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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..."
All of this stuff about fuel cells is really nice for the future, but I see two much more simple ways to decrease dependence on foreign oil. First of all, why don't people drive diesel cars like they do in Europe? Diesel is not only more efficient, but most diesel technology is actually cleaner than gasoline. It also doesn't depend on a complete paradigm shift.
Secondly, why don't more people move back to city and thus not need cars as much? Before electric trolley cars used to be in place of buses. People could walk to work because of how close things used to be. American society has become too suburbanized and this is one of the biggest problems with regards to the fuel problem. Don't complain about fuel problems when you live 25 miles from your job and can't take the train!
Personally I've always leaned towards Biodiesel.
Why? Well, quite simply, using biodiesel not only are you saving money and the environment, but you boost the economy via the agriculture industry!
From what I hear they are using it a lot in the midwest states, but I really would like to see some mainstream biodiesel technology.
Fuel cells, meh, they have their place. But accident safety with a hydrogen bomb under your hood is an interesting diversion from the subject in itself...
Haven't we heard that enough recently? It should be up for most abused expression of the year by now.
I have heard that Washington University in Saint Louis is getting quite close to making a useable ethanol fuel cell that could potentially power a laptop for a month. I really just think that alcohol based fuel cells make more sense; ethanol can be easily made from corn, and we make enough of that to have our government pay farmers to not grow it for economic reasons. I say that ethanol fuel cells will change the world more dramatically than the internet, and that is a pretty powerful statement to make.
Even if there was a huge breakthrough in fuel-cell technology that was ready for use right now, it still would not have a huge impact, at least initially. Let's assume this story, however probable, wasn't overhyped; People still have to be weaned off of their current vehicles, which are mostly large and gas-powered. In the U.S., that could take decades.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
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?
Are we really about to turn a corner in global climate change response?
Please keep the science fiction your read separate from the universe you live in. I'm finding it difficult to parse your buzzwords, but it sounds like you think fuels cells will offer a tremendously lower impact on the environment. Sorry, that's not how it works.
I don't have to be a fuel cell chemist to understand that the energy doesn't come for free. While hydrogen is certainly less polluting than other fuels, it still takes more energy to place that hydrogen in your hands than the energy you're going to get out of it. Sheesh, Newton didn't know anything at all about cracking hydrogen and even he knew that!
Your convenient energy is going to cause pollution of some kind (smog, chemical or nuclear waste, etc). It might be less pollution, but it won't be enough to cause a "global climate change response". And it will probably result in a redirection of otherwise productive efforts, such as growing crops for ethanol instead of for food. Even cracking hydrogen via hydroelectic energy is still going mean damming up an awful lot of rivers, with an unknown effect on the weather. Oh, and there's also waste heat on both the production and consumption side of the equation.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing against fuel cells. They sound extremely convenient, and I'll probably be one of the first customers. But don't imagine that it's going to solve all of our global climate problems. The only way to do that is to reduce our total energy consumption.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
What's taken everyone so long to realize the huge crisis in the oil supply? Everybody knows that at any given time, there's only a 40 years' supply of oil in the world. It's been that way for decades!
don't understand why everyone is so down about fuel cells.
yes, pure hydrogen is hard/expensive to produce. but the next generation of fuel cells can use methane (or ethanol) for a source of fuel. ie, plug the fuel cell into the back end of a cow- suddenly wisconsin will be known for more than it's cheese.
for some reason, some are thinking fuel cells are going to replace gasoline engines in vechicles. well, ok. but what you really want to do is replace all the coal and oil burning power plants w/ fuel cells. so instead of acid rain and tons of greenhouse gases, you get H2O out, which you could use to water crops or drink. given that China seems to be building coal burning power plants as fast as they can, doesn't that sound like a good idea?
ok, fine, i might be biased. i am working on the next design of fuel cells (in particular solid oxide fuel cells- SOFC). but, still, the sooner we get to a place where producing energy is less harmful to the planet, i think we should. hell, we must.
Hate to be dullsville but,
It is the dull stuff that is easiest implemented. And reduction is the best way of adding more energy to the pie.
Fluorescent incandescents.
Wind power will not save us, and some birds will die, but from Oklahoma to Saskatchewan, quite cost effective means of supplementing. Yeah, the wind doesn't always blow, but then so Manitoba lost $436 million last year due to low water levels (hydro), the rains do returns as does the wind.
As far as solar, one of the easiest and most effective routes is for heating water. This should have happened in Arizona, southern California, etc. years ago. No, you don't have to do it all by solar, but you require a much smaller water heater that is used less often.
