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Solar-Hydrogen Eco-House
Cymage writes "An architect in Malaysia has built a Solar-Hydrogen Eco-house, the first in the world that is fully self-sustainable and runs entirely on hydrogen. The house has an electrolyser to generate hydrogen that runs off of solar panels, then that hydrogen is used for heat and electricity for the house. Pretty cool stuff. I wonder how long before a kit is ready to convert regular houses?"
250000RM is $65,800 US. I would guess it would cost more in the US though.
http://www.narvakitchens.com/Solar.pdf
Although we're not too hot (pun intended) on the soal power issue, the scandinavian houses seem to be quite energy efficient with good insualtion and a good deal of us use thermal power. The thermal power is simply water heated in the crust of the earth, so you save some of the energy otherwise wasted on heating it to that point. A friend of mine lives in a thermally heated, very thouroughly insulated house (with good ventilation), and they spend a tiny, tiny amount of dough on heat. He recons the thermal system would be paid off in six years, making it a total of ten years in investment. He also applied for a grant from SINTEF for repairs, and got it. Not a bad deal.
Hydrogen (gaseous that is, not liquid) is actually a reasonably safe fuel. As far as explosiveness, it's roughly equivalent to, say, natural gas, and much less explosive than acedalene.
Keeping hydrogen in a tank (outside of a house or in a vehicle) is fairly safe. If the tank is ruptured, the hydrogen is so light that it leaks into the air and floats up and away very quickly. (Unlike, say, gasoline, which tends to sit on the ground, mix with air, and cause explosions). (The article said that the H2 tank was _outside_; having it inside _would_ be dangerous.)
By the way, the reason that the Hindenburg was such a horrific accident wasn't primarily because it was filled with Hydrogen. It was because the body of the blimp was painted with a substance that was essentially rocket fuel.
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
I'm sure many /.'ers are aware of this, but the fact that the Hindenburg was filled with Hydrogen had very little to do with the disaster. The problem was the coating of the balloon, which was highly flammable and susceptible to static buildup (someone provide more details if possible). Add in the metal frame, and as soon as a small spark erupted it arced across the whole balloon and the rest is history.
Hydrogen is pretty safe, if you know what you're doing. But a good point the Hindenburg can teach us is that all elements of a system must be inspected with respect to each other, in order for something to be truly safe.
Storage?
If you are not using the electricity from the solar panels, conventionally, it is stored in huge battery arrays. With this setup, it is converted to hydrogen and can be stored more easily in a big tank, or, if the tank is filled, that electricity is then fed back into the grid directly. That hydrogen tank probably doesn't need to be maintained like a battery array, and, if you'd like to upgrade, a bigger tank, or another auxilliary tank is probably cheaper than the equivalent batteries.
First off, storing volitile gases in tanks outside of the house is a common, and noramlly safe practice. Granted, when the fire swept through Oak Hills here in Southern California last year, there were some big booms, but that is a very rare occurance. Second, hydrogen is safer to store than propane is. Hydrogen, when release from a tank, tends to spread out, or mostly up, too fast to create a good explosion, unless you are storing the hydrogen mixed with oxygen, and I doubt that they would be that dumb. Overall, I'd much rather have a huge tank of hydrogen outside my house, than a huge tank of propane. And (insert diety here) forbid that I would end up driving around sitting on a very volitile liquid for hours on end, oh wait, I do, and its considered safe.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
The designers should be commended for the power self-sufficiency of the house.
But I notice from the photo that the house has been constructed primarily from steel and concrete, which are hardly sustainable materials. The amount of energy that goes into extracting and processing steel or concrete is thousands of times more than that for wood or masonry. The net energy balance from both the construction and long-term operation of this house is likely to be very negative.
For reference: stats, stats and more stats
One of the more advanced energy efficient, solar power homes in the country is under construction in Ohio: http://www.solterra.info
It uses 5 alternative energy sources.
O=='=++
This is a myth ... American Solar Energy Society FAQ on energy payback.
O=='=++
Check out New Jersey's renewable energy program - http://www.njcleanenergy.com
State will GIVE you back 70% of what you spend on all hardware and labor.
What's even more exciting, is the venture capital fund that will give your business 5 to 500k recoverable grant to expand your renewable energy business development. This money could help you buy installation equipment, trucks, warehouse space, help hire additional staff,etc. Unfortunately, this fund is only 5 million is size. If a lot of companies apply, there won't be enough for everyone.
I think any experienced roofer would be crazy not to at least consider doing solar installations. I mean if they are already ripping an entire roof and replacing shingles, why not offer to install some solar panels or tile south side of the roof with solar shingles?
In fact only a year or so previous to the Hindenberg disaster, a similar event took place in California though fewer lives were lost. That blimp was full of helium and it still went up in a great ball of flames - because like the Hindenberg it was coated with cellulose acetate (I think to keep water off it). Not sure if it had the aluminium paint as well though.
So yeah, I think the gas used for bouyancy makes little difference to the hazard.
Now if we could produce some kinda field that stabilises positive muons by an order of, say, many trillions, we could have muonium lofted blimps that make do with 10% the volume. But. Alas...
Really? Because the Department of energy's report claims "Biodiesel yields 3.2 units of fuel product energy for every unit of fossil energy consumed in its life cycle." That's from 1995. A similar report came out in 1998.
I'd like to know what numbers you know of that are different, maybe based on more modern numbers and not some study produced during the invention of bioethanol in the 1970s. Because processes in general become more efficient over time -- it's hard to believe that a 6 or 9 year old report was SO wrong that the 3.2 units they claim were actually negative.
I'm not doubting you (well, okay, I am). I just would like to see this counterreport. Back in 1995, I still trusted government scientists.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I think friction would cause problems for such a device on a small scale. The mechanical conversion of energy from a slow-moving heavy weight to fast moving rotating axle is too complicated. They do, however, do something similar on a macro scale with the power grid as a whole. During non-peak hours, the excess generating capacity is often used to pump water uphill into a reservoir. Later, when demand increases, they use the reservoir to generate power hydroelectrically.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.