Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm not Tooo experienced with how much petroleum we use, but my understanding is that its not possible to create enoguh hydrogen to sustain our current petrol requirements. And unless my little back yard experiment when i was 13 was flawed electrolysis of salt water creats equal volumes of chlorine gas as it does Hydrogen and leaves caustic soda as the liquid. Althoguh, there is a market for both of those by products i'm sure its not high enough if we make hydrogen for fuel en mass.

Not being negative guys, just like playing devils advocate sometimes, it gets lots of good ideas flowing

BTW for people that like explosions.........if you combine chlorine gas and hydrogen in a jar under low lighting levels and then take it out in the sun, the UV light is enough energy to casue the two to react resulting explosion is HCl gas, which when absorbed by water (readily) forms hydrochloric acid (never had the balls to do it as a kid, and at my age i quite enjoy my eyesight

I'm origionally from New Plymouth, Taranaki NZ.

About 1980 the NZ government commissioned the worlds first Natural Gas to Gasoline plant "Synfuel" to utilise gas from the Kapuni and Maui fields ... some of the worlds biggest natural gas fields.

The process firstly converted the natural gas to methanol then to gasoline.

Both fields are now essentially depleted and the economics have meant that the plant has for the last 5 years only operated the initial natgas to methanol process.

Methanol and ethanol (the latest catchcry) can both be used to power automobiles in their own right but much more importantly as Blueman says can produce Hythane and or Hydrogen at exceptionally good economic returns for both the process costs and energy costs involved and I believe the NZ governement is investing in developement of this technology

but isn't hythane just postphoning the inevitable? many of the worlds Nat gas fields have also peaked, and although australias and canadas haven;t yet, its about the global supply / demad peak

granted Steve, that's why I'm a big fan of electric cars, but the industry heavyweights seem to be pushing the hydrogen cell/hybrid road.

Perhaps we can buy some time while the range of technologies are perfected.

Could have had a perfectly good electric car years ago (could even reach 150kpm no problem), but GM used legal muscle to get them all of the road then literally crushed them.

yeh, i though i'd already downloaded that electric car movie, but now i cant find it, i'll get onto it again.

The other interesting fact is how reserves are quoted as a "snap shot" granted existing world nat gas reserves might not peak for X years, thats at CURRENT usage and yearly increases, what do you think will happen to that peak date when the oil peaks and NAT gas consumtopn goes THROUGH THE ROOF?

FOOD/MATERIAL MILE COSTS GOING UP WOUILS AFFECT A LOT
OF US WHO "FLY IN" OUR FINGERLINGS TOO (oops, damn caps lock)
If/when these get realy bad I will stop stomping on and burrying tilapia, and will bring them home to breed instead as getting fingerlings will get too expensive...
I would also look at keeping a breeding populationof yabby too, especially as they feed off of a lot of the stuff we would bin.

Steve,

Promo site for "Who Killed The Electric Car"

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

If you want the whole movie PM me and I'll tell you how to get it

Fits on a CD I believe

Steve pretty much hit the nail on the head... hydrogen, hythane, electrolysis, electric cars.... all relie on one thing.... ELECTRICITY... and where does the majority of our electricity come from... you guessed it coal... so unless you can find a way to electrolise water without fossil fuels, convert methane to hydrogen without electricity or natural gas... or charge your 'electric cars' without electricity you'd be right and we would have sustainable transport.

Hydrogen is a tempory solution that is in no way sustainable using current or even near future technology it is too ineffient to produce, compress and store it. Gas will only become more expensive when petrol goes up and the government needs to make more money. Bio-diesel is an option if you can make the processing more efficient.

I have in fact discovered a machine that can turn naturally grown sugars into high efficient and long lasting energy... A human.... These humans have the abilty to use simple machines like bicycles. Or even transport themselves using there own energy. Walking... get used to it now!!!

Once again right on the money TimC lol

True true, so back to solar if it can be made viable then we could charge our electric cars at maybe (stress maybe) a cheaper cost/km than the cost of petroleum production/refinement, coal production, energy production etc etc

It's either that or walk like you say

very matrix like how many btu's was that again?

bio-deisel is better than ethanol as it can use waste oils.

The energy expended to plant and harvest and concentrate the ethanol let alone the Nat gas required to produce the fertilizer just doesn't have a balanced equation.



This is quite scary............http://timrileylaw.com/LNG_LiquefiedNaturalGas.htm

much worse than liquid fuel breach becasue it can be carreid by the wind.

Have a read, one repost states possibility of 70,000 casualties from an off shore tanker rupture on a populated coast

One tanker ship contains 33 million gallons of liquid nat gas, equating to 20 billion gallons of vapour capable of being carried by the wind and ignited by a static spark between 5% and 15% mix

IMHO It is very hard to know what is the best form of future fuel... And the problem is so many different concepts are having millions of dollars spent on them when they could culminate there efforts on developing something that works.

Check out this guys experiments with hydrogen and ultra efficient motors.
http://oupower.com/

Water is free, solar power is free, we need an super efficient hydrogen generation process.It is a long way off.

Biodiesel is out there it can be free, it can be simply fish and chip oil in a diesel car, I have seen it work. But then it come back to land, and growing sufficient, canola or sunflower crops... then what about water...? Drought?

Those are the question I hope to solve once I complete my uni course, which on a lighter which I am proud to say, I have been accepted to Murdoch UNI (advanced standing). And I am officially an associate engineer (electronics) now I have finished TAFE... whoohoo...

well done Tim, happy studying!

Congrats TimC, world needs people with your drive and curiousity

TimC, checked out the link you posted, bought to mind a program screened about a year ago on SBS (I think) which had a russian guy with a huge ferris wheel type "perpetual motion" / "over unit" machine.

Damned if I can find it though.

Still here's one might interest you if you haven't seen it

http://www.theverylastpageoftheinternet ... insrud.htm

The link you showed me was very interesting, but alas, not perpetual energy there. I think they said it was 90% efficient. It does stop on occasion.. Its like a pendulum clock...