Slashdot Mirror
Coleman To Sell Portable Fuel Cell Generator
HobbySpacer writes "
Popular Science reports that
Coleman Powermate
will soon start selling a small portable fuel cell power supply.
The AirGen Fuel Cell Generator provides 1.2kW for up to 10 hours
on a bottle of pure hydrogen. Interestingly, the company had to
set up its own distribution system to insure it could deliver a
refill anyplace in the US within 2 days. The unit, built by
Ballard, goes for a pricey $8k but perhaps worth it if an indoor emergency backup is needed. Fuel cells can also be found for sale at the
Fuel Cell Store and Greenvolt.
Perhaps the hydrogen economy is closer than most people thought."
This would be great. I wonder what effect this will have on automobile power as well?
Trying is the First Step to Failing --Homer Simpson
OK, how long would it take to deliver pure hydrogen in bottles outside US? After all such a device could be an interesting option in places beyond the reach of power grid. At $8k it can hardly replace UPSes at home.
Moderators should be allowed to moderate articles as (-1) Duplicate. :-)
Ross
Sure, at the beginning they are $8,000. I can't imagine this price will stay long once competition enters the field. It's similar to the way Apple does technology. Look at the flat-panel monitor for example. Prices have already begun to drop due to their exclusive distribution by Apple.
I'm glad to see that Coleman is entering this market. A bit pricy for most of us now, but at least this will start the ball rolling on clean-fuel generators.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/09/044421 6&mode=nested
Doesn't anyone bother to do a simple search before posting front page stories?!
I just entered "Coleman" into the search box and got the above link, same story, move along, nothing to see here...
seen this one before..4 21 6&mode=thread
Fuel-Cell Backup Power Under Your Desk
Posted by timothy on Mon December 10, 12:42 AM
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/09/044
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Picture of the device can be seen on the Popular Science's website here.
Seriously, this is why professional news companies have ONE editor, so there is control over what gets out, whether it's worth reporting or whether it's old news.
Might be harsh, but you've gotta admit that it happens a little too regularly on /. If it happened on CNN or the BBC, I'm sure people would notice.
You know, normally I wouldn't be thinking this way, but I suppose its the natural reaction.
If the world fuel "economy" switches to hydrogen, what happens to the countries which sole income is provided by oil and fossil fuels? Won't these places be absolutely devestated and ruined by the collapse of their energy-demand? Hydrogen power is an amazing thing, but it'd be something like suddenly replacing the staple foods in the world with chemical products - it dents a rather secure and stable part of our lifestyle and global economy.
I just hope something can be worked out before the "dream" of hydrogen power can be achieved... it's scary stuff, when you think about it.
Quietly wiping away a tear for Al Gore....
Dirk
My dad used to work for a Coleman related company (basically just licensing their products and producing them under a different name.) He had mentioned something like this quite a while ago, it's cool to see it made it farther than the development stage. The image of the Coleman Powermate looks quite familiar, and unchanged from what I had seen quite awhile ago. As the article mentions, the price tag is quite steep, but may prove useful to the medical industry, although I would think at this point it would be a 3rd stage (or 4th, or 5th..) power supply backup. It also seems quite useful for a military use, as it is quite portable, although I'm sure a military version would be a bit more durable and have a better useful life (in terms of backup power and actual physical durability). The fact that it requires pure, bottled hydrogen seems like it's biggest downfall though. I hope Coleman or other manufacturers help to bridge the gap to something more useful for the home consumer.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
The only barbeque that can provide a subtle combination of steaming and roasting.
Just curious??? anyone know the answer?
:)
How explosive would a "bottle of pure hydrogen" be that could "provide 1.2kW for up to 10 hours"?
Could this be used as an explosive? We all all remember the Hindenburg right? (it was filled with Hydrogen).
I don't want this to happen to my computer
Also.. could this be knocked back by the govenment due to terrorist potential?
....
Kevin
8k for the equipment but how much does a bottle of hydrogen cost? I can't find that information anywhere.
Sig is taking a break!
Although, fuel cells are a door into a world of cleaner, more abundant energy, it must be said that with every great inovation and evolution in technology comes with an even greater responsibility. If the hydrogen economy is here, then we have to consider where that hydrogen is coming from. Is it going to come from hydrocarbons like oil? Is all that hydrogen going to be generated from the electrolysis of water? Are we going to use bimass? If its oil, then we may be in just as bad a situation. The refinement of oil leaves a tremendouos number of nasty by products, not to mention our continued dependance on a non-renewable resource. If we get it from water, then what generates t he electricity? Solar and wind are options, but will require tremendous investement to fulfill the requirements to generate the amount of hydrogen necessary to replace the internal combustion engine. If its biomass, I havent seen the numbers to indicate the amount of byproducts to make harvesting economical, although I know it had been done on a limited scale. There is a give and a take. There are no free lunches. I want to know if we are going to decrease the amount of pollution we are dumping into the environment, or make the situation worse. Fuel cells, and hydrogen power in general, have proved themselves efficient and clean on a small scale, but untested on a large scale. I still see the same unanswered questions of production, distribution, maintenance and disposal.
