Hydrogen

By Don Bongaards

Hello -- my name is Don Bongaards and I am a retired engineer. This book is a sequel to my first book entitled A Sense of Urgency which described how the United States could free itself from its dependence upon imported oil and achieves economic growth and prosperity by phasing in hydrogen fuel as a substitute for gasoline. I have written this sequel to introduce some new ideas that can make the transition to hydrogen fuel more cost effective and practical -- like beginning the hydrogen phase in process using reformed natural gas while in the short run drilling for as much domestic oil and natural gas as possible. In the long run a thermo-chemical process can take over in 20 to 40 years to make hydrogen from water economically viable. At today's natural gas prices, reformed hydrogen could be sold at the gas station pump for about three dollars per equivalent gasoline gallon. Not bad when you consider that the currently available Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell car can achieve more than 60 miles per gallon.

Another reason for writing this sequel is to emphasize the point that global oil consumption has become a clear and present danger. We are acting like the proverbial frog that is sitting in a pot of warm water that is quickly coming to a boil. The exponentially increasing worldwide demand for oil is becoming more of a problem than is commonly thought. In spite of what you might have been told about hundreds of years supply of oil and other fossil fuels, the truth is -- it just ain't so. Countries like China and India are beginning to consume oil at an increasingly faster rate. The world currently consumes about 33 billion barrels of oil per year and the known reserves are less than 1,000 billion barrels. The problem is that the 33 billion barrels per year consumption rate is increasing at about 2 percent each year. If you do the arithmetic, the world will consume about 110 billion barrels of oil per year by the year 2070 -- less than 60 years from now. However, during this time we will have had a total consumption of about 3,500 billion barrels. Do you think that we will discover enough oil and oil sands to fill this demand? Do you think that we can convert enough coal into synthetic fuel? Do you think that we will have enough natural gas to substitute for gasoline? Do you think that oil shale will come to the rescue? How about electric cars that use wind and solar energy? Think again -- it isn't going to happen -- and I will explain why in this book. And -- by the way -- don't assume that the United States will fuel itself while the rest of the world runs out of fuel.

Since the United States spends almost 700 billion dollars each year to purchase oil from other countries doesn't it make sense that this money would be better spent in the United States. How about forming a hydrogen fuel consortium comprised of 50 million social security investors and potentially save this vital program from extinction. While this might not be the only way to get the job done I am proposing it in this book as food for thought.

From what I have just described with regard to current oil consumption demand, don't surprised if gasoline prices don`t skyrocket in the not too distant future -- how about ten or more dollars per gallon! Let's begin building a hydrogen fuel infrastructure now to protect our children and grandchildren from an impending disaster!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479733163

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Don Bongaards.

Library of Congress Control Number:                 2012919297

ISBN:                 Hardcover                       978-1-4797-3315-6

                         Softcover                         978-1-4797-3314-9

                           Ebook                             978-1-4797-3316-3

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Oil Problem

Chapter 2 Wrestling for Deck chairs

Chapter 3 A Money-Making Machine

Chapter 4 The Energy Independence Act

Chapter 5 A Brief Overview

Chapter 6 The Big Picture

Chapter 7 Energy Alternatives

Chapter 8 About Hydrogen

Chapter 9 About Water

Chapter 10 About Zeppelins

Chapter 11 Renewable Energy Solutions

Chapter 12 The Jet-stream

Chapter 13 The Thermo-chemical Process

Chapter 14 The Ninth Wonder

Chapter 15 Energy Pathways

Chapter 16 Plan A

Chapter 17 Plan B

Chapter 18 The Consortium

Chapter 19 Enriching the Impoverished

Chapter 20 The Vertical Farm

Chapter 21 Naysayers

Chapter 22 Prophets of Doom

Chapter 23 The Future and Beyond

Chapter 24 Final Comments

Appendix The Rest of the Story

My Background

References

Dedication

This book provides ideas that I believe will make a better world for my grandsons Britt, Stewart, Johnathan, and Evan.

