The post below about cars that could run on sea water reminded me of my experiences in the late 70's of using hydrogen gases to fuel steam furnaces.
The PPG plant at Lake Charles, La, where I am retired from used salt water as the basic feed stock. An amazing amount of products was created from salt water. PVC pipe for instance...we put the "C", (Cloride) in with the Poly Vinyl to make the Poly Vinyl Cloride pipe material as well as lots of other PVC products. Clorine gas was another product. A slick slimy gel to put down oil wells to make drilling easier was another. A solution that mixed with silica, (melted sand) became a powder used to harden shoe soles, tires, and other rubber like products. I could go on and on. It is amazing how many products that plant created, or helped to create, out of salt water.
That part of Louisiana was known for its salt domes. Huge domes of salt in the ground at Sulphur and Starks, La. We got our raw product of salt water by pumping water down into the salt domes and sucking out salt water and piping it into the plant.
We used a tremendous amount of electricity to boil the salt water and convert it to all these by products. We had three electrical power plants inside the chemical plant. The chemical plant actually was three seperate plants. Plant A had steam driven electrical generators dating back to about 1940. Plant B had steam generated electricity dating to 1954. Plant C was built while I worked there in the 1970's and had huge jet engines driving generators. The jet engines were eight feet in diameter.
OK.....Im finally getting to it.
All this boiling salt water gave off a tremendous amount of hydrogen gas. It had always been just vented to the atmosphere until about 1975 when they decided to try to burn some of it in a furnace that was creating steam. I was one of the electricians assigned to modify the furnace so it would safely burn hydrogen. The engineers came up with a good design and we got it all installed.
Hydrogen by itself is too volatile and explosive to burn just by itself. So the trick was to have the furnace running on natural gas and then slowly add the hydrogen. It worked fine, although we had one kind of minor explosion. It bulged the sides of the furnace walls and scared the heck out of us but was really a minor thing compared to what we gained. We could get a lot of "free" heat from the hydrogen gas which for so many years before had been a waste product. And of course that plant is still venting a tremendous amount of hydrogen gas to the atmosphere.
The new electrical power plant for Plant C constructed in the late 70's was really a work of art. First, I should say that a lot of steam heat is required in a chemical plant and we had quite a few steam furnaces running on natural gas. In Plant C, we had those humongous jet engines, eight feet in diameter, putting out a tremendous blast of hot air from their tail pipes. The tail pipe exhaust temperatures were about 900 degrees Centigrade.
So the 900 degree jet exhaust was directed over into a steam furnace. Bingo!! 900 degree steam. But our requirements were for steam at 1250 degrees. No sweat, just add some natural gas heat to the furnace to get it on up to 1250 degrees. The Jet exhaust heat was now being put to productive use rather than being blasted out into the atmosphere. It still blew out the top of the furnace and into the atmosphere but a least we were making use of some of its heat.
Since a poor grade of heating oil was cheaper than natural gas, these furnaces were designed to operate on both natural gas and the cheaper heating oil all at the same time......or...just gas....or just oil, plus the jet exhaust. Another Bingo! Mucho savings on the high cost of natural gas.
The crowning glory was when the waste product of hydrogen gas was also piped into the furnaces. You couldn't use it by itself but we had all kinds of safety features built in to make sure that hydrogen gas could never come in untill either some natural gas or oil had created a stable fire condition. Once it was fired up and running, you were using a small amount of natural gas or heating oil while getting your 1250 degree steam created mostly by the "waste products", jet engine exhaust and hydrogen gas.
I havent studied up on how hydrogen cars work but I have often wondered about how they have figured out a safe way to use the hydrogen gas. Probably a much different way from the way were using it. Anyway, thats my story for tonight.....Im going back to beddy bye.
The PPG plant at Lake Charles, La, where I am retired from used salt water as the basic feed stock. An amazing amount of products was created from salt water. PVC pipe for instance...we put the "C", (Cloride) in with the Poly Vinyl to make the Poly Vinyl Cloride pipe material as well as lots of other PVC products. Clorine gas was another product. A slick slimy gel to put down oil wells to make drilling easier was another. A solution that mixed with silica, (melted sand) became a powder used to harden shoe soles, tires, and other rubber like products. I could go on and on. It is amazing how many products that plant created, or helped to create, out of salt water.
That part of Louisiana was known for its salt domes. Huge domes of salt in the ground at Sulphur and Starks, La. We got our raw product of salt water by pumping water down into the salt domes and sucking out salt water and piping it into the plant.
We used a tremendous amount of electricity to boil the salt water and convert it to all these by products. We had three electrical power plants inside the chemical plant. The chemical plant actually was three seperate plants. Plant A had steam driven electrical generators dating back to about 1940. Plant B had steam generated electricity dating to 1954. Plant C was built while I worked there in the 1970's and had huge jet engines driving generators. The jet engines were eight feet in diameter.
OK.....Im finally getting to it.
All this boiling salt water gave off a tremendous amount of hydrogen gas. It had always been just vented to the atmosphere until about 1975 when they decided to try to burn some of it in a furnace that was creating steam. I was one of the electricians assigned to modify the furnace so it would safely burn hydrogen. The engineers came up with a good design and we got it all installed.Hydrogen by itself is too volatile and explosive to burn just by itself. So the trick was to have the furnace running on natural gas and then slowly add the hydrogen. It worked fine, although we had one kind of minor explosion. It bulged the sides of the furnace walls and scared the heck out of us but was really a minor thing compared to what we gained. We could get a lot of "free" heat from the hydrogen gas which for so many years before had been a waste product. And of course that plant is still venting a tremendous amount of hydrogen gas to the atmosphere.
The new electrical power plant for Plant C constructed in the late 70's was really a work of art. First, I should say that a lot of steam heat is required in a chemical plant and we had quite a few steam furnaces running on natural gas. In Plant C, we had those humongous jet engines, eight feet in diameter, putting out a tremendous blast of hot air from their tail pipes. The tail pipe exhaust temperatures were about 900 degrees Centigrade.
So the 900 degree jet exhaust was directed over into a steam furnace. Bingo!! 900 degree steam. But our requirements were for steam at 1250 degrees. No sweat, just add some natural gas heat to the furnace to get it on up to 1250 degrees. The Jet exhaust heat was now being put to productive use rather than being blasted out into the atmosphere. It still blew out the top of the furnace and into the atmosphere but a least we were making use of some of its heat.
Since a poor grade of heating oil was cheaper than natural gas, these furnaces were designed to operate on both natural gas and the cheaper heating oil all at the same time......or...just gas....or just oil, plus the jet exhaust. Another Bingo! Mucho savings on the high cost of natural gas.
The crowning glory was when the waste product of hydrogen gas was also piped into the furnaces. You couldn't use it by itself but we had all kinds of safety features built in to make sure that hydrogen gas could never come in untill either some natural gas or oil had created a stable fire condition. Once it was fired up and running, you were using a small amount of natural gas or heating oil while getting your 1250 degree steam created mostly by the "waste products", jet engine exhaust and hydrogen gas.
I havent studied up on how hydrogen cars work but I have often wondered about how they have figured out a safe way to use the hydrogen gas. Probably a much different way from the way were using it. Anyway, thats my story for tonight.....Im going back to beddy bye.
,could find an energy source that was clean and plentiful.industry finds ways to save money and keep costs down,you can still get PVC pretty cheap.intersting jbird.
