Get Off The Grid: GE Announces Home Fuel Cells 306
Scareduck writes: "GE has announced a nifty home fuel cell system, the HomeGen 7000, that they claim will be able to generate enough electricity for a single family dwelling. 'About the size of a refrigerator,' there's no moving parts, but they still want to inspect the thing on an annual basis. All you need is a natural gas or propane connection. They claim that hydrocarbon emissions are much lower than conventional power plants, plus you get free hot water or space heating with the waste heat. GE's looking at a 2001 launch date, but they're taking names for early adopters now."
Re:Solar power? (Score:1)
Why natural gas over hydrogen? (Score:2)
Nowadays, it seems that Fuel cells are always mentioned in conjunction with natural gas. Why natural gas over water? More hydrogen per molecule or something?
Interesting fuel cell story:
I once saw a neat homemade fuel cell project which was composed of a couple of solar panels, a fuel cell, a water tank, and a tank to hold hydrogen. The project worked like this:
At night, the Fuel Cells would power the project. The fuel cell would do it's thing and seperate water into oxygen and hydrogen, generating a change when the hydrogen pass through the membrane. The leftover oxygen bled into the atmosphere, and the hydrogen was collected in a seperate tank.
This method generated enough electicity to power 'the project' (A couple of lightbulbs and a stereo).
As I understand it, you just need an electric shock (or a flame) to fuse oxygen and hydrogen back into a water molecule.
In the daytime, solar panels would generate enough electricity to fuse the hydrogen (from the tank) with oxygen (from the atmosphere) back into water, which was collected in the watertank. Meanwhile, the fuel cell would continue to generate enough electricity to power the project (but the fuel cells could be turned off during the day while other Solar Panels generated enough electicity to power the project).
Every once in a while, the son or the father would suplement the water (fuel) tank with some distilled water.
Portability (Score:2)
Re:when are we going to drop the voltage? (Score:2)
Re:Become your own utility co? (Score:2)
In most states, the power company must pay you for excess electricity the going rate for bulk electiricty- that is, what they would pay another company for electricity in the event of a shortage.
See http://www.eren.doe.gov/ greenpower/netmetering/index.shtml [doe.gov] for more.
Re:Interesting ... only a few concerns (Score:1)
Maybe it was just a dream...
Re:Great! (Score:5)
Re:Government will never approve this on large sca (Score:1)
RTFM (Score:1)
7 kW continuous
10 kW for 30 seconds
15 kW for 0.5 seconds
(at 77F and 500 feet)
Tom
Re:keeping snow off the roof... (Score:1)
Let's talk about economics for a moment... (Score:3)
Then there's an ecological pay-back. How long does it take the device to return the energy used to manufacture it, and at what cost. This may not be as much of a factor for fuel cells, but it is really crucial when considering solar cells: many of them never pay back in energy the energy it cost to manufacture the system, if you count the aluminum frames for the cells, the mounting and tracking hardware, and the batteries and electrical equipment. Solar cells still make sense if you're off the grid or want to be prepared for an extended outage. I have a rather large panel that charges a battery to run my ham station in an emergency. But we need a breakthrough in efficiency.
Bruce
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Oops (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:This is great (Score:2)
Re:Boom? (Score:1)
Plenty of people do get killed hitting power poles with their cars though.
And the unit isn't a 'tank of natural gas' -- it processes the gas, it doesn't need to store it.
Tom
Re:Gas Prices, economy? (Score:1)
Lemme give you a hint. $1000/lb to low earth orbit is CHEAP. Now you have to get it out of Earth's gravity well and bowl it at the sun, which takes even MORE fuel.
Please tell me you're trolling...
Re:Why natural gas over hydrogen? (Score:2)
If GE were to go straight to hydrogen fuel cells, they would be up against the problem of how to get the hydrogen fuel to the customers and how to store it once it's there (yes, I know that H2 is not much more dangerous than other volatile fuels like octane, but too many people think Hindenburg when they think Hydrogen).