My friends off the grid via photovoltaics (over 10 years now) designed their houses - cabins to need as little electricity as possible. However photovolatiacs is tailor made to topping off banks of 12 volt batteries in third world countries for cell phones, computers, refrigerator (dc refrigerator). That is more where technology adding in a tiny bit more efficiency and lowering cost to manufacture could really have a big input.
You still have to store the hydrogen for fuel cells.
And you still have to figure out what you are going to run your tractors on and the energy sources for the fertilizer (lots of electricity to take N out of the air), farming chemicals, etc.
It isn't the flashy things that are going to do it. It is a lot of people doing dull things.
shalom,
mark
This is how you produce hydrogen. Notice the part about "electricity." That's right, in order to produce hydrogen you need the very same energy that we were trying to save in the first place. Your hydrogen-powered Prius may run as pure and clean as fresh snow, but if a coal-fired generator is supplying the electricity needed to electrolyze water and make hydrogen, then it's all for naught.
So let's stop beating around the bush: the only technology we have today that does not produce carbon and comes anywhere close to supplying Terra's present-day energy needs is good old nuclear. Or, nucular in the parlance of our current administration. Wind, water and/or solar simply don't. I think we need to bite the bullet, recognize this fact, and start building. The nuclear stigma is very unfortunate given the stakes of the global warming game we're playing. The fact is it can be done cheaply and safely, and few bad eggs seem to have spoiled the bunch... unless you have complete idiots at the helm, living in the proximity of a modern, well-managed nuclear power plant is probably a lot, lot safer than strapping into a rickety box of sheet metal and hurtling yourself down the freeway to work every morning in the presence of countless other drivers about whose skills and preoccupations you know nothing.
The depressing sticking point is that with a $100 billion, Manhattan-style research project we could probably get something like fusion power off the ground, thus solving our energy and pollution woes for basically forever.
By the way, that's about the same amount of money as we will be spending in Iraq in the coming years to ensure our oil supply and with it our ability to pump astronomical quantities of carbon into the air for the foreseeable future. Gallingly ironic.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
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.
Every oil major has subsidiaries whose whole purpose is to bring hydrogen to market. There are plenty of well connected oil men in these companies whose careers are toast if hydrogen doesn't come online. Do you really think that Shell or Exxon care whether the profit comes from oil burned in ICE or hydrogen consumed in fuel cells? Get real, the bottom line for these guys is keeping the bonuses and stock options rolling in no matter what.
What's nice to see her is that global economic growth is leading us to cleaner technologies.
The oil price is so high because so many growing economies want access to energy.
Fuel scarcity is suddenly making cleaner alternatives economical, and once economies of scale kick in for them we won't be going back.
Demonstrating nicely once again that all the malthusians were (and are) full of crap.
We're not going to run out of things if we have flexible markets.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
"...Is this all vapor and breathless journalism about a world-saving new technology, or is it perhaps a brilliant investment strategy?..."
-You have my vote that this IS journalism about a NEW technology, not necessarily one that is world-saving at all. If anything, it is a step toward something that is all electric, but we are far from it without a major crisis.
-The agricultural and biochemical processes to produce Ethanol or Ethyl Alcohol (CH3-CH2-OH or C2H5OH) from Maize (you call it Corn) is not too clean nor environmentally perfect. Sure it does not require oil refineries, but there is significant production of Carbon Dioxide (CO2)in ways not immediately apparent.
-For example, growing corn produces lots of waste (cornstalks, etc..) that rots and releases CO2 and/or methane. The fermentation of the carbohydrates (sugars) in corm by yeasts produces carbon dioxide as well. Additionally, Corn is a C4 metabolism plant and it requires significant irrigation for maximum yields, and irrigation requires the burning of fuels either at the electric plant or rurally to pump out an aquifer to water the crops. Fuels are also needed for the large tractors, combines, and other equipment used to grow the crop. Another important consideration is the significant government subsidies given to grow corn in the US. The market is artificial and controlled, fluctuating with the weather (crop yields), whether a Democrat or Republican votes to adjust the already high corn subsidies (at taxpayer expense), and there is added manpower, use of significant agricultural land for fuel production, etc..
-With modern Oil/Gas production the COSTS are not as high to yield fuels of sufficient energy density (as in how many BTU a gallon of liquid fuel contains..) After all, we are all burning (oxidation) ~something~ to release energy whether it induces electron flow in a fuel cell or releases high pressure gases pushing a turbine or piston to do work. Think about the point. Alcohol fuel cells are really cool, yes. Bet let's not thing this in any case solves the CO2 or wasted resources issues. If it were Hydrogen (H2) produced from electrolysis (electric current through water yielding Hydrogen (H2) and Oxygen (O2) [2(H2O) + electricity = 2(H2) + 1(02)]), and that electricity was from a solar, nuclear, or hydroelectric generation station, then I would say that the use of that Hydrogen in a fuel cell solves much of the CO2 emissions and reduces dependence on oil.
