are intermittent, and unlike other commodities—be they bananas or natural gas—there is no good way to store electricity for later use. No way, that is, unless you use renewable energy to produce hydrogen, and store this instead. It can then be used when the power grid is facing peak demand and the price of energy thus increases. Dr Ovi thinks hydrogen could transform the economics of renewables and play an essential role in the EU`s clean-energy strategy.

Mr Bush`s plan pushes instead for hydrogen via fossil fuels, because greenery is not the only attraction of fuel cells. Mr Bush insists that hydrogen is a good way to bolster his country`s “energy independence” from Middle Eastern oil. Hydrogen can be made from America`s plentiful supplies of coal, as well as from locally produced biomass and renewable energy, says John Marburger, Mr Bush`s top science adviser. Thus, America`s reliance on oil from fickle foreign regimes will decline. That vision of energy independence through fossil hydrogen is also gaining popularity among the leadership in coal-rich but oil-starved China.

Does that mean the American approach is ungreen? Not necessarily. Even if fossil fuels were used to produce hydrogen without sequestration, fuel-cell-powered cars would still produce zero local emissions on roads. (Wags call this “drive here, pollute elsewhere”.) Further, hydrogen is likely to be produced by some green sources anyway: in the Pacific north-west, hydro-electric power is dirt cheap at night, and on the windswept Great Plains renewables or biomass may prove more economic than fossil fuels.

If America pursues its hydrogen vision by using fossil fuels with techniques such as sequestration, a technology Mr Bush has repeatedly applauded, its hydrogen embrace will indeed be greener than green. What is more, if Big Oil also gets behind hydrogen—as it is now starting to do thanks to the new push from the Texan oilman in the White House—the thorny question of where you can find hydrogen could one day become very simple to answer. Right at your corner petrol station.





Copyright © 2003 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

[Joerver]

Mehr zu diesem Thema unter

http://www.economist.com/finance/

[Joerver]

Wenn der Wüstenwind weht

Hans-Arthur Marsiske 10.03.2003
Windenergie aus Nordafrika könnte die Hälfte des gesamten Strombedarfs in Europa decken

Die Sahara hat das, was uns in den gemäßigteren Breiten fehlt: Sonnenenergie im Übermaß, weit mehr als Nordafrika und Europa zusammen verbrauchen können. Eine massive Nutzung scheitert derzeit jedoch noch an der mangelnden Wirtschaftlichkeit von Solarkraftwerken. Günstiger, wenn auch bislang noch wenig beachtet, stellen sich dagegen die Verhältnisse im Bereich der Windenergie dar.

Insbesondere an der Westküste der Sahara ist das Windaufkommen ausgesprochen gut. Etwa 2000 Kilometer Küstenlinie stehen zur Verfügung, um mit Windkraftanlagen bebaut zu werden. Bei einer Bebauungsdichte von 2,4 Megawatt pro Quadratkilometer, rechnet Khalid Benhamou vom Saharawind-Projekt vor, könnten mehr als 1000 Terawattstunden pro Jahr erzeugt werden - ausreichend, um ungefähr die Hälfte des europäischen Strombedarfs zu decken.

Über eine 4500 Kilometer lange Hochspannungsgleichstromleitung könnte der Strom bis nach Deutschland transportiert werden. Bei einer Kapazität von fünf Gigawatt und mehr würden die Leitungsverluste Benhamou zufolge unter 15 Prozent liegen. Auf diese Weise könnte der in Mauretanien und Südmarokko produzierte Windstrom in Mitteleuropa und Deutschland zu konkurrenzfähigen Preisen angeboten werden.

Gregor Czisch vom Institut für Solare Energieversorgungstechnik an der Universität Kassel bestätigt diese Schätzung. Seine Kalkulation ergibt Kosten von 4,5 Cent pro Kilowattstunde für den in der Sahara produzierten und nach Deutschland transportierten Strom gegenüber 6,5 Cent für Windstrom, der vor Ort in Deutschland erzeugt wird.

