Consumer Hydrogen Fuel Cells 518
axis-techno-geek writes: "Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver, BC (in Canada, eh), has stated that it will start production this friday of their consumer level Nexa(tm) hydrogen fuel cell (article here). The power module generates up to 1200 watts of unregulated DC electrical power that can keep going as long as it is supplied with hydrogen, and produces no toxic by-products (i.e. you can use it in your home). They also have plans for a 250kW unit. No price as of yet."
Great for RV's (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, (Score:2)
Re:Great for RV's (Score:2)
Trust me, there are many many applications that have been hotly anticipating this that have nothing to do with cars or RVs.
Yes, but (Score:3, Interesting)
I worked 2 blocks away from one of their offices in Burnaby, and always wondered how they were storing the hydrogen in those test buses that circled the industrial complex......
NOT dangerous.. (Score:5, Informative)
Propane or Natural gas are more dangerous than hydrogen.
Everyone thinks hydrogen is severely dangerous because of the Hindenberg disaster... which modern science attributes NOT to the hydrogen in the blimp.. but to the canvas covering of the ship that was, unbeknownst to them at the time, coated in a reflective paint made of SOLID ROCKET FUEL (they did not know that aluminum-oxide and some other chemicals were explosive)
The hindenberg got screwed up because a spark ignited the coating... which quickly spread across the whole ship.
Another fact.. people report seeing huge orange flames billowing from it.. but hydrogen burns as an almost invisible blue flame.... of course, the hydrogen added to the fire... but wasn't the cause.
Re:NOT dangerous.. (Score:3, Interesting)
If hydrogen is generated locally (by stripping hydrogen from say methanol, ethanol, or gasoline) and feed directly into the cell, all the hydrogen storage you have to worry about is your little buffer between the hydrogen generator and the fuel cell (likely a very short tube).
No need to store large amounts of a gas that just won't stay in any container.
Re:NOT dangerous.. (Score:2)
Re:NOT dangerous.. (Score:2)
Last time I attended a hydrogen balloon explosion it was about 1m across. The bang was audible across many miles and it was fucking dangerous. (It certainly brought the police running and some fast talking was needed). This balloon wasn't made from solid rocket fuel but rubber. It's not hard to guess what might happen if you multiply this by a few million and suspend a bunch of people from its underside.
Of course the colour of the flame was influenced largely by the colour of the skin burning. Haven't you ever thrown metal filings into a flame? It only takes a tiny amount to produce a brilliant colour. A gigantic bag made of just about any material and containing hydrogen in an environment where static is possible would be dangerous.
Whether hydrogen is safer than propane is irrelevant. I wouldn't strap myself to the underside of a very large balloon filled with that gas either.
Well.. (Score:3, Informative)
It's not an urban myth.
As for diesel.. the diesel fuel is at the *bottom* of the ship.. nowehre near where the huge, orange flames were shooting from.
I'm not saying Hydrogen can't explode.. it certainly does. But the Hindenberg didn't explode. It burned.
Re:Well.. (Score:2)
I just meant, the danger associated with hydrogen is generally due to the Hindenberg disaster.. which was not caused by the use of hydrogen. Sure, the H2 burned.. and fueled the fire.. but it was not the cause of the disaster.
What do you mean, coating the skin would encourage piercing? It was coated in a paint that contained, amongh other things, aluminum powder (sorry, not oxide.. my bad).. in order to reflect sunlight to keep the gas inside from expanding too much.
Re:NOT dangerous.. (Score:4, Informative)
I was present at an H2 balloon burning demonstration at Idaho State University a short time ago. The one filled with pure H2 went whoosh!, and a pretty mushroom cloud went up to the ceiling.
The prof then announced the next one was filled with a proper mixture of H2 and 02. I covered my ears, and felt the overpressure 35 feet away. My ears rang, even though my fingers were in them.
I think that's what you experienced.
Had the LZ-129 been filled with an oxy-hydrogen mixture, there would have been no flames, just a big hole in the lakehurst field.
Re:NOT dangerous.. (Score:2)
Re:NOT dangerous.. (Score:2)
no.
the hydrogen most definately burned.. that's not the issue..
But the reason the whole things started is now thought to be due to the coating on the skin... not the hydrogen itself.
Spark ignites skin, which caused flame to literally rip across the surface of the craft from end to end (would burn similar to free gunpowder.. like a fuse). This ruptured and ignited the inner cells of hydrogen eventually, of course.
