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Re: News Advisory: Still Crazy After Oil These Years!
>One approach frequently touted by renewable energy
advocates is the
>production of hydrogen by electrolysis using electricity
from solar,
>wind and other renewable sources, with the hydrogen serving
to
>transmit the power from sunny regions to regions of high
demand, and
>to allow power to be supplied during the winter.
>
>It is not widely considered, however, that electrolysis
plants can,
>without much extra cost, be designed to also produce heavy
water as a
>byproduct (this is because there is a strong isotope effect
prefering
>the liberation of H to D at the cathode of an electrolysis
cell).
>Recall that before WW2 electrolysis was the commercial
method for
>heavy water preparation; the Nazis were getting their heavy
water from
>a captured plant in Norway (powered by good old renewable
>hydroelectric power.)
>
>Light water reactors of the kind currently used in
commercial nuclear
>power have never been implicated as contributing to
proliferation.
>Heavy water reactors, however, have been; India and Israel
supposedly
>went this route.
>
>An opponent of proliferation should prefer a light water
reactor
>electric economy to the renewable hydrogen economy.
>
> Paul
>
>
There is obviously no one technology that has only positive
and no negative attributes to it. Technology in and of
itself is neutral; politics is not. Hydrogen technology is
probably the best solution for the current problems seen by
environmentalists, but it will only provide a technical
solution to those problems. If another country wants to
exploit this technology for the production of nuclear
weapons, there is probably nothing stopping them from doing
this now, assuming they are willing to direct a lot of
effort and resources to this end.
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