What is leanwater.stream?

The purpose of leanwater.stream is to build on an idea by the founder to utilize hydrogen as a way of supplying water indirectly by transporting the much ligher hydrogen component only which can be recontituted into water at its destination by combining hydrogen with oxygen from the atmosphere in a classic hydrogen fuel cell - which will also generate electricity as a by product.

Why not just transport water?

Water is heavy and the heavier something is, the more it costs to transport by vehicle.

If transported in open, man made canals we lose a lot of it to evapouratiion - and we have the cost of building those canals and the bridges where roads need to cross over them.

Transport by natural river is encumbered by the "water rights" issue. Rights to existing, "provided by nature" water have been sold off to companies who are in the "water market" for the sole purpose of making money (discussing the wisdom or lack thereof of the existence of a water market is left for another day!).

If water transportation was cheap then we would be transporting it to every farm in drought to avoid their financial ruin but we're not. Why would that be?

"Just add water!" ... correction, "just add oxygen to make water!"

Hydrogen has an atomic weight of 1. Oxygen has an atomic weight of 16.

So don't transport the entire H₂0 molecule (total atomic weight of  2x1 + 16 = 18) with it's heavy oxygen atom - just transport the hydrogen alone and recombine the hydrogen with the oxygen from the air at the destination.

It's a bit like sending money: You can send cash or you could send you a cheque - a small piece of paper that can be turned into cash by its receiver. You don't need to send 10000 hundred dollar notes in an expensive truck . You can simply mail the cheque and it gets converted to cash near where you live.

Cheap pipes not canals and trucks

Small hydrogen pipelines can be drilled under roads - no need to build an expensive bridge wherever one needs to cross a road or highway.

Pipes can also go up hills, gravity fed canals and rivers can not.

In addition don't forget that with gravity powered canals and rivers water destinations are very narrowly constrained by the geography - but you can run a small hydrogen pipe anywhere - even up hill and over a mountain - try doing that with a man made, gravity fed canal.

Pumping up hill

The importance of being able to pump up hill cheaply is not to be underestimated. Water has a tendency to flow downhill so that places where you would be collecting the water (often near sea level) are often lower than where you need to water to be - farms on the other side of mountains or on plains way above sea level.

No patents please!

Forget lithium batteries and massively expensive hydro schemes - a hydrogen pipe is the new large scale, cheaper battery

We know that Europe is now storing hydrogen in their gas pipelines effectively making them a massive battery that can store energy produced by clean energy generators.

The world is developing hydrogen technologies at a rapid rate. It is a CO₂ free energy source: taking hydrogen and combining it with oxygen to produce electricity, heat and H₂O (i.e. water!).

Australia's need for water is not something that existing hydrogen fuel cell development has focussed on but, being the clever country, we should be able to leverage this vital by product of hydrogen fuel cell operation.

Is it viable?

We need to perform some research to determine the viability of the concept. If it is viable then we should be able to drought proof our farmers and provide them with a way to generate electricity without relying on expensive fossil fuels.

The production of hydrogen is usually by breaking down water via electrolysis or by performing a chemical reaction with certain gases.

Electrolysis requires electricity to perfom but maybe renewable generation via solar farms, wind farms, etc., can power the electolysis to produce the hydrogen which is then shipped by relatively small pipeline to where the water (and electricity) is needed.

Yes there is a cost in the energy required to split H₂0 into H and O but a significant amount of that energy is reclaimed as electricity in the fuel cell operating at the other end of the process. There may even be greater efficiencies gained if the heat produced in the fuel cell process could also be converted to usable energy.

Farms may have their own fuel cells or maybe it's more viable to have a centralized fuel cell in towns or large centres which release the water into a local river or canal.

What's next?

1. Build some software models as simulations and then analyse the results.
2. If the concept looks at all viable we would then like to start building some small working prototypes
3. After ironing out any issues we would like to install some full scale kit at some farms in need of water
4. If it proves viable on a real farm then start rolling out the system to many farms in need.