A Fully Distributed Power Grid? 389
rleyton writes "There's an interesting and topical black-out article on an "internet inspired" hydrogen powered energy network. The premise is homes, cars, factories and offices store up hydrogen when energy is available, and supply it into the new energy network when it's not. Certainly an intriguing idea, with some interesting comments on future power management. Feasible in the next "three decades"? Perhaps."
Re:One word: Hindenberg (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:5, Informative)
Now - some basic physics: you get hydrogen from water. Then you burn hydrogen with air, and get water back. The amount of energy it took to get the hydrogen from the water is equal to the amount you got, minus the loss from inefficiency (which is substantial).
Therefore, using hydrogen as an energy source is like changing money to two different fixed currencies as a revenue source - you don't make anything, and you end up losing things to the middlemen conversion industries.
Unless you can find pure, elemental hydrogen naturally, the hydrogen/water power system is a storage vessel only - a well-compressed but inefficient energy storage system.
Anyone who believes otherwise either has not taken basic science (grade 10 should cover it) or hasn't thought it through and is just a loudmouthed idiot. Either way, shouldn't be discussing issues they have no knowledge of.
Re:HYDROGEN Powered? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:interesting idea, but... (Score:3, Informative)
The primary reasons for using AC rather than DC is that transformers are cheaper and more efficient for AC. As a bonus, AC is actually safer if you get shocked by it, as your muscles aren't locked into a single direction...they have a chance to relax and let you disengange contact.
No, I don't think they would have everyone supplying DC. The best idea I can come up with is for there to be one synchronizing signal on the lines, and the distributed sources have to match phase with that...but what if someone's gets out of phase? What if someone tries to jam that signal?
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:interesting idea, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Jamming it would be highly traceable, (and would take quite a bit of power,) and the network protection equipment would probably kick you off before you did too much damage.
Grid-connection equipment (see SMA Americas or Xantrex for some manufacturers) takes either the unsynchronized AC (as from wind turbines) or DC (fuel cells, solar panels,) reads the sine wave off the grid, and supplies it back synchronously. It's apparently not a terribly difficult piece of electrical engineering - keep in mind some of the clocks in your home probably operate by counting the cycles in your AC power.
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And where is this hydrogen gonna come from? (Score:2, Informative)
It's basically about making everyone store some reserve power in big batteries then share it with everyone else in times of need. Hydrogen is just a buzzword to attract the attention of halfwits like michael. It could be a stack of car batteries for the same effect.
Of course, this is silly, how many people would rewire their batteries so that in blackout times, their power stays in their home? Sure, you could outlaw "electricity hoarding", but whos going to police that?
Re:interesting idea, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Some systems are using DC for transmission; I'm not sure why considering the conversion loss... Probably phasing issues or corona.
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:2, Informative)
Why doesn't Baharain do this? Do they capture the natural gas insted of venting it?
Re:HYDROGEN Powered? (Score:2, Informative)
Rice U. [rice.edu]
Clean-Air.org [clean-air.org]
AmericanHistory.about.com [about.com]
Just to name a few. At least let's not have a bunch of people using the Hindenburg as a reason not to think about hydrogen.
Re:Flywheels? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Generating is not the problem. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Geez Louise (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not saying it can't be done, nor that it shouldn't be done, and I have no idea what the state of of "solar power" is these days, but those were concerns in the 90's and they may still be concerns today. Of course, if someone would pour 1% of the total energy revenues into Solar energy, I'm sure research would accelerate.
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:2, Informative)
Hydrogen in a pure form isn't found in abundance (or really in any usable quantity), however the energy it takes to create a mobile storage at a fixed location may surely be much higher than the energy actually stored which can be used at a variable location. What I mean by this is even if it takes the energy storable in a hundred batteries to make one battery, it doesn't mean it isn't worth making. You're vastly increasing the flexibility of use of that energy.
Or I'm an idiot and you have a nuclear reactor in your backpack.
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One word: Hindenberg (Score:3, Informative)
Some quick links to a description of the real cause of Hindenburg:
ucla.edu [ucla.edu]
clean-air.org [clean-air.org]
hydrogenus.com [hydrogenus.com]
Enjoy.
Re:Flywheels? (Score:2, Informative)
That is actually not true - this company's [topcities.com] flywheels are housed in a vacuum and moving parts have no contact (the actual flywheel is suspended with magnets). Hence, there is very little or no maintenance considering that there is very little chance for wear to occur. The only maintinance that would ever be needed is in the event of a catastrophic failure, which would require complete replacement, although, considering that the design is very simple this is not likely to happen - barring outside interfernce, such as an earthquake or something like that. I read about these a while ago, and, if I remember correctly the company would gauruntee them for 50 years, even though they believed they would last longer.
Re:Geez Louise (Score:4, Informative)
Approximately $2.85 / watt in bulk; $7 - $10 /watt installed with power electronics, etc.