Re:Yes, but (Score:3)
Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh well, think of the pretty lights it can make if you bomb a neigbourhood filled with a couple of them...
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:5, Informative)
You mean as oppposed to having natural gas piped into their home that would fill the house with gas if the pilot light just happened to go out while you on vacation? Tens of millions of families are living with this every day.
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Most pilot lights on gas appliances have a thermocouple that will shut off the gas supply if the flame goes out.
Of course the last gas stove i used didn't seem to have this feature (though it was quite old)...
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:5, Informative)
The most famous evidence of the unacceptable dangers of hydrogen was the Hindenburg explosion. A close look at the film shows some interesting results. The hydrogen went up (literally). The huge fire was caused by the diesel from the engines burning.
Then too, you have to consider "normal accidents" as well as the flashier exceptional ones. Burning hydrocarbons produce things link carbon monoxide. Not good. Very poisonous. Very insidious. Burning hydrogen produces water vapor. Much less nasty.
Of course, if you get your hydrogen by electrolyzing water and use electricity from burning fossil fuels you are still producing unpleasant stuff. But smokestacks are easier to track down and fit with scrubbers and other anti-pollution devices.
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:2)
Duh.. (Score:2)
It is NOT a higly volatile chemical... it just burns when it reaches the correct fuel/air mixture, like anything else.
Why do people think hydrogen is so dangerous?
Re:Duh.. (Score:2)
Probably because they don't understand that a hydrogen bomb doesn't work by a conventional explosion of hydrogen. They just have the words "hydrogen" and "bomb" linked together in the back of their minds.
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
The short-term question is where are people going to get the hydrogen from? That infrastructure's not in place yet.
I think one scenario that would make this thing particularly kick-ass right away is this: if the generator is to be used just for backup and emergencies - i.e. it will be idle most of the time - then you could slowly generate your own hydrogen at home from tap water and a solar-powered hydrolysis rig. FREE! Take that, Exxon.
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Or how about their pockets?
Think about that next time you stick that disposable lighter full of compressed butane in your front pocket, inches the family jewels.
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:2, Funny)
I live in California,half (Score:2)
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:2)
Finally traded in that Ford Pinto, huh?
Re:Fuel cells are the way to go, but... (Score:2, Funny)
SARCASM, people.
Jesus fucking CHRIST.
Every time I think humanity has hope, I read slashdot.
-l
I've seen the buses.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I took a ride on one of those buses (Score:3, Interesting)
The bus engine, powered by fuel cells, was very quiet. Fuel cells themselves have no moving parts so they don't make much noise.
When riding that bus the loudest part of the journey were the air brakes.
I've seen a number of comments pointing out the noise of this generator: 72 dB at 1 meter. A car is about that at 20 meters, so what they're really saying is that this generator is as noisy at 1 meter as a car is at 20 meters.
distributed power (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:distributed power (Score:2)
Re:distributed power (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:distributed power (Score:2)
The problem being, of course, that we would simply be exchanging a centralized power system with a centralized natural gas system. I suppose those of us lucky enough to have access to our own deposits will do well, though.
Your other points are good, though. This technology could be the equivalent of a very high-capacity battery. It'll also be a whole lot quieter than a gasoline generator, although the fuels are a bit less convenient.
Re:distributed power (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:distributed power (Score:2, Informative)
Re:distributed power (Score:3, Interesting)
More information on Hydrogen Fuel Cells (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.altenergy.org/2/renewables/hydrogen_
Re:More information on Hydrogen Fuel Cells (Score:2, Informative)
Try this URL instead:d _fuel_cells/hydrogen_and_fuel_cells.html [altenergy.org]
http://www.altenergy.org/2/renewables/hydrogen_an
Great! (Score:4, Funny)
"You'll see it under Christmas trees or powering your Christmas trees by the end of the year," Ballard's Harris said.
Great, now all packaging will read "Hydrogen not included"
Unregulated? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Unregulated? (Score:2)
The voltage output of a fuel cell is determined by electrochemical effects (like a battery), so it should be very stable.
Turning it into AC is easy ($5 worth of electronics from the local hobby store). Add another $5 and about a pound of iron for the inductors if you want it to be filtered into a nice smooth sine wave (otherwise it'll be a square wave, and many electronic devices object to this).
Only lasts 1500 hours. (Score:5, Insightful)
If that is the case why do they list a 'Lifetime' of 1500 hours? That's only ~62 days.. definitely not as long as it is supplied with hydrogen
Re:Only lasts 1500 hours. (Score:2, Insightful)
From their statement, however, one can assume that the unit doesn't need to be cycled on and off to prevent overheating or anything like that.
