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Get Off The Grid: GE Announces Home Fuel Cells
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."
which is bad because either (or possibly both) the manufacturing process and the trashed cells are bad for the environment to boot.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
When I first heard about fuel cells 2-3 years ago, people were mentioning how fuel cells could be used with just about any gas or liquid that contains hydrogen. I've seen examples that use hydrocarbon-fuels like methane (Collected from a compost pile of corn stalks and cow dung), propane, or gasoline, and my favorite (because it's the cleanest in terms of pollution), water.
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.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
GE could do worse than to talk to the manufacturers of RVs. One of these in an RV would be great. Then you wouldn't have to stop in some RV park to get power for the night, nor rely on a generator that is loud in an otherwise quite enviroment. It could be powered by one of those propane bottles that you hook up to the little bbq grills. I can't wait to be able to read the article.
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
Line losses will kill you with low voltage DC. Do you want to distribute the power with bus bars? High voltage AC is more efficient. You can reduce the size of transformers by increasing the frequency. Aircraft use 400 Hz power instead of 50/60 Hz.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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 for more.
-bugg
Seems to me I'd heard somewhere that the sulfur is added to the natural gas in order to facilitate detection by humans, since "natural" natural gas is odorless.
Maybe it was just a dream...
Scott Draves
But this device doesn't make you self-sufficient - it only makes you less dependent on the electric grid. You still need a natural gas or propane feed. Now granted you could stockpile your own propane, but you could just as easily stockpile gasoline and have your own generator right now. I don't think this device makes the public any less dependent on a large power distribution network of some kind. Only solar or wind power have any semi-realistic chance of that at the moment.
The specs on GE's web site say:
7 kW continuous
10 kW for 30 seconds
15 kW for 0.5 seconds
(at 77F and 500 feet)
Tom
I have discovered a wonderful
You've obviously never had to shovel snow all day just so you could get your car out of the driveway for the next day.
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
Bruce Perens.
why was this post marked as off-topic? The moderation system is so stupid! This thread is about a fuel cell that uses natural gases to make electricity. Some dude mentioned that the use of natural gases ties you to natural resources, so you're not really independed. Some other dude replied and mentioned that biomass such as feces or garbage will produce natural gas when rotting, so it's a way to become "independent". why is it off-topic? at least he wasn't talking about penis birds and what not...
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Kinda offtopic, but... Just better hope you never slip & fall & break something. Or basically need any kind of civic services. Get off the power grid, but if you move away from everything else, you'd better know how to take care of yourself. Thus the price for isolation from society.
The city I live in uses gas widely, and you rarely hear of gas explosions -- I can only think of one, caused when a chap tried to steal some piping in a disused building which was still connected to the mains...
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
I have discovered a wonderful
Do you have any idea how much it would cost in terms of fuel expenditure to get 1lb of nuclear waste to the sun?
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...
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Dude, I have a friend whose family has a passive solar heating system in their house. Basically, the water is heated by solar cells on the roof of the house, then stored in an insulated tank until it is used. It's a pretty simple system, but it works really well -- my friend has been been taking free hot showers all her life.
========
Stephen C. VanDahm
This is obviously a Ballard fuel cell, repackaged as a GE product. This isn't suprising, since Ballard is licensing its technology to everyone, for the right price.
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.
Now I can have my very own generator without all the noisy diesel combustion. I wonder how big a Beowulf cluster it would power...
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
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.
That's an interesting thought. It brings up a question I've had for a while - how does methane compare to propane or natural gas in terms of energy generation?
... and head for the bathroom. ;)
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
may get an injunction on these fuel cells thingies..
click here to incinerate homeless people
Let me start by saying for three months out of the year I carry cylinders of propane on my back into a boat, across three miles of water, back on my back and up to the generator shed. I put about two hours of labor into each 80lb cylinder of propane. I care about efficiency.
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.
Yes it is possible to reuse spent nuclear fuel rods by breeding the U-238 into fissionable Plutonium-239. However there are serious problems with this, namely the unbelievable toxicity of plutonium, the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation that would be produced by entering said Plutonium into commercial circulation, the huge amount of waste produced in separating and purifying the Pu and the necessary use of liquid metal coolants(very dangerous, can't use water like normal reactors) in the core. It was for these reasons that the US abandoned all hopes for breeder reactors in the 70's and 80's along with Britain, France and Germany (contrary to the suggestion by another poster that "Carter did it").
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 (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.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
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.
This thing would be great if it didn't require the natural gas or propane. I thought the whole point of these new fangled power systems was to move away from the dependancies of natural resources. Oh well, if it turns out to be as good as they're saying I'll be getting an extra one or two just to overclock my whole home network.
;-)
Just imagine a Beowulf clust . . . oh, never mind.
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Ah I stand corrected. I was under the impression that fuel cells were a means of storing energy. Shrug.
--
Grow some corn. Feed your fuel cell ethanol. While your at it, make yourself some hooch.
1) They're the size of real refridgerators, not the euro crap. 2) Gas prices are already on the rise. More demand will mean higher prices. 3) Gas generated by biomass would be a better idea. 4) What next, a fart powered PDA?
1) Not true. Ballard has made smaller units for distribution in China, using the same technology. They've heavily patented this technology, years and years ago. Powerplug most like is licensing this from Ballard then.
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.
Simple... It would take about 25 years of continuous operation for a solar cell to make back enough money to pay for it's installation. (This includes cost of support systems like necessary power converters.) That is longer than most components operational lifetimes.
So unless you live in a remote location, it doesn't pay, not by a long shot.
Can you imagine what a tough time they would have selling these things if you also had to replace every single electrical device in your house? It's a real chicken & egg problem. Nobody will buy an energy source that won't work with their existing appliances & electronics, and nobody will buy a new appliance that won't work with their existing power supply. We're going to be using AC for a long time, even if it isn't the best distribution method around the house.
as someone said above, much of the loss/waste of power comes from the transferring that power from the plant -> your home...
You can't even power your Geo Metro with this :)
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).
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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).
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Some of the newer homes are being built with combo water heater/furnace systems where the hot water serves to heat air quickly, and the heat of the furnace heats the water as it heats the house. Now, let's see one of these tied into that kind of system... generate home heat, water heat, and power in one nice unit...
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
>>>the interstate highway system was created after Eisenhower led a convoy from one coast to the other and realized that twisting highways and dirt roads made for inefficient travel. The time it took for a military convoy to go coast to coast was cut by something like a factor of ten.>>> Actually, that march wasn't coast to coast us, he was in the eurpoean theater in WW II, and not only noted the 'bad' roads, but the autobahn, which provided for quick troop movement for the germans. (Interstate system also had a requirement that every 'x' miles must have a straight section of roadway to permit the system to be used for aircraft landing/take-offs as well.)
Not only that, but why are all RC cars not powered by gasoline?
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There are a lot of renewable energy solutions out there (photovoltaic, solar) and they are becoming more and more practical every year.
