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Consumer Hydrogen Fuel Cells
axis-techno-geek writes: "Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver, BC (in Canada, eh), has stated that it will start production this friday of their consumer level Nexa(tm) hydrogen fuel cell (article here). The power module generates up to 1200 watts of unregulated DC electrical power that can keep going as long as it is supplied with hydrogen, and produces no toxic by-products (i.e. you can use it in your home). They also have plans for a 250kW unit. No price as of yet."
The short-term question is where are people going to get the hydrogen from? That infrastructure's not in place yet.
I think one scenario that would make this thing particularly kick-ass right away is this: if the generator is to be used just for backup and emergencies - i.e. it will be idle most of the time - then you could slowly generate your own hydrogen at home from tap water and a solar-powered hydrolysis rig. FREE! Take that, Exxon.
My train of thought:
Then I thought: ``would there be a way to pipe drinking-quality water into the home?'' The answer, I think, is basicly no since you'd need to chlorinate to keep the miles of pipes from becomming a breeding ground.
Then I thought: ``what about piping hydrogen to the house and making pure water there?''
If people were to power their homes with hydrogen, then there would be a household source of pure hydrogen. Here's my question:
Obviously if you have pure hydrogen and clean air going into a fule cell, you could possably get pure H2O out. Is this the case? and How much water is generated per KWh? (maby not enough for drinking water.)
--Ben
Here's a simple system :
solar or wind generation of electricity
electrolytic separation into H and O
low to med pressure gas storage
H O to fuel cell
Water back to gas generator
Sure it's elaborate but it is a clean way to store the day for nighttime use. I think we ought to use all these out of business fabs to make Si Solar cells.
And don't get started on how dirty fabs are...
No matter how meaningful quantities hydrogen are generated, greenheads will hate the fact that mother earth will incur vast amounts of greenhouse gases. Shall we address the infrastructure problems associated with hydrogen? The costs of retooling fuel distribution channels to handle hydrogen?
The advantage to switching to hydrogen or another easily-synthesized fuel like methanol is that it centralizes the power generation, allowing you to switch to a different system (solar, nuclear, hamster wheels, or what-have-you) without requiring another upgrade to all of the cars and service stations on a continent. This is a very respectable accomplishment.
You can also generally install better scrubbers on a coal power plant than on a car, even before you start switching to alternate power sources.
Another issue conveniently ignored is the storage of hydrogen. Hydrogen, in its current form, is not particularly dense, requiring large tanks to store the equivalent energy stored in fossil fuels.
That's why I like the idea of using methanol as a fuel. You could handle it in existing service stations without too much refitting, and you could burn it in a conventional internal combustion engine (though you'd probably want a ceramic engine to avoid corrosion over time). Fuel cells can process it too, though with greater difficulty. Methanol's boiling point is low enough that you'd have to store it under pressure, like propane, but this isn't too difficult (we already have the infrastructure for it for propane).
Methanol can be produced by fermenting plants if you're desperate, or produced by direct synthesis if you have a source of power, hydrogen, and CO2 handy. Plunk a fuel plant next to a big city, and you have all three (water, exhaust, and the local power plant).
This gives us the advantages of a hydrocarbon fuel without having to short-circuit the carbon cycle or depend on exhaustible fossil fuel deposits.
Of course, we'll only really switch when fossil fuels become scarce enough to make this cost-effective.
The ugly little windmills of the late 70s and 80s are history (although some of the little buggers are still spinning.) Modern windmills are enormous, with blades the size of a 747's wingspan. New models can generate 2.5 Megawatts, but that's by no means a limit (output has jumped by 100-fold in the past 15 years.)
It'd still take a lot of those turbines to replace a nuclear power plant. On the other hand, there's a lot of development to be done (and lots of space in this country and offshore.) By the time we've finished building the next generation of nuclear plants, turbine output and efficiency will have increased significantly. When we're trying to figure out what to do with the first trainloads of waste, most non-nuclear countries will be building turbines and be generating power without fuel.
As to the ugliness... Well, I think they look pretty nice, actually. And if you've ever driven through the Great Plains, you'll probably agree that a few windmills aren't going to get in anyone's way.