Hmm. I wonder what the operating lifetime of a small (1.2kW) gasoline generator is?
Not ready for primetime (Score:5, Informative)
However, there are number of issues that makes the short-term outlook for hydrogen difficult to justify running out and buying your own fuel cell...
In order to manufacture hydrogen in any meaningful quantity, "toxic" (environmentalist definition) by-products are an inevitable. To wit:
1. Electrolytic conversion from water requires electricity. The vast amount of electricity generated comes from icky dirty coal.
2. Extraction of hydrogen from fossil fuels still generates some toxic pollutants, and is still in relatively early stages of development.
No matter how meaningful quantities hydrogen are generated, greenheads will hate the fact that mother earth will incur vast amounts of greenhouse gases.
Shall we address the infrastructure problems associated with hydrogen? The costs of retooling fuel distribution channels to handle hydrogen?
Another issue conveniently ignored is the storage of hydrogen. Hydrogen, in its current form, is not particularly dense, requiring large tanks to store the equivalent energy stored in fossil fuels.
In the future, wind and/or solar power could provide the greenhouse gas-free hydrogen generation alternative to make it a sound fuel source from an environmentalist standpoint.
Advances in storage mediums, extraction and distribution should one day make hydrogen an exceptional fuel.
Re:Not ready for primetime (Score:3, Insightful)
Electrolytic conversion from water requires electricity. The vast amount of electricity generated comes from icky dirty coal.
You are unfortunately correct about this. It looks like economic realities will make coal the U.S. fuel of choice for a long time to come.
Extraction of hydrogen from fossil fuels still generates some toxic pollutants, and is still in relatively early stages of development.
It's still less pollution than combustion causes. Not ideal, but it's a step in a better direction.
Shall we address the infrastructure problems associated with hydrogen? The costs of retooling fuel distribution channels to handle hydrogen?
Long distance electrical lines currently lose approximately 1/3 of their energy before they reach our neighborhoods. Part of the allure of fuel cells is the ability to run local generators that will run a lot more efficient. Distribution is certainly an issue, but it seems as feasible to send out tankers filled with liquid hydrogen as it is to send out gasoline tanker trucks.
Re:Not ready for primetime (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, I got curious so, I decided to try and figure this out. I pulled some references and looked online, and the answer really surprised me.
This reference [chevron.com] gives the energy content of Gasoline as 115,000 BTUs/Gallon = 32 MJ/liter
This reference [ovonic.com] says that very cold, highly compressed liquid hydrogen has a density 71 g/liter
Adding to that my reference value of 918 kJ/mol for hydrogen combustion, I arrived at an answer of 130 MJ/liter, or 4 times that of gasoline. We should consider that it takes about 40 MJ/liter to compress and cool the hydrogen down to a liquid form (and more energy if you need to keep it cool for a long time), and also that tanks would likely be smaller in order to accomodate cooling and other apparatus. But that still leaves us with the surprising result that transporting liquid hydrogen is around 2-3 times more efficient than transporting liquid gasoline.
The key of course is that liquid hydrogen is so much more dense than room temperature gaseous hydrogen (by a factor of nearly 1000, 71 g/L vs 0.089 g/L gaseous at 20 C). Consumer uses will probably focus on compressed hydrogen or extraction from fossil fuels, since liqifying hydrogen is hard to do, but there is no reason energy suppliers couldn't ship liquid hydrogen if it really is that much more efficient than shipping gasoline.
Please do check my math since this was only just cobbled together.
Hydrogen and fuel concerns. (Score:5, Interesting)
The advantage to switching to hydrogen or another easily-synthesized fuel like methanol is that it centralizes the power generation, allowing you to switch to a different system (solar, nuclear, hamster wheels, or what-have-you) without requiring another upgrade to all of the cars and service stations on a continent. This is a very respectable accomplishment.
You can also generally install better scrubbers on a coal power plant than on a car, even before you start switching to alternate power sources.
Another issue conveniently ignored is the storage of hydrogen. Hydrogen, in its current form, is not particularly dense, requiring large tanks to store the equivalent energy stored in fossil fuels.
That's why I like the idea of using methanol as a fuel. You could handle it in existing service stations without too much refitting, and you could burn it in a conventional internal combustion engine (though you'd probably want a ceramic engine to avoid corrosion over time). Fuel cells can process it too, though with greater difficulty. Methanol's boiling point is low enough that you'd have to store it under pressure, like propane, but this isn't too difficult (we already have the infrastructure for it for propane).
