Slashdot Mirror
Getting Serious About Fuel Cells
electroniceric writes "For those of us who moonlight as politics wonks as well as tech nerds, you may have noticed posts (1,2) in the Washington Monthly's blog pointing to interesting articles about the business community's new take on climate change, world oil supply predictions as well as a fascinating article about lower-cost ethanol together with a new fuel cell technology that can use impure hydrogen. Are we really about to turn a corner in global climate change response? Is this all vapor and breathless journalism about a world-saving new technology, or is it perhaps a brilliant investment strategy? Nobody knows (or claims to know) better than Slashdot..."
It's a way to store and transport energy. Hydrogen has to come from someplace. It takes energy to produce hydrogen. Currently more energy goes into making hydrogen than is produced. But the previous poster brought up Biodiesel which is far more mature and cost effective for the state of the world economy. Use biodiesel as the tippy cup which well get us off the tit of fossil fuels and then we can move onward.
What could possibly go wrong?
As usual, noone's reading the article before complaining about the unavailability of hydrogen.
Now, the article's a little pie-in-the-sky, but it gives and overview of some interesting new breakthroughs. First, is the economic production of ethanol from the wasted part of the corn crops, namely stalks. Second, the possiblity of farming other, more ethanol-friendly crops like switchgrass, which can be grown on land not useful for food crops. Third, is a new and cheap device capable of extracting the hydrogen molecules from ethanol, even ethanol with a bit of water, so it doesn't have to be as pure as is found in today's gasoline mixtures.
I'd say the final breakthrough isn't about science, its about being realistic. There are drawbacks to these other technologies, namely they still produce carbon-dioxide and carbon-monoxide. They're not pollution-free, but possibly their less polluting than what we currently have available. The last breakthrough is about accepting the
very good even if its not the best. That's an important point.
Taken together, these breakthroughs are a bit aways from the market, but proper investments would help them come about sooner. I'm not sure I see why the ethanol lobbies should object as they could still get the money and sell the corn, too.
I always get the shakes before a drop.
Before the 1940's, most of the gas consumed in big cities was manufactured at the local town gas works by heating coal, coke or charcoal to 1000 degrees or more in an airtight chamber, then steam was passed through the coal to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The basic reaction is
C(s) + H20 = H2 + CO
The process for making gas from coal dates back to the late 1700's and early 1800's, but was gradually abandoned by the 1940's and 1950's as more and more natural gas wells were being drilled and pipelines were constructed across the country.
If a method of removing the carbon monoxide from water gas could be devised, hydrogen could then be made in vast amounts the way it used to be in the 1800's, except this time for use in fuel cells rather than in street lamps.