Whenever I have to work on the hydrogen system, I bring a IR camera with me to take a quick peek, and also the peeling / blackened paint is a giveaway there is a leak.
In the open Id not worry too much cas, it's velocity is something to be appreciated how quickly it wants to float up and away and dissipate, but yah, I can see some shit for brains smoking a cigarette while plugging the h2 nozzle in and POP !!
That balloon thing, we did that once in the welding shop, back in the day, we'd use bottled H2 and a huge manifold to charge up the generators when the bulk system was down for whatever reason, and we got the idea to do an oxy / hydrogen balloon with about 40 feet of cotton string,some lighter fluid and let it float over the river in the middle of the night.
NOBODY was expecting such a sharp hard report when that flame finally hit that balloon as it was over the wide open river. Then the echo's off the banks, and all the buildings and houses along the river.... then all the lights turning on and people coming outside to see WTF just blew up, and us, standing there with our assholes so tight, you couldn't pull a banjo string thru with a bulldozer, trying to pretend to be just like everyone else, going derp, what was that?? Then the blue lights start showing up...let's just say it was an interesting night.
Seriously though it's no more dangerous than gasoline, in fact would probably be safer, because people would hopefully be a bit more careful around it, and being much lighter than air, is going to float up and away thru the tiniest cracks, where gas fumes, or methane is going to want to stay on the ground, puddle and hang around.
The comment about Hydrogen being handled by highly trained personnel in the most safety conscious environments. that made me laugh. You ever watch the simpsons when they are busing on power plant operators, ie being asleep at the panel, the dog saves them from a melt down etc type of stuff. If people had ANY clue how close to home so much of that hits they'd shit themselves
Ever see the clown over fill a hydrogen tank and lift the safety at 2500 PSI? that shit sounded like the space shuttle taking off not only the pressure flow but the spontaneous detonation upon contact with the air as it came out the safety valve. I stood about 100 feet back and just watched until it all settled down. People asked me, why didn't you run? To where? Where am I going to hide if 10K Ft3 of hydrogen goes up? naah, if Im gonna die, I want to watch it coming.
Aaron
Author
Topic: Kawasaki gives H2 a try (Read 1521 times)