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Big Advance In Hydrogen Production Could Change Alternative Energy Landscape
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Virginia Tech say they've had a genuine breakthrough in alternative energy production that could shake up the world's energy structure. Specifically, they've hit on a way to derive large amounts of hydrogen from any plant source. The method uses renewable natural resources, releases almost no greenhouse gasses, and needs no costly or heavy metals. The key is using xylose, the most abundant simple plant sugar, to produce a large quantity of hydrogen that previously was attainable only in theory."
converting plant matter into electricity or hydrogen wouldn't be efficient : photosynthesis converts 3-6% of solar energy and converting this chemical energy into hydrogen and theninto electricity won't improve on this; while a decent solar panel reaches at least 10% (more like 14-19%), into electricity.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
I am sure big oil would gladly shift to a new technology.
Here is the problem...
Gasoline offers the following advantages. High Energy Density. Can be stored and shipped easily, relativity safe (compared to other that would kill you at the first smell or explode more violently) Doesn't require a high infrastructure to deal with.
Now if we can get Hydrogen cheap and fuel cells cheap enough to make affordable cars that people will buy. I can see the big oil companies starting to shift to the hydrogen market. They already have ways of shipping, and retailers for their product. They will just switch products.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Solar panels are now close to 40%.
What you overlook is that this process uses biomass (ie, waste plant matter) to produce H2 in a process with 100% energy gain (the energy out is more than the energy in) not to mention that the energy put in could be waste heat, resulting in essentially free H2. H2 can be used in portable capacities, such as cars. Solar cannot fulfill these particular needs, although it could be used to create H2, at a much lower level of efficiency.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Top-tier solar panels are now close to 19.2%. Solar collectors using polished metal parabolic reflectors concentrating sunlight onto sterling engines are close to 40% (38% actually).
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