The building trades are incredibly conservative when it comes to new technology; anything that is not tried and true entails the risk that the installer will at the very least have to service early glitches at their own expense, and at worst will have to tear out and replace the new stuff (also at their own expense). Remember Urea-Formaldehyde insulation? This was an expensive one for the construction industry to swallow. Polybutelene plumbing is another such example. If you approach the construction trades and say you have this great new machine, but that it requires an entirely new fuel infrastructure and plumbing methods and storage tanks to adopt, they'll turn their backs and walk away. Present them with the same machine and say that it uses mehtods they're already familiar with ("Standard propane or LNG fitting on one end, standard power connector on the other!") and they're much more likely to listen. If GE hopes to deploy these units in any kind of volume, they definitely have to get the building trades on board. They won't achieve the volumes necessary to drop the price if they only sell in onesies to the "green" segment of the population.
Notice one other thing: the design of the unit is *modular*. The propane or LNG goes through a fuel converter, which produces H2 that gets fed into the fuel cell! What this means is that once the early adoption period is past and this is a more mainstream technology, it would be cheap and easy to retrofit these units to use H2 (say, cracked from water) *directly*.
In other words, the marketing of this thing is brilliant. Use familiar tools and techniques and fuels now, but leave the door open for more exotic and cleaner possibilities later.
I, for one, am impressed.
Been There, Done That (Re:Free hot water?!!?!?!?!) (Score:1)
========
Stephen C. VanDahm
Ballard (Score:1)
I do see using natural gas for something like this as a big waste, but these fuel cells do have a definate advantage. With the addition of some solar panels, and a proper gas tank / compressor and a fresh water source, people will be able to generate electricity constantly, and save the energy as hydrogren. Its much more effecient than batteries, and you can store up large amounts of energy when the weather is good, and when its poor you can draw on weeks and weeks of stores, without the usual power leakage that standard batteries employ.
I see a time in the future where cities will eventually start to decentralize. Even now, aside from power issues, people could live 1000 kms from anyone, and have a full compliment of high speed internet, satelite phone, television and so on. Working from home in many of the newer high tech positions is a reality. Power is really the missing key, and with a small tower that is a combination wind and solar collector, one could completely seperate themselves from all of the utilities.
Even fuel for mechanicized electric vehicles can be generated by the same technology that will be used to split water and store the hydrogen. Simply draw some off of the house's main power supply, and away you go.
What's the last key for something like this to become reality? Faster transportation. Most people I know would love to live 1000 kms from anyone, if at a whim they could be in the city. I wonder how NASA's new single person air vehicle is coming along? This thing should definately be hydrogen / electric engine based.
Great! (Score:1)
Ballard fuel cells (Score:3)
Take a close look at the spec sheet. Max efficiency of this system is at loads below 30% of full load. This is very different from most other generating systems, which are most efficient near full load. There's thus a tradeoff between plant cost and fuel consumption; it may pay to buy extra generation capacity. Also note that the operating temperature range is limited (-20F to +104F) without "optional upgrades". Having generation gear that quits in hot weather is not good; that's not when you want to suddenly start drawing power from the grid.
Still, this is going to look really good to anybody who has a Diesel running off a propane tank.
Re:Fascinating for rural areas (Score:1)
Say you did have a fair number of people living in rural areas that were interested in doing something like this. How feasible would it be to use methane produced from animal manure/organic decomposition in a fuel cell like this? Presumably in many rural areas (maybe not in the Australian outback) you'd find an abundance of farms...
You could hook a methane generator up to your own house's septic system too I suppose. Running out of fuel? Simple: finish your lunch, grab a book
electric power companies (Score:1)
Re:Recharges anyone? (Score:1)
Maybe not so great (Score:2)
These fuel cell units are 38% efficient at 2kw and 27% efficient at 7kw. Internal combustion generator units of similar size run from 10% to 30%. Thats not much of a gain from a high end internal combustion generator. Its probably about even with a top notch generator on a battery bank.
I wonder how the cost stacks up? (Figure a $6000 generator set and $5000 for the battery system.)
The HomeGen survey asks how much I make, but doesn't hint at how much their unit costs. Thats probably a bad sign.
Cogeneration is interesting, I burn as much propane in the on-demand water heater as I do in
the electrical plant, so the numbers work out about right. Unfortunately, most people probably have a peak hot water demand in the morning after their evening electrical use has had plenty of time to cool off so you might have to restructure your schedule in order to reap a benefit.