I saw some people post about selling electricity back to the grid one day. Well, this will be a lot sooner then you realize. One site I found, (Home Power Magazine), has profiles of people who actually are feeding electric back into the grid. Many of them say that their electric meters actually move backwards. Kind of cool :)
--Jon
H2O -->electrolysis--> 2 H2 1 O2 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. :]
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
What's worse? One big high-profile disaster, or thousands of low profile disasters?
How many houses go boom from natural gas?
Compare this to how many houses catch fire from faulty wiring.
Stupid people will think the one high profile risk is far worse than the much bigger small profile risks, and will make poor choices based on that.
/end rant
It's not just that. Snow itself insulates. I've been camping in the winter many times and it's much warmer sleeping with snow packed around the bottom foot or so of your tent than having it all exposed.
H2O -->electrolysis--> 2 H2 1 O2
:]
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.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
You're correct in seeing the fossil fuel source as a first step. Biogas (hydrocarbon gas generated by composting) is a likely replacement in the future, if we can get it more economical.
The economics of biomass are there now for on farm use in isolated areas. Agricultural ligno-cellulosic wastes (corn stalk, hemp hurds, bagasse...) are readily converted to either methanol or gasified (H2 + CO), and fed to the fuel cell. Inefficiency of the chemical process is offset by lack of transport costs.
Gasification links http://www.sei.se/red/red9605b.html http://www.nrel.gov/research/industrial_tech/syngBen Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
It's about time we saw a serious push at alternative energy sources. This isn't as pure as solar, but it's definately a step in the right direction. True. Also, this may make the perfect BACKUP source for those using wind/solar. I've got land up in the mountains, no nearby electrical service. When I build, I plan on wind/solar. This make the perfect backup for times there's insufficient production... and it's a hell of a lot better than putting in an old diesal generator (which I had considered my option until a few years ago when I started following this)
Actually, that's
2(H20) --> electrolysis --> 2 H2 + O2
Yeah, but aren't fuel cells *themselves* made of dangerous chemicals that need to be dug up or sythesized somehow? That takes energy, right? So, in toto (is that correct latin?), how much to feul cells really "save" as far as energy and the environment?
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.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
As a matter of fact that's already being done. The most common method is lay hot water pipes in the cement for the driveway, then keep warm water circulating during the winter. This is pretty expensive as you have to be careful when laying the pipes and pouring the concrete, plus can get pricey to operate, that's a lot of hot water to keep circulating. I do know of at least one guy here in Anchorage doing it, probably quite a few. Though it's not being done here, I've heard that some other northern cities are doing that to downtown streets/sidewalks, funded at least partially by the shops along said roads. In a busy commercial area the savings of not having the roads shutdown/slowed by snow and removeal equipment probably offsets the costs.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
You mention cracked from water as an alternate source for H2.
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?
--
Infuriate left and right
If you want to tear your house apart, maybe.
I live in a two-level, lower-level walkout house that has a finished lower level, except for the laundry/utility room. The only practical way to add cabling to every room in the house is to route it all to the attic and then drop it down wall voids into the upper level rooms. The lower level rooms would, unless I tear out the ceiling, have to live with Wiremold(TM)-style surface mount wiring sourced from the utility room.
It's enough of a hassle that I haven't done new CATV, CAT5 or any other wiring in the year that I've lived there (I did put in a subpanel and 2 20A 120 and 1 15A 240, but the main panel and both circuits were in the garage, it was easy).
I'm sure if there was enough advantage I could hire a professional low-voltage wiring installer that specialized in old houses who knows all the cablefishing tips and tricks and have it all done, but it would cost a fortune, probably a fortune in sub-contracted sheetrock patching..
Some RC cars are powered by gasoline. Go take a look at http://www.towerhobbies.com/.
I also put one up at http://dotslash .dynodns.net/00/09/18/0047202/homegen_prod_desc.ht ml 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.
Oh, and these are expected to be $7,500 early adopter (first 3 years) then $3,500.
How many areas rely on coal or oil plants alone, rather than just as a backup?
I'm sure lots of areas rely on coal and oil plants for power. Last I heard, coal makes about 80% of the power in the US. There are several thousand coal plants scattered around the country, yet only about 110 nuclear plants (making around 10% of our power). Also, we haven't made a new nuclear power plant in around 15 years or so.
This thing can't be better than hydro/nuclear power.
I bet it doesn't even begin to hold a candle to nuclear and hydro power, but for some reason people don't seem interested in those methods of generating power. Personally, I'm all for anything that'll keep me from choking to death on the coal dust being pumped into our air, plus it makes for another neat little electric toy...
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 . 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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It could drain into one of dem sewer vents. You know like rainwater does? Let the city workers deal with the ice :)
i have misplaced my signature.
You know.. normally, I would completely avoid discussing this type of thing openly.
But here's my 2 cents.
Is the bible a hoax? Certainly not. Are some of the 'miracles' just acting/illusions? Quite possibly. The point is, that's not the point.
The BIBLE doesn't tell us to do wierd and crazy things.. people do. People read the bible, take it a certain way, and insist that 'this is the will of the Lord'.
I've read the thing. Without living in those times, and without understanding hte writing style of the times, in the author's original tongue, so much gets lost. We have people hanging off of words in the bible to the point of not accepting blood transfusions, because it says 'thou shalt not take the blood of another'. Nevermind that the original wording was a phrase meaning something like 'taking blood' which equated in the terms of the time to 'murder'. It most likely had NOTHING AT ALL to do with the willing gift of blood for medicinal purposes. Then again.. who knows? Not me.
The point is, I am not a christian. I am not anything.. do I admire the dude Jesus and what he did? Yes.. from what I read, and from what I got out of reading the good book.
And let me tell you, aside from some basic tenets about tolerance and thinking clearly (jesus thought very clearly), all the tripe the jesus ho bible thumpers keep saying is just that.. tripe.
Herds of people, like sheep, simply doing whatever the good reverend tells them to do.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had about as much of an effect on my way of thinking as the bible did.
So did Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
And 'The Art of War'.
And lots of other things...
Modern faith is all too blinded by itself. People are too wrapped up in what they are 'supposed' to believe, and in how 'important' a message is.
You know what the 10 commandments are? They are simple, straightforward rules that, if followed, tend to keep you from getting killed (or thrown in prison, or losing all your friends). They are also things that, if you follow them more or less, you can usually live at peace with your actions. Not because they describe 'sins', but simply becuase you can live guilt-free. Sin=GUILT! GUILT turns to sickness, and ruins an otherwise happy life.
Those who claim the bible is 'true' because of some obscure facts are just as guilty of judging others as those who claim it is 'false' because of some obscure facts.
It is simply a book, some writings, with a lot of history behind it. Take it for what you will, and quit with the hail-mary-jesus-flock-of-sheep crap and start using the brains you have!
Or, in other words... as that bumpersticker says...
"I like Jesus, I just hate his fan club."
And on another note, whatever beliefs bring you peace in life, that is your right.
that they didn't come out with these back in November for all those y2k "it's the end of the world" idiots. They coulda made a killing.
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gas == danger to kids (big market for rc cars)
gas == more expensive than recharging battery
gas == more upkeep than battery powered engine
Here is one FAQ that seems to skirt around the issue(obviously for electric though):
I believe that the best solar panel efficiency
right now is 40%, however I don't remember where to point you, or how much more it costs...