Introduction

Some people who read my book entitled A Sense of Urgency thought that my intent was to help prevent man-made global warming. That assumption could not be farther from the truth. My real intent was to show how the United States could free itself from its dependence upon imported oil and achieve economic growth and prosperity. However, while doing research for the book, it became evident to me that worldwide exponentially increasing consumption of oil was a clear and present danger that needed to be addressed now. The oil consumption projections are staggering and will not be mitigated by conservation and increasing resource projections.

While oil consumption in the United States has generally stabilized, China, India, and other emerging nations are increasing their oil consumption by more than 6 percent each year. While this is happening, the rate of oil discovery is declining, and Middle East oil reservoirs are nearing a peak rate of production. Since the United States currently imports about 50 percent of its oil from other countries, the increased rate of global consumption cannot continue without significant consequence. Even if the United States could drill its way out of the problem by finding undiscovered technically recoverable oil, the global problem will still exist, and it is dangerous.

My recommendation is to drill for as much domestic oil and natural gas as fast as possible to help free the United States from its dependency on oil imports but, at the same time, phase in hydrogen as the transportation fuel of the future. Even with a slow and steady forty-year phase in program, hydrogen could eliminate the Middle East portion of our oil imports in ten years.

This sequel updates some aspects of A Sense of Urgency and provides some innovative ideas for generating low-cost renewable energy. But aside from its continued warning about global oil demand, it provides a practical method of establishing a hydrogen fuel infrastructure that will lower costs at the gas station pump. Since I have made a hobby of predicting the future, the last few chapters of the book delve into some forecasts that you might find interesting and informative, especially with regard to energy and resources needed to sustain our increasing world population.

The book explains why both new oil discovery and implementation of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure will complement each other and get the United States out of its dependence on oil imports in the shortest time possible. Since the United States currently spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year to purchase oil from other countries, it makes sense to me that this money would be better spent in the United States. Better yet, how about using that money to prop up the Social Security program?

Because I have become concerned about the viability of the Social Security program, I am proposing a hydrogen fuel consortium, comprised of Social Security investors that can build the hydrogen infrastructure and potentially save the program from extinction. While this may not be the only way to get the job done, I believe that it should give us food for thought.

The money the United States is spending for imported oil is the greatest transfer of wealth in modern history, and our Social Security program is broken. Let’s fix both problems by increasing our oil production and gradually converting to hydrogen fuel!

I’m not going to keep you in suspense any longer about how this can be done; here is what I propose:

1. Instead of importing oil and transferring an enormous amount of wealth to other countries, I propose that Social Security contributors eventually become equivalent to the global oil suppliers. In this case, substitute the word oil for hydrogen.

2. Since the US oil companies are currently paying other countries for oil, I would have them buy liquefied hydrogen at a wholesale price of $3 per equivalent gasoline gallon of hydrogen from a privately owned consortium that is funded by 50 million Social Security investors between the ages of twenty-five and fifty.

3. My walk-before-you-run program—Plan A—provides for 15 percent of US vehicles to run on hydrogen fuel by the end of the tenth year, and 100 percent by the end of the fortieth year.

4. With about 50 million Social Security investors, a significant amount of money could be made available to start and build the hydrogen infrastructure described in this book. As you will see, this amounts to about $3,000 per investor over a ten-year time frame.

5. When the Social Security investors reach the age of sixty-five, they will be assured of the traditional Social Security benefit and in addition, receive a lump-sum bonus ranging from $12 thousand to $50 thousand—inflation adjusted—depending upon the number of years of participation.

6. Because of the sustained nature of the program, as new Social Security contributors reach the age of twenty-five, they will have the option of joining the consortium and also receive the $50 thousand bonus at age sixty-five.

7. Low-interest loans can be made available to low-income earners. Failure to pay the loan back will result in forfeiting all or part of the bonus.

8. The money left over after bonuses are paid will be used to prop up the Social Security program. If the program becomes more aggressive and excess hydrogen is exported to other countries—Plan B—more than 50 percent of the Social Security program could be funded—my estimates assume that Social Security recipients will be increased from today’s 58 million to 80 million forty years from now.

9. All estimates in this book will be expressed in today’s dollars and do not include yearly compound interest or an adjustment for inflation.