Methanol can be produced by fermenting plants if you're desperate, or produced by direct synthesis if you have a source of power, hydrogen, and CO2 handy. Plunk a fuel plant next to a big city, and you have all three (water, exhaust, and the local power plant).
This gives us the advantages of a hydrocarbon fuel without having to short-circuit the carbon cycle or depend on exhaustible fossil fuel deposits.
Of course, we'll only really switch when fossil fuels become scarce enough to make this cost-effective.
Re: Hemp. (Score:3, Informative)
Last summer a group of young scientists drove an unmodified, diesel engine Mercedes Benz across country to promote hemp for fuel. They ran the car entirely on fuel created from hemp seeds. Although mileage was slightly impaired, the amount of pollution generated was greatly reduced because, unlike gasoline refining, which adds many noxious and dangerous chemicals, hemp fuels rely on natural methods.
This fuel "created from hemp seeds" was almost certainly just an alcohol. You can make alcohol by fermenting just about anything organic.
The problem is that both the growing of the plants and the fermenting are not terribly energy-efficient. Direct synthesis by burning CO2 in a hydrogen atmosphere would almost certainly be a better option.
The other thing that they might have produced from hemp is something vaguely resembling diesel fuel. This too can be produced fairly readily from many types of plant (think "low-grade vegetable oil").
The problem is that burning long-chain hydrocarbons cleanly is very difficult to do. This would probably not be a viable fuel source even if you weren't stuck with plants' energy efficiency.
The "...which adds many noxious and dangerous chemicals" line is mainly trolling on the part of whatever source gave you this information. The most dangerous things coming out of a gasoline engine are sulphur and nitrogen oxides. The sulphur came straight from the ground with the fuel, and the nitrogen oxides are a natural byproduct of burning any hydrocarbon under engine conditions. Hemp deisel would contain as much sulphur as the hemp did (all plant and animal matter contains some of it; at least one of the amino acids uses it). Hemp alcohol wouldn't... but I don't see any reason to use hemp alcohol over direct-synthesis alcohol.
In summary, I don't see any real advantage to using hemp as a fuel.
Re:Not ready for primetime (Score:2)
(A) No one in their right minds would electrolyse water to get hydrogen. You might as well keep the electricity, except for very specialized applications.
(B) Cracking and carbon sequestration work pretty well, without any of the "icky toxic pollutants". You end up with solid carbon compounds. (Well, maybe they don't work "pretty" well yet...) Alternatively, use green plants, use ethanol, use those corn fields in Iowa!
More, Not ready for primetime (Score:4, Insightful)
Not true! Solar panels are currently nasty silicon things made with all sorts of toxins. That would be OK if they would last forever, but they are generally on the five year plan. Mirror/boiler schemes show more promise, but scraping togeter megawats from 22 watts per square meter is not easy and pilots worry they will be blinded flying over them! Do you want to get into the specifics of making and maintaining the millions of ugly little windmills that are needed to make windpower practical? Multiply your estimates to account for the fact that the wind generally blows when people don't need extra electricity. Do you really want to cut down trees to set up the farms? You did not mention biomass conversion as an indirect solar, but corn was made for eating! Cost = prohibitive on all of these options, so far about 10x the cost of normal generation.
The environmental future is in nuclear. No greenhouse and managable waste all nice and concentrated in a few very large plants. The infrastructure is in place for transmition, so no new scars are needed. The technology is well understood and the safety record is enviable.
Re:More, Not ready for primetime (Score:5, Informative)
Modern solar panels have 20 year warrantees.
The solar energy density at the Earth's surface is approximately 1000W/m^2, not 22W/m^2. The latter figure is for a particularly inefficient solar panel, say one from 20+ years ago.
Flying over a mirror/boiler facility shouldn't be much of an issue, because the mirrors are pointed at the boiler, not straight up.
Thousands of tons of organic matter suitable for generating methanol or methane are produced and collected in our cities every day in the form of sewage and food waste. All we have to do is collect it.
Re:More, Not ready for primetime (Score:4, Interesting)
The ugly little windmills of the late 70s and 80s are history (although some of the little buggers are still spinning.) Modern windmills are enormous, with blades the size of a 747's wingspan. New models can generate 2.5 Megawatts, but that's by no means a limit (output has jumped by 100-fold in the past 15 years.)
