Fuel cell emergency generator announced

[Sundog]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/08/19/ballard.generator.reut/index.html

Looks interesting. Doesn't appear to work on anything except hydrogen, though.

[Brian]

What's the bunk version of that? Didn't some people claim they had one that ran on water or something.

The next step here seems like a no brainer to me. Extract hydrogen using solar or hydroelectric power. Theres no hurry, they only want to store it for use in emergencies.

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by Brian
What's the bunk version of that? Didn't some people claim they had one that ran on water or something.

That sounds like Genesis World Energy (http://www.genesisworldenergy.org/technology.htm). They claim to have a process to break the water down into H2 and O2 more efficiently.

[sorgoth]

Seems like a good idea to me. Since it's only for emergencies, they could use low cost hydrogen getting.

[Brian]

Originally posted by sorgoth
Seems like a good idea to me. Since it's only for emergencies, they could use low cost hydrogen getting.

Low cost and pollution free. No point in a power source that produces water as waste if you burn a ton of coal to get the fuel.

[arcticpenguin]

Hydrogen storage is not that easy though. If you produce it through electrolysis, then you probably need to compress it. Hydrogen bing so tiny and light, it tends to diffuse quickly through any leaks in the system.

Storage of adequate amounts of hydrogen is one of the big challenges in using H2 fuel cells for vehicles. I guess for home use you could store at lower pressure by taking up a larger volume, but there's still engineering challenges.

Essentially we're talking here about using the fuel cell here to replace a battery. The solar or wind derived-power generates H2 instead of charging a battery, and then the energy is recovered when needed.

[jj]

I doubt that H2 fuel cells have any real future, myself, because, as somebody else just pointed out, H2 is hard to store, and getting it isn't very easy or efficient either.

I wonder what the deal is with the catalytic membranes that self-heat using the C from CH4 and send the H2's on to the fuel cell...

Why? Well, I want some, of course :)

[daver]

Originally posted by arcticpenguin
Hydrogen storage is not that easy though. If you produce it through electrolysis, then you probably need to compress it. Hydrogen bing so tiny and light, it tends to diffuse quickly through any leaks in the system.

Storage of adequate amounts of hydrogen is one of the big challenges in using H2 fuel cells for vehicles. I guess for home use you could store at lower pressure by taking up a larger volume, but there's still engineering challenges.

Essentially we're talking here about using the fuel cell here to replace a battery. The solar or wind derived-power generates H2 instead of charging a battery, and then the energy is recovered when needed.


Yes. Unless you need to have large quantities of hydrogen around anyway, it seems like a stupid solution. DIesel generators are much cheaper, and the diesel is easier to store. You have to fire them up periodically, so they cause a small amount of pollution even if there is no blackout.

[tedly]

On Scitechdaily recently there was an article about a UK team working on a fuel cell that uses bacteria to break down organics into fuel for the cell. Power your house with the garberator!

[tedly]

Found the address
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2314885.stm

[teddygrahams]

To run on water:

Use pump to store fresh water in water tower..

When needed, water powers generator, producing water and electricity.

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by teddygrahams
To run on water:

Use pump to store fresh water in water tower..

When needed, water powers generator, producing water and electricity.
Sounds like Taum Sauk reservoir (http://www.ameren.com/AboutUs/adc_au_TaumSauk.asp). Intended to help with peak loads; in the summer they would generate electricity during the day when everyone is running AC, and pump the water back up at night.

I have heard that leakage is a problem and that the whole thing is a boondoggle.

[arcticpenguin]

Now you can build your own fuel cell-powered car: http://www.physlink.com/estore/cart/FuelCellCarExperimentKit.cfm

[fsol]

(1)Gravimetric Energy Density of Fuel MJ/m3(kWh/l)
(2)Volumetric Energy Density of Fuel and Container(kWh/l)
(3)Gravimetric Energy Density of fuel and Container(kWh/l)
Petroleum (0.8kg/l) 12.2, 9.5, 11.0
Methanol (0.72kg/l) 6.4, 4.4, 5.3
Compressed Hydrogen Gas (0.016kg/l) 39.7, 1.0, 1.6
Liquid Hydrogen 39.7, 1.5, 4.8
Carbon Nanofibre 30, 13.8, 13.8
Fe-Ti Hydride (5.8kg/l) 0.84, 4.0, 0.55
Lead-acid Battery (2.8kg/l) -, 0.06, 0.03


Ok, so it's not very clear and the data is probably a little out of date now but it shows the difficulty in storing H2. (The three headings correspond to the three columns of numbers in the above, 1 to 3 left to ight.) The H2 on it's own provides more energy per litre than you get from hydrocarbon fuels, but you can see that you get a lot more energy out of an equivalent amount of Petrol or Methanol than H2 once the storage container is taken into account. Storage in a Hydride is particularly bad, but if the results reported by the nanofibre researchers can be realised, then that offers a solution to the storage problem. It has to be said that the figures quoted above for nanofibres have not as far as I know been replicated yet.
The storage problem is the reason that in-situ reforming of hydrocarbons is still so popular. Despite the environmental drawbacks. A well integrated fuel processor/fuel cell system should still be more efficent than the equivalent i.c. powerplant and less polluting.