But, the use of ANY alcohol means that there is Carbon present in the fuel and you will either produce CO (carbon monoxide) or CO2. The US Space Shuttle uses a pure Hydrogen - Oxygen Fuel Cell yielding only electricity, heat, and water as by products. ANY fuel cell that uses any Carbon in its FUEL other than Oxygen and pure Hydrogen, will release CO or CO2.
-In another example, what original starting material do you think was used to make all of those little plastic keys on your keyboard (and nearly any plastics we use today)... that's right, they are made from hydrocarbons (mainly natural gas)?
Imagine the world without fossil fuels realizing that everything plastic is from fossil fuel as well as diesel and gas... They are here to say.
Besides, we are getting close to time for another Ice Age onset, some added CO2 may push that back a few centuries. -Zymergy
1. it takes infrastructure to make more oil, you cant double supply, where are the people/pumps/stations
2. you cant double the oil tankers to transport the stuff, it takes time/money and steel to build another 1000 oil tankers
3. china is increasing its energy use 15% up each year, its going to need another 5000% more if everyone just buys 1 more light bulb, thats 1.2billion lightbulbs dude. 15% increase in demand each year with 0% inrease in supply is equal to 15% decrease each year.
4. human price/labor will go up, more people will want their share of the profits, prices will go up.
So its mute if there is even unlimited (10000 cubic kilometers of oil in the earth, even if our magma is 10% oil) It still takes ENERGY to take it up and process it and store it and transport it. You cannot double your infrastructure overnight what took 100 years to build.
KEY WORD, C H I N A + MASSIVE DEMAND = stress on supplies.
Got it man?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
We are not running out of oil. In 1982, proven world oil reserves were 696 billion barrels. Since then the world has consumed 452 billion barrels, but proven world reserves are now over 1 trillion barrels. And we still have tremendous coal, natural gas, gas hydrates, and other energy alternatives available.
U.S. oil production is only declining because we have stopped looking and stopped drilling domestically over environmental concerns. Of course it may be our best interest not to drill now and save it for later, the oil deposits are not going anywhere. However, we need to explore how much oil we have now so that we know when best to start extracting. All of the recoverable oil on the planet will eventually be extracted. And if we don't buy Mid-east oil now, someone else will, and terrorism will still be fully funded. And it's probably best that we buy Mid-east oil. We have a real army and are the only country strong enough to get out of bed with the devil when the appropriate time comes.
Scientific advancement will most likely eventually end our oil dependence. There is no shortage of scientists working on the problem, the economic benefit to finding better energy than fossil fuel is enormous. But I don't think that any scientist who wants be a big hero and benefit from solving the world's oil problem is going to want to hear "You're not paying your fair share", "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" if they succeed.
Two of your websites refer to the kooky "studies", from the oil experts of the world: modern russia!
Wanna invest in empty, poor, russian steppes!? SURE YOU DO!
Read the nice article, American. Ignore the lack of Russian development of said oil for the last 50-80 years (which would easily have fixed many of their huge energy woes). Digging deeper was what they were good at! Someone's apparently selling us sheep oil.
Abiotic oil is not possible from imaginary methane underground. Methane is impossible to bond with unless you oxidize it (oxygen) or rip away its hydrogens in some other way (without letting them re-join the carbon) and it's very light (rises) and its very very likely *not* sitting in rock solution, as an unoxidized carbon source near the pure silica mantle.
Oil is not "cooled" methane or propane. Geesh! what a rip! You have to cook up long molecules from more complex carbon soup. Gases occur because they couldn't get cooked! The natural gas we pump out has risen above the oil because they were formed around the same time and don't slowly go from one form to the other. You'd never find them togther if fluid temperature changed one into the other.
Besides, the proportion of carbon in the unruly methane gas is much smaller than the goo that was buried under tar pits and other sedimentary formations. Methane is hydrogen-rich and carbon-poor compared to coal and crude oil. Ergo: one don't magically all change to the other over eons.
Simply said, we (made of carbon) are the scum of the earth: carbon forms and compounds of *every* type are light and do not flow anywhere but up when buried deep. Even when compressed over eons with silica compounds, they still always come from the surface. (Obviously shows in coal, more common than oil!) So there's no magic springs of texas tea going to appear from 10000 miles deep oil wells. All the oil that was formed 60 million years ago has risen as high as it can, or sprung out already as tar sands.
Okay. Here's a simple test: do endless methane flares spew out of deep-fault (or any) volcanos? Nice pictures in Nat'l Geographic? NO!
