The purpose of this thread is to find a path forward for the Hydrogen Wankel, not wave the banner for political issues.

Premise 1: The Renesis is an amazing motor. However as a Mazda RX8 owner, I am a little unsure of the Wankel future due to the overall efficiency issues compared to the piston motors. This is due to the combustion chamber surface area.

Premise 2: The Renesis has one advantage over the piston motor, it can burn hydrogen better.

Here is the successful Hydro-Wankel

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060215/...da_hydrogen_dc

Others are converting as well:

http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/

There are many ways to make Hydrogen, however only solar and nuclear don't rely on ever more expensive fossil fuels. Solar can work fine a sunny day but requires a lot of real estate and infrastructure per unit of energy produced. Nuclear has potentially the best of the renewable economics.

There is an initiative afoot in America to make Hydrogen from nuclear energy directly through a thermal process:


"a nuclear reactor produces energy as high-temperature heat that can be used to drive high-temperature thermochemical water splitting cycles"

http://www.ne.doe.gov/hydrogen/hydrogenRSH.html

www.ne.doe.gov/infosheets/hydrogen.pdf

In time this will become a worldwide initiative:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/walters.htm

This will probably occur over the next 75 to 150 years. First, all of the stationary energy users will convert (electric, chemical, etc...) to coal, then nuclear. This will free up more oil for cars, etc...

 

good read. I've always believed in nuclear energy being the future for energy because our fossil fuels are going to run out sooner or later. Heck, I remember about 10-15years ago, my dad talking about how oil sands in Alberta (he's a wellsite geologist here in Alberta) being a great source of oil but too costly to produce. Now with rising costs of fuel, oil sand production is actually profitable.

But hey, that's only in Alberta and that too will run out. With nuclear, it's "virtually" unlimited, and CLEAN (despite its stigma from Chernobyl, etc). I really hope our worldwide gov't sees this instead of bowing to the oil barrons of the world

 

Ok, I'm not trying to argue or be political here, I'm just trying to increase my knowledge.

First off, how is it virtually unlimited? Surely the supply of nuclear fuel is limited, isn't it? I don't remember tripping over any piles of uranium recently... please elaborate.

Second, how is it clean? Aside from glossing over Chernobyl (which seems, frankly, an unreasonable thing to do), what about the spent fuel that nobody knows what to do with? Surely that's not very clean... What about the radioactive mess you're left with at the end of the life of a nuclear plant? Surely that's not very clean...

I would really like to get behind nuclear, but it's always seemed to have problems. My biggest concern about it, by far, is that a nuclear plant makes a delicious target for any enemy, military or terrorist. One good conventional bomb and you've got a radioactive nightmare. But I would love to have my fears assuaged and get on the nuclear bandwagon, so please, enlighten me!

 

I'm more interested in the practical and economical aspects of this. What's needed to build a hydrogen fuel kit? Where is fuel available? What is the cost per for hydrogen? What are the effects of burning hydrogen in the rotary engine? How does hydrogen power engine compare to a gas power engine in terms of producing power?

I'd very interested in researching and answering these.

 

Lets not forget all the wate and hazards involved with nuclear power.

 

Nuclear material lasts quite a while. It takes signifacantly less fissionable material to produce the same output as coal or oil. I think that the reactors the Navy uses last around 20+ (corrected from 3-4) years before having to change out the fuel rods.

There's also quite a few sources for fissionable material, we happen to use uranium because it's the easiest to crack. But there's talk (saw a good article in wired, but can't find it atm) about conversion to a different material that is more abundant. It's harder to get going, but more efficient once the reaction has started. There's also the posibility to recycle old waste material or weapons grade material. Problem with the later two options is they currently violate START II agreements, and a couple of UN regs. That hasn't stopped the French from doing it tho...

If we did recycle the material, we wouldn't have to worry as much about the long term storage of waste products, as the material could go through the recycling process (if memory serves) six to eight times. So we wouldn't need to dig up new material like we currently do, and we could reduce the current stockpiles of waste.

Speaking of French, part of the U.S.'s problem is that our reactors aren't even close to being current versions. I think the French are on v4 or v5 reactors which are much more efficient.

Hydrogen produced by Nuclear power is probably the best option for the future. That's just my .02 from a layman's stand point. I'm sure others will argue the exact oposite.

 

The key to having unlimited supply of Hydrogen would be to achieve Nuclear Fusion. My understanding of the Hydrogen fuel situation is that when burned it produces either pure water or breathable oxygen. I could be wrong. It's been a long time since I've taken a science course. I think hydrogen is a great way to go, but we're lacking a good means to produce it on a scale needed to sustain any large scale economy. My ideas about this could be completely wrong so please no flaming. Thanks!

 

" I don't remember tripping over any piles of uranium recently."


