1 / 11

Sources of Hydrogen and the Development of a Hydrogen Economy

Sources of Hydrogen and the Development of a Hydrogen Economy. Matt Woodson ChE 384 9/29/05. Problems with the Fossil Fuel Economy. Rising costs, shrinking supplies Air/environmental pollution Greenhouse gases Dependence on foreign producers. Why Hydrogen?.

kmcelhannon
Download Presentation

Sources of Hydrogen and the Development of a Hydrogen Economy

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Sources of Hydrogen and the Development of a Hydrogen Economy Matt Woodson ChE 384 9/29/05

  2. Problems with the Fossil Fuel Economy • Rising costs, shrinking supplies • Air/environmental pollution • Greenhouse gases • Dependence on foreign producers

  3. Why Hydrogen? • A cleaner, more efficient transportation sector • A reduction in pollution and global warming • Reduce economic dependence on foreign producers of fossil fuels

  4. Sources of Hydrogen • Reforming of fossil fuels - Use a fuel processor to split the hydrogen from the carbon atoms in a hydrocarbon • Electrolysis of water - Use electricity to split water molecules to create pure hydrogen and oxygen

  5. Reforming Fossil Fuels • Steam reforming of methane: High temperature steam (700o–1100oC) reacts with methane yielding syngas CH4 + H2O  CO + 3H2 Additional H2 can be recovered from the CO through the lower temperature (about 130oC) water gas shift reaction CO + H2O  CO2 + H2

  6. Electrolysis • Currently much more expensive than reforming • High temperature electrolyzers might make these systems more cost efficient • To eliminate carbon emissions, hydrogen should be generated from a renewable source Solar - concentrated solar energy can generate temperatures of several hundred to over 2000oC Nuclear - High T electrolysis of steam using heat from nuclear reactors - Electrolysis using off-peak capacity

  7. Other Sources of Hydrogen • Solar Electrochemical Water Splitting (Photoelectrochemical) -Integrate a semiconducting material and an electrolyzer into a single device • Solar Biological using Microorganisms -Photosynthetic organisms absorb light and dissociate hydrogen from oxygen

  8. What will it cost? • Hydrogen must be $3/kg to be competitive • Reforming can produce hydrogen at $5/kg under best conditions (2003 technology) • Price of hydrogen from electrolysis is tied to cost of electricity • Hydrogen from electrolysis costs $5-6/kg undelivered (2004 technology)

  9. Governmental Policies Relating to Hydrogen • Hydrogen Fuel Initiative Announced in 2003, Bush pledged $1.2 billion over 5 years • DOE Hydrogen Program plans to spend $64 million on research projects in the next 3 years • Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements Grant

  10. Conclusions • Huge technical advances will be necessary for H2 to replace fossil fuels • A move towards a hydrogen economy requires the acceptance of the marketplace; cannot be driven by government policies alone • It will be several decades before the US has the capacity to produce enough H2 to impact the energy mix

More Related