The Hydrogen Economy to solve Climate Change?

One of the interesting aspects of climate change is the number of proposals put forward to solve it that do not take into account adverse consequences. There is a strong association of wishful thinking with some of these. On the other side are the gloomy ones, and maybe I fall into that category. What brought that thought to the fore was I have seen further claims for hydrogen as a solution. Why? Well, there are wild claims that wind and solar will solve everything. One problem with these is they tend to deliver their energy in pulses: solar during the day, wind when it is blowing. The net result is that if these can deliver adequate power for all times, there is serious overproduction required at other times. The problem then is how to store this energy. One way is to pump water uphill, but that requires large storage. In a country like New Zealand, where much of the electricity is hydro generated, you would just turn off that generation and use the hydro to manage power demand. However, that assumes there is not a large increase in electricity demand. One proposed solution is to generate hydrogen by electrolysing water. This is a well-understood technology, with no problems, given the power. There are, however, significant economic ones.

This is claimed to solve another problem; a very significant amount of domestic heating is obtained from burning gas. Now, all we have to do is burn hydrogen. We could also use hydrogen in vehicles. My big problem, having worked with hydrogen before, is that it leaks, and is extremely flammable. According to Wikipedia, the flammability range of hydrogen in air is between 4% and 75%; to detonate, the limits are 18.3 – 59% (each by volume), and a leak can support combustion at flow rates as low as 4 micrograms/second. Mixtures can ignite with very low energy input, 1/10 of that needed to ignite gasoline/air, and any static electric spark can ignite it.

The leak problem is made worse by the fact that hydrogen can embrittle metals, and thus create a way for it to escape. It is lighter than air, so it tends to accumulate at the ceilings of buildings, and its very wide explosive range is a broad hazard. The idea that hydrogen could be piped into houses to provide heating is not something I would want to see. The problem is made worse in that you might be sensible and cautious and not take it up, but your neighbour might. The consequences of that can impinge on you. Recently, in Christchurch, a house blew up, and reduced itself to a collection of boards, roofing material, etc., with only the foundations remaining more or less where they started. Several neighbours houses were severely damaged, and made effectively unliveable, at least without major repairs. By some miracle, nobody was killed, although a number had injuries. What apparently happened was a registered gasfitter had done some work on the house’s gas system, there was a natural gas leak, and something ignited it. My guess is, he has some explaining to do, but my point is if this can happen to a registered tradesman, what will happen if there is widespread use of something that leaks with orders of magnitude more ease?

There is a further irony. The objective behind using hydrogen is to help the greenhouse effect by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we emit. Unfortunately, leaked hydrogen also magnifies the greenhouse effect. At first sight, this does not look right because greenhouse gases work because there is a change of dipole moment in the vibrational mode. This is needed because unless the transition involves a change of electric moment, it cannot absorb a photon. Hydrogen has only one vibrational mode and no electric moment, and no change of electric moment when it is stretched because of its symmetry, i.e.one end of H2 is exactly the same as the other end. There is a minor effect in that the molecule can be polarised for an instant in a collision with something else, but that is fairly harmless.

The problem lies in downstream consequences. One of the important greenhouse gases is methane, emitted by natural gas leaks, farm animals, other farm processes, anaerobic fermentation, etc. Methane is about 35 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and worse, it absorbs in otherwise transparent parts of the infrared spectrum. (The otherwise does not include other hydrocarbon gases.) However, methane is not as serious as it might be because it is short-lived. UV radiation in the upper atmosphere breaks water, directly or indirectly, into hydroxyl radicals and hydrogen radicals. The hydroxyl radicals rapidly degrade methane, and the hydrogen radicals react with oxygen in the air to make peroxyl radicals that also degrade methane. Molecular hydrogen reacts with both these sort of radicals, and thus indirectly preserves the methane.

