Emmisions Discussion

[Christian Nelson]

Christian, I really enjoy reading your post. This entire green movement makes me want to pull my hair out.

I worked in a big coal fired generating station for about 4-5 years right out of highschool. Electricity was in high enough demand they built a 3rd unit and I left after they had the 4th unit about 1/4 of the way done. My dad is a straight up tree hugger, I love him but we have argued about this. We NEED big Poluting coal fired power plants because everyone needs to run their air conditioners all summer and charge their Ipods and think they are saving the world by driving a piece of **** hybrid car.

Just like you mentioned, the only clean solution is building nuclear plants and its hard to imagine that happening any time soon considering this company spent the money to basically double the size of their already enormous power plant.

From what I can tell, it isn't the power companies that is the problem. There's enough profit to be made with nuclear, they'd be willing to drop the coal fired plants in a heart beat if they'd only be allowed to build nuke ones, without having an unending line of lawyers suing them, people picketing, laws and ordinances suddenly being made which are specifically targeting them, and so forth.

Solar/wind is such a big loser compared to pretty much every other that it's just depressing to see so much time and public $$ wasted on it. Private industry wants to invest and study? Fine, I am all for it, I too want to experiment with solar heating, etc, but this thing of taking tax $$ and diverting it to that stuff, all the while hobbling the REAL producers of energy is just sad.

 

[CaliDude76]

Diesels are NOT exempt in Cali anymore.... I don't remember what year models they start testing them but they DO test them now....

Thank you, I stand corrected sir....,

Actually.. I did some further research, (and to my surprise), found out that California did indeed pass "Assembly Bill 1488", in Oct 2007, that would require testing of certain diesel engines starting Jan 1, 2010...

Here's the long and short of it, I gathered from the Ca DMV website...

...."Currently, smog inspections are required for all vehicles except diesel powered vehicles manufactured prior to 1998 or with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVWR) of more than 14,000 lbs, electric, natural gas powered vehicles over 14,000 lbs, hybrids, motorcycles, trailers, or gasoline powered vehicles 1975 and older."

 

[Irishman999]

From what I can tell, it isn't the power companies that is the problem. There's enough profit to be made with nuclear, they'd be willing to drop the coal fired plants in a heart beat if they'd only be allowed to build nuke ones, without having an unending line of lawyers suing them, people picketing, laws and ordinances suddenly being made which are specifically targeting them, and so forth.

Solar/wind is such a big loser compared to pretty much every other that it's just depressing to see so much time and public $$ wasted on it. Private industry wants to invest and study? Fine, I am all for it, I too want to experiment with solar heating, etc, but this thing of taking tax $$ and diverting it to that stuff, all the while hobbling the REAL producers of energy is just sad.

Anyone that pickets nuclear power should visit a coal fired generating station. At one point the plant was burning a mile long train of coal a day, you have to see first hand how much coal that is to understand. That was before unit 4 was even operational.

I got to personally see how much coal went in since I was running the dozer that pushed it in as well as haul the waste. My truck hauled a 100 ton payload and I averaged about 20 loads a day of "fly ash" we dumped into our designated waste pit. I did this day and night for years, its still being done today. Some miles away a lake is mysteriously being poisoned with mercury and its all down hill from our dump site.

 

[foamypirate]

Nukes and Hydrogen are the keys to our alt-energy future, if you ask me.

Honda already leases hydrogen fuel cell cars in California (very selective, however) that drive just like normal cars, and the only emission is water.

The big opponents of hydrogen fuel cells like to say things like "But it takes so much power to get hydrogen out of water!". Yeah, that's where the nuclear power plants come in. You get SO MUCH MORE energy, pound for pound, out of nuclear power, it's not even funny. But nuclear power is "bad and scary!" These two technologies together could easily run our homes/cars for a VERY long time, but it will never happen. Instead, the greenies think that if they can't see it, it must not happen (remote coal fired plants powering their "clean" Electric cars, and dirty mining and toxic heavy metals that go into the battery in their "clean" hybrid). All they are doing is moving the source of the pollution so they think they are doing something good.

Ugh...

 

[crazy4offroad]

Nukes and Hydrogen are the keys to our alt-energy future, if you ask me.

Honda already leases hydrogen fuel cell cars in California (very selective, however) that drive just like normal cars, and the only emission is water.

The big opponents of hydrogen fuel cells like to say things like "But it takes so much power to get hydrogen out of water!". Yeah, that's where the nuclear power plants come in. You get SO MUCH MORE energy, pound for pound, out of nuclear power, it's not even funny. But nuclear power is "bad and scary!" These two technologies together could easily run our homes/cars for a VERY long time, but it will never happen. Instead, the greenies think that if they can't see it, it must not happen (remote coal fired plants powering their "clean" Electric cars, and dirty mining and toxic heavy metals that go into the battery in their "clean" hybrid). All they are doing is moving the source of the pollution so they think they are doing something good.

