WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: How Hydrogen Fuel Works: Part Two 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.480 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.560 job in Strickland. I am an executive producer. That's what 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.159 says here on this business card for let's see, I 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.799 heart radio and I love all things tech. It is 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.240 time for a classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:35.280 originally published on April fourteen. It is called How Hydrogen 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.960 Fuel Works, Part two. So if you haven't listened to 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.559 part one, go check out last week's classic episode that 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.080 was part one. This is the second part of that, 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.200 so let's learn more about hydrogen fuel. So we left 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.920 off around the eighteen hundreds eighteen twenties specifically, and we 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:58.400 were coming up on eighteen thirty nine, is our next 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.560 day on our timeline, where in Sir William Grove invented 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.320 what was essentially the first fuel cell, although he didn't 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.640 call it that. It was called a gas voltaic battery. 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.280 Based on what he knew about electrolysis, which is the 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.319 process where you apply electricity to water and separate it 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.560 into its constituent elements, being hydrogen and oxygen, he hypothesized 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:21.520 that you could go the opposite way, that you could 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:26.920 combine hydrogen oxygen gases to create an electric current plus water. YEP, 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.039 that's which is exactly the very basis of fuel cells. 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.840 And we'll talk a lot more about fuel cells as well. 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.640 And then we get to the eighteen sixties and eighteen seventies, 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.880 and that's when a certain in a auto O T 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.240 t O. He's the guy who created the first four 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.600 stroke combustion cycle. We actually call it the auto cycle. 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.480 Use synthetic gas for fuel. Now, it's believed, it's not 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.600 fully documented, but believed that this gas was at least hydrogen, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:58.080 probably more than that. Now. He reportedly also experiment with gasoline, 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:00.360 but he dismissed it because he felt it was too 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.560 dangerous to work with. This is coming from the guy 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:07.760 who's using hydrogen. Oh I, gasoline is scary. Well, to 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.040 be fair, they had not yet invented the carburetor, and 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.400 the carburetor is what makes gasoline really a useful fuel 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.080 for engines. I'll talk a little bit about that in 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:18.079 a second. And it's really the only thing holding back 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.960 Michael Bay. Yes, exactly. Well, if you listen to our 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.480 last episode, you'll realize that Michael Bay being allowed to 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.239 make cars is a terrible terrible mistake that we cannot 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.160 allow half to happen. Also, movies, you shouldn't be allowed 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:35.040 to do those either, so neither. The four stroke combustion 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.280 cycle is what most cars today are based on. So 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:40.240 if you listen to our last episode, you heard me 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:44.480 talk about the vacuum based engine where it creates. It 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.560 creates this expanding gas, and as the gas cools and 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.400 is released, it creates a vacuum which pulls the piston 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.919 that allows you to do work. Yeah, it's it's not 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.160 that practical, but this one was very practical. And this 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.840 one involves pushing rather than pulling. So for the whole thing, 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:04.280 you have a piston that is uh inside a chamber, right, 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.280 you have a combustion chamber. The piston can be all 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.600 the way in the chamber, in which case it's closed off, 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:11.440 or it could be all the way up to the 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:13.600 very other end of the chamber where it's all open. 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.080 You've got an open space there. The other end of 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.120 that piston is attached to a crank that can rotate. 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.720 So when the crank is in the upward position, the 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.200 pistons pushed all the way in. When the crank is 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.720 in the downward position, the pistons pulled all the way 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:28.640 out and as it rotates, the piston can move in 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:34.000 and out. So here's how this four stroke combustion cycle works. 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.280 You have the four different phases. You have the intake. 