Die Idee ist klar, die Zahlen überzeugend
Ein Vorzug dieses Szenarios liegt darin, dass es Stück für Stück realisiert werden kann. Den Anfang soll ein Windpark in Südmarokko machen, um politischen Streitigkeiten über den Status des südlich davon liegenden Westsahara-Gebiets aus dem Weg zu gehen. Aufgrund der Passatwinde sind die südlicher gelegenen Küstenabschnitte zwar interessanter, aber auch in Südmarokko in der Gegend um Tarfaya ließen sich fünf Gigawatt Windstrom erzeugen, sagt Benhamou. Eine 1300 Kilometer lange Hochspannungsgleichstromleitung soll den Strom nach Spanien transportieren.


Die Koudia Al Baida Windfarm in Marokko. Bild: Saharawind-Projekt

"Dieser Strom könnte deutlich günstiger sein als der in Spanien produzierte Windstrom", bestätigt Czisch. "Die Leitungen könnten Stück für Stück bis nach Deutschland verlängert und ausgebaut werden, mit Anzapfstationen, die auf dem Weg Leistung abzweigen, und sich zu einem Ringsystem oder auch zu einem Netz entwickeln, wie es beispielsweise ABB bereits vorgeschlagen hat." Nach und nach könnten auch in Nordafrika weitere Anlagen angeschlossen werden, solarthermische Kraftwerke, Fallwindkraftwerke, je nachdem, was für eine bestimmte Region am günstigsten ist. "In der Vielzahl von Regionen und Techniken, die zur großräumigen Stromversorgung beitragen, besteht ein großes Optimierungspotenzial."

Die Idee ist klar, die Zahlen überzeugend. Da stellt sich die Frage, warum die Initiativen zur Realisierung bislang nur sehr verhalten in Gang kommen. Für Czisch liegt die Hauptverantwortung bei der Politik. "Jedenfalls fehlt es nicht an den technischen Möglichkeiten", sagt er. "Erfahrungen mit leistungsstarkem länderübergreifendem Stromtransport liegen weltweit vor und sind auch in Afrika zu finden. Wie das Beispiel Algerien zeigt, aus dem die EU 30% ihres Erdgasimports bezieht, ist auch leitungsgebundener Afrikanisch-Europäischer Energietransport kein Neuland und auch hier liegen große Investitionsvolumina vor."

Benhamou verweist ebenfalls auf Erfahrungen mit Erdgaspipelines als Beispiele für erfolgreiche Kooperationen unterschiedlicher Partner. "Die deutsch-russische Erdgasleitung stellt hier ein konstruktives Beispiel dar", sagt er. "Die Umstände legen eine Zusammenarbeit mit den nordafrikanischen Staaten nahe, die die Möglichkeit einer neuen Form von Entwicklungspolitik eröffnet: Alle Partner arbeiten gleichermaßen an dem gemeinsamen Ziel einer nachhaltigen Energieversorgung mit adäquater Infrastruktur."

Czisch zufolge müsste eine politische Initiative nicht zwingend von vornherein auf EU-Ebene erfolgen. "Ich könnte mir durchaus auch Initiativen einzelner Staaten vorstellen. Zum Beispiel könnte Spanien eine Kooperation mit Marokko eingehen. Eine Studie beschäftigt sich derzeit auch mit der Kopplung von Offshore-Windenergie in Deutschland mit Speicherwasserkraft in der Schweiz. Das könnten Keimzellen für einen großen, letztlich transkontinentalen Stromverbund sein."

[Bodenseemann]

@ Joesever

Solche zentralen Standorte zur Energiegewinnung beinhalten ein ganz großes Problem:

Man ist wie heute von einzelnen Regionen abhängig.
Und das wird auch wieder zu Kriegen führen können. Und im Gegensatz zum Öl, sind die Windräder ganz schnell mit ein paar Bomben zerstört. Bei denzentraler Verteilung rund um den Globus gibt es dieses Problem weniger.

BM

[A_M_D_A]

04.07.2003 - Chemie
Nickel-Zinn-Katalysator ersetzt teures Platin

Wasserstoff aus Biomasse auf dem Weg zur Wirtschaftlichkeit


Erdgas bildet heute noch die wichtigste Quelle für die Gewinnung des Brennstoffs Wasserstoff. Doch um nicht nur bei der Verwertung in der Brennstoffzelle, sondern auch bei der Produktion keine Treibhausgase freizusetzen, gilt neben Wasser-, Wind- und Sonnenkraft die Ressource Biomasse als sehr vielversprechend. Für die Erzeugung von Wasserstoffgas aus Kompost oder Getreide entwickelten US-Forscher nun einen neuen effektiven Katalysator. Da er ohne das teure Platin auskommt, könnte er zur deutlich günstigeren Biomassen-Verwertung beitragen, berichten die Wissenschaftler im Fachblatt Science (Vol. 300. S. 2075).