IMHO the main advantage of solar power is that
it is relatively low maintenance.
(every 10 yrs or so, replace half the panels,
to compensate for their decreasing efficiency.
Its already part of the mars program. Fuel cells have been used in space since the 60's.
Chemical storage will always be necessary when and where solar collection is not feasible
;)
Yeah, like for anyone living in the northeast US..
Still, to have hydrogen produced by the sunny states and shipped everywhere else.. By dirigible perhaps?
Your Working Boy,
Yeah, but I hate those systems. I have one. Every winter, when the furnace kicks on, the water in teh shower turns cold (since the heat is all 'stolen' for heating the air). I've lived in two places, and they've BOTH suffered from that problem. There is nothing worse than being in the wonderful hot shower, hearing the furnace kick on, and realizing you have about 30 seconds to rinse all the soap off or you're going to freeze to death...
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Union Electric power plant in Keokuk, Iowa, one of the oldest continuously operating hydroelectric plants in the US still transmits DC power to at least one customer, a smelter operating north of St. Louis.
Cool free tour if you're ever there.
Look, I'll admit that this comment was amusing (unlike that majority of posts that get +Funny), but there is a lot of INFORMATIVE TECHNICAL posts below that should be rated higher. Slashdot is a news site first and foremost.
I've posted elsewhere on the evils of PV. It ranks with nuclear as a time waster as far as energy efficiency or pollution are concerned. Considering it takes (optimisticlly) ten years or more for many nuclear power plants to pay back the energy investment to create them, you see where this leads. In the PV case, however, the payback for even crude systems is more than a decade. For useful power as we modern consumers use, which mandates storage and conditioning, the payback approaches more than you or I have on earth, with a high pollution penalty that makes gas or other sources of energy the winner. The real alternative energy is to use less. Efficiency, modifying use models, and less affluenza are the real winners hands down. If we were all to suddenly install roof tiles, we would a) bankrupt our energy supply, b) bankrupt our pocketbooks and those of our future generations, and c) feel really, really stupid in the morning.
I guess I'm just lucky to live in BC (Canada.. and NO, I don't live in an igloo damnit! :), we have fairly cheap power because its almost all hyrdo-electric damns.
SSL Certificate
The economics are iffy.
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,
I wonder whether or not losses would be
so bad in the house if we did that.
The real metric is: Does converting to high voltage, and then back again lose more power than supplying the low voltage in the first place.
Assuming, of course, that most appliances actually USE low voltage.
(some use step-up transformers... it would be an interesting study, that is for sure...)
Besides, power is not a civic service. Power is not part of what my taxes pay for. Power is generated by an independent provider which holds (or nearly does, when deregulation happens) a complete monopoly over me. I can't switch power companies, because there aren't any others in my area. (Of course, the same can be said for some civic services, like police, but that's another matter.)
This isn't isolation from society, its choosing a different method of interacting with it.
oops forgot the first 2 :]
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
With the current growth trends in SUVs, it won't have to be all that much smaller than a fridge to blend right into the styling ;-)
the problem is reliance on the personal automobile in the first place.
One person's bug is another's feature...
Individual liberty uber alles...
Your Working Boy,
As someone living in California, I am somewhat up to date on this...
They are looking into around a dozen new power-plants in the (San Francisco) Bay Area. PG&E is pushing really hard to build the plants, but the tree-huggers are screaming for proper ecological impact reports.
I wish they hadn't shut down the nuke plant in Monterry Bay... LOTS of power. Too bad they were dumping the coolant water (non-contaminated) back into the ocean, which raised the temp enough to seriously screw up the (very) local ecology...
It's a big political mess here right now, for power, and everything else between the rather conservative/libertarian views of the "valley" and the "tree-hugging" hippies living in Golden Gate Park.
You can find a great site for fuel cell information and news at The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Investor Site. This is probably the best overall site out there for both hard science and news (hype) about fuel cells.
SQLTeam.com - For SQL Server developers and Administrators
The economics are iffy. It is absolutely being done by solar technologies (check out Home Power Magazine ; and in particular their "Guerilla Solar" Rogues Gallery, if you're really interested in sticking it to the Utility companies). However, unfortunately, nobody seems to be making money (or even payback) at it. Perhaps some kind of mixture of this Fuell Cell technology, electrolytic dissociation of water, local storage of Hydrogen (metal hydride technology springs to my mind), co-generation using waste heat/coolth from the metal hydride tanks and fuel cells, renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro), and natural gas could be made to pay off. Interesting design problem for someones M.Sc., no?
They're nifty. They provide power. They're still not a good alternative to grid power right now. 1) for heat, they're still not as efficient (or, I might add, as cheap) as moderately higher efficiency furnace units. 2) for electricity, they're very expensive if you have grid electricity available. For those without this luxury, fuel cells will be great product. 3) gas prices are sky rocketing (doubling in the last year at the wholesale level, and 40% on my bottom line locally here). If a green appearance to the fuel cell is interesting, keep looking. The unit can only slightly best an average on grid energy paradigm. There are other ways (like use less, like use more efficiently, and, god forbid, use grid-based alternative energy). At least fuel cells are better than PV right now, which has to rank up there with nuclear as a bad idea in large quantities from just about any perspective.
The other problem with Hydro in the US is that we've already dammed almost every damn river, and almost all of those dams have hydro powerplants (since the power sales were part of the federal dam financing formula).
The few remaining potential dam locations haven't been developed because of the massive environmental implications, usually so severe that people recognized them even back in the 60s.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
where did i say anywhere that tokamaks, stellarators, spheromaks, 'fusors', z-pinches......whatever, are useless? my point was simply, with respect to commercial power generation, that controlling and confining fusion reactions for the times AND densities necessary to create ignition, and efficient power production; is simply not achievable with current technology. no matter what the method.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
It seems as tho it is excess energy radiating out for free, but as soon as you try to use it to do anything, it places a load on the system.
Gas, as long as it's full, will work no matter what the weather is like. I guess this means, no matter how hard it poors the shit's gonna be up. Lt. UPS, you've just been demoted.
Several people in my hometown have these systems. There's a network of pipes under the driveway with hot water running through them. It actually works OK. Not only that, the city itself did this with the downtown area. It's called Snowmelt. They use the warm water discharge from the power plant and run it under the streets and sidewalks downtown, and voila! no snow. All the water runoff goes the same place it does when it rains: down the drain.
---- Dave
Interesting you mention that, because it's one of these damned if you do - damned if you don't problems. People don't want high voltage power stations near their homes. Yet one of the main reasons for using transformers to alter the voltage-current balance is to achieve better long-distance efficiency. This is also why you get AC from the power station.
If we had a bunch of very small power stations to begin with, spread out all over the place, then all of our household devices might have evolved to use DC, which is cleaner (in the electrical, not pollution sense). Kindof a shame that these fuel cells could provide that, but won't, because all our devices already depend on AC.
Strictly speaking - a windmill grinds grain. A windgenerator creates electricity.