It'd still take a lot of those turbines to replace a nuclear power plant. On the other hand, there's a lot of development to be done (and lots of space in this country and offshore.) By the time we've finished building the next generation of nuclear plants, turbine output and efficiency will have increased significantly. When we're trying to figure out what to do with the first trainloads of waste, most non-nuclear countries will be building turbines and be generating power without fuel.
As to the ugliness... Well, I think they look pretty nice, actually. And if you've ever driven through the Great Plains, you'll probably agree that a few windmills aren't going to get in anyone's way.
5 year warranties and full of toxins? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you buy a solar panel new from a reputable manufacturer (say, Siemens) it will come with at least a 20 year warranty. That is, they will replace it if it falls 10% below it's rated wattage output any time within 20 years. And they pretty much picked "20" out of the air since they have no idea how long they'll last--all they're sure of is that it'll be more than 20 years.
Furthermore, depending on where you install it (Arizona vs Maine, say) it will produce the same amount of power required to build it in 2-7 years. In other words, however much toxins it puts out, it can clean them up before it's half-dead. A net gain. These are actual working numbers, not theory.
Solar power at ground level approx 1kW/m^2. Market available panels are 15-20% efficient which is 150-200W/m^2, not 22. And laboratory panels have been pumped up to 30% which would be 300W.
I'm not some whacko greenie that thinks nuclear power will kill us all. I'm just somebody that adheres to the KISS principle: the sun is already generating billions of times more power than we could ever use--why not tap into it with a simple collector rather than reinventing the wheel here on earth?
However.... (Score:2)
True. However, it changes the nature of the problem. H2 cells development must go hand in hand with development of greenhouse gas/waste containment.
Or, even, use nuclear energy to make H2 fuel cells. Nukes makes lots of radiative stuff, but the bad stuff is in one nice chunk, not spread out in the atmosphere like the CO2 crap our cars spew out.
Ho hum.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is that they are a few months too late. California power, more or less, has stabalized. That would have been a great market for them to edge into.
I mean, really. I think fuel cells are a great idea. But where are you going to easily get the hydrogen? Sure, you can get a tank from the welding supply store, but you can get gas from any gas station and Compressed Natural Gas from most gas stations. There aren't any hydrogen pipelines to hook up to, like there are natural gas pipelines.
The real good model is a larger one that can produce substantial amounts of power off of a natural gas line. It just has to fit into a small trailer. You could solve a California-style power crunch (at least, until the Natural Gas lines run out of capacity) by parking a bunch of those all throughout the cities. Nobody gets up in arms about a power plant in their backyard because they don't even know it's there.
And remember, this is another stock listed on the famed Vancouver exchange. This is the same exchange where that company traded for 2 years before the founders realized that the company had no product and the demo was smoke-and-mirrors.
Hydrogen Economy (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I give it 10-15 years before fuel cells start hitting the markets in force.
Also more info (Score:3, Interesting)
International Politics (Score:4, Insightful)
The long term solution would be to wean the USA off of an economy dependant of international oil supplies.
While many oil and energy companies may want to retain control of their assets in the area, solutions such as Fuel Cells may ultimately be the most elegant solution to the situation.
Fine, if they want to be poor, we can let them be poor.
This is something that I think the Bush Administration should go after Hard. Unfortunately, he may have some conflicts of interest given the support he has received from these very same oil companies.
Requires Alternative Hydrogen Sources (Score:5, Insightful)
A fuel cell is only truly zero-emission if it is catalyzing hydrogen gas from zero-emission sources. 95% of our current supply of hydrogen comes from natural gas. [h2fuelcells.org] So currently the fuel cell is only as clean as the natural gas reforming plant, effectively "burning" that gas and releasing CO2.
They're a great idea, but they're not zero-emission yet.
Re:Requires Alternative Hydrogen Sources (Score:4, Interesting)
solar or wind generation of electricity
electrolytic separation into H and O
low to med pressure gas storage
H O to fuel cell
Water back to gas generator
Sure it's elaborate but it is a clean way to store the day for nighttime use. I think we ought to use all these out of business fabs to make Si Solar cells.
And don't get started on how dirty fabs are...
Re:Requires Alternative Hydrogen Sources (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not magic and it's not usable tomorrow (Score:5, Informative)
Some reasonable uses (Score:2)
It's not a good idea for cities, apartment buildings and other small institutions. The smaller units, made by GE, do not yet provide electricity cheaper than can be bought right off the grid without any of the infrastructure and maintenance hastles you mention. If it works small scale, it's generally cheaper large scale and you should expect 500MW combined cycle cells compete with gas turbine setups of similar size. From a long term resource standpoint, however, burning petrol instead of making plasics is kind of like burning trees for heat instead of making furniture.
