[Gasification] Hydrogen

[MMBTUPR at aol.com]

     to          Gasification List          from   Lewis L Smith

Two problems with some renewable sources of energy   [such as photocells, 
solar thermal and wind]   is that they are intermittent and when available offer 
a supply which fluctuates more than demand for grid energy. 

A problem with H2 is that it is expensive to transport, store and dispatch in 
gaseous form. 

[The dispatch problem comes from trying to fill auto tanks with low-wage 
personnel yet preserve the present low escape rate for industrial H2 refills.   I 
a suspect that the escape rate would jump quite a bit, if we had tens of 
thousands of low-wage people dispatching at H2 service stations to individual cars. 
Some back-of-the envelope numbers suggest that this hidden threat could 
seriously affect the economics of using gaseous H2 for land transportation.]

A way to   <<   kill three birds with one stone   >>   is to put the H2 user 
near the source of electricity and use low-pressure buffer tanks and pipelines 
between the electrolysis unit and the H2-consuming equipment.

Again I strongly urge you all not to try to   <<   kill off   >> any 
renewable source of energy. Rather direct your efforts towards finding the best uses 
for it, maybe in combination with other renewable sources. It is going to be 
hard enough as it is to replace fossil fuels entirely   [my long-range goal]   
without   <<    internecine warfare   >>   in the renewables camp.

Sincerely. End of message.