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.080 Now this stage, the piston, which is attached to that 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.480 crank is at the top of the cylinder and intake 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.880 valve opens and this inserts a mixture of fuel and 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.280 air into the cylinder. That crank turns and the piston 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.920 moves down, so you start getting this chamber filled with 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.400 this mixture of air and fuel. Next, you have the 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.800 compression stage. This is where the valve shuts off, so 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.320 it can't it's not bringing in any gas, it can't 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.360 let any gas out. But the crank continues to turn, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.200 pushing the piston up, and that compresses the mixture of 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:11.480 fuel and air exactly, so you know you've got this 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:16.200 very compact gas, this mix of fuel and air together. This, 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:18.840 by the way, is the same for hydrogen based combustion 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.880 engines as well as gasoline based, same same principle. So 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.720 you've got this compressed mixture of air and gas. Then 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.240 you have the combustion phase. This is where you get 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.480 a spark and that ignites that fuel and air mixture, 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.360 which then rapidly expands it essentially explodes. Okay, so you've 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.960 got this explosion which then pushes against the piston that 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.880 drives it downward turning the crank. Then you have an 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.680 exhaust phase where an exhaust valve opens up and all 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.640 that exhausted air and fuel mixture gets vented out while 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.840 the piston starts to move back up and then you 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.240 start all over. So once you get this going, it 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.039 just keeps moving that crank around and that's where you 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.279 get the power to do stuff like move your wheels. 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.920 So you know, engines have various different numbers of cylinders. 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:04.919 You probably heard things like V eight. That's that's the 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:09.120 configuration of cylinders and the number of cylinders there are. Technically, 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.480 the more cylinders you have, the more power you're generating. 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.080 Up to about twelve cylinders. At that point you kind 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.640 of start getting into a wash. You have a diminishing 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.760 the law of diminishing returns, that kind of thing. But 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.240 this is the basis, and this is what made internal 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.960 combustion engines useful. Before that, you had external combustion engines, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.039 which you know, first you would think that makes it 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.360 sound like there's gonna be all these explosions everywhere, But no, 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.120 we're talking things like steam engines stuff like that. We 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.800 actually had open flame boiling up steam so that you 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.280 could generate this this same sort of power, because you know, 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:44.479 the steam would push pistons too. We talked all about 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:49.279 that in Yeah, it's pretty much that's the way of 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.919 the world, speaking of steam. Our friend Jules Verne, Wow, 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:57.599 eighteen seventy four. Yeah, Jules Verne, so the the famed writer, 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:01.680 the one of the earliest in I don't know if 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:03.640 you call it science fiction of that era, but it's 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.719 certainly the precursor to modern science fiction and what a 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:11.080 lot of stuff like steampunk is based upon. So Jules 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.640 Verne wrote in The Mysterious Island a prediction. Now, granted, 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.080 this is a prediction within the context of a work 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.840 of fiction. I say that because as a Shakespearean I 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.960 get really irritated people who attribute a quote to Shakespeare 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.080 when really it's one of Shakespeare's characters. But anyway, so 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.599 what he said in The Mysterious Island was that one 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:34.040 day water itself would be widely used as fuel by 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.800 breaking it down into hydrogen and oxygen. So it was 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:42.440 a very you know, futuristic kind of of of vision 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.040 he had, but also a realistic one. It wasn't one 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.480 outside the realm of possibility. Oh yeah, Sharon, it was. 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.240 It was almost thirty years after Sir William Grove had 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.160 had made those those hypotheses and then proved them about 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:58.560 the opposition of electrolysis. Yeah. Yeah, So it was an 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:00.880 interesting science thing that he picked up, and it's now 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.680 seeping into the public consciousness because now you've got it 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:08.440 popularized by fiction as well as in the scientific literature. Uh. 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:10.600 In the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties, you had several 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.800 engineers working independently and they all came up with this 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.520 idea for the carburetor. The reason why I have it 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.440 worded this way is because if you ask people who 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.320 invented the carburetor, you get into a lot of flame wars, 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.520 not literally, the figurative kind of flame war. That's good, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.200 and I'm glad. I would hope they don't battle it 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.360 out with flamethrowers or something. I actually kind of hope that. 