This is a long-term program, but so is the Social Security program, thus a logical match. Since the Social Security investors represent a large segment of the US population, they would have the ability to make the program a success. Moreover, since they would be both the suppliers and the consumers of hydrogen fuel, they would have an incentive to accelerate the introduction of hydrogen vehicles, improve hydrogen production efficiencies, and insure the lowest possible selling price at the pump.

Needless to say, the hydrogen program will eventually free the United States from its dependence on oil as a transportation fuel, but a short-run aggressive program of finding more domestic oil is needed now to avert an availability crisis because of our dependence on the global oil supply. As newly discovered oil is phased out in the United States by its hydrogen substitute, the remaining oil will be used for other purposes, such as pharmaceuticals, plastics, lubricants, and asphalt. It can also be exported to meet the global demand. In fact, the use of hydrogen will help to extend the available oil that we do have so that substitute materials can be invented.

While it makes sense to me to have Social Security investors fund this program, it could also be done by private investors or the government. If done by private investors, it would need the government’s commitment and support. Although this might be possible, it would end up being the biggest private enterprise in history, and in my opinion, it could become a monopoly that could wield too much power over the government and the price of fuel. Conversely, if it was a government program, there would be too many politicians, special interest groups, and inefficient bureaucracies muddying the water. At least with the Social Security owners being millions of everyday working people who have an interest in both their retirement income and the price of fuel for their vehicles, the chance of price gouging is much less likely. While they would in fact become a very powerful and influential force, they would have a limited scope of interest.

In closing this introduction, perhaps you think that the public is not ready for hydrogen. Well, how receptive do you think they will be when gasoline prices reach $5 or more per gallon because the world’s oil supply has peaked or there is a terrorist attack on a Middle East oil field? When the public finds out that there is a low-cost alternative to gasoline, I believe that there will be a political mandate to correct the problem as soon as possible. Moreover, if the public discovers that converting to hydrogen fuel could also help save the Social Security program—as I will describe in this book—I believe that they could become outraged at the lack of action by our government.

Chapter 1

The Oil Problem

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I am constantly amazed by comments made by politicians and the media with regard to how we have hundreds of years of fossil fuels to keep our current lifestyles going. If by some miracle we do continue to find enough to last hundreds of years—all well and good, but it doesn’t make much sense to base our energy policies upon miracles.

Barring a miracle, we will eventually run out of fossil fuels, and we need to prepare for this ominous eventuality. If the world continues on its current 2 percent annual energy consumption increase path, my estimate is that we could run out of all currently known fossil fuels by the year 2073. If additional undiscovered technically recoverable fossil fuels do become a reality, it won’t save us, and here’s why.

If you are not convinced that a 2 percent annual fossil fuel consumption rate is a serious problem, I invite you to do your own arithmetic. Using an Excel spreadsheet, begin with today’s world oil consumption rate of 33 billion barrels per year and multiply this number by 1.02 to represent a 2 percent increase for the next year. Now keep doing this for a total of sixty years. When you add the column of numbers, you will get 3.76 trillion barrels of oil consumed over the sixty-year time frame. The next thing you will notice is that the number of barrels of oil being consumed in the sixtieth year is 106 billion. To understand what these numbers mean, the total known worldwide crude oil reserves is less than 1.0 trillion barrels.

To further explain what I mean, there are almost 7 billion people on planet earth today and projections are that there will be 9.2 billion people by the year 2050. If all the people in the year 2050 consumed oil at the rate currently used by the United States, oil usage alone would increase from today’s 33 billion barrels per year to about 1,875 billion barrels per year. This is enough to deplete the amount of oil contained in Saudi’s supergiant oil reservoir in about 1.7 months. Fortunately, if the 2 percent growth rate holds, the world will consume only about 70 billion barrels per year by 2050.

If you are still not convinced about what I am saying, consider this quote from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA): at the current rate of growth, world oil consumption will rise 50 percent in the next twenty years.

If you’re thinking that the above analysis applies only to the rest of the world, and not to the United States, it would be irrational to assume that the United States will fuel itself, while the rest of the world runs out. If it does, the rest of the world will have switched to using hydrogen as the only alternative, and the United States will be behind the learning curve!

