White Hydrogen?

I would guess that the rock involved contain metallic elements. Elements like sodium, lithium, and potassium react rather violently with water at room temperature to produce hydrogen. At elevated temperatures, magnesium reacts with water to produce hydrogen, As you go down the electromotive series, the reactions become less violent but they still happen.

When water is exposed to metallic elements deep in the earth where high temperatures and pressure occur, it is feasible that an appreciable amount of hydrogen gas could be generated.
 
homebrewed said:
Good point, One of the reasons that addressing greenhouse gases is a complicated problem.
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The real criminal is water vapor but we keep locking up the minorities, CO2 is only 420/10000th of 1% by volume of the atmospheric gasses, an is required to keep our planet livable yet it keeps getting such a bad wrap.... (all puns intended in the most serious context).
 
A hydrogen fire is invisible.
Hydrogen will leak from any container that we currently know of.
Unless they build a power plant on the sight of these hydrogen deposits, there isn't much point. Given that, a bank of on site turbine generators would actually add a reasonable balance to solar and wind power. Essentially, you'd be sitting the generators on a huge, underground fuel tank (no transport costs).
 
Shotgun said:
A hydrogen fire is invisible.
Hydrogen will leak from any container that we currently know of.
Unless they build a power plant on the sight of these hydrogen deposits, there isn't much point. Given that, a bank of on site turbine generators would actually add a reasonable balance to solar and wind power. Essentially, you'd be sitting the generators on a huge, underground fuel tank (no transport costs).
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Hydrogen fires are "nearly invisible", but not invisible. The fire emits UV, which can be easily detected with a sensor.

Hydrogen is not the easiest stuff to store. Compressed hydrogen, when it leaks, will self ignite. This is due to the fact that the Joule Thomson coefficient is negative at normal room temperatures, so expanding hydrogen from the leak heats, rather than cools. Joule Thomson effect However, hydrogen, is not as leaky as helium. Compressed or liquid hydrogen can be safely managed.

Having generators on site seems to make sense as there are no fuel transportation issues. But then one has electrical distribution losses, not sure which ends up having the least losses. I'm sure the smart folks can figure that part out.
 
I keep wondering why there isn't any serious effort being made to exploit heat from geothermal hot spots. There has been recent talk about the Yellostone super volcano and what the impact would be if/when it blows. Drawing heat from it to run steam generators would seem to be a wise move. There is more available energy than we could possibility use and it would help to defuse a potential disaster.
 
Looking back in history when there was a lot more CO2, lush plants covered most of the earth in such abundance that there was a huge diversity of life. Some grew to huge sizes because of so much to eat. And lucky for them there were no humans to screw up their lives. Their luck ran out when a big rock crashed their party.
 
RJSakowski said:
I keep wondering why there isn't any serious effort being made to exploit heat from geothermal hot spots. There has been recent talk about the Yellostone super volcano and what the impact would be if/when it blows. Drawing heat from it to run steam generators would seem to be a wise move. There is more available energy than we could possibility use and it would help to defuse a potential disaster.
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The usual excuse I've heard is that the places with hotspots are usually remote from the places where you'd want to put large buildings, and that the geo heat "runs out" after extracting the heat for a while.
Another technology that is coming online is "plasma drilling". Holes deep enough to reach the heat require drilling through lots of hard rock that are getting progressively hotter. Which means the drill heads last about as long as the carbide endmills I tried to run via CNC. Teams are currently drilling some test wells using a drilling head that spews plasma to cut through the rock. I believe they're currently setting records for their drilling speeds. This technology, if it works out as expected, appears set to be able to convert every coal fired plant to a geothermal one. You won't need a "hotspot", since technically we're all above a hotspot. . . just at varying depths.
 
Shotgun said:
This technology, if it works out as expected, appears set to be able to convert every coal fired plant to a geothermal one. You won't need a "hotspot", since technically we're all above a hotspot. . . just at varying depths.
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This reminds me of the movie "Crack in the World" released in1965.
 
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