The Path from Coal to Hydrogen

We hear about the Hydrogen Economy from time to time but we do not hear anyone articulate the elements of a plan to get from here to there. The first thing we must accept is that the path from coal to hydrogen is fraught with fossil fuels. There is no other alternative and it will take much time and resolve.

The first two things we must do is change the internal combustion engine and wean ourselves off of gasoline as a primary motor fuel. There is a bill in committee, HR 1476, introduced in March 2009 and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce where it currently awaits action. The bill requires (in all of only a refreshing 9 pages) that by 2015 80% of the vehicles manufactured or sold in the U.S. be capable of burning fuel that is 85% Ethanol, 85% Methanol or Biodiesel, in addition to 100% gasoline. This bill should be enacted as a first very good step toward the hydrogen economy.

The federal government can require auto manufacturers the world over to comply with this law, if they want to remain in the U.S. market. However, it is quite another matter to bring about the manufacture and use of other fuels that substitute for ubiquitous gasoline. The focus should be on methanol because in the first instance it can be made from coal and natural gas, which are abundant, and unlike ethanol, they do not compete for a foodstuff (corn) as a feedstock. Moreover, once established, the driving public will now have two liquid, competing motor fuels to choose from when they pull up to the pump. And those two motor fuels will be made from three feed stocks: Crude oil, coal and natural gas. The federal government, in order to induce a continuous manufacture of methanol, should provide considerable tax breaks to jump start this industry. I will go out on a limb and propose a ten year federal corporate tax moratorium, accelerated depreciation and investment tax credit for any commercial scale U.S. methanol plant that achieves a commercial operation date within a set period of time. This will attract needed capital, create many jobs to build the infrastructure and generate additional tax revenues from the equipment manufacturers and workers.

Let us prognosticate what things look like ten years down the road, after HR 1476 goals are realized. It is 2025, every car in the U.S. can and does burn gasoline and/or a methanol blend and the competition has kept fuel prices in check. Our coal industry is focused on competing with natural gas to offer methanol and the natural gas industry is no longer a seasonal player during the heating season, but a year round business providing fuels for heating, cooking and motoring. Furthermore, we have weaned ourselves from foreign crude oil and all of our gasoline needs are met with crude from U.S. wells. What should the federal government do next in order to help us transition to the hydrogen economy.

In 2025, a law should be enacted requiring that no automobile in the U.S. may be sold that contains an internal combustion engine by 2032. Furthermore, in 2040 no automobile in the U.S. may be operated with an internal combustion engine. The law should be crafted in such a way that the hydrocarbon based fuel cell will substitute for the internal combustion engine in all motor vehicles. Why is this possible and why should we do it.

Currently, there is research being done (significant amounts by the DOE) to make the fuel cell a reality and, more importantly, fuel cells that operate on methanol. The added benefit of fuel cell propulsion is that it is about twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine and less polluting. Very importantly, all of this can be achieved without changing the liquids based delivery system for motor fuels. We all still pull up to the pump and insert the same nozzle into the “gas tank.”

There is a parallel path that must be taken as well. We must reduce and ultimately eliminate coal as a power plant fuel. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must facilitate a huge push back into nuclear power. More boldly, it must rekindle the breeder reactor program we abandoned in the 1980s in order to ensure we have enough power plant fuel to last into the future as far as we can see it.

Let’s look further down the road. It’s 2110 and we can see the end to the life of our fossil fuels. We have used them all and the date by which they will be gone can be estimated with a reasonable certainty. But we are prepared. We have the fuel cell. Not only is it propelling our motor vehicles efficiently but it had become a staple and a bulwark of the power plant industry, achieving twice the efficiencies of the power plants of a century earlier. And we have our nuclear infrastructure, both traditional light water and breeder reactors.

When the last drop of fossil fuel is gone, we will satisfy our need for electricity completely with nuclear power. And we will satisfy our needs for motor fuel with nuclear power as well. Every gasoline/methanol filling station of the 21st century will become a hydrogen generating station of the 22nd century. Electrolyzers will crack the hydrogen from water and compress it up for use in our hydrogen fuel cell based vehicles. And the only byproduct of hydrogen in a fuel cell is the production of water. Then we will have an endless, pollution free cycle to power us all. That is one alternative. The other potential is to use the abundant hydrogen we can make to chemically react with atmospheric carbon dioxide to make yet more methanol, but not from fossil fuels.

No matter what the future holds, we need an adaptable plan that ultimately puts our country on an energy cycle that is sustainable without fossil fuels. That, however, can only be achieved if our government institutes planning horizons that befit a country and not the time between its election cycles.

