Enclosed are two links and one attached file, with excerpts, which demonstrate, yet again, how we have been, and how we continue, fooling ourselves - or allowing ourselves to be fooled - about our own potentials for domestically producing and supplying all of our own, United States, hydrocarbon fuel requirements.
Over the long course of our reportage, we have more than thoroughly documented the plain facts that both Coal and Carbon Dioxide can be converted into more versatile hydrocarbons - direct replacements for the gas and liquid fuels we have been allowing ourselves to be extorted beyond all reason for the supply of.
We, Western Civilization, have known, in light of Coal-based town gas generation factories having been operated in major US cities in the late 1800's, and subsequent to the award of the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Paul Sabatier, those facts to be true for fully one century, or more.
One roadblock, one objection, that has been cast in the way of utilizing such technologies, however, is that all of them require the supply, directly or indirectly, of Hydrogen - so that the Carbon content of both Coal and CO2 can be "hydrogenated", and hydrocarbons thus formed.
We have repeatedly noted for you the facts that Hydrogen supply is an issue that has been dealt with.
We have documented that Steam-, or Hydro-, gasification technologies can infuse Coal with sufficient Hydrogen to effect hydrogenation. And, such Steam gasification technology, crudely applied, was at the heart of the United States town gas generation industry, based on Coal, in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
Further, modern petroleum refineries require free Hydrogen to upgrade the "heavy" crude oils, similar in many respects to crude Coal liquids or Coal tars, which many of those refineries must now utilize as their raw material, in order to manufacture conventional motor fuels and lubricating oils.
Such "hydro-treating" has been commonly practiced in the oil refining industry for many decades.
And, large amounts of the gas which long, long ago now sent the Hindenberg down in spectacular flames had to have, still has to, come from somewhere.
Herein, from the initial link in this dispatch, we see a common-sense approach to the matter:
If we want and need Hydrogen, and we want to present it as an environmentally and economically beneficial fuel product, then we can generate it through use of the darling of the environmental lobby: Solar energy.
Additional information follows excerpts from the initial link to:
"United States Patent 7,726,127 - Solar Power for Thermochemical Production of Hydrogen
Date: June, 2010
Inventors: Robert Litwin and Stanley Pinkowski, CA
Assignee: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Incorporated, CA
Abstract: A solar-powered hydrogen production system includes a thermochemical system and solar heating system. The thermochemical system produces hydrogen.
Claims: A solar-powered hydrogen production system.
Background: The present invention relates generally to hydrogen production systems. In particular, the invention relates to a hydrogen production system powered by a renewable energy source.
Hydrogen can readily be used in many industrial applications, such as internal combustion engines with little engine modification, in fuel cells to generate electricity, or in power plants to generate electricity.
Hydrogen is currently primarily produced from methane through steam methane reforming. However, steam methane reforming results in a net loss of total energy and the release of pollution. Another hydrogen production method uses coal in a gasification process. While depletion of coal is not an immediate concern, the gasification of coal has other disadvantages, including: high plant capital costs, plant availability, coal mining, coal transportation, and various forms of pollution. There are also processes using renewable sources to provide energy for hydrogen production. For example, it is also widely known that solar energy can be used to generate electricity that can be used to create hydrogen from water through electrolysis. Solar energy can also be used to generate hydrogen when coupled to a high temperature thermochemical process such as sulfur-iodine.
Another method of producing hydrogen is through a low temperature thermochemical process. One such process is the "copper chloride" thermochemical process.
Due to the concern of depleting natural resources and the effect of pollution on global warming, there is a need in the art for a method of producing hydrogen using renewable resources. "
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Marvelous. If we want and we need Hydrogen, for whatever purpose, Coal or CO2 hydrogenation for instance, we can make it in some over-complicated system that relies on a complex reaction sequence involving salts of Copper and Chlorine - but, by using renewable, inexhaustible solar energy to drive the process.
It is actually utter, confusing, obfuscating nonsense, although Pratt & Whitney do note "that solar energy can be used to generate electricity that can be used to create hydrogen", much more directly, "from water through electrolysis".
We absolutely do not need vats of molten Copper Chloride.
We have known since the late 1800's that, if we do want and need Hydrogen, we can make it, as indicated above, directly from Water.
Moreover, we have also, somewhat surprisingly, known since then that we can use inexhaustible sunlight to drive the process.
Comment follows the link to, and excerpts from the attached file of, what should be the revelatory:
"Patent US0549765 - "United States Patent Number 549,765 - Apparatus for Making Gas
Date: November, 1895
Inventor: William Calver
Be it known that I, William Calver, a citizen of the United States, residing at Washington, in the District of Columbia, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Apparatus for Making Gas ... .
This invention has relation to an apparatus for utilizing rays of the sun in the manufacture of gases resulting from the decomposition of water.
Water being composed of only two gases - oxygen and hydrogen - the former being the great promoter of combustion and the latter the best-known fuel, the decomposition of water has been the basis of the production of gas for heating and lighting purposes; but the apparatus required was more or less complex and the fuel employed (was) principally coal.
One of the prime objects of my invention is to produce pure oxygen and hydrogen gases, and another object is to produce them by means of a simple method which will require an equally simple apparatus; and a further object is to secure the products of the process or method at a minimum cost."
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We'll forgo reproduction of the technical details. Basically, Calver uses concentrated sunlight to heat Iron and to, separately, generate Steam, which he then combines to generate Hydrogen.
The Iron Oxides thus formed could be reduced and recycled back to Iron also by the use of solar heat.
And, perhaps of interest as well is the fact that Calver's 1895 invention, for making Hydrogen through the employment of Solar energy, was, as revealed in the full Disclosure, actually based on an earlier "solar rays" utilization apparatus that was itself awarded a United States Patent, Number 260,657, on, somewhat portentously, July 4, 1882.