Re: fusion and difficulty, fission and nastiness (Score:1)
That said, you mentioned you thought there is no concerted effort to develop nuclear fusion power. I would agree that there is NOT enough money being put into research for fusion, however, FUSION IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE AND CONTROL!
I work at the University of Rochesters' Omega Laser [rochester.edu] (most powerful in the world for now) which is used for inertial confinement fusion research and it takes pretty much the most clever engineering of the smartest scientists in the world just to produce stable fusion reactions that last mere millionths of a second long. No one knows how to design a fusion reactor that does not suffer from turbulent plasma instabilities and that achieves high density ultrahot ion temperatures at the same time. Pull of the design of a stable fusion reactor and the nobel is yours for the taking.
Re:What? (Score:2)
Most of my software development is for the power generation industry and I can say with pretty good authority that there are substantial power generation "Facilities" being deployed however they aren't the classic gigantic 300MW plant, but rather many 20MW micro-`plants' distributed throughout states. It simply makes more sense and due to a lot of convergence of technology it proves economically very effective.
Wow (Score:4)
Just imagine a Beowulf clust . . . oh, never mind.
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Re:Recharges anyone? (Score:1)
Re:Government will never approve this on large sca (Score:1)
And we thought gas prices were bad before. (Score:1)
Re:www.plugpower.com (Score:1)
2) This system doesn't make hydrogen on the fly. It extracts if from natural gas. Natural gas costs money. One of the benefits of Solar cells + wind power on a tower, producing power to split water, and using a compressor to store it, is that its much more effecient than batteries. Mass production of a small power producing station like this would result in a foolproof, quality system. If you've ever used rows of industrial strength batteries to store power, you'd know that the above solution is very desirable. Once the gas is stored, the power available doesn't degrade like a battery charge.
3) I didn't say NASA was building single air vehicles. I did wonder how the vehicle THEY HAVE AN INTEREST IN was coming along, and since they ARE involved in its design, its a valid statement.
4) Heh. You're living in the past. Electric engines are LIGHTER than gas engines that produce the same torque! The problem in the past has been the battery weight, which hydrogren/fuel cell technology solves.
Re:Solar power? (Score:1)
So unless you live in a remote location, it doesn't pay, not by a long shot.
Re:when are we going to drop the voltage? (Score:1)
Re:Become your own utility co? (Score:1)
Re:hemmm.... (Score:1)
You can't even power your Geo Metro with this :)
Yes, This is awsome (Score:1)
Other costs are passed along too. One reader has pointed out that the utility is forced to hook your home generating facilities to the grid at their expense. These costs are obviously passed on to everyone else, cool. Who do you think suffers when that home station has problems? Like you know, the wind was not blowing in the heat of the afternoon, or your turbine blew chunks? Your neighbors, that's who, and those leaches deserve to have their lights flicker and their air conditioners brown out.
Yes, I must recomend that everyone go buy one of these big fat things and become part time utility owners. If you can get propane or natural gas, you too can become independent from the local utility and force your costs onto everyone else. Hurah! This is the best thing since the SUV (Stupid Urban Vehicle).
Buy One Today! (Score:1)
Other costs are passed along too. One reader has pointed out that the utility is forced to hook your home generating facilities to the grid at their expense. These costs are obviously passed on to everyone else, cool. Who do you think suffers when that home station has problems? Like you know, the wind was not blowing in the heat of the afternoon, or your turbine blew chunks? Your neighbors, that's who, and those leaches deserve to have their lights flicker and their air conditioners brown out.
Yes, I must recomend that everyone go buy one of these big fat things and become part time utility owners. If you can get propane or natural gas, you too can become independent from the local utility and force your costs onto everyone else. Hurah! This is the best thing since the SUV (Stupid Urban Vehicle).
Re:Government will never approve this on large sca (Score:2)
The point of fuel cells is that they are at least an order of magnitude more efficient at turning chemical energy into electral energy than combustion-based systems. Because you are dealing with an electrochemical reaction instead of combustion, you have very clean emissions (pretty much pure CO2 and H2O) and much less waste heat. This means you need far less fuel to produce the same amount of electricity.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Re:Not really all that big (Score:1)
Re:Not just a possibility (Score:1)
Re:electric power companies (Score:2)
I guess wiht propane, that'd be different.