...to get the "hydrogen economy" rolling are european conditions on the fuel/oil market. A gallon, for.... hmm say $3.50. You would still be well of compared to most of europe, but people would start scouting alternatives.
And just imagine the budget money saved from not having to wage a war for oil every 5 to 8 years...
+++ath0
Not nearly as explosive as the bigass tank of gasoline you drive around every day.
The Hindenburg's problems were caused not by the H2, but by the chemical in the paint on the fabric.
--
grep "xercist"
After the September 11th attacks I would think many would want things like this banned. It would make a great bomb for use on an aircraft or in a public area. It surely isn't illegal or dangerous and see as an outright threat by most like knives and other weapons that are banned from carrying around. It has purely legitimate uses.
I would not be surprised if things like these were banned.
--Metrollica
I'm curious, just how much is a 'bottle' anyways?
Coleman Powermate will soon start selling a small portable fuel cell power supply. The AirGen Fuel Cell Generator provides 1.2kW for up to 10 hours on a bottle of pure hydrogen.
Whatcho talkin' `bout Willis?
If the world fuel "economy" switches to hydrogen, what happens to the countries which sole income is provided by oil and fossil fuels?
It'll be absolutely wonderful. All those damn terrorists will lose their funding because nobody will need their oil anymore. We can then proceed to nuke the middle east into fresh, clean glass and give the Jews their home back. The Jews can reprocess and sell the glass to major automobile manufacturers or make motherboards and other pc products with the silicon in the sand. Once the Jews get strong enough, they'll move out of the US and into Israel. This will free up US banks and all our current media outlets. Assholes like David Schwimmer will no longer pollute the airwaves with his damn hangdog look; you won't have to pretend to laugh through another uncomfortable, unfunny movie with Ben Stiller.
It's gonna be great, I tell ya, just great!
you can get a 10kw deisel for that price new or 30kw for that price used. Power your block for 8k or barely push your 650w enermax powersupply'd dualie Athlon watercooled raid 5 scsi server.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
The main problem with hydrogen is that it takes a lot more energy to produce and store than it generates. Electrolysis is especially inefficient and you end up polluting anyway (power plant) so it's not clean energy. The story also left out an important detail:
. . . the company is confident a $100 refill could be delivered anywhere in the United States within two days.
And I thought laptop batteries were expensive. At $8,000 + $100 for each 10 hours to power just a few pieces of equipment we'll all be riding Segways long before this is practical for every day use.
And just imagine the budget money saved from not having to wage a war for oil every 5 to 8 years...
Ok.
Enough of this canard.
We are not in Afghanistan for oil right now. We are not going to Somalia for oil.
We are seeking justice for the horrific attacks committed against our country on Sept. 11, 2001. Not to claim oil from another nation - to find the people who planned and supported this attack, and bring them to justice.
If you can't understand that, go live with Noam Chomsky in North Korea. You commie sympathizers would love it there; North Korea doesn't bother anyone, except when they need to develop a nuclear terror weapon.
Great idea. This could power a house, and as the distribution system for hydro gets more developed, the price will drop, as will the cost of use.
One of the reasons the damned things are so expensive (but cheaper per kw that solar iirc) is the catalyst used is usually platinum, which is horribly expensive and rare. People aren't certain if they can get the amount of platinum to do mass production of larger units. Luckily, other alloys can do the job, but with some lost efficiency.
Fuel cells are highly efficient, and farily cost efficient (not like, say, *coal* is). It' s main problems is the hydrogen. But this is more of a factor that limits their use in vehicles then for home use.
...Time is the best teacher, unfortunately it kills all of its students.
Hydrogen in bottled form is, of course, fairly common and fairly safe, but it may simply be too inconvenient for this application. For something that heavy and big, maybe it would be more better if it could run on alcohol ("a bottle of vodka"), bottled gas, or some solid hydride that is activated with water and later recycled.
Yes, this story is a duplicate. At best, it should be under slashback, as it does add a bit more information to a previous story.
Nice, but haven't we seen this before? Well, maybe some people missed it the first time around...
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Does anybody know how long the canisters will contain the hydrogen?
I remember reading that the BMW Hydrogen tank for cars could not hold Hydrogen for longer than ehm... about a week I think.