In my opinion, the rate at which we are depleting the world’s known crude oil reserves is a clear and present danger to the United States and the world. Although the United States can claim to have lots of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and that fuel can be made or extracted from our vast deposits of coal and shale, keep in mind that the world will consume about 3.76 trillion barrels over the next sixty years. How about having the United States begin a forty-year phase in of hydrogen right now and saving the world from some potentially dire consequences!

Currently, the world consumes about 91 million barrels of oil each day, of which 21 million barrels are consumed by the United States. Of the 21 million barrels consumed by the United States, about 5.25 million barrels per day come from the Middle East. At more than $100 per barrel (up from about $42 per barrel at the beginning of 2005), this amounts to about $192 billion per year. (Note: The price of oil might now be higher or lower than $100 per barrel, but for simplicity, I will assume $100 per barrel.) If nothing is done about this ominous situation, the Middle East portion of our oil purchases could grow from its present 25 percent to more than 30 percent by the year 2025. Couple this with the concern that many in the United States believe that a terrorist attack on a large Saudi oil field could cut world production by 10 percent and quickly send oil prices soaring.

Most importantly, worldwide consumption of oil has been increasing very rapidly. From 1999 to 2003, the world oil consumption increased 5 percent. From 2003 through 2005, it increased 6 percent. This exponential increase was, and is, due primarily to a fast-growing middle class in China, India, and other developing nations. To further exacerbate the situation, we are currently finding only one barrel of oil for every four barrels of oil being consumed, and existing oil wells are starting to dry up. For instance, the Alaska pipeline production—traditionally at 1 million barrels of oil per day—is now declining because the oil reservoir in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay has peaked . What this means is that we are approaching a point in time where world oil production will peak. In other words, the world’s oil reservoirs will reach a point where their total rate of production cannot increase. It also means that the production rate will decrease with time. However, it does not mean that the oil wells have run dry; instead, they just cannot produce oil at a faster rate.

It is a well-established fact that output of individual oil reservoirs (wells) rises after discovery, reach a peak, and decline thereafter. Oil reservoirs have lifetimes typically measured in decades, and peak production occurs roughly about a decade or so after discovery. Peaking, for an individual reservoir, is its maximum oil production rate, and typically occurs after roughly half of the recoverable oil in the reservoir has been produced. The lower forty-eight states were one of the richest, most geologically varied and most oil productive areas in the world up until 1970. When oil prices tripled in 1973 to 1974, and by another factor of two in 1979 to 1980, oil exploration was increased on a large scale. This exploration included three-dimensional seismic analysis, economic horizontal drilling, and dramatically improved geological understanding. Nevertheless, oil production trended downward. In light of this experience, there is good reason to believe that an analogous situation will exist worldwide, after oil production peaks.

Oil reserves have been in a decline relative to consumption since 1985. This is coupled with the fact that new supergiant oil reservoirs, mainly in the Middle East, that are the easiest to find, the most economical to develop, and the longest lived have not been found since 1967 and 1968. Since then, smaller reservoirs of varying sizes have been discovered in what are called oil prone locations. What this indicates is that the world peak oil production rate is probably not too far into the future. Listed in the outdated table below were projections from credible analysts on the subject of peaking of world oil production:

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From this table, it appears that most of the experts have been wrong so far, but it doesn’t mean that peak oil is not going to happen, and happen soon.

The extensive exploration and drilling for oil and gas has provided a massive worldwide database, and current geological knowledge is much more extensive than in past years. In addition, various seismic and other exploration technologies have advanced dramatically in recent years.

The fact is nobody knows how much oil supply we have left. But what we do know is that when an oil well runs dry, it happens very rapidly. And, if a supergiant oil well runs dry, the short-term consequences could be devastating to gasoline prices.