On the other hand (and this is a common myth where folks always bring up the Hindenburg) hydrogen isn't inherently any more dangerous then any other energy-rich fuel. Indeed it's probably slightly safer as it's lighter then air and so doesn't "pool" and become concentrated.
Hydrogen is a pain in the ass. It takes electricty or radiation to make, so it can only be used as an energy storage. In it's cryrogenic form, it's difficult to handle in reasonable quantities. Every single line has rupture disks in case the vacuum line insulation fails. Nature abhors a vacuum, and unrelieved pipe full of boiling liquid hydrogen is a pipe bomb. Despite your fond wishes of dipersal, large quantites of cryroginic hydrogen tend to FALL back to the ground untill it warms up. Warming up by ignition is a possibility that no one likes to think about. When you compare this to the ease of handeling gasoline, natural gas or even propane, you can see how much more expensive it is to deal with.
These days the cheapest and best solution is not always the one that wins out. Manufacturers would love being able to sell millions of these things as well as the service plans to keep them up.
BMW 7-series powered by H fuel cell (Score:2)
Looks like science can be profitable and fun after all.
Joe Cell (Score:2, Funny)
-shpoffo
Just a question... (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't Chrysler vow to have a fuel-cell-powered car in production by the mid 2000's? Any information on how that project is progressing?
Re:Just a question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Arguably it wasn't, but GM used one of its own prototype electric cars as a political lever on the technological readiness issue -- claiming it couldn't manage even a hundred miles on a charge, etc. They'd contracted Ballard to build the cells; Ballard built a battery pack that could manage more than twice what GM was claiming to Congress (around 200mi), but GM's contract allowed GM to suppress the information, ultimately forcing California to roll back state legislation on ZEVs (10% of all sales by the early 2000s, IIRC).
Source: Taken for a Ride [amazon.com], by Jack Doyle. Sorry if I've misremembered the details, but that's the general picture.
Re:Just a question... (Score:2)
packed with lithium and sodium batteries.
I wonder how big a hole 50lbs of lithium makes...
pan
Can it run on water? (Score:2)
(Thinks back to the day in chemistry class when he used an electrical current to break down water...)
At any rate, this is outstanding, especially if it can be converted to run water. No more worrying about keeping gas for that generator during a floor or storm. Just stick a siphon pump or a funnell out the window.
Re:Can it run on water? (Score:2)
What to do about the terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
The other day I heard the best suggestion yet on what we should do to "pay back" for what they did to on Sept. 11, 2001. We should invest the billions of dollars into products like this hydrogen fuel cell for our cars, and us breaking away from using OIL products/bi-products in our everyday transportation instead of spending billions in bombing a few people.
This way we get rid of the mid eastern funds of doing terrorists attacks and make the U.S. self sufficiant and able to use our own oil for the rest of our needs and not be dependant on other nations for anything.
Invest in the U.S.A. and running them out of their money.
Re:What to do about the terrorists (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What to do about the terrorists (Score:2)
Good times ahead for cultivators (Score:2)
Between this technology and LED lighting [space.com], cultivators of certain brain-change vegetables will have a much easier time staying out of jail. Let's see: low power, low heat waste, a renewable energy source...now all the world needs is for someone to invent robotic scissors for manicuring the finished product. Cheech and Chong meets Mr. Science!
The biggest problems got left out of the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Now then, if you really wanted to get me excited.... you'd be talking about a consumer grade 5 Kw or so Fuel cell that could operate with good efficiency using a high grade of Bio-diesel [biodiesel.org]. Which BTW can be made from virtually any vegetable oil or even oil derived from diatom algae. Of course, you'd have to learn to make your own fuel from the leftover peanut oil that the local burger joint cooked it's fries, in, but fortunately, the book with the recipe [veggievan.org] for how to do it isn't that hard to obtain...
Drinkable? (tangent) (Score:4, Interesting)
My train of thought:
Then I thought: ``would there be a way to pipe drinking-quality water into the home?'' The answer, I think, is basicly no since you'd need to chlorinate to keep the miles of pipes from becomming a breeding ground.
Then I thought: ``what about piping hydrogen to the house and making pure water there?''
If people were to power their homes with hydrogen, then there would be a household source of pure hydrogen. Here's my question:
Obviously if you have pure hydrogen and clean air going into a fule cell, you could possably get pure H2O out. Is this the case? and How much water is generated per KWh? (maby not enough for drinking water.)
