So here's my progress: openSSH totally worked, so I got it installed on the NAS, port forwarding working, everything talking. Only I can't actually log onto the Crashplan software to control it over there, because apparently I still don't have internet connectivity from the Drobo. Which makes sense, because I couldn't get the email notifications up and running either, but had just deferred that problem to deal with later.

I'm thinking maybe I have my default gateway, etc. set up incorrectly. That is to say, I have everything set up as zeros, because I thought that set of routing was all about the LAN, not about getting to the internet. If I change the settings to what my modem uses, then I can't access the drobo through the LAN at all. So I am at another impasse.

I realized that what I needed to do with my iphone is update the IOS. (Finally)

I'm trying to figure out how much of the chemical energy in methane (CH4) is due to the carbon atom and how much due to 4 hydrogen atoms. (I'm looking at process to make methane out of hydrogen. Because there are good reasons why hydrogen gas is far less usable for certain purposes than methane (natural gas) I'm trying to figure out how much more energy is in the methane than in the carbon alone. According to my handing chemical table of elements the energy of ionization for hydrogen 131 kJ/mole whereas the the same figure for carbon is 153. So if "energy of ionization" is what I'm looking for, then the methane molecule has 4.4 time the energy that if the carbon atom was just used in a coal substitute. But am I figuring this right? Is "energy of ionization" really what I'm looking for?

Hmm. I am not as up on my chemistry as I once was, but I think that your approach doesn't really work because it doesn't look at the actual combustion reaction itself. You need to compare the energy change of burning methane vs. the energy of burning pure hydrogen gas or pure carbon gas. I think. The issue is that plenty of energy will be locked on the products in either case, so it is the energy released by the process that is actually interesting.

I don't really remember how to do that though.

This might help: [link]

Gar, as Gris said, you have to look at the total energy of the reaction being carried out. If you burn methane, you also need oxygen as a reactant and you'll get carbon dioxide and water as products. The energy released from the reaction will be the difference between the total chemical potential energies of the molar quantities (the number of molecules of each compound required by the balanced reaction) of methane and oxygen, and the potential energies of water and carbon dioxide. The difference between the reactants and the products is the energy released (in this case) or absorbed.

If you want to look at the molecules themselves, it's not the atoms, but the breaking of the C-H and O=O bonds versus the formation of C=O and H-O bonds and the differences in bond energies among them.

If you need them, I can send you some of the powerpoint slides on the subject that I use in my introductory chemistry class.

Edit: I looked a Gris's link, and there's good basic information there. If you need more, feel free to email me.

I'm confused about you're trying to accomplish, Gar. Methane is pretty easy to come by, while hydrogen is fairly energy-intensive to produce.

(Completely OT but hi DX!)

Okay, now that it's not way past my bedtime, and now that I'm thoroughly awake, let's have another go at this.

I'm confused about you're trying to accomplish, Gar.

I think he's looking at something like the Sabatier reaction which is a way of producing methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas.

Is "energy of ionization" really what I'm looking for?

No. As I garbled last night, the potential energy of a molecule depends on its bond energies, so C-H bonds for methane, H-H bonds for hydrogen, and so on. The reactant bonds break, the product bonds form, and the energy change that results is the difference between energy needed to break the reactant bonds and the energy released by forming the product bonds.

The thing to watch out for is that enthalpies are usually given in kilojoules per mole (KJ/mol). A mole is Avogadro's Number of molecules, so the mass of a mole of a substance (the molar mass) depends upon the mass of the molecule. The molar mass is the molecular weight expressed in grams. If you want to know the heat per gram of a substance, you need to divide the molar heats by the molar mass of the substance in question. I hope that helps.

Hi meara!

Thanks all. Yeah the reason I asked this is

1) if we want to stop global warming we have lots of ultra-low electricity optios - wind, solar and nuclear. (There are otjhers but with todays tech only those three can give us enough.) Further most of what we use energy for can run on electricity. But there are important exceptions. One is that some industrial processes require hydrocarbons which means either fossil fuel or recently deceased plant and animal matter. Other are long distance jets and long distance cargo and container ships which cant keep the same range and capacity without the energy density (both by weight and more importantly by volume) of fossil fuels.

2)Ok so if we had the political will to increase efficiency and switch to carbon free electricity then we could make hydorcarbon fuel from waste straw and such, right? Except that we don't have enough. The biofuels we are using today already come at the expense of robbing the soil, decreasing biodiversity and competing with food production. 3) So as was said above I was looking at ways to make hydrocrabons from electricity and air. But the Co2 concentration in air is too low to be a good source for that. Currently those looking at such processes want to capture CO2 from coal plants for the purpose. Which means continuing the burn coal which is a ba idea on many levels,

3) OK, so you could take whatever level of biomass can be harvested without threatening the food supply or robbing the soil and so forth. And then you could subject to any of a numer or process which multiplies its energy content. Making methane from CO and hydrogen seems the best choice, and then you can turn methane into any jet fuel or diesel or whatever fossil fuel you need to replace What I was trying to figure out was if you a one BTU of straw which is basically carbon with contaminants, how much you multiply the energy content when you turn it into methane. I'm not worried about the energy it takes to do this. A completely or mostly carbon free grid will have to produce extra electricity some of the time to make sure it has enough all of the time. And yes that is true even of nuclear power. I'lll explain that if asked. So the critical question is how much we can multiply the energy content of something that is 99% carbon if we use nuke or wind generated hydrogen to turn it into methane.