It has come to my attention that my most popular ezine articles dealt with economic solar energy and the prevention of global warming.
Therefore, I'm going to divert my next few articles to cover these subjects more fully.
Let's begin with economic solar energy.
As previously mentioned, mass produced sun tracking solar thermal panel systems will bring costs and prices to much less than photovoltaic panels (PV), and if used to generate nighttime electricity, by storing hot oil at 750 degrees Fahrenheit, a system can be devised to generate electricity around the clock.
However, let's instead generate hydrogen using the sulfur/iodine thermo-chemical method!! I'm not going to go into a lot of detail regarding my cost estimates, detailed design aspects, operating efficiency, or equipment pricing/profits.
Instead I'm going to present an intriguing scenario that could be duplicated throughout the United States.
About 5 to 10 miles north and south of Minneapolis Minnesota there are acres and acres of farmland that's used for growing cattle corn.
At current pricing each acre yields a gross income of about $700 per year to the farmer.
Not knowing exactly how the farmland is distributed, let's assume that each farmer owns 100 acres of open farmland and is willing to transform 22 of these acres into hydrogen gas production.
Now let's include an interconnecting piping network to transport gaseous hydrogen to two farmers (one north and one south) who generate electricity and liquefy the gaseous hydrogen.
At $0.
020 per kilowatt-hour the cryogenic process adds about $0.
30 per kilogram of hydrogen -- thus resulting in a production cost of about $1.
90 per kilogram of liquefied hydrogen fuel -- which includes $0.
22 per kilogram for miscellaneous expenses.
Accordingly the entire population of Minneapolis/St Paul could have hydrogen fuel -- made from sun and water -- that's provided by about 2,200 farmers who use 76 square miles of land for this purpose (9 miles x 9 miles equals 81 square miles).
To put this into perspective Minneapolis/St Paul is situated on about 110 square miles of land and the state of Minnesota is comprised of 79,610 square miles, a large portion of which is comprised of corn growing farmland.
Now let's assume that hydrogen tanker trucks (owned by the oil companies) pick up and deliver the liquefied hydrogen to inner city gas stations and pay the farmers a wholesale price of $3.
00 per kilogram.
As a result, each of our 2,200 farmers will receive a net profit of about $46,000 per year (after subtracting $160,000 per year for equipment amortization payments --10 years at 5% --, maintenance, and labor).
Since growing corn on these 22 acres provided a gross income (before expenses) of about $15,400, it would not only be a good deal -- it would be a fantastic deal! In fact with the hydrogen generating equipment lasting about 25 years, the net income after the 10 year loan is paid back would be quite substantial.
What do you think so far? Have I got your attention? Stay tuned for more game changing ideas that I believe will surprise you even more than what I have just presented.