As for hte 'cycle', I believe they only look for abnormally high power usage, especially in apartments where every suite is essentially the same. The power meters must be visited physically to monitor, and this would be an instant tipoff to growers. SO they don't monitor, I don't think, the exact 'on/off' cycle.
Re:And ... (Score:1)
Not only that, but why are all RC cars not powered by gasoline?
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Re:Wow (Score:3)
If I understand correclty, the fuel-cell technology wil work with just about any reasonable hydrocarbon, or just pure hydrogen (and oxygen from outside osurce, ie: the air).
Natural gas, propane, are simply compact and available sources of hydrogen.
If Ballard ever gets their fuel cel into cars, that's great.. why? THe gas industry is happy, they can still sell gas. THe environmentalists are more happy, becuase the cars no longer have toxic emissions. ANd when we run out of petrol, we simply move to some other organic/synthetic.
Re: sorry this one is formatted properly (Score:4)
2H2(from the electrolyzed water) + CO2(from your breath, the air, whatever) ---> CH4(methane [natural gas]) + O2
robert zubrin is proposing this as the method by which a mars spacecraft could produce its own fuel for the return trip using the CO2 marian atmosphere and sunlight BTW.
Re: sorry this one is formatted properly (Score:2)
2(H20) --> electrolysis --> 2 H2 + O2
Re:Become your own utility co? (Score:2)
Theoretically mini nuclear plants would be efficient and "emission-less". Of course that is only if you don't mind the radioactive rods in your backyard.
Re:keeping snow off the roof... (Score:2)
Perpetual motion, eh? (Score:3)
So let's see.... you expend energy to crack the water, get H2 and O, run it thru this fuel cell, get H2O and energy.
Am I missing something subtle here?
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Re:/. effect (Score:2)
I also put one up at http://dotslash .dynodns.net/00/09/18/0047202/homegen_prod_desc.ht ml [dynodns.net] but some of the images are still coming in. It's naturally a little slow.
Note: as always, that mirror is there to help out the publishers of the original document. I'll remove it as soon as the original site becomes more usable (and I remember) or someone of reasonable authority asks me to.
Who can tell? What we need is beter regulation. (Score:2)
GE has not forcast costs. These things need to be looked at once a year, and need "major components" once every five years. Design life is 15 years. In fifteen years, your payments may look small but your fuel will still cost money. If everyone buys one of these, the cost of fuel will go up, just like gasoline prices have jumped with SUV purchases. GE will swing the price of maintenance with demand too, we can be sure.
In a free market, the price of a necessity will always hover just below above the cost of the less convenient alternative. How much GE can charge for this is going to depend on how far deregulation is actually carried and how far people will go to avoid getting raped by it. Don't count on corn to save you eat, don't play with your food [sciam.com]. Windmills and solar power are still much more expensive than comercially available power.
The whole point of regulation was to provide this neccessity at a reasonable cost while giving investors a reasonable return on their investment. If this has failed, we should be looking at why and fix it. If these fuel cells are really superior, why not set them up under the normal utilites? It would be much esier to do this through large organizations with fixed profits than it would to do it like car sales for example. Somehow though, it seems like it's more expensive to distribute natural gas than electricity (pipe and pump vrs. wire and transformer) and this would fall down if all economic issues were considered rationaly.
Re:Why natural gas over hydrogen? (Score:4)
Fuel cells work by reacting hydrogen with oxygen to make water and electricity. You can't put water into a fuel cell and have it work.
You could split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then run the fuel cell off the hydrogen. If you did that, the fuel cell wouldn't actually care where you got the hydrogen; it still wouldn't be a water cell.
There are several problems with hydrogen for the home. No one has hydrogen lines running to his house; no company is set up to provide hydrogen even if someone was ready; and hydrogen is difficult to contain safely and effectively. (The tiny hydrogen molecules can seep through many materials, even including some metals, so you would probably want to use liquid hydrogen, which you would have to refrigerate... aack.) If you want to make your own hydrogen from water, you will need to get a lot of electricity from somewhere and you will need to store the hydrogen... see above for some of the problems.
But recently an almost magical catalyst was discovered: feed it natural gas, and it strips hydrogen off. It's simple: natural gas and oxygen in, and electricity, waste heat, and carbon dioxide out. (You can also do this trick with methanol, or even gasoline, so we may get fuel-cell cars soon.)