Yeah, that's just great.
Like the idea of a hot_shower_ really appeals to most of the people reading this. Hehe.
Actually, that reminds me of something. Doh.
Read my earlier post regarding this type of useless assumption.
This statement assumes that your crystal ball reveals KwH prices remain roughly the same over the next 25 years. Glad you made that call, cause I wouldn't want to bet on it.
With escalating demand, it just wouldn't shock me to see prices follow. Suddenly that 15 cents per KwH doesn't seem like the worst deal after all.
It basically works out like this... with a solar installation, you've just prepaid for somewhere around 25 years of operation at a fixed rate.
Your alternative is trusting in megacorp altruism, government regulation, and capacity expansion to keep prices low for the next 25 years. After all, corporations just hate to raise price to match demand.
Woot.
One problem with DC power is that it will quickly wear out mechanical switching devices. As contacts close, DC will jump the gap at some point and essentially "arc weld" the contact surfaces, eventually causing failure. The voltage could be lowered to mitigate this, but then you need to use wire as thick as your thumb to handle the amperage. High voltage AC is really the best bet, though the 60Hz frequency could stand an upgrade. But then again, lots of things use the 60Hz as a time reference...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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.
Also, we haven't made a new nuclear power plant in around 15 years or so.
... 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,
it don't mean s___.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
And where am I supposed to put my fridge then?
Bah, guess I'll have to wait until they invent a coolant network with pipes to every home.
Hmmm...I've probably missed something.
Your intellect surely shows when your suggestion is to throw away our natural resources as if we had an unlimited supply of them.
Now I have a seperate power plant for my watch, my car, and my house!
Whats next, a seperate power plant for our computers (hmm.. good idea actualy).
Use the waste water to cool your system, and expell the heat through a vent. Very efficient.
I also thought fual cells could actualy run off water, by extracting stuff directly from the water? Well, the efficency probably wouldnt be high, but Id rather pay a large water bill then a natural gas bill, plus water erm.. doesnt EXPLODE in an accident!
Systems Administrator
Servu Networks
http://www.servuhome.net
Brent Jones
between it and a gas heater? Natrual gas goes in, heat comes out.
KidSock
Hydrogen is another interesting alternative. You can convert distilled water (which you can use a solar distiller and tap water or even gray water to generate). Be sure to check out the solar array that powers a Sterling engine if you visit this site.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
We've seen distributed computing, is it time for distributed power generation?
Pro'ly someone forgot to throw a switch. Never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity. Next uninteresting story...
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
One of the points that they make on the site, is that it only produces about the same amount of polution as a typical home furnace. While that means that I will be producing more polution over here in Souther California... in colder climates, that would mean an overall general reduction in polution.
--== So many idiots, so few comets. ==-- --== Stupidity should be painfull. ==--
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
If you are into 'getting off the grid'
Home Power
If this kind of thing excites you, consider co-generation with a sterling-cycle engine. With the external combustion option, you could power the heating with buringin cue:cat's
These people (jxj.com) are big into co-generation.
Co-generation on a small scale. 10% of the heat goes up the stack
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
i live in west virginia, and a lot of ppl in the rural areas (and i mean a LOT) live on their own land and have the mineral rights to it. ppl i own their own natural gas wells, and have been drawing from them for years....now these ppl can really get off of the grid, gas and electric (until the well goes dry) :)
Governments should really be increasing the use of nuclear power and blasting the nuclear waste into the sun.
"I can only show you Linux... you're the one who has to read the man pages."
The savings for cooking and heating water are enough for most people, besides the fact that since I've moved to the midwest, I still hate electric stoves (fine for the oven, but gas on the range is the only useful option for most foods).
Maybe it was a long time ago - I haven't heard anything in recent memory about natural gas explosions in a residential area... of course, maybe out on the west coast they still have problems due to the earth moving and moronically placed train tracks on mountains...
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I bet they won't be able to make them fast enough for san diego!
i could sure use one - between pg&e's poor reliability - ever monitor your line quality? - and the cost issues that are going to come into play for power in california in the immediate future - grab your ankles - pg&e may be able to surpass the irs as the most hated group of people in the country. Now why do i have to wait til the end of next year?
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
No, he's quite right. Lots of liquid water in a sub-freezing environment is a Bad Thing.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Just in case you are worndering, Don't figure the price you pay for electricity as the price you will get from the utilities. Having researched this for a small hydro install I have learned the utilitie puts in 2 meters. One for the juice you use at retail plus all applicible taxes and tarrifs and another on your generator at wholesale cost. This equates to you buying power at say .13 per HWH and selling at .023 per KWH. Part of the justification is the utilitie provides voltage and frequency regulation and surge capacity. They can provide the temporary heavy load a freezer starting draws or keep up with making a typical breakfast. Water heater recovering from morning shower, washer and dryer doing the towels, coffee in the drip maker, toast in the toaster, ironing the fresh shirt etc. Home generation does not provide this surge capacity, or the system is oversized and runs ineffeciently.
The truth shall set you free!
It won't be long before we'll all have to generate our own power anyway due to the decreasing reliability of the power grid.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
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.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
BTW, the EV-1 is a pretty stupid idea. The problem is not that cars burn gasoline, the problem is reliance on the personal automobile in the first place.
Hell, my av equipment could do that.....
(on the 3rd power strip......)
I should hope that a refridgerator-sized generator has less emissions then an entire power plant!
----
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Whoever bought that cray - i heard his name but don't remember it - is REALLY going to need a couple of these!
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Someone didn't read the web site... It can sustain 7 kilowatts continuous usage. It peaks at higher kilowatt ratings for short periods of time.
You sure you arn't getting natural gas confused w/heating oil?
What are you smoking?
Electricity (for me) is $125 a month!
That's alot of dough every year.
Looks like it's been /.ed/ Anyone have a mirror?
http://www.gemicrogen.com/press1.html
GE states (for NJ anyway!)
GE MicroGeneration and New Jersey Resources expect to begin selling residential-sized systems in 2001, and small business-sized units by 2002. Retail prices for the residential system will be $7,500 - 10,000 in 2001, and are expected to fall to less than $4,000 by 2003.
-G
"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."
I tried to reply (as o doubt did others) through the link on /.
They say:
"You must supply a value for the ZIP field"
Ouch. We do not use ZIP codes in the EU. I took a course a few years back in an EU State (WebPageDeSign)... we wondered about the predeliction for US web dickheads (or would that be people who don't care about the world outside the USA) to demand a ZIP code without a choice for those who do not prosper in the US to put their info in the box.