Was this because the H2 went through the container wall or because it went out a valve because of overpressure or something?
Anyway, ideas or answers anyone?
The Greenvolt units mentioned in the article require a special, dry anode and cathode, which are activated by adding salt water. The by-product of this, aside from electricity, is pure hydrogen.
:)
I wonder, how many Greenvolt units would be required to produce the fuel needed for the Coleman unit? That would be so cool, running one off of the "waste" of the other
Lemon curry?
I wish I had a fuel cell yesterday to power my computer.
The power went out while trying to repartition [XP sux, wanted to go back to '98] and I lost all my data. Everything was one huge file.
Lost about 20+ GB of 'legal' mp3's.
Sorry, I just wanted to bitch about it.
Get your Unix fortune now!
OK, so can I use the 1.2Kw it generates to electrolyticly make some hydrogen to power it? WOo infinite energy!
Or maybe I can use a giant orbital laser aimed at my swimming pool.
Even better, I could just aim the laser at a spot in my kitchen, and use it to cook stuff.
Truly stuff of the future (but $100 for 10*1.2KW/hr seems a little evil, not to mention the generator cost.)
All the pollution hydrogen generates? Think of all those millions of tonnes of..... WATER!? Just a thought.
If the world fuel "economy" switches to hydrogen, what happens to the countries which sole income is provided by oil and fossil fuels? Won't these places be absolutely devestated and ruined by the collapse of their energy-demand?
Not really. The cheapest way to make bulk hydrogen is to use a reformer with a petroleum based feedstock. If they could build a reformer into the fuel cell and use Coleman's lantern fuel, then they'd have the next Big Thing(tm). Coleman's lantern fuel is a highly purified white gasoline. Which is more expensive than motor gasoline. Coleman? Big oil? Ya listening?
"Coleman To Sell Portable Fuel Cell Generator"?
What, was he inspired by George Foreman's barbeque grill?
How often are we gonna hear about this thing. It's the 21st of January and I swear I've heard about fuel cells in one form or another 5 times already. Is there gonna be a fuel cell catagory soon? Are we gonna get fuel cell posts ever other week? Are they gonna be the SAME THING over and over again? Don't get me wrong, fuel cells are cool and all, but I would much rather read more posts on the next Star Wars movie or Lord of the Rings rather than read yet another post about the Coleman Powermate...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Oil, an emergency? It's about time the people who run this planet of yours realize that to be dependent upon a mineral slime just doesn't make sense. Now, the energizing of hydrogen---
The Doctor, in "Terror of the Zygons"
Hey, I've got it!!!
They should make a fuel cell powered ice maker... It supplies the power AND the water.
Har har.
Why not just buy a big cylinder of hydrogen from an industrial gas supplier? I'm assuming that this device can run off bottled hydrogen and oxygen from the atmosphere.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Mod this guy up!
Every human being who has been exposed to dihydrogen monoxide has eventually perished.
100% fatality rate. Think about that. Dihydrogen monoxide is more deadly than the Ebola virus! Nasty stuff.
j00 h4v3 633n 720113d
Why does the Middle East hate the West?
You apparantly believe it is unrelated to oil. Then why the hatred? Is it because the West is so free? Are they jealous? Are they greedy?
Actually, if you tune out the CNN carping, and read something intelligible about the region--I recommend Noam Chomsky--you would see that it is exactly oil that causes the hatred. If this fuel cell somehow magically ended oils reign as the single most important resource the Middle East would no longer find itself a victim of Western brutality.
The West puts tyrants in power that are hated by the populace so that they are totally reliant on the West to stay in power. Middle Easterners have never understood why they have not been able to benefit from their regions natural wealth. Don't be fooled by the riches of the minority ruling class, the Middle East is a place of astounding poverty. And the West has kept it that way with violence and oppression. That is the reason for the hatred.
The money is mostly flowing to the same place the oil is flowing.
Haven't you ever wondered why oil cost about the same amount as bottled water? Doesn't that seem unnatural to you? Don't you think there must be something more than market forces keeping it that way?
My handle breaks slashcode, what does your handle do?
Here it is! Here you guys, this is a dupe :)
Tech support is great, no better way to make people feel inferior!
I still prefer Doctor Brown's Mr. Fusion, that appeared in Back to the Future III. It runs with banana peels, cans, whatever. Plus it can get you back in time.
It has a major drawback, though. It only runs on a Delorean like this or this .
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
of fuel cell technology to the general public.
And like all brand new technologies it is very expensive. I expect these devices to rapidly drop in price over the next decade.
The thing that really interests me about this technology is using solar and wind power in order to generate the hydrogen in the first place. Can you imagine the US power grid being fed from a 100,000,000 1000W solar panels spread across the US during the day, and from a 100,000,000 1000W fuel cells all night long?