With natural gas, you can just hook it up and it will just work. Direct hydrogen feed would be much messier.
As to the science fair project... I don't think you correctly understand what was going on. It sounds to me like the fuel cell would run on hydrogen and oxygen at night, producing water; and during the day solar cells would split the water back into hydrogen and oxygen. As long as nothing wears out or breaks, and as long as the sun shines, such a device could run continuously.
steveha
Re:Why natural gas over hydrogen? (Score:2)
It takes energy to seperate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Energy is released when hydrogen and oxygen are combined to form water.
A fuel cell captures the electrical energy that is released when hydrogen and oxygen are combined to form water.
Too bad for this company... (Score:4)
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Re:Photovoltaic roof tiles are the way to go. (Score:2)
Re:Become your own utility co? (Score:2)
I wonder if it would make more sense in particular cities/regions? NYC residents pay on the order of $0.15/kW for power.. Has solar or fuel-cell beaten that yet?
Your Working Boy,
Re:Pricing. (Score:2)
You missed part of their speil. The "$7-10K" price is the _introductory_ price. Once they get a decent demand volume built up, they plan to drop the price by about 50%.
This would also be a *big* win, anywhere that storms have a nasty habit of knocking down power lines. Or, with suitable shock-mounting, anywhere there's an earthquake fault. Makes a nice way to not have to worry about PG&E getting the power lines up - I'm my own generation facility. Given that we're remodelling my partner's office (where the servers live) this winter, we may have to drop one of these in. And I'm _definitely_ including one when we do my house.
Re:Seems rather misleading (Score:2)
... And the ones we do have keep getting shut down.
Can't blame populist feelings totally though: Atomic Energy govdroids have screwed themselves quite a bit. Remember Shoreham? Planting a fission reactor smack dab in the middle of one of the most densely populated sections of the US? McFly???
The problem isn't necessarily the safety of the fission process (we _can_ build safe packaging and processes for fuel storage, power generation, and waste storage) IMHO, but with the inability to trust the track record of the people tasked with doing this.
Their incompetence has cost us billions, but what else is new with government?
Your Working Boy,
Become your own utility co? (Score:5)
We've seen distributed computing, is it time for distributed power generation?
Re:Wow (Score:3)
Of course, you can always look for other alternatives, like grow corn for ethanol production (and use the excess biomass for methane) but the big oil companies don't like people looking into these kinds of ideas and technologies.
Umm... no (Score:2)
The 40% for conventional power plants is about right, but current fuel cell technology is normally around 55-60% efficient. They can get as high as about 85% when you make use of the heat as well.
"Less emissions" (Score:5)
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Re:Solar power? Yeah, in the summer! (Score:2)
Re:Solar power? (Score:2)
"In 1997 our newest solar cell converted 21.6 percent of the sun's rays into power. In 1999 our solar cells will convert 26.8 percent, and by 2002 we hope to further improve the design to convert 30 to 40 percent of the sun's rays into spacecraft power. When you compare this to the 12.3 percent conversion efficiency of a silicon solar cell, you can see we've made tremendous improvements in order to help our customers maximize their on-orbit performance and increase revenue."
Re:"Less emissions" (Score:3)
clean, continuous power (Score:3)
---- ----
Fusion power anyone? (Score:2)
This may not happen soon, but it will certainly do.
Such an energy source could be all that some guys have dreamed here, truly low cost, high-power, zero emissions, _freedom_ !
snow off the roof? (Score:2)
Now to educate the builders/architects... (Score:2)
Mobile? If so, *immediate* applications. (Score:2)
Bad news is it's probably way too expensive to be mobile now. But in a few years...
sulli
Re:Your guys are missing the point... (Score:2)
This is wrong. It is much easier, more effective, and requires less energy to control the pollution at one source than it is to control millions of sources. It does not matter one wit if the pollution is spread out over large areas - the total amount of pollution is still there. THAT is the problem.
For example, you take a can of motor oil and make a hole in it. You then hold the can over a stream and let the contents start leaking out. It is much easier for me to walk up to you and whap you upside the head and say "Stop that!" than it would be for you and 2000 of your friends to all get medicine droppers, each take a bit of oil, stand up and down the bank of the stream and all start putting drops of oil into it. I would have to go around to 2000 sources and whap all of you.