Get up to date! There are billi0ns out there... they are not fighting in the ZIP code arena!
cheers
front
Small appliances use DC. Solid state circuits use DC because it is cleaner power. However, you are unlikely to find anything that uses more than 200 watts of rms power to be using DC. Most large home appliances, such as dryers, toasters, space heaters, air conditioners, etc... That said, the main disadvantage of DC has always been the fact that it doesn't travel over large distances very efficiently and cannot overcome the internal resistance of copper cabling as well as AC, which can be stepped up to much higher voltage levels(and lower current levels, thus creating less resistance) which is why AC is a better alternative to DC for economic purposes. DC will always produce power more efficiently for a local system, as there is very little loss in a short loop. But for most of us who don't live within five minutes of the local power plant, we will probably be using AC for a long time.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
I notice the top end of the "standard" operating conditions is 104 degrees F. The "optional upgrade" will raise that to 120 degrees F. Here in Texas, we just ended a two month stretch of routinely breaking 100, and often breaking 105. The optional upgrade wouldn't be optional down here. Even 120 is a very low limit, unless this thing is located so it will never be in direct sunlight. Of course, further north this won't be an issue at all, except maybe a few days of the year.
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Great! Now I can finally take a free HOT SHOWER!
Flamebait?
I'm confused
Yes, he's absolutely right. But I still hate shoveling. :)
Why does nobody mention that these fuel cells emit dangerously large concentrations of dihydrogen monoxide?
What, are they out of their minds? It is a well-known fact that large concentrations of dihydrogen monoxide can be lethal!
...
--
Gxis!
Ed.
-- Gxis! Ed.
I live in New Zealand and we have been reastructured! Our electricity industry was a Government run operation with the public interest coming before money. The industry still made piles of money though. Now we have many competing power companies with money as the core object. You can guess what has happened..... Power prices have risen against the promise of lower prices due to competition. If the numbers stack up I would buy one of those fuel cells and 'hack' it to recover the waste heat as well. We burn a heck of alot of NG at our NG well heads here. The rest is used in aging power stations and the usual other uses. Unfortunately I would need to buy a big NG cylynder as I'm not near the pipeline.
The ideal is:
solar --> [ electricity --> ] and/or [ storage --> efficient conversion to electricty --> ] efficient usage
Someday 99+% of all human generated energy will happen this way.
Today we have:
fossil fuel storage --> inefficient combustion conversion --> inefficient usage + waste carbon in atmosphere
Incidentily, the stored energy in fossil fuels come from the sun between millions and billions of years ago.
The fuel cell that runs off of mineral natural gas represents:
fossil fuel storage --> efficient fuel cell conversion --> usage + less waste carbon in atmosphere
An infrastructure of micropower like this can easily be converted to:
solar --> chemical storage (H2, methane) --> efficient fuel cell conversion --> usage + no waste carbon in atmosphere
Chemical storage will always be necessary when and where solar collection is not feasible (e.g. when the sun isn't shining 1/2 the time, in transport, etc.)
Any way you look at it, fuel cells are part of the future of energy because they convert stored chemical energy to electricity very efficiently.
Radioisotope Thermal Generators
Take some low grade radioactive waste, and bury it a few meters under your driveway. It puts off a slow steady heat for a few hundred years.
Never shovel again!
"The simplest solution is to ignore your dead children."
It still runs on fossil fuel! And you need to be connected to a gas network, or have a propane tank (and get the gas delivered). What we need is a more self-sufficient system based on a methane converting fuel cell.
Let me just remind you that methane is an even more "efficient" greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (by that, I mean that methane in the atmosphere traps more heat i.e. has a more pronounced greenhouse effect, that CO2).
So, it would, to my mind, be a very good idea to use fuel cells in conjunction with septic tanks...
This is how I see it. You have a house out in the sticks. You have a septic tanks because you're not connected to mains sewerage. Your shit goes in the septic tank, rots, makes methane. The methane gets taken up into a storage tanks and pressure-regulator, then goes into the fuel cell to generate electricity.
This could even become a kind of a self-regulating system, in that the more people you have living in the house, the more shit they produce, the more methane gets produced, the more electricity gets produced which gets used up because more people usually results in increased electricity usage (image all those house guests playing Sim City and reading slashdot on their laptops...).
KR.
It's about time we saw a serious push at alternative energy sources. This isn't as pure as solar, but it's definately a step in the right direction.
Instead of increasing our nuclear power plants why don't we add more generators to the existing hydro plants and run them 24/7.
Currently they only run 'em all during peak hours. We should turn on the non-hyro plants only during peak hours.
We've already screwed up the environment around the dam sites, lets at least squeeze more power out of them. You could probably power the SouthWest out of Hoover and the NorthWest out of Grand Coolie Dam.
With deregulation they could even sell the power and make a profit.
A number of banks use natgas fuel cells because it's much more reliable them grid power. A significant portion of the public power grid is on poles next to trees. All gas lines are underground. It's also better than grid plus deisel backup, because you do not have to depend on trucks to deliver diesel fuel. Typically a generator has a single day of fuel on its tank -- at maximum capacity. Gas comes through pipes continuously. I have gas heat, gas hot water and a gas stove currently. I look forward to supplementing that with gas power. It might even lower my bill. And keep snow off the roof!
---- ----
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The biggest problem with this, of course, is that fossil fuels are - for all intents and purposes - NOT renewable resources. In other words, it takes so long for fossil fuels to be created, and the process is so slow, that we'll never be able to slow down enough to keep from running out.
Which brings me to my favorite theory of what will happen in the not-too-distant future, which was presented in the Fallout series of CRPGs from Interplay/Black Isle Studios: The world will soon run dangerously low on fossil fuels, causing China and the U.S. to enter a race to grab up as many oil-producing "hot-spots" as possible. The U.S. and China will stop exporting oil, pissing off everyone else who doesn't want to be annexed into one of those two empires (Canada is one of the most notable countries to be annexed into the United States). Getting even more desperate, the U.S. and China race to build deep-sea oil drilling platforms - each country covertly sabotaging the other until the U.S. finally finishes their platform first. China gets really pissed and the mother of all wars, World War III, finally breaks out - only between China and the U.S. because they are the only real superpowers left. BOOM! Nuclear bombs ravage the Earth, turning it into a desolate wasteland full of mutated creatures and scattered, vulnerable communities of humans trying to start over again nearly from scratch.
This isn't my favourite theory because I want it to happen (it would be HORRIBLE, which is why it makes a good RPG and not a good real-life scenario), but rather because it is LIKELY to happen. And I don't see any way to stop it - don't give me crap about electric cars; there's just too much money tied up in oil for that to become a reality before the oil runs out, and you can bet your ass that the people involved are going to want to squeeze every last drop before starting over again with another fuel source. It's textbook greed, folks, and you're all driving 10-miles-per-gallon SUVs and pickup trucks to work on the FREEWAY every day to make it all the more profitable for those companies...
Just something to chew on =)
Later,
HunterZ
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
I bet you anything once these puppies hit the market there will be a rash of anti-government milita standoffs. All they need now is a huge propane truck and they would be set for the next five years.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
Or you can just get it from pigs like in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome =)
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
I'm curious about the price as well. I was told that for a 10KVA unit, the estimated price will be over US$ 150K based on 1982 pricing. It's no longer 1982 anymore, but I guess it will be still quite high since the technology has been known for over a hundered years and yet there has not been a practicle unit that has been produced for home use.
Altough all this sounds good, I do think that the fusion and other related nuclear energy sources are the way to go. First on a large scale and then all the way to the home and even farther - why not - to the pocket-size!
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_ !