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:34.040 Does that make me a bad person. I'm not going 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:35.640 to comment one way or the other. For fear of 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.600 you turning a flamethrower on me. So yeah, this, uh, 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.080 this is where you Depending upon whom you ask, you 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.600 get a lot of different answers about who actually invented 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.679 the carburetor. But the carburetor's purpose is to mix together 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:52.320 gasoline with air to run an engine safely and efficiently. Now, 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:57.120 this invention made gasoline powered internal combustion engines possible. They 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:01.320 made it made them practical. So because of this attention, 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.680 starts to shift away from hydrogen and towards gasoline because 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.560 gasoline was easier to come by. Uh, you could use 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:10.800 as a fuel now with this way, instead of trying 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:14.400 to just use pure gasoline. So uh, that's kind of 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.600 why the hydrogen based car, I would say. I would argue, 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:19.440 this is the big reason why the hydrogen based car 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.000 didn't become the car like that, it didn't become the 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:27.040 way we used vehicles and why gasoline ended up taking over. 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:32.240 So eight nine we have Ludwig Mond and Car Longer 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.360 who actually coined the term fuel cell and their version 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.600 used cold gas and air as the fuel. So we've 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:41.880 talked to a couple of times mentioned fuel cells, like 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.839 twice already in this podcast. Yeah, so let's talk a 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.040 little bit about how they work. Yeah. So, basic idea 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.080 is that you've got two compartments, two chambers, and into one. 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.160 This is this is for a hydrogen based fuel cell, 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.000 which is what most of the fuel cells we talk 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.400 about are. You put in one chamber hydrogen, pure hydrogen. 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.720 You put in the other chamber pure oxygen. Between the two. Yeah, yes, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:09.520 ideally you could meddle with this, but then the byproducts 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.800 you get afterward are more than what a pure hydrogen 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.800 based fuel cell would do. So then you put between 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.840 the two a semipermeable membrane that's coated with a catalyst. 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.560 And a catalyst is essentially something that makes other stuff 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.280 happen or makes it happen more easily. Now, the hydrogen 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:32.680 cannot pass through the semipermeable membrane unaltered. The only way 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:34.480 it's going to be allowed to get into the party 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.520 with all of its oxygen buddies is to shed a 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.440 pesky electron. And if you remember from our last podcast, 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.560 what's the hydrogen atom. It's a proton and electron. So 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.640 that's it. So you want to get hydrogen ions, they 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:48.760 have to ditch their electron buddies and then they get 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.360 on across the the semipermeable membrane. They're fine, they can 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.880 go join their oxygen buddies. All those electrons start to 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.719 build up. They don't like each other. Okay, they're all 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.800 negatively charged, their negative nancy's. They don't want to be there. 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:03.960 They want to get out of that and head over 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:05.520 to the other side of the party where at least 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.720 there's some tolerable elements and ions hanging out and not 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.320 all these just electron jerks. So if you create a 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.560 pathway from the hydrogen side to the oxygen side, then 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.240 they're going to take it because now they've got a 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.480 way to get away from all these other jerks. And 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:23.880 if you force them to do a little bit of 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.000 work along the way, yeah, then they're like, you know, 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.240 I don't like doing this work, but I'm totally gonna 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.000 do it if it means like I want to get 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.000 into that party. Uh So, if this sounds like and 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:35.960 you know what happens when you put a battery in 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.240 a circuit, that's essentially what we're talking about here. We're 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.880 talking about creating a circuit, a pathway for electrons to 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.120 follow to go from an area of negative concentration to 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.160 an area where there are positive holes, that's what we 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.360 usually call them, for the electrons to fill. So we 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.640 create this this pathway. The electrons from the hydrogen side 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.920 will go through it do work enter in on the 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.760 oxygen side where the hydrogen ions already are start to 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.439 recombine with these things, which then forms water. So the 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.960 output you get from your typical hydrogen oxygen fuel cell, 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:14.000 assuming you're using pure hydrogen and pure oxygen, is electricity, water, 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:18.800 and heat. That's it. Fantastic technology. There are some there's 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:20.920 some drawbacks. One of the big ones is that the 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.160 materials tend to be really expensive. The catalysts tend to 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.480 be things like platinum, which don't know if you've priced 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.360 it recently, it's it's pricey. Yeah, yeah, it's a little 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.520 on the deer side. Now we're talking about nanoparticles of platinum, 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:35.800 so a little goes a long way. But still it's 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.600 really expensive and it's expensive to separate hydrogen out from 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.440 anything that it is connected to. Right, you could say, well, 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:44.400 why don't you just separate out from water, Well, you're 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.800 making water too. You're actually you'd be spending more energy 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.160 trying to get the hydrogen out that way. Now, if 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.680 you were able to harness some other form of electricity 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:55.720 to do the work for you, Like let's say you 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.000 had a solar panel farm and that solar panel farm 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.320 was generating electricity solely for the purpose to separate out 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.839 hydrogen from oxygen and water, and then you harvested the 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.440 hydrogen and use that in your fuel cells. That's a 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:13.760 possible solution. It would be, you know, a complicated infrastructure, 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:15.600 but it's workable, and in fact, that's one of the 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.800 things Toyota is looking at. They're also looking at harnessing 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.160 wind power to do the same sort of thing, So 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.680 finding the renewable energy sourced so that you can produce 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.640 this hydrogen, because otherwise you're just spending more than what 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.079 you're making, and then again we're at that losing proposition. 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:31.280 It is. It is one of the one of the 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:33.559 several problems with fuel cells. But but we'll get a 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.319 little bit more into that later on. We've got more 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:38.600 to say about hydrogen fuel in just a minute. But 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:49.440 first let's take a quick break. All right, we're back, 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.000 Uh what year is it now? It is? Okay, we're 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.360 gonna talk about a Scott Now a Scottish chemist named 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:01.000 James Doer, who used regenerative cooling and of vacuum flask 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:05.400 to liquefy hydrogen at the Royal Institution of Great Britain 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.400 in London. Now that next year he even managed to 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.640 go a step further and reduce the temperature enough so 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.280 that he could solidify hydrogen. Now you might wonder how 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.480 cold are we talking about here? That happens at a 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:25.120 temperature of negative three two degrees fahrenheit or negative two 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.680 hundred and thirty nine point nine degrees celsius. And I 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.320 think even our friends to the Great White North could 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.440 agree that that's pretty chilly. I was out at like 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.000 at like five fahrenheits yeah, I'm like, yeah, you know, 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.280 I gotta cover my tomatoes when it gets down to sixty. 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.040 So we're kind of joking. But but so more about 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.840 this vacuum flask. This thing is the coolest thing. I mean, 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.880 I don't didn't mean to make a pun, but it's 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:51.040 I never believe you when you say that. I really, 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.240 as I was saying it, I was judging myself. So 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.320 if that makes you feel any better. It's a double 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.559 walled flask, so you think of it as two flasks, 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.560 one slightly smaller one and set inside the slightly larger one, 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.320 and that space between the larger one the smaller one 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.800 is completely evacuated of all material. So it's it's a vacuum, right, 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.480 You've got a vacuum between those two sides. Now, what 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.439 this does is it allows you to insulate whatever material 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.200 is on the inside that flask from the outside environment. 