There are, of course, other ways of using hydrogen, such as in chemical reactions, including upgrading biofuels, and it can be stored in chemical compounds. Hydrazine (N2H4) is an example of a liquid that could make a very useful fuel. (In the book, and film “The Martian”, the hero has hydrazine from the fuel tank of a rocket, so he catalytically converts it to hydrogen to burn to make water, and blows up his “dome”. It would have been so much easier to burn hydrazine, as it was, after all, from a rocket fuel tank.) Other options include storing hydrogen as hydrides, e.g. borohydrides, or as ammonia, which is cheaper to make than hydrazine, but it is also a gas, unlike hydrazine. The problem is usually how to deliver the hydrogen at a regular and controllable rate.

The use of hydrogen in a chemical manufacturing plant, or when handled with expertise, such as when used by NASA, is no problem. My concern would be for the average person doing repairs themselves to pipes conveying hydrogen, or worse still, plumbing incorrectly. As for having hydrogen as a fuel to be delivered at refuelling stations, I used this concept in my ebook “Puppeteer” to illustrate the potential danger if there are terrorists on the loose.

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Putin and the West

One of the more unexpected items that I saw recently on the web noted some accusations made by Vladimir Putin to the effect that the West, and particularly the US, has made a continual attempt to destabilize Russia. By itself, that is not exactly surprising that he would say that, but the way he argues the West went about it is, assuming this has any truth. And, of course, this continues my theme of asking for actual evidence behind accusations. The following is a précis of Putin’s accusations, together with my comments. The more complete accusations can be found here:

http://journal-neo.org/2015/05/15/what-if-putin-is-telling-the-truth/

The first point that Putin made was that when Afghanistan was under Soviet control, the Mujahideen were funded from the CIA and the Saudis. That is almost certainly true, but the Soviets should have expected that. The next point was that when the Soviet Union collapsed and fell into total disarray the American attitude was, “kick them while they are down”. There was certainly considerable glee in the western press when the Soviet Union collapsed, but that does not mean they set about to make the situation worse. My guess is the West would be really concerned about what happened to the Soviet nuclear material, so they would not welcome a total collapse.

The next point Putin made was that Halliburton had surveyed the oil potentials of the Caucasus region, and it was huge. That is a mixed statement. The oil reserves are huge, but that was known well before, and in World War II, Hitler had decided that if he could get there, his fuel problems were over. (They would not be because there was still a transport problem, but the oil was certainly known.) Halliburton knowing about Caucasus oil reserves is unsurprising, but that does not mean Halliburton did anything. However, Halliburton can clear itself by proving none of their agents visited the region nor did they send any particular amounts of money there. So far they have not.

Putin then accused the West of trying to keep this oil from Russia. That, to me, doesn’t make sense. Putin then accused a General Richard Secord of organizing revolts. He persuaded two thousand of the Wahabbis of the Afghan Arabs to redeploy into these areas, and he was helped by a CIA agent called Osama bin Laden. Again, multiple accusations. The “Afghan Arabs” had little effect on getting rid of the Soviets from Afghanistan, and were apparently intensely disliked by the Afghans who were doing the fighting, nevertheless there were about 35,000 of these Afghan Arabs who received military training and about $800 million from the US. You can make what you will of that, and more details are at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden However, you can reasonably argue that from Putin’s point of view, he is not that interested in fine detail, and Putin’s statement was about these Afghan Arabs. Furthermore, there is evidence that people who were Osama’s closest associates did benefit from US funding. However, there is no clear evidence I could find that anyone from the CIA ever met Osama bin Laden.

General Richard Secord’s plan (according to Putin) was to set up a front company, MEGA oil, which was the agency for bringing the terrorists and arms into the Caucasus. Again, this is a multiple point statement. If MEGA oil was a registered company, the shareholding should be known, but of course these might be nominees. Thus Secord may well have helped set up that company but even of he did, that does not show he had anything to do with bringing in terrorists, i.e. the Afghan Arabs. We need supporting facts. The first success of this strategy, according to Putin, was to topple the elected President of Azerbaijan in a military coup, and replace him with an American puppet. Certainly, the President was deposed, but we have no reason to suspect the Afghan Arabs had anything to do with this.

The Afghan Arabs then turned their attention to Chechnya. A flood of US dollars allowed bin Laden to ensure that Chechen moderates were soon out of the way. Prior to this intervention, Chechens were mainly moderate Sufi Muslims but the Afghan Arabs quickly spread al Qaeda’s hard-line philosophy. Leaving aside the role of Osama, we know the Afghan Arabs did have a serious role in Chechnya, and we have no way of knowing whether the accusation of cash is true, although that would not be surprising if there was such cash, or if there was such cash, its origins. Again, a shortage of facts.

Meanwhile, according to Putin, the Saudi terrorist Ibn al-Khattag was organizing terrorists for a more general jihad. The CIA and Saudi financed terrorists also carried out the October 2002 massacre at the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow, and the September 2004 Beslan school massacre. According to Putin, this activity was funded by, and many fighters were provided by, Osama bin Laden from Kandahar. The objectives were, from the CIA, to destabilize the collapsing Russian federation, while the Saudis wanted to spread Wahabbi fundamentalism. The two named massacres certainly happened, but this was after 9/11, and I find it very hard to believe the US was funding the terrorists then. The more unexpected the statement, the stronger must be the supporting facts, and they are absent. Following the Beslan massacre, which the Russian troops handled poorly, Putin noted that the western media demonized him and Russia, but no mention was made of al Qaeda or the Saudi involvement. That may be because the western media had no reason to suspect Saudi involvement.

The item then noted that by late 2004, Putin had had enough of Chechnya, and ordered a more vigorous response by Russia into Chechnya. What they found was that most of the Afghan Arab terrorists had already fled, and had safe havens in NATO member countries, or reliable US allies. The allegation that the Afghan Arabs had fled Chechnya was presumably true because there is fair evidence they were there, and they were not there when the Russian troops came in, but where they went to must be unknown. My guess is many of them ended up in Iraq or Syria.

So the problem is, many of Putin’s allegations are not supported by evidence that I could find. On the other hand, just because I could not find evidence does not mean they are not true, or, for that matter, they are false. As for Halliburton, their general involvement and incompetence in Iraq may have made them a convenient whipping boy. However, the role of al Qaeda in the Chechen revolt and the two pieces of terrorism in Russia were outlined in a report that the Putin allegation asserts was published by the UN Security Council in 2010. That report is verifiable. Accordingly, I believe that is an endorsement of the truth of that part of Putin’s accusation.

In short, what Putin alleges about the Afghan Arabs and their role in Chechnya appears to be verified, but the argument that the CIA was backing them then has no support that I could find. So, my overall conclusion is there is no direct evidence that the CIA actively tried to organize terrorism in the Russian Federation, BUT they had almost certainly funded and trained the people who were to become terrorists when the US thought they were liberating Afghanistan. In short, our current problems were bred by CIA intervention, and the CIA simply did not understand the motivation behind those it was funding. Assuming it is true, the spending of $800 million on some militant religious fundamentalists may have seemed a good idea at the time, but it ended up being very silly.

Is there a solution to the Palestinian question?

Back from a quiet time, and look at what happened? The first was that at the end of 2016, New Zealand co-sponsored a UN resolution “demanding” that Israel stop building settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank. This generated a surprising amount of heat, if not much light. For those who have read my fiction, I have advocated logic as a way of analyzing problems, and it seems to me this question is suitable for such an approach, not that it is likely to succeed.

We start by acknowledging where we are. Israel is a Jewish state, and it occupies by military force the West Bank, which was largely populated by Palestinians, many of whom were forced out of the rest of Israel. The two sides have been very antagonistic towards each other, and the objective is to try to find a solution where both can live in peace. The question is, what are the conditions that might lead to that outcome? In my opinion, the options are:

1. Move the Jews out of the area. However, the Jews have such an invested infrastructure this option is not a starter.
2. Move the Palestinians somewhere else. The problem is, where? People say Jordan, but Jordan is already overrun by Syrian refugees, and in any case, why does someone else have to pay the price? While most of the Jews came recently, the Palestinians have been there for a very long time. Whoever advocates this solution can do their own bit, by accepting a Palestinian family, providing them a home and jobs, and a guaranteed income until they can fend for themselves. In short, put your money where your mouth is. I bet there will not be sufficient takers to make a difference.
3. Incorporate the Palestinians into Israel, with full citizenship, and enough money to make a start to life. That is a non-starter because Israel is a Jewish state, and a Muslim majority would be non-acceptable.
4. Have a two state solution.