There really wouldn't be power losses from downed power lines, that would just segment the section. Costs would definately be driven down with 100 Giga watts of additional power on the national power grid.
The systems would pay for themselves by running the consumers power meter backwards. If you put enough panels in, the power company would pay you.
-- Never make a general statement.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/09/044421 6&mode=thread
The great Irony of this situation is that people have been noticing this for the last three hours and thusly you're about the 30th person to mention that this is a repeat...
Recursion is fun, kids. =)
Karma: Non-Heinous
If you added some oxygen to a hyrdrogen bomb (say one part oxygen for every two parts hydrogen), would you end up with a water bomb?
Why so many duplicate stories lately? Yesterday there was the one about the GPS messages and now this is the same as this story
I envision that in the beginning, we'll use regular power plants, and that will be not quite dandy.
However, consider miniature hydro-power installed in your local creeks. It will go around the clock, and store the hydrogen when demand is low, spending it when demand is high. Heck - I can even see almost free fuel for our cars - a windmill and some solar cells on our roofs might go a long way in producing enough hydrogen.
The challenge is convincing Joe Average that investing in some solar cells is a good thing. Joe Farmer might have a creek through his property that he can get some power out of, but he also needs to be convinced.
Relating to the header, if you have a renewable energy source for the electrolysis, then you can also expend energy on transportation. The question is whether the energy loss would be greater if you transported by fuel cell powered trucks, or by the power grid. If we're lucky, we might find ourselves independent of the power grid. That's one less vulnerability in our society.
And, in the long run, we'll eventually have cold fusion. That will certainly along with hydrogen tech enable a virtually combustion-less society in the long run.
Then again, we just have to ask ourselves if big oil is going to see this as a business opportunity, or a business model threat.
Stop the brainwash
Man, that guy'll sell anything...
every good
In my opinion, Ballard's residential 1-kW Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells are far more interesting. These units allow you to eliminate the electrical utility completely. Gas is used for heating and generating all the power the house needs.
As a bonus, this would also eliminate the need to have that mess of power lines on most streets in North America (although the cable companies and telcos might have something to say about this). I think this would (maybe) also help lay the infrastructure for the Hydrogen economy.
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal
Coleman has the dest demonstration of fuel cell technology I've seen yet. This short MPEG gives a basic but very thorough overview of fuel cell theory. Highly recommended considering all the fuel cell posts lately.
The $100 within 2 days anywhere in US is a premium service. There is nothing to stop you buying an electrolysis kit, some solar panels, and generating your own. Or find a local supplier that will provide cheap bottles of hydrogen. After all, any local business can buy a hydrogen generator. Alternatively you can buy an all-in-one solution the regenerative fuel cell.
Interesting items from the DOE hydrogen faq:
How much energy is required to produce hydrogen via electrolysis of water?
"The energy required to produce hydrogen via electrolysis (assuming 1.23 V) is about 32.9 kW-hr/kg. [...] For commercial electrolysis systems that operate at about 1 A/cm2, a voltage of 1.75 V is required. This translates into about 46.8 kW-hr/kg, which corresponds to an energy efficiency of 70%.
"Most of the hydrogen produced today is consumed on site, such as at an oil refinery, and is not sold on the market. From large-scale production, hydrogen costs $0.32/lb if it is consumed on site. When hydrogen is sold on the market, the cost of liquefying the hydrogen and transporting it to the user must be added to the production cost. This can increase the selling price to $1.00-1.40/lb for delivered liquid hydrogen. Some users who require relatively small amounts of very pure hydrogen (such as the electronics industry) may use electrolyzers to produce high-purity hydrogen at their facilities. The cost of this hydrogen, which depends on the cost of the electricity used to split the water, is typically $1.00-$2.00/lb."
My fuel cell Segway will leave your old battery model at the lights.
Phillip.
http://www.FutureEnergies.com/
Property for sale in Nice, France
IMO the real trick is how to generate that energy in the form of hydrogen in a nondestructive way. Currently every form of energy generation has a drawback. Hydroelectric dams destroy river ecosystems. Wind turbines mess with birds (I think) and are big eyesores. Fossil fuels are like hydrogen - they are an energy transport medium, not energy itself. I don't think I need to spell out the negatives of nuclear fission plants. And even if someone could get nuclear fusion working, the process would create very radioactive materials used for the reactors.
I don't know if anyone has thought about doing this, but does anyone know if anyone has attempted to use plants to generate electricity? Chlorophyll has been used for billions of years to convert sunlight into ATP - why not use it to generate electricity or hydrogen? Or maybe run that ATP through a paladium catalyst to get at those electrons...
