enki09’s Recent Comments

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  Pickens appoints republicans

  I see that T. Boone Pickens has added a bunch of republican ops as "colonels" in his online action army. I thought his effort was non-partisan. I am embarrassed...

  MJOn An interview with Bob Barr about his presidential platform on energy and the environment posted 1 year, 2 months ago 3 Responses

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  Break The Energy Monopoly

  If you oppose the negative aspects of corporate globalization then buying locally makes sense. Produce and meat that are locally produced is an easy start. But what about energy? If....if...we would consider Pickens' idea of switiching our vehicles to natural gas that would be a start. See, a vehicle that can run on natural gas can run on methane so farmers could run their machinery off methane produced by their own livestock.

  You can produce synthetic CH4 (methane/natural gas) from any carbon source and water. So agricultural waste, coal, etc could be used to produce local fuel.

  If you include a steam reformer/partial oxidation reactor with the CH4 fuel you cut both the CH4 requirements and CO2 emissions by 30% and are running the vehicle on hydrogen.

  This is possible NOW not in 10 or 20 years!

  http://www.myspace.com/enki09

  On The beginnings of a continentalized global economy posted 1 year, 3 months ago 121 Responses

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  Maintaining The Status Quo

  Big Nuclear is more or less like Big Oil. A very few major players have a monopoly on energy now and because of this they are able to virtually circumvent normal capitalist circumstances in the marketplace. Prices are essentially fixed without competition determining price.

  That may be one of the biggest fears that the major players have with the advent of new fuel sources. Their monopoly will be broken by small producers who can produce fuels and energy locally.

  So they spend millions to convince people that they must support big oil/nuclear/coal. After all, the economy of the world is based on oil and having new fuels emerge which can challenge oil also challenges the entire world economy as it stands today.On McCain tours nuke plant, renews call for nuclear power expansion in U.S. posted 1 year, 3 months ago 19 Responses

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  It is all about hydrogen

  I understand what you are saying Sean but please remember that our current hydrocarbon fuel system is really a hydrogen system. It is the hydrogen which is attached to the carbon in fossil fuels that produces 80% of the energy when gasoline or natural gas or propane or any fossil fuel (other than coal) is burned.

  If we had a different way to produce hydrogen or a different way to remove hydrogen from carbon and save the carbon we would have a limitless, pollution free fuel supply. I think this is possible and have spent quite a bit of time working on improving the efficiency of methods to produce hydrogen from water. My point was that, with a different or better way of producing hydrogen the future gen system would be a ready made, large scale hydrogen energy plant. :)

  http://www.myspace.com/enki09

  On Three related stories about coal power posted 1 year, 8 months ago 16 Responses

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  future gen is not coal energy

  If you look at the diagram of the future gen power plant you will see that it is a large scale hydrogen plant. Hydrogen is combusted with oxygen to create superheated steam. This steam turns two turbines which produce electricity. The hydrogen comes from water. Diagram: http://www.futuregenalliance.org/technology.stm

  What is the coal for? The coal is used in the very old water shift reaction to release the hydrogen from water by combining the carbon in the coal with the oxygen in water.

  If you find another way to produce hydrogen from water as cheaply as by using coal then we would already have large scale hydrogen power plants in place...

  Interestingly, the energy produced by burning a pound of hydrogen with oxygen is around 62,000 btu's. The energy produced by burning the 5 pounds of coal needed to release a pound of hydrogen from water is only around 5500 btu's.

  A pound of hydrogen is about the amount in either a gallon of water or a gallon of gasoline.

  This process is also about as efficient as a steam plant can be because it eliminates the need for a boiler as with normal power plants. The product of the combustion of the fuel (hydrogen) is superheated steam which can be used directly to turn a turbine. I designed such a boiler in the mid 90's: http://www.geocities.com/mj_17870/Boiler1.htm
  Just fyi...

  http://www.myspace.com/enki09

  On Three related stories about coal power posted 1 year, 8 months ago 16 Responses