MetaFilter posts tagged with Hydrogen

Cupcakes are mostly made of four elements

Deathalicious — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:54:53 -0800

There must be something about cupcakes and the periodic table of the elements. Not sure who did it first, but now it is ubiquitous. Then of course there is The Periodic Table of Cupcakes, which is a whole other matter. The periodic table as cupcake was mentioned previously, but the example given was hardly appetizing. A bit of googling suggests that SAACS (Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society) are behind a lot of this. Cupcakes can also teach you about DNA and RNA (crazy entertaining, have no idea how accurate). Note however, that a cupcake is not classified as a mineral. inspired by this photo via digg, but let's pretend I found it via FoodieFriday.

the future of fuel?

kliuless — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:42:22 -0800

Using photosynthesis to power hydrogen production
Researchers have found that if they insert platinum nanoclusters into the photosynthetic machinery of bacteria, one acre could produce an amount of hydrogen equivalent to 79 gallons of gas per day. of course, "there's still the challenge of delivery," but if you're worried about how we'll fuel the planet, "further modification of the basic approach may make the hydrogen economy look relatively practical."

Suspended Animation with Rotton Egg Gas!?!?

d4v1dr0b3r7s0n — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:15:00 -0800

Suspended Animation with Rotton Egg Gas!?!? - It may smell like rotten eggs, but it turns out H2S may be able to slow down the chain of chemical degradation that causes death in cells that are deprived of oxygen. Biologist Mark Roth can supposedly take a lab rat, stop its heart with a dose of hydrogen sulfide, and bring it back to life an hour later just by turning off the gas. Interesting...

Potholes on the road to a green future

Diablevert — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:49:32 -0800

Inspired by a recent Wall Street Journal* article, Robert Rapier, chemical engineer, peakist, blogger, and currently chief technology officer for a bioenergy company, reviews the pretenders, contenders, and niche players in the emerging field of green energy, with particular consideration of liquid fuels. Meanwhile, the boffins at Foreign Policy consider the risks of the coming of the green energy era, and depict the end of the oil age. (Both part of FP's extensive look at the end of oil; previously.) Being an engineer, Rapier discusses some hard numbers that give a sense of the dimensions of the challenge the industry faces. From his contenders article: “Consider for a moment the amount of energy locked up inside the 1.3 billion tons of dry biomass that the Department of Energy suggests can be sustainably produced each year. Woody biomass and crop residues - the kind of biomass covered in the 1.3 billion ton study - contains an energy content of approximately 7,000 BTUs per pound (bone dry basis). The energy content of a barrel of oil is approximately 5.8 million BTUs. Thus the raw energy contained in 1.3 billion tons of dry biomass is equivalent to the energy content of 3.1 billion barrels of oil, which is equal to 42% of the 7.32 billion barrels the United States consumed in 2008. This calculation tells you a couple of things. First, the 42% represents an upper limit on the amount of oil that could be displaced by 1.3 billion tons of biomass. The true number would be much lower because energy is required to get the biomass to the biorefinery and then to process it. So replacing oil with biomass isn't going to be a trivial task, and a process must be capable of turning a respectable percentage of those biomass BTUs into liquid fuel if it is to be a contender. *Paywall, if encountered, may be averted by searching article title on google and entering from there.

Hydrogen. It's the fuel of the future, and it always will be.

molecicco — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:27:48 -0800

Pics of the new Tesla S-Model have been leaked. With an anticipated price tag of 50K and a potential 45-minute recharge time, will this finally kick-start a true replacement to the internal combustion engine? And if so, where will the electricity come from? What future is there for the fuel-cell vehicle, or will fuel cells remain stationary? Is that really it for hydrogen? Do we even have enough lithium for everyone to drive cars like this?? Or will we have to switch to something more common, like zinc? Incidentally, we can recycle the used-up zinc (ie ZnO) using solar energy. OK OK - so the VRB system is technically a flow cell or flow battery, and not simply a fuel-cell, but really it's just an augmentation of the same technology (PEM) utilized in the hydrogen fuel cells that we thought, for a while, would be in our cars of the future. Previously, previously, previously, previously.

common reactor

plexi — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:40:12 -0800

Babies born in 1954 have more Carbon-14 in their DNA ; trees have rings with a spike of C14 in that year, and even ringless equatorial trees will show an increase of radiocarbon if they were alive in 1954.

