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Dishwasher-Size, 25kW Fuel Cell In Development
mcgrew writes "Forbes has an article about a new type of fuel cell that is 90% less costly than current cells at one tenth the size (making it the size of a dishwasher), with far higher efficiency than current cells. It runs at only 149 degrees Celsius (300F) . It was jointly developed by Diverse Energy and the University of Maryland. 'The first-generation Cube runs off natural gas, but it can generate power from a variety of fuel sources, including propane, gasoline, biofuel and hydrogen. The system is a highly efficient, clean technology, emitting negligible pollutants and much less carbon dioxide than conventional energy sources. It uses fuel far more efficiently than an internal combustion engine, and can run at an 80 percent efficiency when used to provide both heat and power.' It produces enough power to run a moderate-sized grocery store, or five homes. A smaller, home-sized unit is on the way. Is the municipal power plant on the way out?"
How the fuck is something like this insightful?! Every single line is full of bullshit, by someone who clearly have no idea how things work, and is just getting talking lines from somewhere.
If it was funded by the University, you can bet your ass the University will get is share.
For example, Google's famous PageRank patent is owned by Stanford:
http://contracts.onecle.com/google/stanford.lic.2003.10.13.shtml
http://www.clickonf5.org/10824/google-pagerank-license-expire-2011/
Fucking moron moderators as well. Insightful my ass. You whole lot should be the ones locked up for sprouting lies on the Internet.
(1) The pipe is as easy to break as the power line
My experience:
Frequency of electricity outages: About every six months. More when I lived where thunderstorms are common.
Frequency of gas outages: Never. Not even once. In my entire life.
(2) It's more efficient to generate power on a large scale
This is only true for generators. It is NOT true for fuel cells, which is what this article is about. Fuel cells benefit little from "scale", and not enough to offset the transmission losses you avoid with local generation.