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So Where Are The Fuel Cells?
prostoalex writes: "While fuel cells have been touted as a revolutionary innovation for the electronics industry, they have not hit the market yet. This article in eWeek talks about the current problems with fuel cells, and claims that 'these devices, designed to last as much as 10 times longer than a standard lithium-ion battery, should hit the market by 2004.'" There are a few fuel-cell devices on the market, but this article points out a few reasons they're not yet more widespread.
I've heard about fuel cells powering the 21st Century about as long as I've heard that I should have gotten a flying car for my birthday last year. First things first. Fuel cells have a lot of potential, but why waste all that extra energy on an Intel-powered notebook? Seriously, why don't the leading developers of fuel cells team up with Transmeta to make an invincible laptop that would blow Dell and Compaq-HP out of the water? That would mark one giant leap for the little guys, who greatly deserve a boost in success right about now.
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
I do own a fuel cell. To be exact, it's a small direct methanol cell, which runs on a 3% methanol and 97% water solution. I'm damn sure that 3% methanol is not too flamable.
My guess is that the number one thing keeping fuel cells off the mainstream market is the cost of production. Specifically, the poles of the cell have to be made of platinum. Last time I checked platinum isn't too cheap.
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tcd004
So, are we completely giving up on flywheels? They may not be too mainstream, but they hold the promise of incredibly light devices (at least they can be) with the ability to hold incredible ammounts of energy, and store it with practically no loss, for a very long period.
That would also relieve the long charging times necessecary with batteries (at least they could).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
However, the rate of efficiency is only as good as the efficiency of power used to generate the hydrogen in the first place. If you are using an oil/coal cycle with 20% to create a hydrogen cell with 99% efficiency, your hydrogen cell is only really 20% efficent.
And solar power is certainly not where efficiency can be found. While it would be nice if we could sustain our energy needs with solar/wind/etc., I'm afraid that at our currently increasing rate of consumption, it seems unlikely. (Without, at least, cutting down all the remaining forest for solar cells). When you move to a more northern climate, such as eastern Canada (where I live), the frequent fog, and generally low intensity of sunlight makes this go from unlikely to impossible.
Considering that 1 non-enriched uranium fuel pellet in a Candu reactor can produce more energy than several tons of coal... it seems like something worth looking into.
-legolas.
Fuel cells produce water when they are USED on the road in the open air. The hydrogen or other fuel could be produced anywhere, e.g. in a plant where the contaminants could be contained or scrubed somehow.
I would think that it's far easier and far more efficient to catch CO2 from the stacks of coal/oil/natural gas plant, than from the exhausts of hundreds of thousands of cars.
So even if the conversion of other energy to hydro fuel is difficult or polluting, the pollutants are much more easily contained.
That's my amateur scientific guess.
OK OK, so the weight issue I raised was a bit of a joke. It doesn't mean that lithium batteries can't explode still, and with as little provocation as coffee being spilled on them. I'd still rather have a power source that I can "refuel" rather than plug into a wall for 2 hours.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Go to this site if you want to know more about fuel cells..
www.h2pac.org
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
What happens to the byproducts created by these laptop cells (water, water vapor). Is it stored for later removal?
I don't know about you but I would not want water dripping from my laptop
I'm never going to achieve Nirvana with my Karma
There once was a US company who built a hybrid car which used a shoe-box sized turbine engine and a small flywheel. They designed both components from scratch and debugged it to the point where they drove the car across country. I don't even think it broke down once (unlike that fuelcell car that just made it's trip x-country and broke down many times).
r dw are.htmi ne/fall97 /9_25/Benrosen.html
http://www.awl.com/englishpages/tech_talking_ha
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/business/botl
there were more links a couple of years ago but now many are no longer posted. There used to be a good one with illustrations and pictures. Anyway, none of the Big Three would buy into their design so they closed shop. Capstone still makes compact turbine engines though.....
Could be a good time to auction off the car on ebay?
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I can't be sure, but I think you missed the parent post's point. You put a big solar array in some wide-open area near the equator, isolate the hydrogen and oxygen there, and ship the hydrogen and oxygen to coastal areas like Bellinham, WA that only have two seasons (cold rain and warm rain).
Even if solar power is a bad example, the idea is intersting. Distribution of energy is as much of a problem as power generation. For example, losses on distribution power lines are significant.
-Paul Komarek
-Paul Komarek
Remember that a fuel cell is just a battery that stores its fuel externally. Also, fuel cells are seldom designed to be reversible, i.e., you can't apply electricity and produce fuel.
The usual proposal is to store the fuel in some sort of cartridge that you replace when it's used up. Presumably you'd have to go to the local store to buy these cartridges.
But isn't that what you already do now with devices that use primary (non-rechargeable) batteries? This is exactly why secondary (rechargeable) batteries are so popular. It's a lot more convenient to just plug your depleted batteries into a charger where they'll be ready by morning. No store trip required.
So the only advantage I can see for the fuel cell is when the device requires so much energy that conventional (primary or secondary) batteries are too heavy or bulky, and you don't have frequent access to external power for recharging. This may be the case for some laptop users, but is it really that hard to carry a few spare batteries and swap them out as needed?
Sure, I'd like to see a safe, inexpensive consumer fuel cell on the market. But it will have to compete more with primary (nonrechargeable) batteries than with secondary (rechargeable) batteries. And primary battery chemistries (e.g., lithium) are already available that have much higher energy densities than any secondary battery. So unless those fuel cartridges are a lot cheaper (and no less safe) than alkaline or lithium batteries, they won't have much of a market.
They were promptly bought out by gillette together with all their patents, then shut down. This was more than a decade ago. I only know this because my grandfather was telling me about it recently, he still has some. To this day I still have to buy razor blades that last for less than a month.
Go figure.
I had the argument about the lightbulb with my physics teacher. I lost. Do some research. Cheap efficient lightbulbs that last for decades aren't hard to produce. The parent poster is right when he says the companies who make lightbulbs aren't interested and destroy anyone who attempts it.
Capitalism in practice does not work like you think. Monopolies and cartels are a dime a dozen in this world, stiffling competition and using power and influence to maintain outdated buisness models.
Liberty.
...I meant obscelesence. As someone who has recently gone through the painful process of cleaning up a flooded basement due to hot water heater giving out, it's quite clear. Devices have built in obscelesence otherwise people woudl not purchase more. Batteries die in a given amount of time and people run to the store to buy more. Where is the incentive for Energizer or Duracel to make their batteries 10x more efficient? Cares with 100mpg have been built but the patents have been bought by the big three and locked away. Look what happened to Tucker and his automobiles. I'm not condoning this practice but obscelesence is a common factor in a capitalistic society.
I can walk into any Riders Hobby shop and pick up a fuel cell. They are in the educational kits section. It has both a way to generate your own hydrogen+oxygen from a solar cell and then you can run the fuel cell from the gasses you just created to spin a motor.
Granted HIGH power fuel cells and an abundance of hydrogen and a safe way to transport it are not here... but I can buy fuel cells at a regular store all day long.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The work that Betavoltaic is doing might be a solution to this problem. They seem to be making batteries that will last almost forever.