At 06:31 AM 11/6/06 -0800, Kerry wrote:
>OK Milton I agree with most of what you have said here
>but!!!!
>Nuke power plants produce more energy than they
>consume?? Right?? So the energy is contained in the
>atomic structure and is converted to another form in
>the reactor?
I think the problem is that the raw materials used in a fission reaction
(uranium, plutonium? I can't remember) is much like the oil we get out of
the ground. Starting the reaction does take some energy, but then again,
starting combustion takes some energy as well (the spark).
However, what results is the release of far more stored energy than was
needed to initiate the reaction. But you didn't put that energy in there
in the first place; it was there, it just had to be released.
In a way, the hydrogen combustion would be much the same as gasoline *if*
we happened to have a whole bunch of free hydgrogen just sitting around
like we have oil in the ground.
However, the energy released in hydrogen combustion is the energy that's
released when H2 combines with O2. If I recall right, it's H2 + H2 + O2 ->
H2O + H2O (I wrote it that odd way because I can't differentiate between
factors and subscripts!) However, creating the free H2 in the first place
requires doing the precise reverse of that.
So, if we need X amount of energy to do this:
H2O + H2O -> H2 + H2 + O2
Then we only can get, at most, X amount of energy by burning hydrogen and
doing this:
H2 + H2 + O2 -> H2O + H2O
Basically, we're just using hydrogen as temporary storage of energy.
Of course, if you could create all your hydrogen just by electrolysis using
solar energy, well, then you come out ahead, because you're basically using
the hydrogren to store energy you got from the sun, more or less for free
(er, well, hypothetically free, anyway).
Anyway, I hope this clarifies things more than muddles it.
- Joe Vahabzadeh
