Regular Guest
can a furnace run on hydrogen gas,if so how do i go about doing this.
Professional Member*
God Speed, Jim. We'll miss you - 2-26-23
At this time, no.
And if it could.
This is not a DIY site, so we wouldn't tell you anyway.
Professional Member
nice
Professional Member
It's a nice thought though, I'm sure someday someone will design a unit to run off of it
Regular Guest
i guess i will go to anther site then
Regular Guest
Hydrogen is a really small atom...the smallest one actually. Natural gas is mostly Methane, a molecule with a molecular weight about 16x that of Hydrogen. Guess which will leak easier.
Hydrogen mixed with air burns about 600F hotter than Natural gas....easily deforming & melting parts designed for a natural gas flame.
On a volume basis, Hydrogen yields 325 Btu/cuft, while methane yields 1008 Btu/cuft. Your hydrogen would need to be stored and delivered at a much higher pressure through the same size pipes, and orifices.....again leaking more.
Still modifying your furnace?
Professional Member
Heat and Glo built a hydrogen fireplace, in order to be mass produced it would have a msrp of about 100K
You can't fix stupid
Regular Guest
Wow there is one. Too funny...
Creates 31,000 BTU. Requires 1/2 Gallons water / hour... oh and a 220 VAC 60A circuit.
Lets say it draws 44A @ 220 VAC = 9680 Watts = 32912 BTU spent making hydrogen for a return of about equal BTU's of heat from the flame. Oh..and you pay a sewage fee for the water this thing vaporizes.
I could see tree huggers taking home equity loans to upgrade to one of these, only so a coal burning plant has to be fired up for the 44A to power the hydrogen furnace.
100% efficient. Clever marketing.
Professional Member*
Like 100% of all hydrogen powered devices currently in existence, more energy would be consumed creating the hydrogen than would be recovered as heat from burning the hydrogen.
Member
Hydrogen is wonderfull clean fuel provided it is not made from buring natural gas at very high temp to crack additional natural gas CH4. And guess where all those c's go when they are liberated from the four H's. Up a stack along with all the oxides of nitrogen and co2 form burning the gas. Same problem with coal but now you get sulfer oxides, mercury oxides, and radioactive gasses. We are better off buring the coal and gas directly.
Hydrogen the answer to global warming, my a$$.
Professional Member*
Yeah you guys are right... Hydrogen is a wonderful fuel, and very easy to produce... but not cheap. Right now its just not cost efficient or eco friendly to produce hydrogen: ie burning fossil fuels to produce electricity to extract hydrogen from water.
I see the world being forced to develop nuclear power on a very large scale in order to alleviate our dependance on fossil fuels, which opens an even bigger can of worms.
But if you think about it... If we have to go nuclear, then why not just let homeowners have small nuclear reactors that will produce all of their heat, electricity and hot water? Hey how about nuclear powered cars?
The future is coming fast... don't rule out anything
Regular Guest
Self contained Portable Nuclear generator sounds good, kinda like a package unit I guess, where do I order one of these puppies? Will I have to have a EPA/NATE certified tech to be on stand by at all times to operate it for me or what?
Professional Member*
...and the occaisional visit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission DudeOriginally Posted by Tsubaki
Professional Member*
Don't they already make a hydrogen furnace? It's called a fuel cell. Produces heat and electricity.......... oh and water.
Use the biggest hammer you like, pounding a square peg into a round hole does not equal a proper fit.
Professional Member
Only if you want to end up on a watch-list
But seriously, we need to think in the near term that hydrogen is a transportable version of energy. Its not automatically economical or clean. Its not something you drill for, or pump out of the ground, harvest, etc. Right now we must generate it from other sources.
In Japan select residences can lease a hydrogen fuel cell that generates electricity. But guess how they're generating the hydrogen...
Drum roll please...you also lease a natural gas to hydrogen converter. So what's the economic and environmental cost-benefit of that?
Regular Guest
How about a hydrogen powered bicycle...propelled by burning hydrogen, which is genrated by elcetricty from pedaling a generator. I'm sure there's a market for it.
I've figured a method to convert corn to electricity. If I eat 2.6 pounds (1000 calories) of corn, I can generate 305 Watts of electricity on a stair machine for one hour (while burning exactly 1000 calories). Lets see... see to run my 5 Ton AC, I would need 12 people pedaling and 310 pounds of corn / hour. This leads me to conlude that AC is a luxury only 1 in 13 can afford globally.
on a bike at 1000 cal/hour that would be about 19 MPH, for one hour or 61.5 miles per gallon of corn. Lookout Honda !!
Now I'm way off subject, but so were you guys.
Professional Member*
ok.. this will put you closer to the subject at hand
http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_wind_hydrogen.html
Posting Permissions
Reply
! -George Carlin