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
A bit like progressively converting foreign text to English and vice versa through Google/Babelfish to see how good the translator is by measuring the rate of deterioration, you could couple a generator and fuel cell together and measure how long they last. Current electrolysis is around 70% efficient so this would quickly become biased towards generators that can still operate efficiently under low power, which is *not* the same as being the most efficient generator. Still an amusing idea though.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
The cost of switching wouldn't be much of a consideration, because the easiest way to switch is attrition. Just require hydrogen burners on all new cars, and in a decade most of the cars on the road are hydrogen powered (think about those eye-level brake lights to see how attrition works). The real issue is switching things that don't turn over as fast as cars, like trucks (which burn a big percentage of the fossil fuels burned), planes, ships and power plants (which don't generally burn gas/oil but coal is a fossil fuel, after all). That's where the real costs involved in switching will pop up. So, even if cars all went to hydrogen, there would still be a large market for crude oil for a very long time (several decades at least).
Virg
Cool but...why not use a hydrocarbon fuel rather than pure hydrogen? Hydrogen is for the most part merely an energy transfer device not an energy storage device. Any time you talk about the energy stores in X amount of hydrogen you're REALLY talking about X amount of energy the hydrogen is transporting from one place to another.
To get hydrogen out of somewhere it is happy being requires energy, putting it somewhere it doesn't feel like going requires energy, and finally getting it out of the last place to stuck it because you're being finicky requires energy. Thus the energy you originally put into it to get it out of where it was happy being eventually ends up going into some eletrical thingamajig. The only way to close that loop (to make it efficient) is to get that original energy from Mr.Sun. However that part costs money AND energy because the second law of thermodynamics is not "solar panels will form out of random bits of silicon for your enjoyment".
In the case of hydrocarbons some unsuspecting group of organisms has for millions of years toiled away to put energy in the form of hydrogen into a substance. Said hydrogen is pretty happy there so it is cheaper to just move the hydrogen's home (the hydrocarbon) and evict it later when you have it near the site of energy conversion. Since the toiling is already done (in true open source fashion pun intended) why not use that pent up energy in the hydrocarbon to produce some emergency energy. It'd be much more marketable. You go to a gas station, fill up a propane tank, hook it to your fuel cell unit and energy issues forth as the liquified propane decides without the stopcock in the way it is free to expand to limits never before sought by propane molecules. Hydrogen's energy loop is much shorter than that of hydrocarbons meaning it costs you the user more per unit of energy to use some form of pure extracted hydrogen until solar power systems reach efficiencies and prices that can be more easily marginalized.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I actually saw a legitimate proposal for this type of energy recovery that involved dirigibles which makes sense in a weird sort of way. The concept is to use Aleutian windmills to generate electricity to separate hydrogen (and, of course, oxygen) from seawater. Then, they would use the hydrogen to inflate large dirigibles that would carry suspended tanks of compressed oxygen south to the U.S. When the dirigible arrives, the envelope is deflated into capture tanks and the dirigible is packed on a ship for the return trip to Alaska. Safety is not such a concern as it was with the Hindenburg because the oxygen is in suspended tanks that can be dropped in the ocean in the event of a fire so they don't cause an explosion, the envelope won't be nearly as flammable as dirigibles were when the Hindenburg went down, and for the biggest safety boost they can be flown by remote with no human crew, over the Pacific until they're near their landing zone so the risk of collateral damage from a crash is minimized.
I can imagine that getting this whole thing to be cost-effective would be tough, but technically it's doable.
Virg
Two full years after Y2K they bring this out. Talk about missing your market window...
Thats right! Someone in the Slashdot audience can win a shiny new dollar (Yeah! AUDIENCE GOES- Ohhhh! Aaaaaahhh!) from "El Camino SS" when they can guess the closest date (without going over, of course) to when the first US Senator says some total irrelevency like...
"Hey, we need to regulate this, after all, we don't want another Hindenburgh on our hands!"
-or-
"The last thing we need is someone turning this into a bomb, I mean, you know, its got hydrogen in it, so I'd say we don't exactly want any hydrogen bombs around here.... that would be devastating."
Good Luck! (INSERT TV GAME SHOW THEME HERE)
You make some good points, but regenerative fuel cells aren't relevent to this discussion. By definition, regenerative systems do not make hydrogen fuel available. They just use hydrogen to store electrical power. This is a useful technology -- it could help make solar power commercially viable -- but it's not something your neighborhood hydrogen vendor could use.
There's so many points to contend here that I can only begin to cover them all, but I'll try.
