In article
raden wrote:
In message . com,
Weatherlawyer writes

Dave Stanton wrote:

Hydrogen ? To replace natural gas (Methane) you are joking I take it ?

What's the problem? Cannisters of it stored outside would be safer than
the heavier than air flammables. And in the mains at one time they used
to use a dilute carbon monoxide hydrogen mix. Very dangerous as CO is
poisonous.

The main problem with hydrogen is that it is difficult to liquify. That
isn't a problem with mains. It isn't a problem with cannisters either;
it just requires a change of viewpoint. Besides it can be used in fuel
cells or dissolved in methane.

Or if worse comes to the worst, it can be fused with old sump oil, car
tyres and kitchen waste to produce man made natural gasses.

Try applying your grey matter to problems and what initially can appear
daunting, ends up paling to insignificance. Let me repeat; there is no
problem that, were the utility nationalised, should not disappear
overnight.

See
alsohttp://www.psigate.ac.uk/newsite/reference/plambeck/chem1/p01264a.htm


"The location you specified does not exist on PSIgate. Please use the
menu on the left to select an area of interest, or go directly to the
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So it's OK boys and girls, we're going to be saved by pseudoscience



works fine for me:

Wood
Only wood among the renewable fuels is significant as a chemical raw
material. Wood is a complex physical and chemical structure. Its overall
elemental composition by mass is about 49% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 0.2%
nitrogen; the remaining elements and their amounts and forms vary
considerably from one species of tree to another. The most common
cations found in wood are calcium, potassium, and magnesium; common
anions include carbonate, sulfate, phosphate, and silicate. These make
up the noncombustible part of the wood, the ash.

Wood can be partially burned to charcoal, which is essentially a porous
form of pure carbon, in kilns which permit limited access of air. This
process is called carbonization of the wood and has been in use from
ancient times. Carbonization of wood will produce tar, and pine tar was
once used for the calking of ships. For this reason tar and its products
are still known as "naval stores". Wood tar has been used as a
commercial source of acetic acid, methanol, and the solvent mixture
called "turpentine".

The combustible part of wood consists primarily of various forms of the
glucose polymer &fuse('cellulose'). Much of the remainder, ranging
from 18% to 28% of the total, is a complex polymer of a phenylpropane
unit; this polymer is called lignin. Treatment of wood with either
aqueous strong acid or aqueous strong base produces hydrolysis of all or
part of the cellulose and releases a variety of water-soluble materials
as well as glucose. Lignin, however, is resistant to hydrolysis and has
not yet been converted to marketable products on a large scale.
Coal
Coal is the fuel present in largest quantity on earth. It is basically
carbon, left over from bacterial action upon decaying plant matter in
the absence of oxygen, usually under silt and water. Over millions of
years the bacterial action and pressure compact the organic material,
which steadily loses moisture. The original oxygen of the organic
compounds is also lost along with most but not all of the original
nitrogen and hydrogen, leaving the carbon.

The first step in coal formation yields peat, compressed plant matter
which still contains twigs and leaves. Peat, dug from peat bogs, is used
as a fuel in Ireland and Russia. The next step is the formation of brown
coal or lignite. Lignite has already lost most of the original moisture,
oxygen, and nitrogen. It is widely used as a heating fuel but is of
little chemical interest. The next stage, bituminous coal, is also
widely used as a fuel for heating. It is the most abundant form of coal
and is the source of coke for smelting, coal tar, and many forms of
chemically modified fuels. Some coal found in areas of mountain
building, such as the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains in North
America, has been subjected to great heat and pressure as a metamorphic
rock. This hard coal or anthracite is almost pure carbon.
Domestic Gas From Coal
Combustible gases have been known since the days of Van Helmont (d.
1644) and the burning of gas made by destructive distillation of coal
was known as a curiosity by about 1700. Commercial development and
public demonstration of gas for heat and light came from the work of
Phillipe Lebon (1767-1804) in France. Lebon, who publicly demonstrated
gas lighting in 1801 using gas obtained from the destructive
distillation of wood, was killed in a street robbery and his work was
not followed up in France for some time.