Ugh...

It doesn't take that much electricity, a high-output belt driven alternator could produce enough hydrogen for an engine to burn H2 just like gasoline or propane. The main opponents to hydrogen fuel technology is the oil companies. It would be too easy to take big oil completely out of the equasion with the right setup, even easier on the modern computer-controlled engines.

 

[HotRodPC]

The other main factor to NOT running hydrogen, the oil companies are delaying hydrogen all they possibly can cuz once the technology is perfected, you're right, the oil companies will be severly hurt, but safety is the other issue of why hydrogen is NOT being run in cars today. With a hydrogen tank you are literally driving a bomb and a very minor traffic accident can kill several people with the explosion. IF ever they can make it safe, its ON cuz the technology to power engines with hydrogen has existed for several years already. Just got to make it safe and its good to go.

 

[Christian Nelson]

Anyone that pickets nuclear power should visit a coal fired generating station. At one point the plant was burning a mile long train of coal a day, you have to see first hand how much coal that is to understand. That was before unit 4 was even operational.

I got to personally see how much coal went in since I was running the dozer that pushed it in as well as haul the waste. My truck hauled a 100 ton payload and I averaged about 20 loads a day of "fly ash" we dumped into our designated waste pit. I did this day and night for years, its still being done today. Some miles away a lake is mysteriously being poisoned with mercury and its all down hill from our dump site.

Not to mention, the fact that coal is radioactive, something a lot of people don't know about.. No amount of scrubbing will take the radiation out of it.. My dad worked in a particle accelerator, where they were required to wear badges that checked how much radiation they were exposed to. They were getting some high readings, and were investigating what was causing it, they were concerned about a breach in the lead lining, etc.. What they found was that he forgot to take his badge off when he left the building a couple of times, and walked past the coal fired heating plant, which was setting his badge off with FAR higher readings than the accelerator was allowed to emit.

BTW, granite top counters are radioactive as well, and emit more than most nuclear facilities are permitted to allow out of the reactor core. Some requirements are so stringent that BACKGROUND radiation is higher than what they are allowed to have, therefore, it is completely impossible to get the radiation that low, and no plant can be built there. The problem with radiation numbers, and exposure is that people have no idea what the numbers mean, and because they don't understand it, they go overboard in hysterics about levels that are so low, that you get more exposure from sun bathing.

3 mile island is a prime example, all that happened there, was some coolant water was vented to the atmosphere, actual exposure was so minimal, the fact it even made the news should be hilarious..

The other main factor to NOT running hydrogen, the oil companies are delaying hydrogen all they possibly can cuz once the technology is perfected, you're right, the oil companies will be severly hurt, but safety is the other issue of why hydrogen is NOT being run in cars today. With a hydrogen tank you are literally driving a bomb and a very minor traffic accident can kill several people with the explosion. IF ever they can make it safe, its ON cuz the technology to power engines with hydrogen has existed for several years already. Just got to make it safe and its good to go.

Well, gasoline is basically burning hydrogen, that's what we are doing, burning it off, and leaving the rest go out the tail pipe. Let's face it, gas is a stable medium to store hydrogen in.

I'm kinda excited about the bacteria they came up with to essentially turn trash (which usually emits methane on it's own) into gas, as in pump gas.. It's incredible, these bacteria break down trash and basically poop out crude oil.. Now, this is an emerging technology, but think about all the landfills we have, and how much gas that could be turned into..

I think storage in gas form is a loser, because there is no way to safely have pressurized fuel containers in all our cars.

Now, if they can make these fuel cells fast enough to flash water into hydrogen, I think that would work..

Bottom line, if nuke power were more available, the peak oil concerns, and co emissions would be very low, cars are frankly not the biggest consumer of fossil fuels.

If nuke power were more available, batteries may become more viable as well.

Then there's the "E-Cat" cold fusion deal that is just coming out. If that guy turns out to not just be a fake, and a trickster, this will change literally everything about energy.

My dad worked on cold fusion experiments in the 90's, he had some results, but since they could not reliably replicate it, they just couldn't say they had it going. This guy claims to. According to my dad, the guy is indeed a real scientist, one he's heard of. If he's lying, his career is over when it is found out, no one will ever fund anything of his again. This wouldn't be the first time a scientist has fooled himself either. But, the guy is claiming 4 killowatts in an hour off tap water! If this is true, again, the whole world will change.

 

[crazy4offroad]

The main idea behind fuel cell technology is during electrolysis when water is seperated to hydrogen and oxygen some of it reunites, which creates very slightly more energy than it took to seperate it. They are trying to perfect it so all that is split is rejoined with as little loss as possible but with the pressure created they have to bleed some off to keep the cells safe. This is good for electric cars but for gas burners like 99.999% of all cars on the planet it dont help one bit.