First, OPEC doesn't comprise only Middle Eastern countries, unless you consider Indonesia and Venezuela to be a part of the Middle East. Second, there are member nations in the Middle East (like Kuwait, for example) that don't exactly promote anti-American sentiment. Third, disallowing anti-American sentiment (or anti-anything sentiment, for that matter) is unamerican in nature, since it involves governmental suppression of free speech. Fourth, we would have more problems in the region if it was destabilized than not. Do you really think that wiping out the economies of these countries is likely to foster a more democratic or equitable society in any of them, or is it more likely to cause even more powermongering (in which it has been historically proven that the more extreme factions get control than the more moderate)?
Maybe you should spend more time considering why these countries have such large constituencies of anti-American people, and you'll get a clearer idea as to realistic ways to change that sentiment. Reducing our reliance on foreign (and domestic) petroleum is a laudable goal, but not for the purpose of damaging OPEC.
A compact energy supply, just what I need for those long camping trips in Quebec. Now if they can just bring down the price of the refills.
of my electric car?? ANd jsut plug the car into it?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
then post
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Electric cars have been around for over 20 years and now that excellent hybrid gasoline/electric cars are hitting the market, the oil industry bought the rights to the NiMH battery technology and is using the courts to stop or slow down one of the big hybrid auto manufacturers.
Do you really think the oil industry would allow fuel cells to undermine their business? I think they will stall it until they figure out how to make oil burning fuel cells dominant.
I do hope you are correct but we'd be lucky if 5 years from now more then 1% of new homes are built with fuel cell heating/power systems. What ever happened to GE's fuelcell home power systems?????
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Score: -1, Loss of Credibility (for referring to anything by Noam Chomsky)
Actually, if you tune out the CNN carping, and read something intelligible about the region--I recommend Noam Chomsky--you would see that it is exactly oil that causes the hatred.
These people have been hating each other for millenia. The petrochemical industry and its associated economy is barely a century old.
> In the beginning, it was obligatory in the US, but _illegal_ in many european countries (illegal to install _any_ additional lights inside/on cars...)
Not exactly the same thing, though. In Europe, it was (and in some places, still is) illegal to add aftermarket lights. The restriction doesn't apply to automakers themselves, who can design them in and always could.
Virg
Most of the fuel cells are using platinum catalysts; the price of platinum can only go UP if this technology becomes popular.
Yes hydrogen is difficult and a bit dirty to 'manufacture' now. It's really being isolated, not manufactured. But on a universal level, it is the single most common element. If you're looking for a resource that won't run out, you have to eventually move to hydrogen. Natural gas is largely found above deposits of oil. When the oilfields are gone, so is 'natural' gas.
I think you're also underestimating the rate of change in the next 50 years. 50 years from now tech won't be as different from our tech as our tech is from 1950's tech - it will be as different from our tech as our tech is from 1850's tech. Picking the long-term solution now seems sensible when you look at the ultimate cost of re-tooling all machinery for a new power source - do you want to do that once, or several times? Hydrogen production will become cheaper and cleaner and easier, and the benefits are more if the machines are already set up to run on (currently dirty) hydrogen.
Solar power and hydrogen power will not run out in the lifespan of the human species. They will becom cheaper and cheaper and cleaner and cleaner. Picture floating factories refining hydrogen from the oceans using solar power - how ultimately efficient can that become? Natural gas is cleaner than hydrogen now but it is a limited resource. I have nothing against using it now, but it will run out while most of the mega-corps of today are still alive (much more important than nations), so they will have to re-tool eventually. Basically do you build your infrastructure around the fiber optic system of 10 years from now, or the 56k reality of today? Short-term, long-term, it's a complex balance, not a black and white question.
"Haven't you ever wondered why oil cost about the same amount as bottled water?"
When do you think we've ever been under free market forces? Capitalism suffers the same problems as communism did, it's central tenets are never truly enacted. Pure free market capitalism, which I'm starting to think is as big a fantasy as pure brotherly love communism, would not see us with rising gas prices when the supply is unaffected. Only colluding mega-corp oligarchies can and do give us that.
By the way, don't count on water staying cheap. Water is the oil of the 21st century. The mega-corps are already acting to privatize all sources of drinkable water around the world.
It is only isolated for use in fuel cells. It could also be used in fusion plants. It is the most abundant element in the universe by far. If we run out of hydrogen, we've run out of universe. It is the element most used in stars to produce energy. Maybe we should take a hint.
It is the technology that will take us to other worlds, if we ever get that far. It is the fuel that will be scooped by our ram-scoop ships as they fly to other stars. It can be mined and burned/reacted/whatever in asteroids and the power beamed to earth. The possibilities are endless.