Yes, actually, they are tested with an ice launcher at NIST and other standards-testing labs; we're talking tempered architectural glass frames, generally speaking. I have seen people waste some time hitting PowerLight modules with an aluminum baseball bat to no discernible effect. The skylight-type panels mounted to the roof in a fairly nontrivial manner, using standard hardware. The shingles (From Uni-Solar [uni-solar.com]) come off as often as normal shingles do;
Maintenance: wiping down the panels if they get pollen or dust covered, possibly replacing the inverter every ca. 10 years.
Replacement: you should have a licensed installer do it, and again, replacement costs as above, though overall system costs have been declining by about 5% compounding annually for quite a while, and that may be accelerating shortly.
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:1, Informative)
So you burn 100MW worth of coal to produce H2 through electrolysis that will give 40MW of energy when it is burned. It is a hell of a lot more efficient to send energy through power lines then to store it as H2 and ship or pipe it around.
Re:power company controlling your thermostat?... (Score:4, Informative)
Its a pretty good system.
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:3, Informative)
Worse, it doesn't burn completely in the rig flares; a lot escapes through the center, and CH4 is about 16x as effective per molecule as CO2 in terms of greenhouse effects.
I should mention here just for the sake of redundancy that CH4 in a fuel cell does "burn" almost completely clean, and without NOx or SOx, because at no point in the process is anything actually being blown up or set on fire.
Get informed about hydrogen: 20 Hydrogen Myths. (Score:3, Informative)
It covers where do you get the hydrogen (natural gas at first, renewables later), why bother (electric motors are very efficient compared to combustion engines and renewables like wind can make your total supply cheaper) and what technologies need to be developed for it all to work.
Re:Awesome Idea (Score:4, Informative)
That statement is patently absurd. Think about what you're saying: Every 8 hours, a few oil rigs in the gulf of mexico are burning an amount of natural gas to equal to the entire U.S. annual energy consumption.
Let's do the math: The US uses about 100 exajoules per year, or 10e20 joules. That would be about 2.7e15 grams of oil, or 2700 megatons. This amount of energy would be burned off by, (let's assume), 200 oil rigs every 8 hours. That would mean that each rig would be burning 39 megatons of waste gas per day, or 450 tons per second. That's as much as 30 Saturn V rockets going full bore for each oil rig.
That little pipe sticking out the side of a rig is simply not burning that much gas.
Same idea could work without hydrogen (Score:2, Informative)
-6d
Re:Geez Louise (Score:4, Informative)
In the end, though, you're right - the point remains that the newer modules will stand up to at least as much as most roofs, and, in the case of PowerGuard will often protect the roof, allowing for *less* maintainance of the roofing system rather than more. Solar installations must be tested at extremely high wind speeds (think 150mph+), which varies depending upon their placement (area of the country, height, etc.), so if a tornado takes them off, chances are a substantial portion of the building will go with them.
People may be thinking of the old thin-film panels (like the ones in a calculator), which, because they weren't tempered, would break after getting sneezed on. As you say, the newer panels are very hardy, and Unisolar (because it doesn't have glass that can shatter) are incredibly durable, if relatively inefficient.
And yep, you're certainly right about the costs dropping - one of the coolest things about investing in solar is that you're not only paying a reasonably competitive rate (depending upon your power rates), you're helping to bring the volume up, which will quickly get the cost down to levels that will cause mass adoption.
Re:Geez Louise (Score:4, Informative)
Grrr...the other persistent canard. = ) As of 1999, it was down to something like 4 years, in an exceedingly conservative and comprehensive calculation:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf [nrel.gov]
And the panels themselves are usually output-waranteed out past 20 years (30 years being a safe bet lifetime for most.) Though I suspect that since we're seeing steadily more automation in the newer plants (and less silicon per watt, and better per-square-meter efficiencies, that this has even gotten better recently.
Photon International [photon-magazine.com] goes over these issues in some detail...
Distributed power can exist today, no special H2. (Score:1, Informative)
A stirling powered CHP. Add to it the 'smart power' technology (It could, based on temp data fire up to add power to grid if grid power is needed and in 1/2 hour it would turn on to warm the home anyway...or turn off early if the grid didn't need the power.)
From the web site:
MicroGen is an innovative energy system for individual homes and small businesses that generates heat (as does any conventional boiler) and at the same time produces electricity from a single compact unit.
There will be a range of models available with a heat output of up to 36kW with dimensions similar to large combination boilers.
The electrical output will be 1.1kW. Any extra demand required by the house will be taken from the national grid as usual.
The product operates as a condensing boiler and a combination boiler system will also be available.
The unit is designed to fit in the majority of homes and has been designed to wall mount with both rear and side-flueing options.
The MicroGen unit will have an optional feature allowing the system to provide heating, hot water and emergency electrical power in the event of a power cut.
This system is based on a Stirling engine - a technology that was initially developed in Scotland during the 19th century - and has been the subject of significant development in recent years.
(Now, if these ppl would only return my calls)