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.320 It does not conduct heat very well at all. Therefore, 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.200 you can conduct experiments at particular temperatures. Yeah, you can 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.880 have low temperature experiments where you just keep reducing the 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.000 temperature and you don't have to worry about the heat 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:37.240 from the outside environment, because then then you would never 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.560 get anything cold enough to be able to do this 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.600 stuff like liquefying hydrogen. I mean, you've got to get 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.560 it really cold, and any sort of environmental heat is 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.320 going to immediately move from an area of high concentration 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.640 to an area of low concentration. That's kind of what 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.400 it does, sort of what thermodynamics do, you know. So 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.760 the other thing is that it also is really good 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.920 at keeping hot stuff hot, so you know, like a 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.440 like a thermos. You know, it's it's because again it's 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.440 not allowing the heat from the inside of the flask 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.880 to leak out into the outside environment. Gradually it will 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.320 still cool down or the stuff inside will gradually still 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.320 get warm. Because it's not a perfect system. At the 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.800 neck of this flask, that's where the weak point is 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:23.040 because at some point those two the inner and outer flask, 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.240 have to join together. You can't. You can't just magically suspended. 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.360 So there are some weak points in this. It's not 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.160 a perfect system, but it does work really, really well. 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.600 Now let's go to one of my favorite parts of 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.760 the podcast, because this is where we get to talk 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:43.600 about some incredible music. Because in n that's when Count 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.960 Ferdinand Vaughan led Zeppelin launched the first hydrogen filled rigid 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.560 airship called a Ferdinand and just just just von Zeppelin. 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:57.360 It wasn't vun lead Zeppelin. That my musical past has 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.880 betrayed me once again. Well, no, of course, we don't 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.320 call them the Ferdinands. We call them Zeppelin's. Yes, but 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.920 they were not made out of lead. I guess maybe 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:09.600 some of the material might have been lead. I could 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:17.760 have been low lead, maybe spandex or hair. Okay, that's fair, yeah, alright, 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:22.720 So but anyway, this. This was the hydrogen filled rigid airship. 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.400 These are those dirigibles that you've seen in the past 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:30.320 and were majestic vehicles. But we'll get into why we 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.440 don't really see those anymore in just a couple of years. Certainly, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.720 although I believe that hydrogen was being used, I think 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.960 he was German, and I think Germany was using hydrogen 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.160 at the time because the United States was holding a 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.280 great amount of the helium in the world at the time, 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.160 and hydrogen was kind of considered the next best thing, 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.120 right because you know, both hydrogen and helium have this 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.920 lifting property being being lighter than air. Sure, so so 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.560 these Zeppelins might have been using something slightly less combustible 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.200 like helium if they had had the opportunity to helium, 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.840 by the way, significantly less combustible as in not but 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.399 but yes, hydrogen. Yeah, I mean, you use whatever you 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.439 have available, and that's exactly what they did. Five we 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:16.040 have Henry Garrett, who is was rather an American inventor 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.840 who created an automobile that quote unquote ran on water. 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.320 So this is where a lot not all of them, obviously, 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.399 but a lot of conspiracy theories about uh big car 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.679 companies or big oil companies pushing down all these inventions 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.280 that ran quote unquote ran on water. A lot of 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.159 them come from this kind of thing. There are some 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.520 there's some truth to vehicles that used water as a 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:45.960 component for fuel, but they all had their own big drawbacks. 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.840 So Garrett's was one that used electrolysis, like we had said, 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.000 So it's using electricity to separate water out into hydrogen 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.000 and oxygen um. And then the car was really using 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.680 hydrogen as a fuel, which is not the most efficient ride. 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.639 You're are ay having spent so much energy just to 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.080 create the fuel that then continues to move the car, 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.160 and he had to refill it a lot, so not 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.440 necessarily the best approach. Now this is before we really 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.680 had useful ways of storing lots of pressurized hydrogen, which 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.800 would allow us to have kind of a consistent fueling source. Sure, 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:20.639 but I mean, I can I can see where the 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:25.080 conspiracy or or fringe theorists, as I hear they prefer 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.880 to be called by many angry people on the internet, 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.040 the ones I keep making it mad, Uh, you know, 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.640 I I can see I can see