Hydrogen already is produced on a large scale using heat, pressure and a
catalyst, from natural gas. It is an intermediate product in the
manufacture of certain petrochemicals. We make huge quanitities here in
Alberta already - for petrochemicals and to hydrogenate heavy oil.
As to transportation fuels, they don't need to be liquid. Hydrogen can be
used directly in fuels cells, which Ballard Engineering in Vancouver,
allied with Ford and Mercedes, is successfully developing for
transportation uses.
If you insist on liquid fuels, natural gas is easily converted to methanol
for which there is an exising large scale industry with established
technology. Methanol can be burned in internal combustion engines without
modification, though they use it more efficiently if the compression ratio
is about double what is usual now. There are driveability problems in cold
climates which are probably solveable with additives.
I would put my money on fuel cells.
There are large energy inefficiencies in converting natural gas to hydrogen
compared to producing it from water using sunlight and solar cells, so it
will probably be an intermediate step (next fifty years) to a solar
hydrogen economy.
Odell by the way, was one of the few people to forecast the spiking of oil
prices in the 1970s and their crash in the 1980s (as also was I).
I suspect he is right on gas. This is also the conclusion which the energy
group at the International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis came to
circa 1980 (Wolf Haeferle and Cesar Marchetti et al). Marchetti was
another of the very few who predicted the oil price crash in 1983 (using
logistic substitution analysis between basic energy forms). Their reports
are all available (http://www.iiasa.ac.at).
Regarding ethanol from biomass, I recall from studies done in the early
1980s that the energy balances for producing it from grains and sugar cane
(which is what the Brazilians were doing) were highly negative. Studies
were also done on cropping desert plants, like jojoba which produces an oil
which can be used directly in diesel engines. The problem would be that of
ecological damage from taking over desert areas for growing these things
and the inefficiencies of gathering systems where production per acre is so
low.
A problem with both wastes and dedicated crops is that production occurs in
relatively small quantities over large areas (compared for example with oil
and natural gas), making the economics of a gathering system preparatory to
large scale long distance transportation poor. Think of rural natural gas
systems in reverse. They have all required subsidization, plus you will
lose a proportion of the methane to power the compressors which would drive
the gas through the gathering system from each of the production points.
They are unlikely to be of much help to the megalopolises to which Third
World populations are migrating and where most of the human population of
the future will apparently live. For them you need a readily available
high btu fuel which occurs in concentrated areas in huge volumes and can be
efficiently transported over long distances (so that transportation costs
per btu are modest). Natural gas is the only fuel which meets these
criteria.
In other words, your study will be flawed if it only looks at total energy
demand and supply and ignores their structure and how energy alternatives
match those structures.
What is very interesting about the progression of primary fuels
historically is that each succeeding fuel has been more hydrogen rich and
has been more economical to transport to users in urban areas, per btu. In
other words, it would appear that urbanization has driven the progression
from wood/hay to coal, to petroleum to natural gas.
Mike H