"Platin ist sehr effektiv, doch auch sehr teuer", betont James Dumesic von der University of Wisconsin-Madison. Eine poröse Struktur aus Nickel, die mit einigen Anteilen des Metalls Zinn angereichert wird, könnte das Edelmetall Platin, das mit rund 15 Euro pro Gramm zu Buche schlägt, beim Katalysatorbau ablösen. Dabei fielen für den Bau solcher Anlagen nur ein Bruchteil der Materialkosten an.

Idealer Ausgangsstoff für diese Wasserstoffgewinnung aus nachwachsenden und damit klimatechnisch unbedenklicher Biomasse ist ein Glukose-Sirup. Gewonnen aus Getreide oder biologisch abbaubaren Kompostabfällen kann aus dieser Zuckerverbindung Wasserstoff in größerer Menge gebildet werden. Brauchten die Forscher für diesen chemischen Prozess in der flüssigen Phase bei höheren Temperaturen und Drücken einen Platin-Katalysator, übernimmt nun die Nickel-Zinn-Legierung diese Aufgabe fast genauso effektiv.

"Dieses Verfahren kann auch im kleinen Maßstab für die Brennstoffgewinnung portabler Geräte wie Autos, Batterien und militärischer Ausrüstung genutzt werden", so Dumesic. Doch auch größere Anlagen zur industriellen Gewinnung von Wasserstoff aus Biomasse seien möglich. Parallel optimierten die Chemieingenieure diese Glukose-Umwandlung auch dahin, dass deutlich weniger Kohlenmonoxid (CO) entstehen kann. Im Unterschied zur Dampfreformation, einem industriell oft angewandten Prozess zur Wasserstoffgewinnung, gehen die Kohlenmonoxid-Konzentrationen mit 60 Teilen pro Million auf ein Bruchteil zurück.

Um den Wasserstoff in Brennstoffzellen verwerten zu können, muss CO möglichst komplett herausgefiltert werden. Denn es belegt mit der Zeit die Elektroden und mindert so die Leistungsfähigkeit der Stromzelle. Ausgehend von den guten Ergebnisse ihrer Nickel-Zinn-Legierung hoffen Dumesic und Kollegen nun, dass sie auch für diesen CO-Säuberungsprozess einen ähnlich effektiven und günstigen Katalysatior entwickeln können. Damit reduzierten sie einen wesentlichen Kostenfaktor für die Gewinnung von Wasserstoff aus Biomasse und könnten so einen wichtigen Beitrag für die Wirtschaftlichtkeit dieser klimaneutralen Energiequelle der Zukunft liefern.

Jan Oliver Löfken

Weitere Meldungen zum Thema - Wasserstoff -
finden Sie im Archiv von wissenschaft.de

[hossinger]

Der Schlüssel dürfte wirklich die effektive Bereitstellung von Energie zur Gewinnung von Wasserstoff sein. Es bieten sich zahlreiche Staaten an, welche Energie im Überfluss zur Verfügung haben, diese jedoch nicht speichern oder verkaufen können!

Bsp.: Island

Island gewinnt nahezu 100 % des Bedarfs an Strom und Fernwärme aus Geothermischen Anlagen. Die naturgegebenen und unversiegbaren Ressourcen werden jedoch, bei derzeitigem Stand der Technik, nur zu 3 % genutzt! Strom kann man halt nicht in einen Tank füllen und verkaufen!
Die Preise zur Stromgewinnung aus G-Anlagen sind unerreicht billig und 100% umweltneutral! Die weiteren ungenutzten Ressourcen an Wasser- und Windkraft auf der "windigen" Insel, könnten aus Island den zukünftigen Anbieter von billig produziertem Wasserstoff machen.

[Joerver]

Wer suchet, der findet. Also 2,1 Mia € hat die EU locker gemacht gegen 1,2 Mia $ von Herrn Bush.