--Ben
Re:Drinkable? (tangent) (Score:3, Insightful)
Try drinking distilled water from the store. It doesn't quite taste right because of the lack of mineral content. That's what you'd be drinking.
On the other hand, they've been using the fuel cells to produce water for the space shuttle, so you can get used to it.
Re:Drinkable? (tangent) (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure whether or not a hydrogen fuel cell will produce pure H2O, but I do know that you wouldn't want to drink it.
Although it isn't unhealthy, distilled water (pure H2O) tastes like shit. Your body is actually accustomed to the various minerals and whatnot that you'll find in most drinking water.
Try a glass of it the next time you fill up your car's radiator - the distilled water, not the coolant!
Re:Drinkable? (tangent) (Score:2)
Re:Drinkable? (tangent) (Score:4, Funny)
powerball.net (Score:5, Informative)
powerball.net [powerball.net]
Their idea is to use a low-pressure tank filled with water and "powerballs" -- small plastic covered spheres of sodium hydride.
When the system wants to create more hydrogen gas, it uses a mechanical cutter to cut one of the powerballs in half. The sodium hydride instantly reacts with the water in the tank, producing sodium hydroxide and hydrogen (and a fair amount of heat):
NaH + H2O --> NaOH + H2 gas
When all of the sodium hydride spheres are used up, the result is a tank full of sodium hydroxide. The tank is then returned to their factory, where the sodium hydroxide is converted back into sodium hydride, so there's no waste stream from the process.
The cool thing about this system is that the hydrogen is stored and transported in solid form -- as metal hydride spheres, so you don't have the danger of high-pressure hydrogen to work with. The hydrogen is generated as needed at low pressure.
The site hasn't been updated in a while, so I have no idea if they've successfully brought a product to market, but I thought that this was a really interesting idea, and it would probably work fairly well with these sorts of fuel cells.
Re:powerball.net (Score:2)
Location (Score:2, Funny)
Technically they're in Burnaby and not in Vancouver. They just down the road from where I live. Nice industrial park. Walk the dog there often.
They have some sort of noisy machinery behind one of their buildings that I haven't been able to figure out what it does. Probably some sort machinery the aliens gave them to build fuel cells.
respiration (Score:2)
GE Homegen (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, the latest word is next summer at the earliest. Plug Power reported a $30 mil loss as of their past fiscal year and their press releases talk more about financial transactions rather than actual sales or product delivery so things aren't looking all that great for GE or Plug Power's offering right now.
What's worse for Plug Power is their initial offering doesn't take advantage of the fact that the fuel cell produces hot water as a waste product. Were they to design the unit to feed the hot water to a water heater, the fuel cell efficiency would be greater than 70%. Supposedly, the water capture feature won't appear until the second generation offering which makes you wonder who would buy the first one - especially at $15k a pop.
By coincidence, Chevron Oil in San Ramon, CA fired up their 200 KW unit today for the first time. That puppy set them back $850,000 or around $4,250 per KW. More info is available at
SF Chronicle [sfgate.com].
Notice the odd ratios - The Chevron unit that's real and online cost about twice what GE's not-available unit is supposed to come in at. Maybe there's a hint there as to why Plug Power can't deliver.
Here's a dumb question... (Score:2)
PlugPower/Ge 7kw Microgen (Score:3, Informative)
Some Specs Are:
System Performance
Natural Gas 40% @ 2 kW output
Natural Gas 29% @ 7 kW output
LP Gas 38% @ 2 kW output
LP Gas 27% @ 7 kW output
Cogen Efficiency >75%
Fuel Cell Operating Temperature 160F
Exhaust Temperature (simple cycle) 220F
Power Quality IEEE 519 Compliant
Emissions
NOx 1 ppm
SOx 1 ppm
More info can be found at
www.plugpower.com
Good Start, Here's How It Could Be Better (Score:3, Insightful)
1.2 kw isn't enough. Right now, I've got a 300W ps running in my box, a monitor, a 60W bulb and a TV (not sure about the TV wattage). Upstairs there is another TV running along with another 60W bulb. If the living room and master bedroom were occupied, and if we were doing laundry and drying clothes right now, I don't think the unit could handle it. I'm not sure exactly what our peak load is. Actually... let me wander over to the breaker box (afk) OK, it says 125 A max, 120-240V. I'm not sure if they mean that we can draw 125 A at 240V. I'm not sure if any of our appliances actually draw 240V.
