Liquid Hydrogen MPG
When ignited, hydrogen burns in air with a pale blue to colorless, nonluminous flame, yielding H20. When mixed with air, the flammability limit is 4-74% hydrogen. When mixed with oxygen, the flammability limit is 4-94% hydrogen.
Care must always be exercised where there may be hydrogen mixtures with air or oxygen because VIOLENT EXPLOSIONS may occur. So we now understand that hydrogen burns with a very hot, explosive and yet invisible flame.
To date, the cost has been prohibitive for providing commercial home type uses. Not to mention the generally accepted yet quite faulty idea of a CENTRALIZED source of power distribution. Such reliance on central systems simply sustains the current need for each of us to be dependent and supportive of these very large institutions.
Eventually, society will see how freedom, independence and prosperity will come from the LOCAL generation of power and food wherever possible.
The high temperatures produced when hydrogen reacts with oxygen or fluorine, plus the low molecular weights of the product gases, have made hydrogen a prime fuel for rocket propulsion, since rocket thrust increases directly with the temperature and inversely with the molecular weight of the exhaust gases.
Some studies have indicated that the cost of transporting and distributing hydrogen by pipeline may be less than the cost of transporting and distributing electric power. Presumably existing natural gas pipelines and distribution systems can be adapted to the use of hydrogen.
Although hydrogen has a net heating value of only 275 Btus per cubic foot, as compared with 913 Btus per cubic foot for methane, the lower density and viscosity of hydrogen make it possible for a pipeline to deliver about the same amount of thermal energy as with methane, at a somewhat higher compression cost.
The thermal energy in hydrogen can be utilized more efficiently in home heating than natural gas, because hydrogen can be burned in nonconventional heaters, with no loss of heat, since its only primary combustion product is water. By using flameless catalytic heaters, nitrogen oxide can be eliminated. However, oxygen depletion of closed spaces will still present a hazard.
Hydrogen mixed with gasoline has generated as much as a 50% improvement in overall efficiency. A test motorcar obtained 19 miles per pound of hydrogen. However, since liquid hydrogen weighs only 0.58 pound per gallon, the mileage figure was 11 miles per gallon of liquid hydrogen. The use of liquid hydrogen as a motor fuel thus presents several major problems despite its basic attractions.
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Originally Posted by Shane Jackson