The realizable abuse it to make money off your neighbors while degrading the quality of the grid.
How does it hurt the grid? I'm not challenging that it does; merely wondering how, and why.
Josh Sisk
Do you live in a cold climate, or do you have a secret method of avoiding grey hair with fuel cells? :)
Mr. Ska
The funny thing about natural gas is that they actually burn it off at oil wells.
--
10Brett-T
10Brett-T
Oh, bother.
With all of the other distributed services that are being run through modern homes (phone, cable, lan, intercom, central vacuum, pesticides, 110, 220, 440, et al) how unreasonable would it be to run a seperate DC power system IN ADDITION to what we currently have? Its not a matter of just getting up and saying "To heck with my current stuff, I going to throw it all away and run everything off of 24V DC today!". Rather it would be a matter of running a new generation of home appliances off of a new generation of short distance distribution. Just a thought.....
Last year I assisted in the preparation of a friend's dissertation on the path that new technologies take through the building industry while they are collecting the amount of experience required to be understood by your "average" builder. TO summarise a complex paper (and issue) there is a significant danger with new technology (the paper focused on Low-E glazing) that "fast adopters" will have a bad experience with installation and make it difficult for architects to "sell" the technology in future jobs to clients who have all heard the one about the building where they tried technology X... Any building designers out there - you really need to make a significant extra effort to educate your installers, and to be educated yourself about new technologies. You're probably adopting them for the right reasons, but think about spending a that extra time to make sure your building doesn't become an argument NOT to use the tech in some other job! In an attempt to ward off flames - this obviously doesn't happen in all cases, but according to the research it is a significant primary problem. If you would like to be put in contact with the author of the paper I refer to above, email me on sroy at bigpond dot net dot au.
As a resident of sunny California, I can attest that people proposing natural gas based backup generators should not rely on them for earthquakes. After a large earthquake, you can expect power to be out for at least a couple of hours (the '89 earthquake in the bay area left some people without power for a couple of days). You might think that a natural gas powered generator would keep you going for those couple of hours. However, the first thing you do after a major earthquake is shut off your gas line. A small crack in any part of your gas piping could be hazardous or explosive (especially with unpredictable power -- power comes back on and your damaged toaster starts sparking...). Diesal is is the only way to go for earthquake preparedness.
All you need is a natural gas or propane connection.
I got a cable modem, and I thought that was all the connectivity I needed. Now I gotta get a propane connection, too.
Is that a 1.5 Mbit propane connection I need?
Have a gander at Solar Century. When I can afford £20,000 to replace my roof, I'll have one that can give me 125% of the power I need. If the UK government had any sense, they would mandate that all new homes be fitted with these. Economies of scale kick in, price tumbles, goodbye power stations. Sorted.
Bad news is it's probably way too expensive to be mobile now. But in a few years...
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
While I agree that NIMBY is a problem when it comes to placement of power plants, and I agree with you on most of your other points, I must strongly disagree with you about "In addition, whatever pollution is produced is less concentrated."
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
Output*
7 kW continuous
10 kW for 30 minutes
15 kW for 0.5 seconds
* Rated at 1.0 power factor, 77 F, 500 feet elevation
If these fuel cells are really superior, why not set them up under the normal utilites?
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?
Oh, go on, check out my job.
I think the company I worked for over the summer was researching this project and we found that the 7000 is the peak rating(with battery back up) and that the system can only put out ~2kw in steady state...... which isn't really enough to power a modern home. FYI.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Power sources (the electrical type, at least!) aren't quite my thang, so I've got a real basic question - what are we talking about cost wise? /.land tried this with a generator - does it work and is it cheaper than running on diesel?
Like, cost per KWH, cost of installation, etc. is it cheaper or more expensive than being on the grid or using an alternative/traditional generator?
Plus one more, slightly offtopic question:
You can convert a normal diesel engine to run on different types of oil pretty cheaply, about IR£2000 if you have to hire a mechanic to do it. That's doing it so it can automatically adjust to fuel type used(eg cooking oil, peanut oil etc..) - there are other, cheaper methods. You save money on fuel costs(depending where you live) and all that. Has anyone in
Concrete analysis...
Exactly. And in lots of places that have both the technology and the money for solar power and fuel cells (like central and western europe) about 95% of the annual solar energy becomes available in the summer months only (western germany: 95% in 3 months, june - august!) and as of yet there`s no halfway decent way to store it until you really need it in the winter.
Same goes for fuel cells: they are incredibly efficient if you use not only the electric energy but also the heat they generate, but lets not forget that in the summer most of that heat will go unused and thus efficency will certainly not be 80%!
I've read a lot comments about how this is more less polluting and haven't yet decided if it more efficient BUT does the cost per kW actually go up or down with this unit? Before I get too excited, I would like to know how much this unit will cost to power my home and what (if any) savings could be made by having a dual purpose with all of that excess heat. Will it be as much use in the warm summer?
DISCLAIMER: thiws is not a flame, I'm just playing devil's advocate!!
Remember that just because one thing produces a lot of pollution does not mean that a million smaller things are going to produce less.
All seagoing ships dump sewage in the worlds oceans every day. The net effect on the water quality is nil. If a small city has a problem with their sewer plant that causes sewage to dump into a river for a few hours, millions of fish die.
I will still assert that spreading thousands of low-emission fuel cells all over the place will reduce pollution.
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.
Hydro power is neither free or pollution-free. Quebec flooded thousands of acres of land, forever altering landscapes and displacing alot of people. In addition, the plant and equipment costs are staggering. Thousands of watts of power are lost over high-tension lines.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
or some other Third World country. Most First World Appliances are energy efficient
**Life is too short to be serious**
Thats the point of the article . As in this case the power plant would be in your living room the advantages of AC over long distance no longer applies. Incidentally due to the development of HVDC(High Voltage DC) it is now more economical to send dc over really long distances. The advantage of AC is really in that the voltage can be stepped up or down very easily and not in long distances as after a certain distance all the available power in AC gets used up as the driving current and there is actually nothing left for the energy transfer current. This is because along with resistance power lines also have capacitance and inductance. So I say go DC
**Life is too short to be serious**
Is thermoelectric generation being used in this device to capture the waste heat for electricity? I didn't see any reference to the specifics of the heat conversion on the pages. Granted, the efficiencies of TEG are only now approaching 10 - 12% (last info I had), but all that heat is wasted otherwise.
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 to a place that was advertising a 27 lb. 5000 watt generator a while back.
There are also links that describe the technology.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
I would love not having to worry if my area was "selected" for a blackout to conserve energy. I hate coming home and finding all of my computer rebooted or off.
I'm on a chair.
The Electric Power Monopolies that exist in our society will never allow something like this to be sold on the open market.
People generating their own power and even selling the excess back to the power company. We can't have that happen. It would affect our bottom line too much.
