tagged w/ HVAC
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Sometimes you make stupid mistakes. I was fixing one of my toilets yesterday being all plumber like and had the misfortune of shattering the tank cover. Now my house was built in 1954 and not too much has changed since then. Our downstairs toilet is a 1963 American Standard model #4043. Searching for replacements found me seeing $50-$275 price ranges and I just didn't want to spend that kind of money. Then I came across Building REsources.Sometimes you make stupid mistakes. I was fixing one of my toilets yesterday being all... more
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Combustion Engines are a problem. Even hydrogen ones. Hydrogen is being touted as the new oil, but I have some questions:
Where Does Hydrogen Come from?
Hydrogen comes from water or from fossil fuels.
* Electrolysis of water - Using electricity, it is easy to split water molecules to create pure hydrogen and oxygen. One big advantage of this process is that you can do it anywhere. For example, you could have a box in your garage producing hydrogen from tap water, and you could fuel your car with that hydrogen.
* Reforming fossil fuels - Oil and natural gas contain hydrocarbons -- molecules consisting of hydrogen and carbon. Using a device called a fuel processor or a reformer, you can split the hydrogen off the carbon in a hydrocarbon relatively easily and then use the hydrogen. You discard the leftover carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
What happens when we use up all of our water?
Has anyone posed that question?
We're searching all over the Universe for signs of water.
So what's our brilliant new plan for energy so we can drive and heat our homes?
Lets use up the source of life........ water...... ?
And there's an problem with the math when it comes to electricity to produce the hydrogen.
Where will the electricity for the electrolysis of water come from?
Right now, about 68 percent of the electricity produced in the United States comes from coal or natural gas. All of that generating capacity will have to be replaced by renewable sources in the hydrogen economy. In addition, all of the fossil fuel energy now used for transportation (in cars, trucks, trains, boats, planes) will have to convert to hydrogen, and that hydrogen will be created with electricity, as well. In other words, the electrical generating capacity in the country will have to double in order to take on the demands of transportation, and then it will all have to convert from fossil fuels to renewable sources. At that point, and only at that point, will the flow of carbon into the atmosphere stop.
In the United States, about 20 percent of the power currently comes from nuclear and 7 percent comes from hydroelectric. Solar, wind, geothermal and other sources generate only 5 percent of the power -- hardly enough to matter.
We recall that hydrogen combustion does resolve the environmental problems of fossil fuels due to excessive emission of carcinogenic substances and carbon dioxide. However, hydrogen combustion implies the permanent removal from our atmosphere of directly usable oxygen, a serious environmental problem called oxygen depletion, since the combustion turns oxygen into water whose separation to restore the original oxygen is prohibitive due to cost. We then show that a conceivable global use of hydrogen in complete replacement of fossil fuels would imply the permanent removal from our atmosphere of 2.8875x107 metric tons O2/day. Fuel cells are briefly discussed to point out similarly serious environmental problems, again, for large uses. International Hydrogen Energy Forum 2000, Munich, Germany, September 11-15, 2000 http://www.citebase.org/fulltext?format=application%2Fpdf&identifier=oai%3AarXiv.org%3Aphysics%2F0009014
Please join the conversation by commenting below.Combustion Engines are a problem. Even hydrogen ones. Hydrogen is being touted as the... more
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