On Wed, 26 May 2021 11:43:56 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 25 May 2021 22:13:15 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 25 May 2021 19:36:41 -0600, rbowman
wrote:

On 05/25/2021 06:24 PM, wrote:
If anyone believes in free energy, there's always hydrogen.

When we were making aircraft strobe lights some were soda glass and some
were quartz glass. Oxy-acetylene is fine for soda but you need the
higher temperature of an oxy-hydrogen flame to blow the quartz tubes. So
we made arrangements to have a tube trailer spotted on site. This
required a permit.

That's when I learned that in a free association test if you say
hydrogen the response is 'bomb'. Arguably the hydrogen was safer than
the tanks of LOX and acetylene but it has a bad rap.

Hydrogen is safer. It's very difficult to get hydrogen to explode.
Since it's much lighter than air, it dissipates quickly and won't
"pool".

That does highlight a problem with hydrogen. The tubes have to handle
around 3000 psi so you're not getting a whole lot of hydrogen in a
traditional steel tube rig. Composites help but it's still a problem.

Sure, it's a problem but the range should be equivalent to EVs and a
whole lot easier to fill.

Fix all that and it's still not a good fuel. Energy isn't free.

Hydrogen isn't really a fuel in the practical sense. It is just a
fairly inefficient storage scheme.

"practical" is a relative word. If we run out of oil, as many here
predict (not in many, many, hundreds of years, IMO) hydrogen becomes
more "practical". Inefficient, certainly, but so is towing around a
nuclear reactor.

The issue was the safety of hydrogen, not how "practical" it is.

If you are deriving your hydrogen from water, you use more energy
getting it out than you get when you burn it.

Of course. If you want to sequester carbon...

OTOH most commercially derived hydrogen comes from natural gas so you
end up with the same issues we are talking about with possibly
dwindling supply if we really started using any large quantity.
Have you priced helium lately?

If there is no NG... That was the discussion. Portable fuel is
important but there are alternatives to gasoline but certainly not
attractive.

It's going to take a *lot* of helium to run your car. ;-)