The hoopla began at the end of last year, when the European Commission unveiled a grand, euro2.1 billion ($2 billion) “hydrogen vision”. Romano Prodi, the commission`s president, even declared that he wanted to be remembered for only two things: the European Union`s eastward expansion, and hydrogen energy. Now, George Bush, America`s president, has produced his own $1.2 billion hydrogen plan (he even examined a hydrogen-powered car, and made sure he was photographed doing so). In speeches directed at the car industry in Detroit and, on February 10th, at the oil industry in Houston, Mr Bush and his team have been making the claim that the rise of the fuel cell will consign the internal-combustion engine to the dustbin of history. And if that were not enough, Democratic rivals in Congress—trying to keep up—have just unveiled their own hydrogen initiative.

[Joerver]

November 12, 2003
Will Hydrogen Clear the Air? Maybe Not, Say Some
By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 - Widespread hydrogen use has been enthusiastically embraced by major corporations and environmentalists alike as a panacea for global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels, and is a particular favorite of the Bush administration. But skeptics, and even some hydrogen advocates, say that use of hydrogen could instead make the air dirtier and the globe warmer.

Next week, the Bush administration is convening a meeting of the energy ministers of 15 countries to Washington for a four-day meeting with the theme of an "International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy." President Bush himself pledged in the State of the Union address in January that "the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free."

Use of hydrogen fuel cells could certainly help eliminate tailpipe pollution and dependence on foreign oil. But hydrogen is only a way to store energy. Where the energy comes from in the first place is where the problems start.

The most ambitious use of hydrogen is in a car powered by a fuel cell - a batterylike device that turns hydrogen into electricity while emitting only heat and water vapor.

Hydrogen can also be burned directly in engines much like those that run on gasoline, but the Energy Department goal is fuel cells because they get twice as much work out of a pound of hydrogen.

Intense research is now going on at major companies and universities in North America on the development of a practical fuel cell. Success could have a profound effect on the 200 million motor vehicles in use in the United States, making the streets cleaner and quieter, with hydrogen-powered electric motors. The transition to hydrogen could also wean the country away from gasoline and diesel fuel.

The main source for hydrogen today is natural gas, which is in short supply, is cumbersome to convert, and may have better uses. Waiting in the wings is coal, burned in old power plants around the country that are already the focus of a national dispute over their emissions. Coal is cheap and abundant, and produced by major companies that are eager to continue mining and using it. But it is a leading source of carbon dioxide, an important global warming gas, and pollutants that cause more immediate problems, like smog and acid rain.

"Even though fuel cells are great devices, you can still do unwise things with them," Patrick B. Davis, a team leader in the Energy Department`s fuel cell program, told a recent meeting of experts at the University of South Carolina examining the engineering challenges.

The long-term hope is to make hydrogen from emission-free "renewable" technologies, like windmills or solar cells. In fact, hydrogen may be an essential step to translate the energy of wind or sunlight into power to turn a car`s wheels, experts say. But electricity from renewable technologies is so costly that even companies based on these technologies see problems.

At Sharp Solar, which says it is the world`s largest manufacturer of solar cells, Ronald Kenedi, the general manager, said that it was entirely possible that the energy source to produce hydrogen for vehicles would initially turn out to be coal, rather than the sun or wind. "That is the danger," he said in a telephone interview. "It seems like hydrogen is the buzz word right now, with the president talking about it, and maybe putting some money towards it," he said. "But the first stop on the hydrogen trail will be coal."

For now the government is mostly glossing over the problem. A strategy document published by the Energy Department in November, 2002, the "National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap," suggests marketing the idea of hydrogen to the public as the "freedom fuel." Another suggested theme was "Hydrogen is everywhere - it`s right in our backyard."

"Hydrogen," the department said, "is the `man on the moon` equivalent for this generation." In fact, the latter analogy might prove apt, with hydrogen fuel cells resembling the Apollo rockets, as an impressive technology that was made workable and repeatedly demonstrated, but not capable of making major inroads into general use.

For now, fuel cells are about 100 times as expensive, per unit of power, as internal combustion engines.