The Modular, Scalable Nuclear Reactor

Anyone who has been involved in the engineering design and construction of a new nuclear power plant will admit the process is long, risky (financially) and with too much government red tape and delays. They will also tell you that as a result, you only get one shot at building a nuke--so build it big. The latest crop of nuclear power plant designs are 1,100 MWe (Westinghouse/Toshiba) and an astounding 1,700 MWe (Mitshubishi Heavy Industries).

Along comes Babcock & Wilcox (a company well experienced in electric power and with a big nuclear design of its own when the first 104 U.S. Nukes were developed) with mPower, a modular, scalable nuclear plant that comes in sizes ranging from 125 MWe to 750MWe. These designs are safer than the existing fleet and the newer designs because the configuration is such that it eliminates the worst design basis accident that is postulated: the LOSS OF COOLANT ACCIDENT or LOCA. The existing fleet and the newer nuclear offerings have to be designed to withstand a break in the main piping that cools the reactor core--LOCA. Much of the regulatory angst and engineering challenges surround this hypothetical accident.

B&W's design is different. It is totally self contained and, therefore, does not include the system (Reactor Coolant Loop) that requires engineers to worry about its breaking. The other advantages are reduced regulatory requirements, only a three year construction cycle and a five year refueling cycle, meaning the utility only has to replace the nuclear fuel every five years, instead of every 18 months prevalent today.

The other obvious advantages are that smaller utilities can take advantage of nuclear power because it can be built in smaller, more affordable increments in much less time than the big units. In addition, it can be built in smaller pieces providing system flexibility. A small utility cannot afford to lose 1000 MWe of power when a plant has a forced outage if it only has a 4000 MWe system. So it can't build plants that are so big. However, if it can build 125 MWe or 25o MWe, the system can maintain its flexibility and reliabilty if a unit is forced out of service.

This is the type of nuclear plant innovation that will allow the U.S. to achieve the long process of weaning itself off of polluting fossil fuels.

SUSTAINABILITY

We hear this word from time to time, so I thought we would examine it further. Apples, they're sustainable. Oranges too. Crops in general, barring some catastrophic event, are sustainable. It means we can perpetuate something, virtually forever.

However, with respect to energy,we are not currently in sustainable mode. The United States and the rest of the world have vast supplies of fossil fuels. They will last hundreds of years, maybe more. But they're not sustainable. We cannot perpetuate them beyond their finite limits, notwithstanding their abundance.

So, what is sustainable? Certainly, hydroelectric power is sustainable, assuming it continues to rain in some catchment basin forever. Wind power is sustainable, presuming the wind will blow forever. This too is a good assumption. Will the wind blow when you most need it is still up in the air. Solar power is certainly sustainable, at least for the five billion years of sunlight we have left. It presumes we have sufficient materials to continue to build solar collectors and photovoltaic cells. This is also a good assumption for the foreseeable future. But the sun shines on its own terms.

That's supply side sustainability. And at the moment with current technology the sustainability of these wonderful resources will not provide sufficient energy to displace fossil fuels long into the future . . . and maybe never. I'm not any happier than anyone else about that, but realism when it comes to sustainability is no vice. Paraphrased and stolen from, possibly, Cicero.

Unfortunately, we don't have enough demand side sustainability. Maybe I should say that the other way around. We have too much demand side sustainability. As a society, we constantly, almost mindlessly, sustain our demand for energy. Think of it in terms of two statistics: population growth and consumptive growth. Nothing is static.

There are seven billion people on planet earth. In one hundred years, who knows, that could increase by fifty percent. I didn't look up the estimates. Doesn't matter. All of those people will use energy. They're not going to sacrifice. In terms of growth in consumption, just look at yourself and others around you. Be honest. Desktop? Laptop? Blackberry? Cell phone? More than one? Digital camera? LCD or Plasma TV? Shall I go on?

Let's take something simple, like the digital camera. Are you willing to go back to using 35 millimeter film in a single lens reflex camera ? I date myself. The SLR didn't require a charge and only needed a battery for the flash. And a little flat battery for the light meter that lasted for years. Is such a thing even available any more, except on Ebay?

People are not willing to go backwards, no matter how many of us vocalize for sustainability. But there is an energy source that is sustainable and possibly forever, as best one can determine that period of time. I refer to the nuclear fast breeder reactor. This reactor actually creates more fuel than it uses. It can perpetuate the current known stock of uranium by 100 fold. And if we use the vast amounts of uranium that are in the sea, it is as close to sustainability as one can get with the population and consumption growth we experience.

Is this easy? No. Does it require resolve? Indeed. Is it a more plausible goal with the cooperation of the world's governments? Of course. Is there risk of proliferation? There is. But there are risks in everything we do. And when it comes to energy, it's all dirty in one form or another. No matter what technology we use, it creates something to clean up after. The question is do we run after tens of billions of annual tons of pollutants in the atmosphere? Or do we deal with a football field's worth of nuclear spent fuel and reprocessing risk over a long period of time? Let me know?