I was reading about a guy who built an efi engine under marine (boat) specs, stainless steel valves and exhaust, etc with a fuel tank that does electrolysis on the fly, piping the hydrogen to the fuel injection system and not requiring a pressurized hydrogen gas bottle like HRPC was saying. It could easily be made to "flex fuel" with a flip of a switch that would switch between a computer with the settings for hydrogen and the H system, to a computer for gasoline and a regular fuel system. All we need is an innovator who can get by the oil companies' lawyers who would argue that such a product would kill their business and essentially roadblock progress for the rest of us.

 

[Irishman999]

I did not know coal was radio active, I did know about the counter tops thanks to my wife. While working at the plant we were told to stay the hell away from a mystery pile of dark red powder that was in the pit. This was apparently some very dangerous radio active ****.

 

[Christian Nelson]

The main idea behind fuel cell technology is during electrolysis when water is seperated to hydrogen and oxygen some of it reunites, which creates very slightly more energy than it took to seperate it. They are trying to perfect it so all that is split is rejoined with as little loss as possible but with the pressure created they have to bleed some off to keep the cells safe. This is good for electric cars but for gas burners like 99.999% of all cars on the planet it dont help one bit.

I was reading about a guy who built an efi engine under marine (boat) specs, stainless steel valves and exhaust, etc with a fuel tank that does electrolysis on the fly, piping the hydrogen to the fuel injection system and not requiring a pressurized hydrogen gas bottle like HRPC was saying. It could easily be made to "flex fuel" with a flip of a switch that would switch between a computer with the settings for hydrogen and the H system, to a computer for gasoline and a regular fuel system. All we need is an innovator who can get by the oil companies' lawyers who would argue that such a product would kill their business and essentially roadblock progress for the rest of us.

I dunno, the fuel cell setup you describe sounds a bit too "over-unity" for my understanding of how it works. Biggest problem I've seen is speed, they aren't fast enough to provide enough fuel on the fly to use effectively for transportation.

I've often thought of using a permanent magnet alternator, and instead of a regulator, using essentially a switch that will activate electrolysis from the excess electricity and tapping the hydrogen, and oxygen straight into the intake. On an EFI, the computer would see the extra hydrogen showing up, and lean out the fuel delivery.

Now, you'd have to figure out how to do this where the losses from constantly generating electricity is offset by the hydrogen created.

Another approach that works with diesel engines is water injection, basically turning your engine into a hybrid steam engine. When the fuel ignites, it also flashes the swater to steam which also expands quite explosively. Have you guys heard of the 6 stroke engines where one stroke is using water in the combustion chamber, no fuel runs that stroke, just water, and it flashes to steam from the heat of the chamber. It was argued if done right, one would not need a radiator. How they get around keeping the water reservoir from freezing is a whole other basket of worms.

I did not know coal was radio active, I did know about the counter tops thanks to my wife. While working at the plant we were told to stay the hell away from a mystery pile of dark red powder that was in the pit. This was apparently some very dangerous radio active ****.

Oh yeah coal is radioactive, big time. MOst coal fired anything these days just their bin emits more radiation than a nuke plant is allowed to, and most of their ash piles more than the nuke plant wast pile is allowed to emit into the surrounding areas. If coal plants were required to sheild radiation as much as nukes were, with the same tests conducted to ensure it, with the same inspectors, they'd shut them all down, probably indefinitely. It isn't just the coating of the lungs that causes you trouble in coal mining. Lot's of miners died young from cancer before we really understood this stuff.

It isn't enough to be too big a deal for most of us, but I imagine coal men and train engineers from the old steam days probably had high incidence of cancer (if they didn't die from a boiler explosion or something else) but again, the numbers always sound high, but the reality is, our bodies can handle quite a bit before permanent damage occurs. Biggest danger is to someone who sits around it all the time for weeks, or years on end.

Carbon dating is a measurement of how much radiation is emitted by a piece of carbon of a known weight/size, they measure the radioactive decay of the carbon, it gradually lessens the amount of radiation emitted, as time goes on.

 

[Irishman999]

Thats actually funny that you mention that, we played cat and mouse with the EPA at this place because of air quality. None of us were ever warned about radiation and we spent straight weeks around coal for numerous years! The only environmental concerns at the plant dealing with us was creating to much dust. It got to a point where they set up meters in the coal yard to constantly monitor how much dust we were creating. If I remember right there was a night that we were in emergency mode and trying to move as much coal as possible without worrying about making dust and the meter detected 5 thousand times the acceptable dust in the air. This machine even detected traces of diesel exhaust, we were actually laughing about that one.