A likely source of hydrogen is from a machine called an electrolyzer, which is like a fuel cell in reverse. The difference is that a fuel cell combines oxygen from the air with hydrogen to produce an electric current, and water as a byproduct; an electrolyzer runs an electric current through water, to split the water molecule into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

The problem is that if the electricity came off the power grid to run an electrolyzer for the production of hydrogen, about half of it, on average, would be generated by burning coal.

From an entrepreneur`s point of view, coal has a tremendous advantage. At Proton Energy, a Connecticut company that builds the electrolyzing machines that use current to produce hydrogen, Walter Schroeder, president and chief executive, laid out the problem in terms of dollars per million B.T.U.`s, a standard quantity of heat in the fuel business.

At $20 a ton, he pointed out, a million B.T.U.`s of heat from coal costs roughly 82 cents. At $1.75 a gallon for unleaded regular gasoline, the price per million B.T.U.`s is $15.40. To use coal to run cars, the coal has to be converted into electricity, then into hydrogen, then back into electricity in the car, all of which costs money. But Mr. Schroeder is betting that his system can do that for a lot less than the difference between $15.40 and 82 cents.

The president`s proposal contained an implicit recognition that a big part of the fuel cell question is the fuel, not the conversion device. He called for spending $1.7 billion over five years, with $1.2 billion of that on hydrogen, including production, delivery and storage.

Another problem is carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. According to the Energy Department, an ordinary gasoline-powered car emits 374 grams of carbon dioxide per mile it is driven, counting the energy used to make the gasoline and deliver it to the service station, and the emissions of the vehicle itself. The same car powered by a fuel cell would emit nothing, but if the energy required to make the hydrogen came from the electric grid, the emissions would be 436 grams per mile, 17 percent worse than the figure for gasoline.

The car would emit no nitrogen oxides, a precursor of smog, but the power plant would; exactly how much is now the subject of a national debate.

Hydrogen is commonly manufactured today at refineries and chemical plants, by mixing natural gas and steam. Natural gas is made of hydrogen and carbon atoms; steam is made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The reaction, called steam reforming, produces hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

According to the energy department, if fuel cells in cars used hydrogen from steam reforming of natural gas, cars would emit 145 grams of global warming gases per mile. That is a drastic improvement over the 436 grams emitted by the production of hydrogen using grid electricity, and a major improvement over gasoline`s 374 grams, but experts say it may not be a particularly good use of natural gas.

One reason is that if the engineers had simply replaced the gasoline with the natural gas, skipping the hydrogen fuel cell step in between, the total carbon dioxide emissions per mile would fall to 310 grams, according to the Energy Department. No new technology is required for that step; buses burning natural gas in internal combustion engines are common today.

And there is a second option that involves hardly any new technology, hybridization. In a hybrid, a fossil-fueled internal combustion engine can turn the wheels or a generator that is used to charge batteries, and the batteries run an electric motor to drive the wheels. The Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight use that system. Hybridization improves the fuel economy of the Honda Civic by 43 percent, according to the company. So replacing a gasoline car with a hybrid electric fueled by natural gas would cut the grams of global warming gases to about 177 a mile.

That still leaves the fuel cell that runs on hydrogen from natural gas with an advantage over the typical hybrid of about a fifth, or a further reduction of about 32 grams of global warming gases per mile. But the fuel cell bus is many times more expensive than an ordinary or hybrid bus, and the fuel costs several times as much as diesel. And the natural gas hybrid solution is available almost immediately; it would be many years before fuel cell buses made a substantial debut.

Reuel Shinnar, a professor of chemical engineering at City College of New York, reviewing the options for power production and fuel production, concluded in a recent paper, "A hydrogen economy is at least twice as expensive as any other solution."

Supporters of fuel cell cars say that hydrogen can be made from almost anything, including hydropower, new nuclear reactors, and technologies barely dreamed of, like microbes that will produce hydrogen from waste materials, and that this justifies the research even if early batches of hydrogen come from coal.

"The mantra is, we don`t choose now," said William Craven, manager, regulatory and technical affairs at the DaimlerChrysler Corporation. When it comes to hydrogen production he said, the trick at this stage is to "keep the portfolio open."

But some parts of the portfolio are more environmentally beneficial than others. Dan W. Reicher, a former assistant secretary of energy for conservation and renewables, who now manages a fund that invests in companies that produce energy from renewable sources, put it this way: "Not all hydrogen is created equal."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company