The Reader must imagine a dark, smoke-filled room with mysterious figures in conference for this metaphor to be fully effective.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
I think it's a brilliant device, for many reasons. 1) For GE, it's a great marketing move. Off the power grid, especially considering the problems California has been having lately, that sounds great to a lot of customers. 2) Assuming people can run an entire home on this unit (can't read the article, it's been slashdotted) that could be a great step forward towards relieving stresses on power supply. 3) It runs off of your existing gas lines (propane or the regularly supplied natural gas). Little installation effort and big returns. 4) Just a guess, but if people are running on their own power source, it may just help to remind them to shut things off (lights, TV...). On the other hand, it may make them think they can leave them on all the time, thus wasting more resources, who knows. You will pay more for gas, but no electricity. It's always nice to consolidate some bills. Man, I'm rambling and having trouble organizing. Sorry! :)
----------- Bushwhacker
For the Australian Outback....
Nowadays most of the Really Big remote Farms and Cattle Stations have at least one Wind farm and one Solar Farm. This Gives two advantages as those two setups are replenishable and in that climate provides some generation about 75% of the time. And as a third backup they usually have a Desiel Generator.
Though this type of fuel Cell is probably more efficient than the desiel generator, its instilation and its need for another storage tank (most of these farms already have huge desiel storage tanks, for their various trucks, light aircraft and helecopters) mean its adaption in these areas is not going to be that widespread
This would make it possible to build houses that
are REALLY remote. You could sink a well, add a
septic system and with one of these and a propane
tank you could be completely self-sufficient.
I think it might be nice to have a unit like this
that also includes a hybrid water heater. It would
heat the water and the remainder would come from
the propane tank.
Now it says how efficient it is, but what does
that translate to in terms of propane/natural
gas cost? How long would a large propane tank
last?
Gone from two something to almost six something
per MCF the past year.
The Oil COS win no matter what.
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)
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
doh! Guess I should have tried to parse your crappy sentence structure a bit better. I'm not sure why all RC cars aren't powered by gas but a couple easy guesses:
gas == danger to kids (big market for rc cars)
gas == more expensive than recharging battery
gas == more upkeep than battery powered engine
Well, you are part wrong.
In the Netherlands many cars use LPG and natural gas for combustion.
In the Neterlands almost most houses are heated with natural gas.
And many hospitals etc. already use the system GE now introduces.
You get best of all :
electricity
heat
Hot water
The only problem is, that it is only cheaper for large buildings.
True, it would be interesting to find a place for it in an already-existing home, but the garage would be a reasonable option. Apartment-dwellers may be SOL.
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
Regulation was designed to take advantage of such economies of scale to keep you from getting bent over. I'm not sure GE's best interests are your best interests here. The fact of the matter is that you are willing to pay more for electricity than you do today. If regulation can't be fixed, expect to pay more.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I can't actually believe another Staten Islander posts to Slashdot. I thought I was the only one. I am in shock...(not 110v or 220v (see poll))
Dan
P.S. - Next you'll tell me you ride the ferry too!
=)
I think Plug Power is providing GE with their units, but Plug Power is in deep doo-doo, according to this article:
http://www.fool.com/news/2000/plug000824.htm
While at Texas Instruments as a lithography engineer, the coimpany developed an H-HBr fuel cell. They developed it all the way to a home system,. designed to run 4 homes, using muiltiple 10KW fuel cell stacks. While the technology was bought by shell and gulf to kill it, it seems to me they were only achieving 14% effiency. So, dependent on the details, specifically the effiency..it will be a commercial success or not.
by the way, it was called "The Illinois Project"
after Univ Illinois, named so by Jack Kilby, the inventor of the integrated circuit, who concieved and ran the project.
I'm assuming that this is going to be fueled off of natural gas. Oil doesn't make much sense, and neither does coal or hydrogen. Natural gas fueling is nice, but there are some downsides. One is the fact that peaker plants, which are used to generate electricity at peak hours, have used up quite a bit of natural gas. For the first time ever, the natural gas reservoirs that the US has are not full before the winter months, when natural gas is used for heating. If a ton of people run out and do this, the supply could be depleted even more, and prices could shoot up quite a bit. I've already heard predictions that natural gas prices are going to go up a third this winter. Just some food for thought.
Colin Winters
If you have one of these units on site, I would hope that you had an AC system as well. If the AC is properly sized to drive a 25 degree delta-t with the microgen running at full blast (hint: cool the intake, but not the exhaust pipe), then you should be fine in 99% of the inhabited areas in the US. In the other 1%, you might need a geothermal heat exchanger based cooling system in order to work it out, but IIRC, those pay for themselves in about 3 years, anyway.
-
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
Depends on what kind of family... I have enough electrical appliances in my dorm room to drain out a couple of third-world country power plants...
The reason the UK pays so much is that your fuel taxes are huge and are viewed as a general revenue source. The US fuel tax bill is much lower and most of it is earmarked for transportation maintenance/improvements (reducing the politician's impulse to raise taxes).
Unless you are agitating for higher fuel taxes in the US, what exactly are you getting at?
DB
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.
This is way off topic...but as a geek, this has always bugged me.
Why not have some type of heat source to heat the driveway during the winter months. Wouldn't have to heat it up very much, and maybe have it on a switch.
No more snowblowing or shoveling. Just switch it on for 30 minutes and your driveway is clear.
Could be very similar to how some floors are heated from underneath.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Who is "so worried"? We are talking about GE, a company that to my knowledge owns no power plants, building a device that lets you generate electricity without reliance on the power grid. Other companies have been doing this for decades in the form of solar cells, wind turbines, and so on.
There is nothing "bad" about this. All we're talking about here is a way of generating your own electricity that is presumably more cost effective than buying solar cells. This does not mean power companies are going to force you to buy these. It means that people who care about not having to rely on the power company will may buy them.
You're also not going to get electricity cheaper if you use solar cells. Solar cells have an approximate lifespan of 25 years, and so if take the price of the setup, divided by the amount of electricity you expect to be able to produce (varies depending on location), the price for power will generally be around $.15 to $.20 per KwH, as opposed to the price of more like $.09 that most Americans pay. So, if you're into the environment, go for it, but don't expect to become fabulously wealthy by setting up a solar array and selling your power.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
w00h00!! if I could scrape up enough money, I'd be able to stop using this
bicycle-powered turbine! Wishful thinking anyways. Oops, almost forgot I'm
running Netscape *pedalling harder*
This [the article] is relatively nifty, but as has already been pointed out in previous posts, this still relies on 'fossil fuels'.
Now, for really renewable power, maybe microbial fuel cells can be developed. The idea of perhaps someday turning the landfill and/or home septic tanks (or algae tanks or... etc. etc.) into power sources amuses me to no end (I mean directly, I know there are a few methane-burning powerplants built over landfills around), but then, I've got a definite bias towards this kind of thing...
Here are a couple of microbial fuel cell links (research/educational prototypes - I get the impression that there's still quite a bit of development to be done before it can be commercially useful).
http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/MATERIALS/fuelc ell.htmlh tm
http://www.automation.hut.fi/research/bio/fc98jp.
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I wonder if this could be combined with other things in the house eventually that would allow the cell to be recharged in ways other than straight up fossil fuel energy. Say you're boiling water on the oven if that heat could be caught over the pot and stored back into the cell (this might be a bit off the wall, but you see what I'm getting at)
Having a central energy store such as a cell would make it easy to distribute energy sources for a home over a few different things.