There is the same amount of pollution going into the stream and it is MUCH harder to control all these sources. GE is saying that they need to inspect all of the fuel cells every year. That is one hell of a lot of energy being spent to keep these things running.
Remember that just because one thing produces a lot of pollution does not mean that a million smaller things are going to produce less.
Also - you mention that NYC gets most of it's electricity from hydro. Hydro is a renewable resource. Natural Gas is not. Therefore it is costing nothing - other than plant and equipment - to make hydro power. There is no pollution that results from it. None. Zero. Nada. Natural gas on the other hand does cause pollution, though it is much less than nuclear or coal. But it is still there.
Vote Nader [votenader.org]
Good point, but... (Score:2)
Well, because of transmission losses for a start. If you don't count ongoing maintenance (which, as you point out and we all know, you have to do) then it's most efficient to produce your energy right next to the things that use it. We can ship propane and the like around in tankers, stick it in storage tanks and use it later, and so on, without worrying too much about any of it getting lost. When you produce electricity far away and then send it across a wire to your house (or plant, or office, or whatever) even at high voltage alternating current will experience some transmission loss. To be sure, it's better than DC, but still.
If you produce power at your home -- even at the same efficiency as the power plant -- then the kilowatt-hours per ton of fuel number will be better for your home + generator system than for the equivalent home + remote power plant system. That's because some of the power generated at the same efficiency over at the power plant will be lost between leaving the plant and arriving at your home.
The real questions then are, How much will it cost to perform ongoing maintenance on my Very Own Fuel Cell(tm) and can I buy fuel at the same cost as the Big Power Company(r) or near enough so that I at least break even or maybe come out ahead?
Re:Become your own utility co? (Score:2)
Re:Become your own utility co? (Score:3)
Those who run windmills or solarcells often stay "on the grid," and the electric company is forced to compensate you for your power. (Forced, at least in most US jurisdictions, your mileage may vary.) If a windmill provides more than your whole house needs, then you'll get paid by the electric company.
However, those solutions work because you don't have to pay for the source of energy: wind or sunlight. You may have to pay maintenance on your mills or replace damaged cells, but that's about it.
If you have to hook a propane tank to a fuel cell, you're probably NOT going to get electricity cheaper than it's sold "on the grid." You'll be more independent, but you won't want to burn an extra tank to turn natural gas into cash.
What about Thermoelectric Generation? (Score:2)
A few years back, I developed a project for microwave repeater stations with one of my sites having no possibility of commercial power available. I picked the project up in the middle after some of the hardware had already been purchased, so I didn't have full latitude to develop the power sources. I also had no previous experience in this field and really no physics background. I had to learn all this 'on the job' and on the fly. If I had it do over again, I would do it differently.
Now, on to the meat:
If I was doing the project again, I would use a TEG for the power source at this site. The site now has 400 sq. ft. of solar cells, a 30Kw propane generator and 3000 amp/hrs of battery capacity (there are a lot of microwave and other radios on the site.) This requires maintenance at least a couple of times a year, quarterly is better. The generator has to be serviced, the propane filled, etc. And the site is inaccessible due to weather for at least 2 months of the year (the top of an 8000' mountain.)
TEG has been used for years with great success. The basics are that TEG is based on thermocouples. Like the opposite of the Peltier effect for you overclockers. Heat is applied to one side of a P-N junction and the other is cool, electrons flow from the junction. These have been used for remote power for many, many years. In doing the research for this project I talked to a tech at a radio station in Montana that had been using a unit to power their remote transmitter for almost 15 years. He said he checked the site once a year and cleaned the orifice on the burner every two years, but it probably wasn't necessary. He said the minimum life expectancy was more than 20 years.
Granted, this doesn't get away from having to provide some kind of fuel to burn at a site, but there are no moving parts, no noise and little environmental impact. And no oil changes for an internal combustion generator. In my research, I found that the TEG burned less fuel than the propane generator also.
If the GE unit isn't using TEG (or some more efficient method) for capturing the waste heat of this process, they should certainly consider it.