In my opinion, only (4) has any hope, but here the problem is the West Bank is not exactly large, and it is covered with a pox of Israeli settlements. Some people say, they are only 3% of the area. Before addressing that, we must ask, are the settlements legal?

When the first settlements were being considered, the legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry was asked whether international law permitted civilian settlement in the occupied territories. The reply: that would contravene the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The settlements are illegal because international law forbids an occupying power from moving part of its population to occupied territory. The territory is under military occupation, and it is for that reason the Arabs who live there do not have to be integrated into Israel.

Here is the legal dilemma from the Israeli point of view. Granting citizenship to the Palestinians would mean either Israel ceased to be a proper representative republic, or it would cease to be a Jewish state. Not granting such citizenship meant they were under military occupation, and international law should apply.

In this context, it seems that everybody who keeps asserting Russia violates international law and should be punished are strangely quiet on Israel. Instead we have the rather bizarre situation where the people of the West Bank fall into two subsets: settlers enjoy the full rights of Israeli citizens, while the Palestinians are still under military occupation and have essentially no rights. The question then is, how long will this go on? Obviously, the hard right of Israeli politics seems to think, forever. Whatever else they have, compassion for the Palestinians is not one of them.

Returning to the 3% problem, the area of the settlements is not the issue. The settlements are all connected to Israel proper by roads controlled by Israel that slice up the West bank. The settlements all demand water, sewage, electricity, and other services. All of these services are controlled by Israel, and are unavailable to the Palestinians, and worse than that, Israel would not let the Palestinians cross their fixed infrastructure, because they would expect it to be damaged.

If there is to be a two-state solution, the Palestinians have to go some way. They have to accept the right of Israel to exist, not because it is right but because there is no alternative. Incidents such as the recent one where a Palestinian drove a truck through some Israeli soldiers have to stop. First it is not right to kill people, and particularly those who are not directly responsible for your problems, and second it is counterproductive, because it just firms up Israeli opinion about them. The Palestinians have been severely wronged, and everybody should acknowledge that, but the Palestinians cannot progress by living in a morass of moaning about wrongs. That does not mean that others should not do something to help, though. When the United Nations voted to form Israel, they gave away that which they did not own. In the Naqba, about 700,000 Palestinians were displaced, and their property taken over by Israel. Of course, following the UN resolution, the Israelis could say they had no choice. Maybe, but if that was what the UN wanted, they should have purchased the Palestinian properties and given them to the Israelis. The fact of the matter is that Israel was founded on promises (Lloyd George offered the concept to Jews to help raise money for the war effort, which probably did not help the attitude of a certain Austrian corporal.), terrorism (it is the one shining example that proves that sometimes terrorism does work) and military force. One of the great ironies is that the Jews sent to Palestine in the late 1930s from Germany, organized by a certain Reinhardt Heydrich, set about terrorist activities against the British during WW II, while Heydrich was busy organizing the mass murder of Jews in Europe. The fact that the Palestinians and other “Arab” countries tried military means to right the wrongs done to the Palestinians is also irrelevant, although through their lack of effectiveness it has obviously made the problem worse.

But the past is irrelevant. We are here. If we accept that the two-state solution is the only possibility for civilized peace, then both sides must make serious concessions, and more to the point, the rest of the world that voted to create this problem has to come to the party with serious investment to make Palestine at least a plausible state. If you vote to give away that which you do not own, then you should be prepared to pay for it, to give the Palestinians some hope. The alternative is that the Palestinians live in perpetual military occupation, with no rights, and subjugated by a military force that does not like them one bit.

The recent example of a soldier who saw a Palestinian lying on the ground, and because he believed that Palestinian had injured an Israeli, he shot him. The Palestinian was subjugated, and would have been taken away for trial, but this soldier simply executed him. If you see interviews of Israelis, a large number (including some right wing rabbis I saw interviewed) seem to think the soldier was right. Sorry, but that is not civilized, it is not legal, and it most certainly is not helpful.