In the mid 1950s the United States, Britain, France and Russia tested not quite a million nuclear weapons. Maybe some part of them is still with you.

What a Joker!

gman — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:40:47 -0800

Back in 1978, Jack Nicholson was ahead of his time.

Next up, the Perpetual Motion Machine

never used baby shoes — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:11:16 -0800

Last week, Genepax Co demonstrated a car that it says runs on water. Video of the demonstration is here. The claim is not without its detractors, and Genepax has not yet released any information about how the system works; most of their website (beyond press releases and general information) seems to be under construction

Zed's zero carbon, baby: hydrogen-cell motorbikes

nthdegx — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:58:29 -0800

If hydrogen-cell cars are no good, how about hydrogen-cell motorbikes!

If you squint your eyes it could pass for a private jet

MrMerlot — Sun, 11 May 2008 08:03:14 -0800

Is solar-powered flight getting any nearer? As noted previously on Metafilter, solar powered aviation has travelled a long way since the heady days of the Gossamer Penguin. But could it actually one day power commerical flight? Trouble is, a quick look at the prototypes reveals that most solar-powered planes remain a world away from passenger aviation. But that could be subject to change. Although we are not quite at the stage of the easyJet ecojet just yet, what might be just over the horizon is something like the Hy-Bird, a hybrid of hydrogen, solar-power and lithium-polymer batteries. The Hy-bird still looks like a bit like a prototype, but it is beginning to look more like a proper plane. If you squint your eyes, it could pass for a private jet. Lisa Airplanes, the Hy-bird's manufacturer, is planning to take the plane on a voyage that will circumnavigate the planet later this summer. According to Inhabitat, the Hy-bird gets just 10% of its power from solar, but that's still a significant contribution. Yes, we should all fly less if we want to reduce CO2. But the prospect of a truly green-powered aeroplane is enough to spark the imagination. Could we both save the planet and still be able to fly?

Cryogenic Venting

brownpau — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:42:32 -0800

Light Reflection: a brilliant fan of cryogenics venting from a relief valve on STS-122 Atlantis' ET (external tank) post-separation. Also see this handheld video of the ET, with money shots at 2:15 and 3:55. Atlantis just landed yesterday, completing the delivery and installation of Columbus. Next up, STS-123 Endeavour delivers Kibo.

Oh, the humanity!

ZenMasterThis — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:48:00 -0800

Solar cell directly splits water for hydrogen. Thomas E. Mallouk and W. Justin Youngblood, postdoctoral fellow in chemistry, together with collaborators at Arizona State University, developed a catalyst system that, combined with a dye, can mimic the electron transfer and water oxidation processes that occur in plants during photosynthesis. They reported the results of their experiments at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science today in Boston.

IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO BE SURE!

loquacious — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 04:14:04 -0800

All these worlds are yours, save Europa. Attempt no landings he...llo! What the hell is wrong with you!? Did you just nuke Jupiter?

His energy bill is $0

mr_crash_davis — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:59:54 -0800

Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. "The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days. Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates."

Is this the true ultimate driving machine?

wiggles — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 09:38:33 -0800

Is this BMW version what some were waiting for? I've heard about complaints on hybrid performance. BMW claims to be the best in performance. But did they miss the boat?

Stan Meyer and the Water Powered Car

banished — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 14:40:57 -0800

Stan Meyer invented a water powered car that estimates showed could travel from one US coast to the other on 22 gallons of water. He shows the in car in operation in this old news clip. So what ever happened to him? He died after eating at a restaurant on March 21, 1998. An autopsy report showed the cause of death to be poisoning.

