Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Thermal decomposition of methane using a LFTR?

Last night, I posted a pdf file that described the use of concentrated solar power to strip away carbon from methane, which leaves hydrogen.

The weakness in that approach is the use of solar energy.  It isn't reliable.

Now, if you were to use a LFTR to split methane instead of water, the hydrogen should be cheaper.  That's my guess at the moment.  I don't know exactly.

Anyway, with the hydrogen, you can make ammonia, and ship it to the final distribution point.  From that point, it is put into final form as cryogenic hydrogen and sold to the end user.  Preferably, the costs should be low enough in order to make a decent profit.

Who would buy it?  I'm thinking owners of fuel cell vehicles.  Not only that, but owners of really economical fuel cell vehicles.  If you were to modify the Urbee vehicle to use hydrogen, the cost per mile could be brought down to reasonable levels even if the final price is 9 bucks per kilogram.

There's the two stumbling blocks, though.  One, to get LFTRs built. Two, to get Urbees built.

These two techs could be killer apps, but they need backing.  Here's the big chance for the climate changers to prove that they aren't just a lot of hot air.

The fuel cells already exist and can be mass produced for a reasonable price.  I've been over that several times.

There's no stumbling block here but money and government red tape.  Ooops!  Don't want to underestimate the red tape.  If you get rid of the red tape, you may get the money.

Update:

I've run some numbers and they work.  You can make money doing this, but you need to get past those stumbling blocks.


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