I just wonder what kind of power could be recaptured from the waste heat in the average house? I did a google search and saw a unit that replaced (wrapped around) the exhaust stack of a diesel truck and generated up to 1Kw. It was intended to replace the alternator, but I can see all kinds of environment benefits, such as powering the refrigeration unit in a semi trailer without the addition fuel being burned and polluting.
In understand that the upfront cost of TEG is pretty high, but there are certainly good applications for it. I talked to several of the vendors at an alternative energy expo in my town six months ago, and only one of them had ever heard of TEG and he didn't know what exactly it was.
I'm surprized that this technology isn't used more.
Here's a link [jademountain.com] to a place that was advertising a 27 lb. 5000 watt generator a while back.
There are also links that describe the technology.
Re:Let's talk about economics for a moment... (Score:2)
For example, a friend and I once calculated the carbon cost from scrapping his old Kingswood (big heavy car with a very inefficient 308) and changing to a reasonably fuel efficient small car like a Hyundai Excel or similar. The payback period was over 12 years, which is longer than the average age of cars, even here in Australia.
In terms of carbon, the best thing he could do was to continue to drive the beaten up, dirty old v8! NOx and other emissions are a completely different story though.
Which brings me (slowly) to my point - is covering up several acres per person with plants that are then fermented and distilled to make alcohol for burning better than digging it out a hole in the ground?
Is that why Natural Gas prices have almost tripled (Score:2)
per MCF the past year.
The Oil COS win no matter what.
Interesting ... only a few concerns (Score:2)
1) Generally, fuel cells need hydrogen; no problem here, we're using propane or natural gas to do this, but the question becomes how much hydrogen is going to be stored in the house at any time (I'd figure there's a small tank here to keep a ahead of any disruptions in gas flow). Hydrogen in labs is controlled, but southern yokels that go inspect the thing while smoking a cigar is quite different (this is the same problem with cars, at a much different scale). I wonder how big of a tank they store, and if they do any redirection to batteries as to reduce the tank size.
2) Natural gas implies large levels of sulfur; sulfur will wreck the fuel cell material if not removed, so there has to be some way to do it; generally, this way requires the use of catalysts, but that means that the catalyst may have to be changed out periodically (on the order of a month), unless they assume that the natural gas upstream is filtered enough. (Sulfur in standard burning places isn't as a problem as with fuel cells)
Single family dwelling? (Score:4)
Winter gas supply? (Score:3)
Last winter, natural gas supplies, at least to the Northeast United States, shrank, and prices skyrocketed. In California, I believe natural gas or propane increased several hundred per cent, if it was even available.
Many contracts for natural gas in the Northeast U.S. specify only a limited supply--if you exceed that you have to pay considerable surcharges--it may be cheaper just to buy electricity for the added load.
The situation may change, if Canadian natural gas is imported in adequate supply and a reasonable price. But natural gas supplies suffer from the problem that it is not as easy to move them to users as it is electricity or fuel oil. And the supply life may not be as long as petroleum, unless some exotic sources are located, as for example, at extreme ocean depths.
I too would like to see a less expensive and less polluting and more reliable energy source for the home. However, in many other areas, solar power may be the better bet. I wonder whether it will turn out to be practical to install these gadgets in the northeast U.S.
My neighbors' home a few years ago exploded and burned after a propane accident--our property was, luckily, spared, and nobody killed. Of course, they still use propane, but others are more cautious.
Re:Since it's slashdotted already... (Score:2)
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YAY!!!! (Score:2)
bicycle-powered turbine! Wishful thinking anyways. Oops, almost forgot I'm
running Netscape *pedalling harder*
It gets better... (Score:2)
At least here in California -- according to my ecological design prof -- not only do they have to compensate you, they also have to foot the bill to connect you to the grid in the first place!
Just think: you could have a quaint little cabin out in the middle of BFE. Put up some solar cells and/or a windmill so that you're generating a slight excess of what you actually need... and bang, now the utility company has to connect you to the grid at their expense. Why is this so cool? Suppose its a cloudy day, or suppose there isn't any wind. You're still connected to the grid; all you have to do is throw the switch on your AC-DC converter, and viola! you're back in business.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
I think another reason, though, is efficiency. I believe I read that these fuel cels are much more efficient than our typical coal generating stations.... so that would seem to cut donw on the power/polution ratio?