The table below shows how much known oil reserves exist in the world, who has it, and who uses it:

Oil reserves (millions of barrels as of January 1, 2002): Top 20 countries

Oil consumption (thousands of barrels per day): Top 20 countries

Oil production (thousands of barrels per day): Top 20 countries

Re: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/oil reserve

Although the above numbers are old, the known world reserves have been depleted by usage over this time period. If we assume that the numbers are correct for the year 2001, the world oil reserves were 1,032,132 million barrels, and the world consumption rate was 76 million barrels per day but increasing at a rate of 2 percent per year. If that rate were to continue, we will run out of known oil reserves by the year 2037.

Some readers might be saying the year 2037 is a long time from now and I’m not going to worry about it. Besides, didn’t the Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently state that the United States has about 163 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil? Yes—but as stated in the introduction of this book undiscovered and actually known are quite different. It’s not like finding a supergiant oil reservoir. However, even if the 163 billion barrels of oil comes to fruition in a timely and cost-effective manner, it will only constitute an increase of about 16 percent in the global oil supply. And since the world will be consuming about 53 billion barrels of oil per year by the year 2037—it won’t last very long. One could argue that this oil will only be used by the United States, and the rest of the world can try something else. What if they try hydrogen?

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To mitigate the ominous oil crisis, the United States and other countries around the world are increasingly turning to conservation, energy efficiency, ethanol, oil sands, and synthetic fuel from coal, natural gas, and oil shale. As you will see, these mitigating methods do not solve the problem.

Conservation and Energy Efficiency

Conservation and energy efficiency—like motherhood and apple pie—can certainly help stave off the ominous fuel shortage threat, but the world population is rapidly increasing and becoming more industrialized. In my opinion, this mitigating method will only help to keep the global exponential rate of transportation fuel increase at only 2 percent and only delays the inevitable.

Ethanol

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The subject of ethanol, or biofuel, is very complex and is generally misunderstood because the processes used in its formation vary significantly. Probably, the best and most promising method for producing ethanol is shown below:

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The main reason why switch grass may be the best method is that it is a deep-rooted perennial prairie grass that can have multiple crops during a year and can be grown on marginal land with relatively small amounts of water and fertilizer.

With regard to switch grass and other fast-growing plants, researchers are currently trying to find better, more efficient ways of breaking down the cellulosic material into sugars that can be fermented. The sugar extraction is accomplished by loosening the bond between the cellulose or hemicellulose and lignin. One possibility is to produce genetically modified microbes and enzymes—from the guts of termites—nature’s own cellulosic energy factories. At present, an input to output energy ratio of four is feasible but expensive.

The current—most widely used—method of producing ethanol is to convert food crops, like corn, sugar beets, soy beans, and sugar cane since these crops do not require exotic methods to extract their sugar content. From an energy balance standpoint, corn is the worst at about 1 unit of energy input to about 1.3 units of energy output. Sugarcane, on the other hand, can have an output to input ratio of about eight to one.

Because sugarcane is such an effective ethanol producer, Brazil, with its warm and moist climate, is producing an ever increasing amount of sugarcane ethanol. In fact, it plans to double its cane acreage over the next decade. Thus, contributing to deforestation and displacing existing agricultural areas. As a result, cattlemen are being driven deeper into frontier territory like the Amazon and biologically diverse savannas known as the cerrado.

In the United States, corn is the leading ingredient for producing ethanol. While at first, this may not seem to make sense, keep in mind that we are trying to free ourselves from our dependence on imported oil. As such we are laying the ground work for an ethanol infrastructure that should become more reasonable as the cellulosic methods are being developed. In fact, if the corn stocks could be converted into ethanol, it would increase corn’s energy ratio from 1.3 to 1 to more than 2 to 1.

Although ethanol has problems that must be accommodated, such as 39 percent lower-energy content per gallon than gasoline, a potential engine corrosion problem, if exposed to water, and the potential for using hydrocarbons in its distilling process, it does help to provide a short-term solution to the fuel crisis problem.

When ethanol is used as a long-term solution, even as an energy mix with gasoline, it cannot be sustained. Why, because the world’s population will increase to almost 9.2 billion by the year 2050, and the world will have a food-shortage problem. In fact, currently almost twenty-five thousand people die of hunger every day—most under the age of five.

Oil Sands

The process for making crude oil