--
For backup power, try a small diesel generator. The MicroGen puts out 7kW, about 7HP. It would not be hard to match this (see here). Diesel fuel will not burn without a wick, and does not expolode when the huricane wisks away your shed. Sure there's noise to be considered, but you won't mind this when it works.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
"I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum." MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
Do you not see the contradiction here?
In case you don't, I'll spell it out for you: In one sentence you say the "new plants" are years from completion, and in the next you say "nobody is building any new plants." As I recall, you are a college student living in Minnestota. Maybe not the best person to be commenting on power generation in California.
This is the coolest thing I've heard about this month!
I just called the 800 number on that page, and the guy I talked to said that the target price is $7-10K.
I know quite a few people who've spent that much on UPS's to feed their server racks.
This would also be a *big* win, anywhere that storms have a nasty habit of knocking down power lines.
This has got to be better from an efficiency standpoint than sending power through high-tension lines, and taking the hit for transformer hysterisis at both ends.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If people are using the waste heat from the fuel cells to heat their homes, then they shouldn't be using much (if any) more gas altogether.
When you burn propane in a fuel cell, you'll get about the same amount of heat as when you burn it in a furnace.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
All they have to do is look at your gas meter...
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?
While it is true that, using the numbers you have provided for cost per KwH, solar power has a higher cost.
However, you reach this figure by dividing the initial expense of a solar power setup over a projected lifespan of 25 years.
It seems this reasoning lacks a crucial piece to be an accurate comparison of cost.
Can you really make the assumption that the price charged by electric companies will remain stable over the next 25 years?
Personally, I suspect that prices will continue to increase as demand continues ever upward. Trying to estimate how much more electricity will cost 10 years from now in San Jose is hard enough, but 25 years? Perhaps your $.15 per KwH would seem like a pretty damn good deal then.
Alternatively, a breakthrough that sneaks through the corporate radar could drastically lower electrical cost, but don't expect it soon.
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.
My Pentium IV? And never mind using the generated heat for space heating. Powering up the PIV should be enough..
$350 a year!?! I'm at almost 350 a month!
Probebly, because for many people, water is much more expensive than natural gas.
Wow that is pretty cheap. My electricity bill alone in my apartment is $1200/year. Maybe I should shut down some of these damned computers. :-)
Now, I don't know about most areas, but here, electricity is fairly cheap (I think its 7 cents a killowatt-hour or whatever). A parrallel I'd like to draw is a recent push in my area to insulate your house better to save on energy (they said it would be cheaper). But if you really looked at the numbers, it would be at least 40 years before it would have paid for itself... Don't forget that they pay big $$$ for 40 year loans...
If my electricity/gas bill is say, $350 a year, I really doubt that it will be worth it for me - there's the cost of a yearly checkup, the cost of fixing it if it breaks, the purchase cost, installation, etc. Not to mention that the gas price is not that stable here, but the electricity price is due to the plentiful supply of water for damns. Perhaps it indeed would be economical in many areas, but where I live, I don't think so.
SSL Certificate
There is also another potential source of fuel that has been underutilized. Methane is a common by-product of the breakdown of organic material. Under certain conditions undersea sediments accumulate trapped methane. When the temperature and hydrostatic pressure are ideal, then the methane solidifies to form gas hydrates/clathrates. This acts as a solid "cap" that overlies the gaseous methane. There is a lot of gas hydrates trapped in undersea sediments. This resource will be used when the economic factors make methane a viable source of energy.
There is also a fair amount of gas hydrates trapped in the Siberian permafrost. Hmmm, if the permafrost melts, then this will release a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But this is another topic of interest.
How many areas rely on coal or oil plants alone, rather than just as a backup?
This thing can't be better than hydro/nuclear power.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
I think that this is a great idea and has a potentially large application in the niche wilderness market.
Believe it or not there are still many places in the US that are not on the grid. They are in places that power lines simply do not access. Until now their only option has been diesel generators. These are loud often smelly and polluting. In remote wilderness locations where the point is often to get away from civilization this tech would be a major plus.
Also if this technology develops then a supply of hydrogen (maybe using solar energy to split water?) could be developed. This would create a green solution and start to create the infrastructure and trust to move automobiles towards alternative fuel sources.
My own home generator.. excellent.. now all I need is either a gas or propane plant in my back yard, and I'm set for life.
Kevin "Kayy" Beadle
Kevin "Kayy" Beadle
Site Admin, SQBNET
Because we don't have an efficient way of doing it. If we had a good way to seperate hydrogen from water, it would revolutionize energy as we know it. An efficient, almost 100% clean source of energy? It'd replace all other formed of power in 10 years. But there's still that nagging little problem of, "We can't do it," between humanity and the prize.
The Internet, one place where if you're not right, someone else will set you straight... maybe.
Chemical energy is much more efficient to TRANSPORT than is electric. Even if you get the sam eefficiency at a plant, you loose a lot of that getting it to your house...
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
why do they extract the hydrogen from gas, why not from water?
The beauty of distributed generation is that increases the efficency and reliability of electricity. By having a hundred thousand mini-power plants all over a city you reduce the overhead in transmitting the power and reduce toxic emissions! In addition, whatever pollution is produced is less concentrated.
*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.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
ok, you know how fuel cells work, right? Well, I guess by making your comment you don't...
Take hydrogen and oxygen and combine them together to make water and electricity.
If you remember from high school chemestry, you can take water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity.
Now, if you recall that you can't get more energy out of the system than you put in it, then you'd realize why you can't get the hydrogen from water.
In a best case scenereo, your net energy produced would be zero. But odds are you won't every reach that, and attempting to do so would cause you to lose energy.
I wonder how one of these would compare to a gasoline or propane generator for amateur radio field use. It would seem that without moving parts, there would be less electrical noise from the arcing. (There may be more noise, though, from the inverter circuit used to convert the DC output from the fuel cell to AC line levels.) Even if the electrical noise were the same, the audio noise would be much less. (Anyone who has been to a 10+ transmitter field day, or other temporary station using a generator, knows that generator noise can be a real problem.) Also, would the fuel cell be too fragile to transport on a trailer?
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
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.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
For example, the coal industry will not like this. Not at all. At the moment, nearly all the electricity in the USA (and the rest of world for that matter) is generated by burning coal. And, that's pretty much the only thing that keeps the coal industry going. Nobody uses coal for anything else. You can bet they will try to put a stop to large-scale home electricity production.
How can they stop it, you might ask? Simple. They'll slip a "rider" into some innocuous bill that will, once it becomes law, force people to pay higher rates for natural gas if it is being used for home electricity generation. If you had to pay two, three, or even four times as much for natural gas if you were using it for one of these GE devices, it would no longer be economically viable.
Who wants to bet that there isn't some lackey for the coal industry out there right now working a draft of their new "Home Electricity Rate Protection Act"?
Free Hans!
Stuff like this happening quietly on the side makes me a bit more enthusiastic about the future of Mars settlement somewhere down the line...
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.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --