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Fuel Cell Powered Backup System
bassrat writes "Coleman just announced the world's first backup power system with Fuel Cells. Like any new technology, it's a bit pricey at $6K but the rest of the specs are pretty decent. Info at http://www.airgen.com/"
Somebody explain to me how a $6K fuel-cell backup power system is better than...
The batteries in that APC are evil nasty horrible little beasts when it comes to disposal after they've reached the end of their life.
Sure, your APC is cheaper, but the Fuel Cell Idea is cleaner.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Anyway, I believe the chemical equation goes something like this:
So, the 'waste' products are water and heat. No carbon {mon|di}oxide byproducts.
At least it's been several months. ;-)
--
Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
using the websites own calculations it would cost $30.00 for 6hrs @1,000 watt output continous.
.(around 150watts)
Thats a fare bit of power but my 400watt inverter and $100.00 deepcycle battery keeps my server up for 10hrs
{ Pillar candles great for when the power fails and you cant see the keyboard..
The Hindenberg's hydrogen burned off in seconds. The big problem was the paint that used powdered aluminum, which was also electrically conductive. Add one significant spark (possible lightning) plus powdered aluminum (main volatile ingredient in the shuttle's solid-fuel boosters) and you get a big fire.
So yes, the hydrogen fears are minor. Had the Hindenberg been painted in a normal color, and not shiny silver, airships may have survived for some time to come.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
This, of course, is what your air conditioner system is for. It's not there just to cool the place; the AC also dehumidifies the air.
Not necessarily. Best if you check if that holds true for your particular AC, as cooling and dehumidifying are two separate functions.
The batteries in that APC are evil nasty horrible little beasts when it comes to disposal after they've reached the end of their life.
Did you happen to notice that this wonderful fuel cell also contains sealed lead-acid batteries, which are the same "evil nasty horrible little beasts" you'll find in your typical APC unit? Now, perhaps there is much less battery in the unit, but regardless it still contains the same type of battery.
Ok, do you realize how much more dangerous than a simple propane tank a hydrogen tank is?
Actually, depending on your situation, hydrogen may be quite a bit less dangerous than propane. You see, propane being quite heavy, if it leaks will form a layer on your floor. If you have a basement, it will all settle there. It will remain there just waiting for the right spark to come along, at which time *BOOM*. Hydrogen on the other hand is much lighter and a master escape artist. If you have a very slow hydrogen leak, it will simply rise and dissipate and find its way out. Even if you happen to ignite it right where it is leaking, you will most likely get just a quick *pop* and then it will be done, since the pure hydrogen environment inside the tank/lines has no oxidizer, and thus will not burn. Knowing what I know of propane and hydrogen, for any indoor application I would take hydrogen in a heartbeat over propane.
Lets see so far we have:
1. Hydrogen = nitro glycerin.
I'm sorry to spoil your pyromanic dreams, but hydrogen is not going to suddenly explode. It has to mix with air before it becomes dangerous, even then it burns so quickly that you would have to compress it into just the wrong size room to cause problems. But hey we already have bottles of propane, butane, LPG, etc. They in my opinion are more dangerous, because they are heavier then air, which means they burn around you, hydrogen flashes above you.
Hydrogen is also relativly easy to detect electronically in the air, so monitoring isn't a problem. If necessary add the good aweful smelling gas they put into natural gas.
2. It'll suck all the oxygen out of the room.
Think about it for a few more seconds will ya? All rooms require ventilation. There are plenty of indoor generators, we cook with gas, etc, etc. Any ventilation requirements will be taken into account when the equipment is installed.
3. Why no use larger batteries.
Batteries have to be recharged between uses. New gas can be added to a running system. Oh but so can batteries be recharged by diesel, or swap in new batteries. This is the same problem.
Generators need more fuel, fuel cells need more fuel, batteries need to be replaced. Which one is more convienant to keep running, depends on how long you need it to run, the availability of fuel, maintainence costs (generators need to be serviced), how long you expect to run on backup power, floor space. So fuel cells would be useful in many situations, think more big picture, and stop thinking about a particular situation. (Eg: use less batteries(20mins), fall back to fuel cell (4+ hours), call in generator.)
4. Fuel hard to find.
Yes, but it doesn't have a short shelf life or anything, what was the point? This is for backup purposes yes? Have you ever tried to replace the worn out batteries in a UPS? As the product becomes more popular gas will be easier to find.
5. Generates water in server room.
Magically enough so do air conditioners which are also in server rooms. We have invented magical devices called condensers, pipes and drains to deal with this.
6. It's not like you can hear generator over the servers.
This is also useful in areas not surrounded by loud machines. Most generators below a certain size are rather noisy. Fuel cells are silent. People using generators on farms, or island power supplies, etc would be interested in this. Once again stop thinking about a particular application.
7. You can recharge UPS when power comes back on, but you still have to buy more fuel.
Two issues:
a) Cost: You are still paying for replacement fuel (The electricity to recharge the batteries). And batteries are horribly inefficient, you use much more power charging them, than you get back out of them.
b) Convieniance: Batteries recharge automatically, but you have to manually change the fuel cannisters. Quite true for this design. However this problems goes away with natural gas powered fuel cells (Same deal as electricity). Reversible fuel cells are also under development. They use main power to split water back into oxygen and hydrogen. But you get similiar loses to recharging batteries, and you have to figure out where all the oxygen will go. (If you've seen a hydrogen fire, then seen an oxygen fire, you'd understand why I'm more worried by the oygen).
1) UPS has battery that runs out. This has hydrogen that runs out. same deal.?
Not same deal. You can keep popping out any buying more hydrogen cannisters and go indefinately with the fuel cell. Your UPS will buy you some time (enough time to shut down your networks safely) but not to continue operations. Essentially it is generator and UPS all rolled into one.
In obtaining more hydrogen, you can either buy it or you can generate it yourself (though electrolysis - via solar or mains). You can see the latest fuel cell stories at Future Energies.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
By gently heating a hydrocarbon fuel with a catylist, you can get nydrogen gas out of it. If this technology matures you could end up with a portable powerplant that runs on pure H2 gas and a wide variety of other fuels.
check out the info on direct methanol fuel cells
Uhh, in all seriousness, there's virtually no chance of an explosion.
Fuel cells do generate heat, but if that heat gets anywhere near ignition, the membrane'll burn out long before there's a spark (note: that's PEM fuel cells; I'll admit I didn't read the article, so I dunno what kind of cell they're using)
As to the hydrogen supply, well, H2 tanks are incredibly strongly build things, and rigorously checked for leaks. Number two, leaking H2 shoots up through the atmosphere way too fast to provide a boom. That said, if you're dumb enough to smoke around one of these tanks, you deserve what you get....
You can use pumps for this, and I believe the same gas-law principle is used in sonic fridges.
The fact that air conditioners tend to dehumidify at the same time (water condenses on the chilled coils, and then is usually drained outside) actually tends to reduce the effectiveness of the air conditioner, since some of the heat pumped out of the room is actually the heat of vaporization of the water.
In a free society you are who you say you are. -- Mumford
I've been hoping this technology would reach the consumer market (who 'da thunk Coleman would be the one?). Been reading about this in Mother Earth News for years.
Yes, you could produce your own hydrogen quite easily from electricity and water. The problem here is to produce pure hydrogen without any residual oxygen left in the line or holding tank *very dangerous*. So don't try this at home without researching it! A proper setup would burn off the residual oxygen in the hydrogen line using (guess what) another fuel cell. Purified hydrogen can be stored at moderate pressure in inspected propane tanks -- though you go through a lot of tanks as the energy per pound is quite low.
Purify the oxygen output using another fuel cell, and you have medically pure oxygen! Wouldn't those medical supply companies hate to see people producing their own!
So what I'm really waiting for to hit the mass market is a safe inexpensive hydrogen producing machine. It would make storing electrical energy cheap for windmill generators or pv cells.
Some of the less informed here think you could produce electricity from water itself. Water doesn't contain the potential for producing power (caveat follows) -- you have to put in power before you can take it back! My apologies to those already using the trace amounts of H3 (heavy water) to power the Mr. Fusion on their DeLoreans.
And yes, you could run a fuel cell on methane. It takes an extra step and another precious metal (iridium, palladium? I forgot) in addition to the platinum layer. On the output, it generates CO2 in addition to water vapor. Not quite as clean as pure hydrogen, but who wouldn't want to run their computer on chickens**t gas!
A pig farmer in Africa produced methane from all the manure and (using conventional generators) supplied all the electricity for his farm and home. Biggest advantage though was the cleanliness of his farm -- no stink, almost no flies! I'd love to see (and smell) a lot more farms use this technology.
Methane's also very abundant in the form of hydrides underneath the ocean. Between that and the farms methane could supplant most of the oil in our economy. Potential for world change abounds.
The Coleman Product is based on low-temperature PEM fuel cells from Ballard Power Systems. BTW you can pick up shared of Ballard pretty cheaply these days, NASDAQ symbol BLDP. Essentially all car manufacturers except GM and Toyota rely on Ballard for fuel cells to power their fuel cell cars. Ford and DaimlerChrysler own about 15% and 19% of Ballard, respectively.
As for the perceived dangers of hydrogen, it should be noted that hydrogen is much less of a risk than natural gas, because it disperses into the atmosphere much more quickly due to the low density of hyrdogen gas.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Cute, but did you bother looking at the site? There are two fuel options... pressurized hydrogen tanks for industrial use (with some potential for explosion), and low-pressure hydride cannisters for small-scale and residential use. It's pretty much impossible to coax an explosion out of hydrogen entrained in a hydride.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
This is another dup, but I'll be nice since it was almost a year ago (and the price seems to have dropped).
That article is about about phosphoric acid fuel cells. That is a mature technology that's been in commercial use for over a decade. It runs at a high temperature, does not scale well below a quarter megawatt and takes time to start up. They compete with gas turbines.
PEM fuel cells are just beginning to appear in commercial products. They cost more per kilowatt, but can be scaled down to the size of a laptop battery and can go from zero to full power in a fraction of a second. They compete with batteries and small internal combustion engines, mainly in mobile applications.
See also this overview of fuel cell technologies and this table.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Fill a half-litre plastic pop bottle to about the halfway point with LN2. Place inside a pumpkin. Run.
When enough nitrogen boils off the bottle will rupture, detonating the pumpkin. It's quite a sight. We had pumpkin shards up to about 200 ft away. Warning to the bold: I have left at least one important detail out of my instructions. Only qualified individuals should attempt such a stunt. I assume no responsibility for their actions.
That said, you could always put the hydrogen cylinder outside and just run a hose to the UPS. Really, you could put the whole UPS outside, and just run a cable to the server room. Catastrophic failures of gas cylinders are extremely rare, unless the cylinders are abused. I've mentioned on a different thread: treat the tank like a server and it will be fine. (No open flames, no intense heat, no massive blunt trauma.)
~Idarubicin
These types of cylinders are pretty dangerous no matter what is stored in them.
Oh, please. About three times a month I strap a cylinder with 3000 psi of gaseous nitrogen, oxygen and other mixed gases onto my back. I then take it from an environment with one atmosphere of pressure to an environment that applies about four atmospheres of pressure to the outside of the tank and then back to one atmosphere again. It's called SCUBA diving and thousands of people do it every day.
You should, of course, have your tanks pressure tested by a certified technician once a year, and retire any that show significant fatigue or any other flaws, but other than that, I worry much more about drowning then blowing up when I'm diving.