h a l f b a k e r yWarm and Fussy
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This is an adaption of the Solar/
Hydrogen Airship idea linked below.
One of the problems of developing
the hydrogen economy is the
difficulty and expense of safely
storing large quantities of
pressurised hydrogen.
So the idea is to simply use a
tethered airship as your storage tank.
H2
production takes place on the
ground by the method of your
choice. The H2 then floats of its own
volition up a long tube to the
storage tank in the sky. When
required, it is pumped back down the
tube to be used in fuel cells,
pressurised to fill cars, or burnt
in motors, as desired.
The balloon and the transport tubes
should be dual-walled, with the outer
layer filled with helium. This
provides a non-flammable buffer
between the hydrogen and the
outside air.
If this fails, and the balloon should
somehow ignite anyway, at least it
will be a low-pressure burn rather
than an explosion, and safely away
from people and property, with most
of the heat dissipating up into the
sky.
As a secondary benefit, the blimp
could provide a platform to support
wind turbines, telescopes, microwave
repeater stations, and a refuelling
stop for passing non-tethered
blimps.
Feel free to shoot holes in this idea
now. But not the blimp itself :-)
Solar/H2 Blimp
http://www.halfbake...20H2_2fHe_20Airship
Previously, on HB Blues.. [BunsenHoneydew, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Hydrogen Didn’t Cause Hindenburg Fire
http://www.seas.ucl.../releases/blimp.htm
...UCLA Engineer, Former NASA Researcher Find [Detly, Oct 04 2004, last modified Mar 12 2005]
[link]
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Isn't the real problem to solve cheap, on-demand extraction from either water or gasoline or ethanol, i.e. existing stored forms? |
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[UnaBubba} All good points. I
suppose "blimp" is a bit of an
exaggeration - it'd really just have
to be a sac. No need for structural
rigidity, as it doesnt have to steer
itself anywhere. |
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[tc] Yep, I guess that's also the
problem. Fuel cells are pretty
efficient and reliable, but
expensive to make. Coming down
in price though. Biological
cracking looks promising. |
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As a general principle, each form
of energy should be used where it
is most efficient, with as few
transformations as possible.
Transformations become
economic when you have a surplus
of one form and another form is
storeable for later use. I don't
think of H2 as some kind of
magical panacea for all our energy
needs, but it'll have its place. |
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Personally I think flywheels are
under-rated as a storage device. |
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I don't think you can really
consider water an existing energy
store. It's the H2 which stores the
energy you feed into the water to
crack it. There's not much
potential energy in the water to
start with, unlike ethanol and
other hydrocarbons. Sorry, just
nitpicking now. |
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//there's not much potential energy in water// |
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unless you consider a dam |
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Fishbones for creating a leaking storage container. What [UnaBubba] said... Hydrogen molecules will just come through the bag. |
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There is already work being done store hydrogen gas in carbon fiber sponges similar to storing acetylene gas in asbestos sponges with acetone. It's much safer, and you can store large volumes of gas at a relatively low pressure. |
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You stole my rebuttal Hrothgar! |
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Being a low pressure storage system means it would take hundreds of blimps to hold the same amount as a single large storage tank. |
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Humanbean, what you say about the potential burning rate does not agree with newsreels of the Hindenberg burning. |
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<off topic> We had a technician (Big John) who amongst other things was responsible for recharging banks of lead-acid batteries in the lab once a week. I guess he watched too many Clint Eastwood westerns, because he was constantly chewing on a cheroot. Anyway one time he must have leaned too close to these batteries while they were being recharged, and lost most of his facial hair (including a rather fine mustache) in the resultant explosion. He ended up having to retire a couple of years early after removing four of his fingers in an unrelated benchsaw incident. /<off topic> |
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Slow burning of the canopy eh? Hmmmm, maybe something in that but if the hydrogen had exploded as suggested surely all the canopy would have been blown off in an instant? |
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See link for info on Hindenberg. |
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Interesting conflicts, the link blames the highly inflamable envelope dope and states hydrogen burns with a colourless flame yet the photograph with it shows about 50% of the envelope still intact while a hughe fireball rises above the stern of the airship. |
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I can only conclude that the picture is a fake, in fact as I have never actually met anyone who saw the incident I can only conclude that the entire incident was staged in a Hollywood studio to galvanise public opinion against Nazi Germany and to protect the fledging Boeing airliner industry against the superior technology of the teutonic lighter than air craft. |
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[humanbean] When you captured the gas from a recharging lead acid battery there was more than just hydrogen in your trash bag. There was a near perfect 2-1 ratio hydrogen and oxygen. That's why you got such a nice bang out of it. |
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[KiwiJohn] Here's a thought that occured to me. Isn't a lot of film slightly sensitive to inrared light? What if to the human eye the fireball was invisible, but it showed up in the pictures? Just a random thought. I have no knowlege about the type of film used back then (or now for that matter). |
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Added after reading Detly's link: well, I guess the eyewitness acounts eliminate the need for this explanation... |
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I like this idea because it would be cheap and effective as long as you could put up with windstorms. (+) |
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i have read a well researched work of fiction about the hindenberg it seems that hydrogen was used because the US government refused to allow Helium to be traded. |
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I've seen video of H2 fueled cars on fire. What usually happens is that the heat raises the gas pressure until the safety valve pops - then the H2 comes out the valve and makes a pretty torch for all of 7-8 seconds. After that, there's nothing left to burn except the car's structure. Think about that next time you see a gasoline fueled car burn to nothing on the side of the road... or next time you watch CHiPs. |
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Probably better off having these blimps underwater instead of in the sky, more pressure, less space, less risk of explosion. |
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I like the idea...but for another reason. You just made your storage tank portable. It can be moved to whereever the demand is as needed. Perhaps you don't need shipping. The "tank" is self shipping. |
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