Eleven miles of scrolling...

rsanheim — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 20:52:44 -0800

"A Hydrogen Atom is only about a ten millionth of a millimeter in diameter, but the proton in the middle is a hundred thousand times smaller, and the electron whizzing around the outside is a thousand times smaller than THAT. The rest of the atom is empty. I tried to picture it, and I couldn't. So I put together this page - and I still can't picture it." Awesome illustration on perspective and particles - *warning* very wide page, may be dangerous to your browser. Also, the relative size of planets (via the always interesting 37signals blog.)

So what happened?

Zinger — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:21:19 -0800

Hydrogen fuel has been discussed many times on MeFi, but I wasn't able to find a previous link to this video clip (Google Video warning) showing Jack Nicholson, circa 1978, showing off his hydrogen powered car. The accents of the broadcasters, in case you're wondering, are east coast Canadian, possibly Newfoundland.

Water Power

zardoz — Tue, 16 May 2006 19:17:15 -0800

Water Power (embedded video). Inventor creates a hydrogen-powered vehicle that can run completely on water, or rather HHO. This is perhaps nothing new (or is it?), but fasinating nonetheless. Warning: annoying local news reportage.

Energy-efficient urban commuting options

russilwvong — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 12:31:34 -0800

With gas prices rising, SUV sales (16-20 mpg city) have been declining. What are some alternatives for urban commuters? Prius (56 mpg) and other hybrid vehicles. SmartCar (50 mpg city; available in Canada, but not the US) and other microcars. Electric motor scooters and bicycles. Electric cars like the General Motors EV1 seem to be stalled, although people are working on a battery-powered SmartCar. What about hydrogen vehicles? In the medium term, MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment doesn't think they'll outperform hybrids (full report). A comparison of fuel-cell and battery electric vehicles gets into some of the details of how they work.

No flux capacitor needed

mr_crash_davis — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:49:51 -0800

Smaller than a DVD player - small enough to sit comfortably under the hood of any truck or car - it could be big enough to solve the world's greenhouse gas emission problems, at least for the near future. In fact, it could make the Kyoto protocol obsolete.

Around the world on 8 litres of fuel?

Fozzie — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:25:26 -0800

Around the world on 8 litres of fuel? I'd be more excited about this if the automotive industry hadn't been teasing us with cool, feature laden concept cars for years, and then actually producing boring combustion engine sedans.

...we could handle a shark easily...

mwhybark — Sun, 04 Jul 2004 20:59:35 -0800

Larry's U.S. Navy Airship Picture Book. No longer available in paper, but still with us in bits. Lawrence F. Rodrigues served in the Navy, in Airship Squadron 3, out of Lakehurst NAS, beginning in 1953. This website presents photos and memories of his service days. It's fascinating.

As a bonus, you may wish to read up on the Details of Modern Airship Construction, ca. 1927, or to return to Dannysoar's site to observe the plans for a twelve-foot model helium-lofted rubber-band powered flying stick-and-tissue dirigible (scroll down a bit).

Up Ship!

didn't someone end a post with those words this year? Google didn't raise hide nor hair of it for me...

feelinglistless — Thu, 17 Oct 2002 10:31:09 -0800

Hydrogen Cars. I had been expecting something akin to the Sinclair C5, but these are full production models within the Ford Focus range. The article predicts that although they'll initially appear in niche markets such as public transport, in a few years we'll all be able to drive about in them, creating a cleaner, happier world.

PinkStainlessTail — Tue, 24 Sep 2002 07:39:23 -0800

Michigan: Land of Alternative energy? "DTE Energy [Detroit Edison] said Monday it has a deal to build and test a hydrogen system capable of generating more than 15,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. The $3-million test project, funded by DTE and the U.S. Department of Energy, is to be operational in 2005. " Wayne State University is also jumping on the bandwagon. What, if anything, is your town doing (or claiming it will do)?