How Artificial Leaves Could Generate Clean Hydrogen

An anonymous reader writes "At Imperial College London, researchers have embarked on a £1m project to study, and eventually mimic, photosynthesis. Part of the 'artificial leaf' project involves working out exactly how leaves use sunlight to make useful molecules. The team then plans to build artificial systems that can do the same to generate clean fuels such as hydrogen and methanol. These would then be used in fuel cells to make electricity or to directly power super-clean vehicles."

Comments

Re:New Idea?

[Sandbags]

1/3rd as much power huh? in terms of joules or BTUs, yes, but where one power source is coming from the ground, the other is coming from power plants, and we don't have those power plants!

Also, the local grids (last mile) can't handle that extra load...

Also off-peak is NOT considered "night time" but varies by region and time of year. in the summer, off-peak is typically midnight to 5AM. but BEVs take 8-10 hours to charge, oops.
In the winter, off-peak is 9AM to 4PM! the car's not home, oops...

Also, once we move to fast charge, it will NOT be stady, stable off-peak loads. People will be charging anytime they get to 20% remaining, wherever they are.

Also, if you read the link's data, they are NOT storing H2, they're making it as part of a catalytic process. It's only kept in short term, low pressure tanks for 12-36 hours. These types of tanks are CHEAP, efficient, and have extremely little leakage (unlike tanks needed beneath gas stations or worse in cars, on which I completely agree). I will NEVER support driving H2 vehicles, EVER. I also can't support driving EVs in mass

EV batteries contain toxins, rare chemicals, and though the most recent technologies are highly recyclable, its a messy expensive process, not to mentoin LiIon pack failure and fires...

I also read the DOE result when it came out recently, and there are a few things you should note: 1) the study completely ignored local grid distribution, and was a statement of average available energy across the USA (total poewr production, including total off-peak capacity, compared to the energy required to power cars based on estimates of energy needs for drivers charging once per day). Well, we don;lt have that power in that way. if we did, California would not brown out... 2) the study did not take into account geographic density of automobiles, or transmission density of existing high power lines. Sure, we've got enough power off-peak in SC to charge 2 million cars at night, too bad we only have 1.4 million of them here... 3) we don'lt have the infrastructure and logistics in place to FUEL the plants that COULD produce that power, keeping in mind what percent of our current production is from FOSSIL FUEL ITSELF??? If we had to run the plants 24x7 at 100%, energy cots will rise, and we'll be out of coal in 20-30 years instead of 50. Oh wait, according to this we may only have 20 years of coal TODAY! http://www.grist.org/article/Are-we-approaching-peak-coal-Part-1/

Really, seriously, LOOK AT doty's data... read the reports. I'll concede (and so do they) that EV is the future, in 40-50 years, but we NEED a stop gap, and WindFuels can be just that, and get us off oil dependence without us having to trade out all out cars in 10 years when oil is $8 a gallon or more (that's a CONSERVATIVE prediction btw). Check out their site, read the real data, www.dotyenergy.com.