We are children afraid to start walking because we know how to crawl very well and we tend to fall down every time we stand up. But the world cannot survive us staying children much longer. The first steps are hard, and are less efficient than crawling. But the eventual potential is so much greater.
Is ultimately solar power. We just need to up the efficiency in our solar cells a few orders of magnitude. Then solar energy in large isolated plants (say the whole Gobi desert) can be used directly to disassociate hydrogen from oxygen in water to produce shippable hydrogen which can be used at the place where it's needed.
Unless we have fusion plants before the above scenario. I don't think anyone will be arguing that hydrogen is a bad fuel supply then.
Is now on my list of discussion enders. There used to be a rule on bulletin boards. As soon as someone mentioned Hitler the discussion was over. I'm surprised to now find commie sympathizer being a discussion killer on slashdot.
Sheesh people!
Allright! All I need to do is get 300 of them & I can replace my Big Block Chevy!
several posts have been comparing this to diesel generators pointing how this does not stand the competition.
H is not a good source of energy. But the availability of fuel cells makes it a nice way to store and transport energy, and that was the big missing link for most renewable energies. now the energy produced by wind or sun can be stored (relatively) cheaply, and solar powered houses might survive cloudy weeks. producing H from electricity uses water ( it does not have to be drinkable water) and the byproduct is oxygen.
Laurent
Dev elpizw tipota, dev phoboumai tipota eimai lephteros http://euclidian.org
dihydrogen monoxide has been found in EVERY CANCER CELL examined!
> Nobody's talking about putting a muzzle on ANYBODY. Your freedom of speech does NOT mean that I have to pay you to defamate my character! I guess it doesn't bother you that the Iraqi goverment will take the vast profits from the oil we buy from them and support groups like Al-Qaida to blow up our buildings and terrorize our population. Or would you qualify the destruction of the WTC as "freedom of expression"?
Sorry, but it doesn't follow. We're not paying them to defame us, we're paying them to give us crude oil. What bothers me is that U.S. companies buy oil from Iraq in the first place. If we don't like the way they do things, why are we buying their oil? And, Al-Queda was supported by the Afghani government, from which we don't buy anything. So your example of the destruction of the WTC is simple infammatory rhetoric.
> I have no problem with bringing any country into the civilized world. However, groups that sponsor terrorism and governments that either sponsor or tolerate them are the enemies of the civilized world, in no uncertain terms.
I'm sure that most would agree with you. However, where your argument hits a wall is in the definition of "terrorism". By most definitions, the Israeli government sponsors and supports terrorism. So does China. And Russia. And, the good ole' U.S. of A. Unless you consider putting out assassination orders on foreign government officials not to be terrorism. Or killing civilians? How about forcible overthrow of governments? You'd be hard pressed to find any government in the first world that didn't suffer some of these faults, and recently the U.S. has been doing worse on them than most. Whether or not it's justified depends on which side you're on.
> What's worse is that many moderates in Islam don't condone these activities, but they don't condemn them, either.
This is flat-out inaccurate. Most moderates strongly condemn such activities. The problem is that in many Middle Eastern countries, active protest by the population is suppressed and the governments of these countries are afraid of getting too involved with the U.S. for fear of inflaming the zealots in their own nations. This is one of the main reasons for Saudi Arabia all but asking us to remove our military forces.
> However, we also have to recognize that OPEC nations have more influence over us than we have over them.
You've got to be kidding me. Which one of them could change our foreign or domestic policy? Which of them could cause us (as a nation) to do something we didn't want to do? The answer is none of them. The only thing OPEC can control is the cost of crude oil. That has fairly strong economic repercussions, but if you think that means that they wield more influence over us than we do over them, you're delusional. If you think that they can lord an oil embargo over us to get us over a barrel (pun intended), you need to reread your economics (and history) books more closely.
> If they want our money, they need to find out how to get on our good side.
Apparently not.
> Remember, in the 1980's we FERVENTLY worked to make Iraq an ally. See what it got us? Nothing.
Nice try, but we didn't do anything of the sort. The only reason we wanted ties with Iraq in the '80s was that we wanted them to kick the hell out of Iran for us, so we wouldn't have to go to war. We never tried to establish any diplomatic ties with them, and as soon as we got our hostages back, all talks with Saddam Hussein stopped. It got us nothing because we never wanted anything from them. Except oil, that is, and we're still getting that despite huge economic sanctions against Iraq (that strangely don't include crude oil).
Virg
Containers used to store hydrogen will need to be replaced regularly. Hydrogen being very small will seep into the material of the container and feed lines. This could result in the container and feedines igniting and burnig like a wick. Something similar happen when a freind of mine had to cut a pipe that carried oxygen, in liquid form I think. The cut, made with a torch, ended up being much wider than intended,
I wonder if hydrogen power lines could one day replace the lossy electrical ones. Power generating companies could simply separate hydrogen from water through electrolysis and pump it to customers, kind of like the way natural gas is now distributed to homes and businesses. During slow demand hours, they could store hydrogen and release it later during peak hours.
