Haber process

2/10/26:

Another 'hole' patched. Thanks for clicking...

4/19/19:

The Haber process is explained.  The Haber process makes ammonia.

A question that I have is this: can a mixture of gases from woodgas, which is produced by the dry distillation of wood, be used to make ammonia?  If it can, can a device be constructed to make this ammonia, and would it be simple enough for an ordinary person to set it up?

Evidently, an ordinary person can set up a woodgas collector.  The second part is whether or not an ordinary person can make an ammonia making device using the Haber process.

The process requires a lot of pressure, so it may not be that simple.

Now, the reason I ask is this:  can you use this process to make ammonia for use in a fuel cell device?

Lots of questions there.

Assorted Space Colonization videos

2/10/26:

Had to plug another "hole" in my post. Once again, thanks for clicking on it, so as to draw my attention. (even if that wasn't your intention.)

8/19/11:

Here I have collected some videos obtained partly through my YouTube subscription to "fragomatik". The others came from skimming the extra links provided therefrom.

Island One - Settlements in Space (video) by thregar


Habitat (video)by fragomatik


Habitat Fly-thru by fragomatik


Arthur C. Clarke's Rama (video) by cobrabase Eric Bruneton

Texas Reintroduced 5,000 Bison Into Desert Plain.. What Happened Next Was Insane

The buffalo do the unexpected to the soil. This gives me an idea. Most of the problem on my property out west is the dry conditions. There are two possibilities that I've seen. 1) beavers and 2) buffalo. You might think both ideas are nuts. But it has been tried in some places, and it seems to work. Amazing, eh?

Sounds like Science Fiction?

  This post might fit better on the main blog, but there's a lot of uncertainty here.

  Another reason to post this on this blog is that it goes well with Anastasia in Tech videos.

 In theory, all of this could work.  What could go wrong?  All of those questions are answered in this video.

  That makes the next flight of Starship a big deal. Another big explosion could throw it all into doubt.

Muppets do Bohemian Rhapsody

Gimme a break. Ok. Watch this.

Brother can you spare a "dime"?

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Help me save a buck or two.  Go here and sign up for 10 free credits. (I get 10 too if you do).

 

EaseMate wants money for their services. So don't we all. Anyway, I'm not asking for money, but if you get hooked, you may spend some with them. I may end up buying a few credits eventually, but I thought I'd try this. What the heck? Can't get if you don't ask.

Construction ideas

2/8/26:

There seems to be some interest in this post... I watched the video again, and yes, it is indeed interesting.

In particular, the ideas that make the structure weigh a lot less; are of particular interest to me.  The reason is that the more stuff you have to haul around, the bigger the machinery that you have to bring along in order to do the construction work.  Out there in the desert, where facilities are not yet available; this could be a real help.

That's true especially for me right now.  I cannot move around like I used to.

5/3/25:

Space Station idea discussed

2/6/26:

Another video no longer operative, so this one is substituted in its stead. A note about this original post: I recall that John Hunter said that a gas gun could put something from the moon into lunar orbit, and the gas could be at room temperature. So, if memory serves, that is definitely something to think about right there.

2/16/13:

Using a Hunter Gas gun to deploy a space station from the moon.

Another crosspost : It is darkest just before getting even darker

 

  Today wasn't supposed to be a blogging day, per se. But it has turned out that way. Reminds me of the Lenny Kravitz song that I remember hearing on the radio on the way back home from "da Ranch".  I gotta get away.

  Is it about to go pitch black, like Chairman Mao once said?

  Or things about to get much better?

  We all live on the edge of destruction. All the time. There was no time when this wasn't true. Think about it.

After some thought, it appears that the trailer idea is flawed.  It won't work economically.  The problem is that the cost isn't better than just renting a car.  I figured that range extension would improve the sales of battery powered cars, but the cost of fuel cells is just too high to make that work.

It is a discouraging thought.  For one thing, getting a large enough supply of platinum so as to lower prices won't be easy.  It won't happen soon, and it may not ever happen at all.  In addition, the progress of finding other catalysts to replace costly platinum does not appear to be very fast.  Finally, there appears to be significant skepticism in some quarters that this will ever work at all.

That leaves batteries.  I haven't heard much news on that subject for the last several years.  At one time, I was a bit more optimistic about batteries.  Not so much now.  It's taking too long.

With electrical cars not in the cards soon, we are left with internal combustion engines.  That's unsettling because of the hostility that the environmentalists have for fossil fuels.  Biofuels may be possible, but it will need an assist from electricity.  It is probably going to be hard to make all of that drop-in capacity from biofuels.  Biofuels can only serve to make fossil fuels go further.  It can't be a substitute.

It is encouraging that a lot of fossil fuel supplies are said to be coming to market in the next few years, but that is going to meet with some strong political opposition.

Politics is a problem, not a solution.   The left's solutions are not going to be pleasant.  The left just got mostly a green light to continue its hostility to the one option that will work.

I'm getting a bad feeling about this.  The outcome of the election was not encouraging.  Innovations are not progressing as fast as needed.  Political trends are moving in the wrong direction.  Not looking good.

A bright spot?  There's still the possibility of getting that platinum from space.  But it won't get much help from Uncle Sam.

Houston, we have a problem.

Cross-posted: "Sun-Free Photovoltaics: Materials Engineered to Give Off Precisely Tuned Wavelengths of Light When Heated"

 

A short research on the post indicates no new news. Perhaps a more in-depth search could reveal more. As of now, there's nothing new to report.

Thermoelectrics can do this too. Perhaps it could be considered as a type of thermoelectric generator. This is the method by which the Curiosity rover is powered. The difference is the heat source. This device uses hydrocarbon fuel source, but the Curiosity rover uses decaying plutonium--yep radioactivity...

The type of heat is considered "waste heat". It may come in handy for small power jobs. You cannot power something big with waste heat, I would think. But for cars, you might power a radio, or some of the instruments and sensors.

The original post on the main blog , 8/4/2011

ScienceDaily (July 31, 2011)

• MIT researchers have made a button-sized power generator fueled by butane that can run three times longer than a lithium-ion battery of the same weight; the device can then be recharged instantly, just by snapping in a tiny cartridge of fresh fuel.
• It has long been known that photovoltaic (PV) cells needn't always run on sunlight.
• thermal emitter that radiates only the wavelengths that the PV diode can absorb and convert into electricity, while suppressing other wavelengths
• Celanovic is confident that with further work his team can triple the current energy density. "At that point, our TPV generator could power your smartphone for a whole week without being recharged," he says.

I found this story by way of PC magazine, which had a story about Elon Musk.  That story was linked from Next Big Future.   By the way, the link wasn't direct, I had to dig a little to find it.

One may wonder if such a system can be scaled up, so that it can be made into a battery which could power an automobile.