Yes, you will not trip over, or eat off of uranium. The sale of it and use of it for everyday items was banned after WWII, but you can still get old stock on EBAY:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Uranium-Glass-Bl...QQcmdZViewItem

 

"what about the spent fuel that nobody knows what to do with?"

There are many ways to deal with the waste:

http://www.uic.com.au/nfc.htm


Reprocessing is expensive compared to disposal in Pyrex (they essentially make it into "glass") and put it back into the earth (where it came from). A bigger problem is that the Uranium turns into Plutonium, which they can also "burn" in the reactor.

 

"Chernobyl"

Everybody goes there eventually. Bad design and poor containment.

In a phrase "cold war". The reactor had poor containment (a light roof) so that the rods were easy to change and get the Plutonium out faster to make more bombs.

Carbon graphite moderator created Positive Void Coefficient (PVC). When the water boiled away, the reactor ran away. We built one once in the 40's, and it almost blew up too. We never built one again. Our reactors use heavy water with a Negative Void Coefficient. When the water boils away, the reactor slows down. The Russians saw that as a weakness in Americans who are afraid of risks.

A better anology of an American disaster is "Three Mile Island".

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-co...mile-isle.html

"Estimates are that the average dose to about 2 million people in the area was only about 1 millirem. To put this into context, exposure from a full set of chest x-rays is about 6 millirem."

 

From what I saw in the wired article (I really wish I could find it), there is a new reprocessing method, and one of the other materials that they could use is easier to reprocess, so less waste. Really wish I could find it. I have the hard copy, but it's at home. I'll dig it out tomorrow.

 

" What about the radioactive mess you're left with at the end of the life of a nuclear plant? Surely that's not very clean..."

Actually, Coal produces more public exposure to nuclear radiation than Nuclear power.

http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/Coal...-CCW1jul93.htm


"Former ORNL researchers J. P. McBride, R. E. Moore, J. P. Witherspoon, and R. E. Blanco made this point in their article "Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants" in the December 8, 1978, issue of Science magazine. They concluded that Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations. This ironic situation remains true today and is addressed in this article."

Strange, but true.

 

20+ years

 

nuclear fusion is where hydrogen fuses into helium.

 

"Heck, I remember about 10-15years ago, my dad talking about how oil sands in Alberta"

Funny that you should mention that. Indeed Canada has the most oil in the world by a long shot. But it takes a lot of energy to get the oil from the shale. Here comes nuclear.

"PARIS -- French oil giant Total SA, amid rising oil and natural-gas prices, is considering building a nuclear power plant to extract ultraheavy oil from the vast oil-sand fields of western Canada."

http://salo.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/22/183959/686

This will happen as the price of oil rises, more drastic measures will be taken to process the harder to get at oil.

 

" But there's talk (saw a good article in wired, but can't find it atm) about conversion to a different material that is more abundant"


Thorium.

 

I knew it was a lot, but couldn't remember the exact specs. I've got a couple of buddies who are nuke techs on subs and one on the carrier. It's been a lot of beer between now and the last time I talked with them LOL

Thanks for the correciton.

thanks, saved me digging through my magazine collection

 

"Premise 2: The Renesis has one advantage over the piston motor, it can burn hydrogen better. "

Who says? Why should a Wankel burn hydrogen "better" than a piston engine?

- Mike

 

"A rotary engine is suitable for hydrogen fuel because the separate chambers for fuel intake, combustion and exhaust significantly reduce the danger of the fuel's backfiring compared with a conventional recipro engine."

From the article.

 

You're on the ball tonight silver, you beat me to it.


Plus there's the fact that centripital motion, plus the angle of the dangle, when run thru a flux capacitor...

 

Heh, cool. Thanks. Never knew about that....

 

Interesting...

You lost me here. If you can "burn" the plutonium in the reactor, than what is the "bigger problem"?

 

Most interesting, but doesn't address my question. I'm talking about what you do with a nuclear plant at the end of its service life. You can't just go in with a wrecking ball...

 

So wait, am I understanding this correctly? You're saying that a single set of fuel rods in a nuclear reactor will last for 20 years?

 

They would get overhaul'd. If you think you've seen Chip Foose do some amazing work, just you wait until he gets his hands on Indian Point in upstate NY. That's on next season...

Seriously, I think they would go through and replace and upgrade everything they can. At this point, it would make more sense to build newer more efficient ones and take the older ones offline until they can be upgraded.

Regarding the 20 year thing, someone corrected me on that. I've yet to confirm it. I think it would depend on the load. An acutal power plant would probably go through fuel quicker than a nuclear reactor on an aircraft carrier or sub. Again, I've only got a layman's understanding, I think silver can speak more knowledgably on this subject. But it's something that interests me greatly.

I was offered, and took the test, for nuke school. I wanted to work in intel and didn't want to be neutered thru radiation or be entirely hairless...