William Murdock (1754-1859), an employee of the Boulton and Watt
engineering firm then engaged in the manufacture of Watt-type steam
engines, began his studies around 1791 and was interested in the
products of the destructive distillation of coal. This process was used
to make coke, or carbon, from coal and the other products, gas and coal-
tar, were generally permitted to escape or were burned for fuel. Murdock
did not see Lebon's Paris demonstration but Gregory Watt, second son of
James Watt, did see it. Watt's report caused the Boulton-Watt firm to
back Murdock's experiments and commercial gas plants for large mills
were sold from 1804 onwards by the firm.

Frederic Winsor, an eccentric German, also saw Lebon's demonstration in
Paris. Winsor began independent demonstrations of gas lighting in London
in 1804; his approach was the supply of gas by mains from central
generating plants rather than the independent house or mill generating
systems sold by Boulton and Watt. The Gas Light and Coke Company was
chartered in 1812 and gas piping began to spread through London. Other
metropolitan centers were served with gas at a later date,. Both wooden
and cast-iron pipes were used. Gas lighting at this time was by flame;
the present incandescent gas mantle was not developed until 1885, at
which time incandescent electric lighting was taking over an increasing
share of the lighting market.

Gas today is either produced from coal and oil or found as natural gas.
Natural gas is almost pure methane, CH4, with small amounts of other
hydrocarbons, and is obtained from natural gas wells. Since the heat
available per volume of natural gas is much greater than the heat
obtained per volume of manufactured gas or "town gas", the burners and
equipment must be converted when the supply is changed (as in Britain in
the 1970's when town gas was replaced by natural gas from the North
Sea). Natural gas, if obtainable, is preferable to town gas, but the
supply is limited. Chemical reactions are used to produce town gas and
to purify natural gas. Some of the same impurities, such as sulfur
compounds, are common to both.

The basic process of coke production is also that used for manufacture
of town gas. Bituminous coal of the gasmaking type is perhaps 86%
carbon, 5.5% hydrogen, 6% oxygen, and 2.5% or so nitrogen and sulfur. An
elemental analysis is all that can be meaningfully given, since coal is
a complex substance. When heated in the absence of air, coal produces
carbon (coke) and a mixture of many gases, (crude coal gas). The heat
for the carbonization of coal is provided by use of some of the the coke
product in the strongly exothermic producer gas reaction:

C + O2 -- CO2, DH0 = -393.509 kJ/mole

which in the presence of insufficient oxygen drives the endothermic
formation of carbon monoxide:

CO2 + C -- 2CO, DH0 = +172.459 kJ/mole

Partial use of the endothermic water gas shift reaction equilibrium:

C + H2O(g) -- CO + H2, DH0 = +131.293 kJ/mole

permits control of the temperature of the reaction zone and raises the
heating value of the output producer gas slightly. The final composition
of producer gas is about 12% hydrogen, 25% carbon monoxide, 7% carbon
dioxide, and 56% nitrogen; the nitrogen comes from the air used in the
producer gas reaction.

Producer gas is mixed with crude coal gas to give crude town gas.
Impurities are condensed out as the gas cools (water, tar, napthalene,
ammonium chloride) or by absorption in water (NH3, H2S, CO2). The rest
of the H2S is removed by reaction with Fe2O3, and the purified town gas
is ready for delivery. A typical composition of town gas would be about
51% hydrogen, 15% carbon monoxide, 21% methane, 10% carbon dioxide and
nitrogen, and about 3% other alkanes.

The traditional process for producing town gas has been to some extent
replaced by processes using feedstocks of oil or lower quality coal. The
most promising of these is the Lurgi process developed in Germany in the
late 1930's. The Lurgi process operates at a higher pressure (30-40 atm)
than the traditional processes, and thus in addition to the producer gas
reaction and the water gas shift reaction two other equilibrium
reactions can occur, coal hydrogenation:

C + 2H2 -- CH4, DH0 = -74.81 kJ/mole

and the Sabatier synthesis:

CO + 3H2 -- CH4 + H2O(g), DH0 = -206.103 kJ/mole

At these higher pressures, virtually all of the carbon monoxide is
removed by the water gas shift reaction, which considerably reduces the
toxicity of the gas. The Lurgi process permits the conversion of coal
into methane, from which one can synthesize other hydrocarbon fuels such
as gasoline. Such processes were operated on a large scale by Nazi
Germany during the Second World War, but are not now economically
competitive with hydrocarbon fuels obtained from oil feedstocks.