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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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
And whilst we're at it, we can ban fertilizer, bleach, washing powder, flour, all petrol byproducts, potassium salt, water (electricity = fun oxygen/hydrogen mix) since all of these can be turned into explosives. ... errm well virtually everything if abused.
Whilst we're at it, paracetamol is dangerous, so is
Slippery slope, banning things 'because they might be dangerous' is a dangerously daft political attitude.
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?
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