Anyhow, P=VI so if everything is 120 that's 15kW. IIRC from my power electronic courses the 120 is a RMS (Root Mean Square) voltage so you can use the P=VI equation as if it were DC.
So, for the device to be practical to drive our 2 story house, it needs to output 15kW after being inverted.
The other problem is that H2 is not readily available. Natural gas is piped right into our house, so here is my conclusion:
If they manufacture a unit that can run on natural gas (integrated gas to H2 converter) and output 15kw after inversion they might have a residential market.
At times when electricity from the grid is expensive or unavailable (e.g., California a few months ago) the ability to switch to such an alternative source could be an attractive selling point for a house.
Of course in it's current configuration I'm sure it will find some applications, but if they can't penetrate the residential real estate market they are missing out on a major revenue stream. The several hundred kW unit sounds intriguing for a small town power station.
Re:So, what's a good source of hydrogen? (Score:2)
Re:72 Decibels at one METER?? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:72 Decibels at one METER?? (Score:2)
Re:72 Decibels at one METER?? (Score:2)
I miss that car. *sniff*
You get it from hydrocarbon gasses and liquids. (Score:2)
You make it on the spot from hydrocarbon gasses or liquids:
methane (natural gas as piped to houses)
propane (LPG canisters - typically used for country houses, RVs, barbercues).
butane (Another LPG - typically used for smaller stuff like cigarette lighters. more energy per volume but prefers room temperature to come out of the tank.)
methanol (rubbing alcohol - very toxic)
ethanol (drinking alcohol - very regulated and taxed)
other higher alcohols
gasoline (pentane, hexane, heptane, octane, nonane, etc. plus miscelaneous branched chains and additives)
We don't know yet whether this puppy has its own hydrogen-from-hydrocarbon generator built in or if you need an external one if you want to run it on hidey-carbons rather than hydrogen gas.
Of course you COULD feed it hydrogen gas from a tank of compressed hydrogen, liquid hydrogen, or hydrogen-disolved-in-metal-powder. But a hydrogen-gas system with a large amount of stored gas (rather than enough to make a small popping sound at any one instant) is a major explosion and fire hazard.
Gaseous hydrogen leaks through VERY tiny holes (including the space between metal atoms in solid metal) and burns with an invisible, super-hot ultraviolet flame. If you have a leak big enough to support a flame it WILL have a flame on it within a very short time. You'll find the flame by walking into it and having your clothes, hair, or skin start burning, if it doesn't set something nearby on fire first.
Re:Lifetime and noise (Score:2)
If you then throw it away and buy another it's bad. If you unscrew a few bolts and swap in an inexpensive fresh membrane module it's no big deal. Do it every Nth gas cylinder change.
Also: That may be a guaranteed minimum time before output has dropped 10% or so, rather than "it suddenly dies". Or it could be how long they've tested the prototypes, so far. B-) We'll just have to wait and see.
Noise (Score:3, Interesting)
That sort of number implies they're using a cooling fan (and chose a noisy-but-efficient one).
Re:Let's See.... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you put your ear 1 meter away from a car engine or a lawnmower, you're going to hear a lot more than 72 dba. Their noise levels are usually measured at 20 meters.
Re:Make them helium (Score:2)
Re:Make them helium (Score:2)
Re:99.99% H2 (Score:2)
Re:What are the effects on Global Warming? (Score:4, Informative)
Plants can't breathe oxygen either. They breathe carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. And some arboreal plants do indeed rely on the water in the air to survive.
I have no numbers to hand, but a fuel cell is much more efficient than any internal combustion engine currently available, and mole for mole uses half as much oxygen as hydrogen. I'd say it won't make much of an impact, expecially compared to IC engines, which also use plenty of oxygen but spew toxic fumes.
You don't have to produce your hydrogen as you're describing, and carbon dioxide is not necessarily going to be the byproduct even if you use hydrocarbons. You can also get your hydrogen via electrolysis of water, which produces oxygen as a byproduct. This process uses electricity, but it seems to me a well-designed system would use tidal flows to produce the power. You need to add an electrolyte to water for electrolysis to work, so sea water would be ideal, which means you might as well locate your hydrogen plants along the coast. A further byproduct would be the minerals originally dissolved in the water, which could then be put to good use. Such plants could be small and discreet, and need not place any strain to speak of on the local environment.
Come to think of it, such a system could be a boon for poor countries with a coastline and good tides but few other resources. They would become energy and mineral exporters.
I'd love it if someone could give this idea a good critique.