Solar power? (Score:2)
It would obviously use a battery so that if the day is too cloudy, you won't lose power. Plus, the existing gas power infrastructure could be used as a backup.
Why are people not using this already? Will it be used any time in the foreseeable future?
Re:Interesting ... only a few concerns (Score:4)
2.This is true, however when the NG is reformulated to extract the hydrogen, the sulfur is extracted as well. I think the figure that ive heard is its down to about 2 ppm, and the acceptable level is about 10 or so but im not sure on that. Even if they do need a catalyst that has to be swapped out, it would be like getting the oil changed on your car or something, plus the article says they will check the things and service them yearly, at which time i assume this would be done
Re:Become your own utility co? (Score:2)
when are we going to drop the voltage? (Score:2)
So..now that pretty much everything except kitchen appliances and air conditioning uses low voltage, are we ever going to move to a lower voltage DC power standard? If we have our own power plant in the back yard, the distance is short and we don't need high voltage AC.
It seems weird to generate electricity and then immediately rectify it and lower the voltage with bulky power supplies, giving off heat, etc. Plus lower voltage would be safer.
But will it power... (Score:4)
Re:Wow (Score:5)
Its all about the efficiency. Home fuel cells can get up to 80% efficient with cogeneration, 40-50 without. A natural gas power plant would be very very lucky to hit 40 % efficiency, and forget about seeing that with a coal power plant. Not only that but the emissions are much cleaner than even a NG turbine, since theres no combustion, NOx is reduced significantly, its mostly just giving off carbon dioxide and water. This is not a revolution in power generation, but an evolution, so far for fuel sources weve gone from solar to wood to coal to oil and now to natural gas and maybe back to solar again. Coincidentally each transition has resulted in a massive economic boost. Also, you can use electricity and air to actually produce natrual gas, which is what they did back in the 1880's before the discovered they could mine the stuff, so in theory you could just hook up a big solar array out in the desert somewhere and make natural gas and pipe it out to people everywhere.
Re:Solar power? (Score:2)
oops, references (Score:2)
Re:Recharges anyone? (Score:2)
Re:Winter gas supply? (Score:2)
Puhleeze. You're killing me!
Your guys are missing the point... (Score:2)
*ALOT* of electricity is wasted while it is being transported over long-distance transmission lines, since nobody wants a power plant near their home. A good percentage of the power delivered to New York City comes from hydro projects in Canada; about 35% of that power is lost in transmission.
Gas and Propane, on the other hand are forms of energy that can be transported with little or no loss of energy. Natural gas costs are very high right now because until recently recovering natural gas has not been very lucrative.
Also note that North America has massive supplies of untapped natural gas.
I think you can look at this issue much like computing -- it is cheaper to do complex scientific computation with a beowulf or similar cluster than it is to go out and by a Cray or other supercomputer.
Amateur Radio and Emergency Use (Score:2)
Re:Fascinating for rural areas (Score:2)
While approx 2/3's of Australia's surface is arid, there are still very large areas that aren't (or are irrigated), and many areas except the absolute driest still support massive cattle stations the size of Switzerland or Ireland. The really remote areas are of course not on the main power grid and rely on deisel generation (or solar cells), and would be naturals for this technology.
As for using the methane produced by animals, it might be feasible for feedlot/intensive farming, but it doesn't really make sense for extensive grazing, as you would likely use more energy collecting the manure than you'd get from burning / catalyzing the methane. In that case, it's generally more efficient to let the animal waste go back into the soil.
Fascinating for rural areas (Score:2)
Australia, like the US, has large areas of relatively sparsely populated country over which mains power is delivered. Thanks to government subsidies, this power is made available at similar rates to city dwellers. These days, however, power generation has been privatised, and subsidisation for mains power installations have been greatly reduced. While piped gas isn't available, it's fairly easy to truck in large amounts of propane and store it in tanks. Isn't it possible it might make more economic sense to encourage the installation of these fuel cell systems rather than maintain the massive mains infrastructure?
This would be good for the Mars program... (Score:2)
After all, if we can make life easier (more efficient) here on Earth first, it'll translate well into technology the Martians can use to establish a colony.
And the fact that this is *GE* that's developing it makes it even more exciting. It appears that its not one of these weird-science type projects that dont seem to go anywhere... With GE's resources, this will go places.