So if neither side is interested in reaching a solution, how does this end? I confess I have no idea, except I cannot see it ending well

Russian Metrojet down!

The worst news this week, from my perspective anyway, was the downing of the Russian Metrojet over the Sinai. This is absolutely awful, and my sympathy goes out to all the relatives. Immediately following the destruction of the aircraft, there were a number of statements from all sorts of places, and I find it interesting to consider why they were made. First, both Russians and Egyptians discounted “foul play”. The problem here is, both had reasons why they did not want it to be a consequence of terrorism: the Egyptians because it happened on their soil, and the Russians because they did not want it to known widely that they had been attacked. To stir the pot along, ISIS claimed responsibility, a claim that was remarkably quickly dismissed from many quarters. Personally, I think some weight should be given to this because ISIS is not in the habit of claiming what they have not done. We then heard statements that the aircraft had had a tail impact some years before. Then some Russians suddenly realized that incompetent maintenance was even worse looking for them, so they stated the aircraft was in good mechanical order. Next we have had a claim that a satellite saw an infrared flash, and following that, there appears to be evidence that those seated at the back of the aircraft alone were terribly burned. So, what can we suggest caused this? It is still too early to know, and we need more information, nevertheless an analysis of the above does make some strong suggestions, assuming the information is true.

It was not pilot error. The aircraft was apparently flying normally at 9,000 meters, then it stopped flying, quite suddenly. At that altitude there is nothing the pilot could do that would cause such a sudden failure. I also reject aircraft failure. Engineers have examined the aircraft frequently, and gross problems would have been detected. Suppose something broke, through metal fatigue. Modern aircraft have a lot of strength redundancy, as they have to fly through absolutely violent conditions. If you have ever flown through a tropical cumulus storm you will know what I mean. I have looked out the window and seen the wings flapping. If something does break, there is inevitably plenty of reserve, but suppose the reserve is in trouble. What happens then is that the failure gradually cascades, as each break adds to the problems of that remaining. However, such failures are relatively slow to develop, and the pilot would have had time to take action, such as radio for help, take power off, and try to take the aircraft lower and slower. In this case, the air conditions were very benign, which would greatly help the pilot. From what we can gather, the event was sudden and disastrous, so we can safely assume there was no problem like metal fatigue.

Similarly, we can reject an accidental collision. There is nothing to accidentally collide with at 9,000 meters.

That leaves us with two possibilities. A missile attack is one. As was shown by the Malaysian airline aircraft over the Ukraine, that is feasible. It has been argued that could not be the case because terrorists do not have access to such missiles. That may be true, but we cannot be absolutely sure. It has also been stated the satellite would have tracked the heat trail of a missile, but at this point we have to be a little careful because we do not know whether the evidence really ruled that out as we have no details of the data on which the statement was made. Perhaps it was detected, but nobody was looking at the time and there was no adequate record, or perhaps the detector was not sensitive enough.

The next possibility is an on-board explosion, which is in accord with the infrared flash, and the burnt passengers. There are three possible sources for an explosion: a missile, the fuel tank exploding, and a bomb. An explosion could result from a fuel-air mix in the tank, but that would mean that something really seriously faulty was done on the ground, because while an air-fuel mix can explode, it needs something to ignite it. The ignition temperature is so high that only a spark would do it, such as from static electricity. Aircraft fuel tanks are designed so that no such sparks can be generated.

The remaining option is a bomb loaded in with the cargo, or placed somewhere within the aircraft, either way by someone on the ground, presumably attached to the ground crew at the airport. In my opinion, this is the most likely option, but eventually we shall see. It will be reasonably easy to tell. When all the pieces of the aircraft are assembled, the source of the explosion will have led to metal being distorted away from the source. Either the fuel tank nearest the cargo deformed inwards or outwards. If inwards, it had to be a bomb. There will, of course, be other signs as well, including residues of whatever explosive was used.