Would this be safer and more efficient than convention power distribution? Any power engineers out there care to chime in on this?
At least for cars anyway. Check out this MSNBC news article
There's a real market for something that runs on natural gas, produces 1KW or so, and is priced around $1K, as an emergency power source.
Ok, I will admit ive not read the article, but just read the article last nite in the current "Popular Science" mag covering this.
you get around 10 hours of safe energy...
Not quite so, it will suffer from the same fate as other fossil fuel burning equipment does. it will need ventiation. Sure, it does not produce toxic carbon monoxide or dioxide, but it takes the 02 from the air... So, you dont produce toxins, you just take away something one needs, 02. Basically, the same deal...
Cost wise, they predicted a recharge will run 100 dollars. ouch.
I can see the use of this in must have settings - perhaps a backup for medical equipment, but its not the end all of clean energy. It takes a lot more energy put in to produce the Hydrogen fuel than you can get out of it.
Clean energy will also have to be effcient to produce. if it takes more effort, usually by non clean means, to produce less power, then your making it worse.
-- LF Coyote -- Den Mond interessiert nicht, dass der Kojote heult --
The Coleman unit is still vaporware; you can't get it yet.
Yes and No. Vaporware of hydrogen canisters.
The cost is not too much. The cost has been leverage and compared to systems that exist today. Just as one can refill the ink cartridge in the printer is similiar to the refill of the canister. Not everybody will have the refills yet prefer the canisters prepaid as new milk bottles that await on the front porch.
Portable power resource is the key terminology yet not emergency power source.
Why is a space shuttle so explosive?
Doesn't it use Hydrogen / Oxygen fuel?
Maybe one order of magnitude, correctly. Plants are about 30% efficient. Solar cells are about 3% efficient. C'mon. I know we can do as well as grass. Ideally we'd do a couple times better.
In interstellar space. In interstellar space it's about all there is. The idea of a ram scoop ship is to extend large magnetic fields which collect hydrogen (which is just out there) and funnel it into the fusion reactors we admittedly don't know how to build yet. So you can collect fuel as you travel. The chemical bonds would be irrelevant to the fusion reactor. That to me is the ultimate dream of hydrogen as a fuel, not for use in a fuel cell but for use in a fusion reactor.
I'm a 27 year old programmer with a B.S. in Architecture. I make good money. I'm not a 12 year old kid. But I have seen half the things that were wild sci-fi when I read them at 12 become reality.
You don't get the idea of a singularity, I won't spend time explaining it to you, look it up. "except for the Internet, and computers" is the understatement of this admittedly rather new millenium. Computers are helping to produce a qualitative change in the rate of change itself. Look at genomics, weather modelling, rapid prototyping, etc. The change just hasn't been what we expected. No jetpacks, no rocket cars. But a global encyclopedia of all human knowledge?
Moore's law will not hit any significant barriers until it hits ultimate physical limits, by which time quantuum computing and bio-computers will be near commercial viability. Doesn't really matter if you believe it, it'll happen anyway.
First you are absolutely correct the real market is when units will run on common fuels that people are familiar with and the units are cheaper than traditional technologies. What people seem to overlook is that this is the equivalent to buying a computer in 1970. They were big, expensive and did not pack much of a punch. A closer look at FuelCellStore.com reveals that they actually offer everything that is commercially available which is still not much.
Is an indirect source of solar power, winds are driven by the energy incoming from the sun. Even hydro-electric power is driven by the evaporation/cooling cycle that occurs because of the sun. There are many ways to tap the power of the sun, but dams built for hydroelectric projects have had negative environmental impacts, and I'm afraid really large scale wind power could too.
Except for nuclear reactions (fission or fusion) all the energy we use has solar as an ultimate origin. Petrochemicals are decayed remnants of plants that grew from the sun and animals that ate those plants.
I guess geothermal is an exception, pure heat energy we can tap that doesn't come from the sun. But I think living off the energy that enters the system (solar) is a good goal for any kind of sustainable growth.
Plants are the main source in the ecosystem where energy enters the system. Energy enters from the sun, stored in sugars by the plant thru photosynthesis. I'm not sure of the breakdown of on a more granular level, the 30% referred to the plant as a system. It might be more efficient than that at storing the energy, but then lose a lot of energy moving the sugars around or redigesting them.
The market here is for any portable power source that is quiet and can be used indoors--much like a battery, but with lower operating and maintenance costs.
test
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here