Originally published March 9 2005
Sandia Laboratories researching metals that absorb hydrogen; results could lead to new ways to store hydrogen for vehicles
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Hydrogen is expected to be the next major energy source, and scientists at Sandia Laboratories are researching hydrogen-absorbing metals that will help make it a feasible energy alternative. These scientists became experts in these metals (called hydrides) while working on a thermonuclear weapons program, and now they are using their knowledge to discover methods of storing the large quantities of hydrogen necessary for vehicles.
The world's first major steps out of the age of carbon and into a new era of hydrogen energy could be five to 10 years away or more.
The process will demand new power plants, new vehicles, new ways of thinking about energy -- and almost certainly an exotic metal powder locked in tanks like those in Chris Moen's lab.
At Sandia National Laboratories, with 49 years of experience handling hydrogen for thermonuclear weapons, Moen and a team of engineers are running the gas in and out of tanks full of a clumpy, white, sugar-like sand called sodium alanate.
His engineers are working side-by-side with General Motors scientists to tap the most abundant element in the cosmos as a fuel for cars and trucks.
Filling the average minivan with the equivalent of a tank's worth of gasoline would require more than 14,500 gallons of uncompressed hydrogen gas.
"We basically have a thousand-to-one reduction in volume to achieve in hydrogen to get the same energy density," said Jim Spearot, director of GM's Chemical and Environmental Science Laboratory.
"You can see we're a long way from being able to store hydrogen in the same way we store fossil fuels," Spearot said.
Some of those scientists became Sandians, and Sandia's two labs in New Mexico and California share responsibility for the hydrogen transfer systems that are essential to the thermonuclear operation of all U.S. nuclear weapons.
Hydrogen-powered cars open the possibility of reinventing the automobile, with new electronic controls and individual motors for each wheel to tailor its speed and torque.
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