RIKLBLOG Review: CES Part Three
Unlike the Hodgepodge of Exhibitors Mentioned in Parts One and Two...
Today we admire one forward-looking company who might actually implement a certain idea of mine. Late last year I suggested that building large, floating solar islands to generate hydrogen and "mine" lithium from the oceans could be practical and could—with only modest exaggeration—save the world. Hyundai, the enormous Korean conglomerate, must have seen this blogitem, sprung into action, and, in less than a month, begun implementing it. Here are some hydrogen highlights of their CES exhibition.
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| I've let them tell you about it above. Notice the "Excellent stability in harsh environment." |
Hyundai seems to have given this quite a bit of thought, while providing employment for graphic artists, something which this blog eschews in preference to cut-and-paste. In this display they are missing a big point. Their system incorporates wind energy while I suggested solar. Wind farms are more compact than my "solar islands" but more complicated. True, solar is profligate of area, but in the ocean there's almost nothing but area! They're not wrong, though. There's also plenty of wind—sometimes too much—so why not incorporate both energy generation schemes? They're complementary in that there can be wind at night, and of course solar on calm days.
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But Wait!
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Notwithstanding its lack of mention in the above graphic, it looks like they have thought of adding solar power to the wind turbine! Good Hyundai! But what is that right-hand item which the "cut" in the "cut and paste" process seems to have removed? Let's move on to the next panel... |
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Oh noooo! They're taking the liquid hydrogen away by ship carrier*. They've added an unnecessary middleman! If you have "green hydrogen" on a floating platform, why transport it to shore? Why not, as I suggested, have cargo-carrying ships of all persuasions refuel directly at the platforms? And what about my lithium? That big electrolysis plant needs lithium separation cells. Call in the graphic artists! |
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* Finding myself almost unable to write a blog without an asterisk, here is a bit of a science supplement. Suggesting that Hyundai may have even thought about the hydrogen economy before my previous blog, they provided specifications for the liquid hydrogen carrier. What's interesting to me is the liquid hydrogen tank, which they rate at a design pressure of 3 barg. Despite being familiar with altimetry and lab pressure measurements, I had to look up "barg." I expected it to be the equivalent in PSI or pascals of many hundreds of atmospheres as would be the case in tanks of gaseous hydrogen. But no! A barg is just a bar[gauge] which in this case is about 4 atmospheres.