where perhaps um 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.240 gasoline powered car companies would not have at that particular 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.160 time wanted to donate funding to that kind of research, 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.840 right right, Well, and you know they're definitely there's a 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.760 huge investment in the gasoline automobile industry, I mean from 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:55.800 multiple players, not just not just so. But yeah, then 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:00.239 we have a truly terrible disaster in nineteen seven, right 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:04.200 on May six of that year, the Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster occurred, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:08.359 and that has has put for the intervening time between 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.680 then and now, this idea into the public's mind that 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.760 hydrogen is an extremely dangerous substance, right that that to 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.680 use hydrogen is to court death. Yes, although it should 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.480 be noted that hydrogen was not the instigator of that disaster. Okay, So, 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.520 so the blimp was coated in aluminum powder to reflect sunlight. 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.359 Aluminum powder these days is a critical component of rocket fuel. 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.600 Under that coat, the cotton fabric was waterproofed with a 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:36.080 flammable acetate. There was a lot of static electricity in 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:37.960 the air from a storm that day, so when the 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.920 crew dropped the mooring ropes, it electrically grounded the blimp 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.880 and set off sparks that ignited this highly flammable material, 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.119 which then of course came into contact with this hydrogen 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.479 that's inside of it, and the whole thing lent up 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.919 proponents of hydrogen fuel, though, Actually is the Hindenberg as 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:58.320 a as a point to hydrogen safety because the really 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.199 lightweight hydrogen ascended up out of the blimp so fast 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.320 that the flames went upward, not outward or downwards, So 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.920 it saved the lives of everyone who actually remained on board, right, 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:10.520 So yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting that something we 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.479 look at as being an example of this stuff is 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.360 going to be too dangerous for us to use actually 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.119 is an example of No, you're you're looking at this 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.040 the wrong way. You're not. You don't have the full picture, right, right, 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.080 It's I mean, sure, it's it's dangerous. That everything is dangerous, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:31.400 and what's more dangerous is coding your blimp and rocket fuel. Yeah, okay, alright, 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.400 not no, Lauren, I'm not going to use any more 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.560 rocket fuel on my blimp. And that same year as 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.920 the Hannonbury disaster, there was an experimental gaseous hydrogen fueled 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.600 jet engine test and that's the first working jet engine 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.400 using hydrogen. So then we move on to nineteen thirty eight. 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.040 That's when Igor Sikorski, who was a Russian American aviator, 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.840 proposed using liquid hydrogen as a fuel for aviation. So 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.680 you know, we already still have people saying that hydrogen 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:03.439 had its place. By ninety one, we have the first 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:09.760 mass application of hydrogen internal combustion engines. That's when a 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.159 Russian lieutenant whose name I'm not even going to attempt 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.359 to pronounce, ordered the conversion of several Ford Model G 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.159 A Z dash A A cars, the the Double A, 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:25.719 the Model Double A into hydrogen internal combustion engines converted 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.679 from gasoline to hydrogen as part of the war effort 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:33.760 during World War Two. Forest think, oh, nice, I was 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.560 not going to try because my Russian is worse than 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.680 my Swiss, which is worse than my French. I haven't. 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:43.120 I haven't looked that up, but but i'm that's that's 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:47.960 my stab. Well well done, because you're braver than I am. 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.679 In ninety three we have Ohio State University testing liquid 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.760 hydrogen as rocket fuel, and in the nineteen fifties and 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.320 sixties we see more work with these hydrogen fuel cells, 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.359 this whole idea that had been opposed decades earlier, and 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.920 mostly we see them in industrial applications like powering forklifts 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:08.840 or other heavy machinery. The first commercial use of a 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:14.919 hydrogen fuel cell is in Project Jiminy. Okay, I'm just 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:17.159 saying it the way they old I know. Yeah, that 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:22.040 was and that particular fuel cell was developed by General Electric. 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.359 There's your conspiracy theories for you, all right in the 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.520 home stretch, right to finish out hydrogen fuel and just 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.359