Slashdot Mirror

(has anyone figured out how this is different to a ICE? [aside from the operating principle])

It sounds like a fuel cell like Plug Power has been promising to ship next week for the better part of a decade.

I'll buy one once somebody gets it right, I've been holding back on buying a standby ICE generator for now. I'd nearly forgotten I'd invested in Plug Power back in the day - if that's any indication these things don't get from the lab to everybody's home boiler room at any kind of rapid pace.

btw those who say big utilities won't let it happen ==> http://www.plugpower.com/ yeah they want a cut, but once it gets reasonable it will happen in a lot of places.

These guys among others will be happy to sell you a commercial grade fuel cell stack for power generation today. Now whether or not that stack makes sense for all applications or is shrinkable to the size needed to power a vehicle are very different questions.

So at any given time, 60% of dialup users do not want to switch. 40% do switch. Next year, 60& want to switch => some of the original 60% must have switched sides to the 40%.

Consider as an alternative, however, that the system is an open system. Perhaps 40% want to switch, and all of them do. Perhaps those 40% are all replaced by new users, plus an additional 10%. Of the new 50%, 40% want to switch. Suddenly, the modem ISP business is growing.

Reminds me of the natural gas fuel cell / heat exchanger that claimed 300% efficiency. Naysayers pointed out how impossible it was. When you dug down into it, the transfer was like 75% from natural gas to electricity, of which waste heat was used to heat the building to be powered (basically increasing the 75%), and part of the electricity was used to run a ground source heat pump. Sure, the overall efficienty was lower than 100%, but with a ground source heat pump, the system is larger than anybody cares about.

Take a look here. They're expensive, but they'll run an average-sized house.

/shameless plug - no pun intended/
Check out Plug Power too
/end shameless plug/

Not just for Silicon. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is building an $8 million biotechnology center, which they hope will form a biotech hub along with the University of Albany. The building will contain over 60 faculty members and 300 researchers, and is bound to attract a lot of attention from the private biotech industry.

There are also many hi-tech companies in the capital region. There is the Big One, but also there are several good small ones, including Plug Power, a company that is working on fuel cell power. Also, check out the Rensselaer Incubator Center (shoot, can't find a good link for that one). RPI helps startups by providing office space and other amenities - there have been some great companies to come out of this.

So, all of these together will hopefully kickstart the tech industry in the Capital Region!

-Montag

GE is not selling the home unit - they're just talking about it.

The GE unit is made by Plug Power and has been on GE's web site for close to a year now. Evidently, they've hit some snags. The fact Plug Power recently laid off almost 1/4 of their work force and their press releases talk more about financial than technology milestones doesn't bode well.

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.

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.

egfrow

My father, a retired power engineer who worked for the New York State PSC in System Planning told me about Plug Power , a company that is making and selling PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cells for home use. According to the web site, the fuel cells are powered by "natural gas, propane, or methanol and are expected to achieve 40% electrical efficiency. Excess heat generated by the fuel cell can be captured and used for hot water or heating. When this is done, overall efficiency can exceed 80%."

They've had a house running on a 7kW fuel cell in Upstate New York since June 17, 1998.

Getting slightly offtopic here, but another interesting company is Plug Power, a subsidiary of GE that's developing fuel cells for the home market. (Not only do I get 7kW of power, but hot water, too!) Their site also has a lot of info on the latest fuel cell technology.

Also, Manhattan Scientifics (sorry, no URL) has been working on micro fuel cells for cell phones and portable computers that are powered by methanol.

All of the fuel cell companies have been doing extremely well on the stock market since the beginning of the year.

• http://www.ballard.com/ Stationary fuel cells (for your house)
• http://www.manhattsci.com/ Micro fuel cells (for your cell phone/PDA)
• http://www.plugpower.com/home.cfm More home fuel cells
• http://reality.sculptors.com/lists.html Fuel cell discussion list