Methane was in the atmosphere like every other gaseous carbon compound when the earth was formed. Gooey carbon chains were formed when that carbon in methane stuck to rocks in the form of algae and stuff that ate it. Carbon is light stuff!
(sigh) End lecture.
Kids these days!
Believing anything if a buck ad from unproven science in spam tells them to believe Uncle Bush and the Happy Endless Drillers,
(hint: who are losing investment $$ due to no new reserves.)
[Crawls back into hut and straps on tinfoil hat
to prevent the TV from eating his brain too.]
Nietzsche is dead - God
Uh, no. The primary problem with your reasoning is that the issue isn't whether or not CO and or CO2 is produced when burning a fuel. The issue is the total amount of Carbon present in the active worldwide Carbon cycle. Burning BioDiesel or other plant based crops does release Carbon into the atmosphere; The exact same Carbon that the crop removed from the cycle a few months ago. The main problem with Fossil Fuels is that they take Carbon which was previously removed from active circulation and reintroduces it. This upsets the balance of the cycle and has long reaching effects on all of the other natural processes (weather and biodiversity come to mind).
In terms of forestalling "another Ice Age", excessive Carbon may in fact, be hastening it. There is evidence that Ice Ages are closely linked to the cold water conveyor currents in the Atlantic. Temperature changes caused by the additional Carbon we introduce may cause the collapse of the currents and cause and Ice Age.
Other than that, it was a very nice post.
The Revolution. Now available as a convienent six tape series from PBS.
All this talk of CO2 emissions is no more than a martial arts type feint to distract you from the real action....
Yes, CO2 emissions *are* high, but then again oceanic absorbtion of CO2 is double what people have been predicting / expecting, and you'll find fuck all comment or investigation into that fact in the meedja, interesting when you are talking about by far the single largest CO2 absorbtion system on the planet.
The other thing everyone forgets is "recent human history" eg "the last hundred years" = "fuck all" on a global timescale.... or do you propose that the MASSIVE global warming at the end of the last ice age was caused by mammoths driving around in CFC leaving 25 litre V16 cars?
There are hippo bones buried in and around the Thames in the London area, something again caused that climate change, and it wasn't the hippos creating an extended nuclear winter.
You driving a biodiesel harley or a itchyfanny fuel cell smart car isn't going to alter sunspot activity.
No, the real issues here is per capita energy consumption, and per capita energy efficiency and per capita energy by products.
There is quite simply only one way forwards for the human race, and it is this.
In the short term, for the next 50 years, MASSIVE investment in traditional nuke plants to vastly increase electricity production.
Just as a huge proportion of Abu Dhabi's (United Arab Emirates) energy budget has gone for 30+ years into desalination of water to turn AD from a dusty desert town into a green and verdant city (human consumption of desalinated water is minute compared to the amounts used to water everything daily) then huge proportions of this future nuclear capacity will need to be used to recharge traditional traction type lead acid cells, crack water into hydrogen for new fuel cells, and power tram style over head power cables for urban heavies stuff.
In the meantime everyone needs to make a JFK style "do in within ten years, that's an order" style push to commercially viable fusion plants.
From the inidivdual's point of view we can reduce energy consumption (and therefore all the by-products of energy use) by running lighter and lower performance vehicles, ceiling fans instead of air-con in hot climates, reverse air-con instead of simple radiant electrical resistors in colder climates, and generally look at the overall efficiency of everything we use...
Simply switching all urban one person in a vehicle journeys to little 150 mpg (must be 4 stroke motors though) scooter would have a huge positive overall benefit, of which the total fuel saved would be only a small part, but you aren't going to get this or anything else when the total media output is pumping out the message that your big performance vehicle is a symbol of the size of your genitals.
And that brings us to the real problem, and it is by definition a greater problem in countries with a higher per capita energy use, so the US is the top of the pile.
The real problem is the profit motive inextricably bound to every joule of energy you use... there is no problem with there being a profit motive in there, but when the profit motive becomes the single over-riding force you have severe problems.
_EVERYTHING_ is geared to making you a larger net consumer of energy next year than this, because more energy = more product shifted = more profit.
In europe we have issues similar to these, but nowhere near as bad as america, which is literally a society built around the concept of universally available personal transport, the car is god, many americans simply do not have the option to live even as I do, motorcycle only, because the motorcycle will not carry the shopping etc etc etc, plus of course I can simply leave the bike parked, and walk the mile and half in the the centre of town, get my shopping and if I'm lazy get the (overpriced and expensive) every 15 minutes bus back for 3 bucks.
Americans (and I mean the United states, not south americans etc) like to
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal