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Dishwasher-Size, 25kW Fuel Cell In Development

Posted by Soulskill on from the does-it-clean-my-dishes dept.

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?"

9 of 379 comments (clear)

  1. Question asked... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Answer is no.

    While it would be awesome to have your own power plant. You're fighting aginst alot of money.

    Won't happen anytime soon.

    1. Re:Question asked... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Answer is no.

      While it would be awesome to have your own power plant. You're fighting aginst alot of money.

      Won't happen anytime soon.

      I assume that 'Big Power' is why ordinary liquid-fuel internal combustion generators can only be obtained on the black market, if you have the right connections, after their brutal suppression? Oh, wait, no, generators are ubiquitous and relatively cheap, they're just a pain in the ass to maintain.

      There is certainly a fair amount of capital tied up in generation and distribution infrastructure; but there are some points to remember:

      The power company isn't pleased by your fluctuating demand: In an ideal world of steady demand, you could get away with exclusively operating the absolute cheapest (generally a polite way of saying 'coal', except in very good hydro areas) base-load plants 24/7, and size your distribution infrastructure to that load, with a dash of margin for safety. Nice, easy, lowest cost per kilowatt hour. In the real world, with demand fluctuating throughout the day(lights/no lights, commercial facilities open vs. after hours, etc.), throughout the year (A/C in summer, some heating in winter, little of either in spring and fall), and potentially over the longer term(population increases and decreases in a given area, movements of power-intensive industries, turnover of housing stock, improvements or decreases in gadget efficiency), the problem is more complex.

      Short term fluctuations mean having to size the grid with peak load in mind (lest you risk some really hairy cascading failures) and mean having to have peak-load plants (often combined cycle natural gas) sitting idle part of the time and burning more-expensive-than-coal fuel the rest of the time. More capital invested, higher cost per kilowatt hour. Seasonal variations potentially mean even more facilities sitting idle, depreciating, part of the time, and longer-term variations mean wacky fun with demand forecasting and the potential for either customer displeasure or wasted facilities built for demand that never came.

      If somebody announced, tomorrow, that their 'Unobtanium Plot-point Reactor' could fully replace all legacy electrical infrastructure, it is indeed likely that there would be some... industry unhappiness. However, any widget that costs more than base-load generation and distribution and can be used at the customer site to reduce demand fluctuation and function as a backup unit is a mutually beneficial arrangement: The utility gets closer to their ideal of 100% stable demand, the customer has a backup/peak generator that is ideally less obnoxious than the old diesel unit.

      Plus, of course, for any given advance in power generation, there isn't anything stopping a large-scale producer from running the device at a large scale (with capital investment, and engineers on site, and other handy stuff) and offering the result for sale. Unless the transmission overheads or profits are usurious, many people probably don't want to coddle their own generator when they can just plug in for not much. Since the ability of utilities to individualize chargers based on precise per-person expense (ie. transmission line distance, difficulty of terrain, etc.) is typically constrained by some mixture of inadequate information and regulation, the customers who are least impressed by the centralized service (say the ones who live at the flaky edges of the grid, and deal with lots of exciting blackouts and issues, or in an area with brownout problems at peak) are also the customers that are likely to be least profitable.

    2. Re:Question asked... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If that's a concern, then I recommend you stop voting GOP. They're the ones that tend to be very vocally opposed to anything that might harm corporate profits.

      Exactly! It was the Republicans that voted for the bank bailout ... oops, no wait, that was the Democrats. Well, it was the Republicans that voted for the bailout of GM ... oops, that was the Democrats too. Well, it was the Republicans that supported the taxpayer subsidies for Solnydra ... no? Dang, Democrats again. Gee, this isn't looking so good.

  2. Re:Unless the amortized annual cost is low by hedwards · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What you're forgetting is that in WA we have some of the lowest prices on electricity in the country. Thanks to the WPA dams that the federal government gave us and the Californians that are incapable of producing enough electricity to cover their needs.

    In much of the rest of the country, the cost of electricity is substantially higher, so one of these would be cost effective much more quickly.

  3. Re:More ripping off the taxpayer by grumpy_technologist · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I know!
    • How dare they take research dollars and research new technologies?
    • How dare they follow through with successful research by *forming a business in the U.S. of A.* the very country that funded the research.
    • How dare they take advantage of NSF-funded programs to transfer successful research to US-based businesses? It's almost like they (congress, policymakers, and business) wanted this to happen.
    • How dare they use a volunteer-based peer review system to verify the findings and disseminate the results?
    • Finally, how dare they use the NSF-mandated Data magagement plan to make all data available to the public and other researchers? Clearly they are trying to dupe us all now!

    Source: NSF funded researcher. Disclaimer: NSF-funded researcher.

  4. Re:More ripping off the taxpayer by amiga3D · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I'll bring the rope.

  5. Nothing new, but good luck to them by evilviper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nothing new here. Identical tech dates back at least to 2009:

    http://www.cerespower.com/Technology/TheCeresCell/

    There's no question that fuel cells, that can run on the same fossil fuels we use now, would be a huge step forward, if they could be made cheaply enough. They exceed Carnot efficiency, so a fuel cell that ran on unleaded gasoline would instantly double even the best hybrid vehicle fuel efficiency. Large natural gas power plants would get perhaps a 50% improvement in efficiency. Fuel cells running on methanol are quite popular in forklifts because they are zero emissions, lower maintenance and get more run-time than batteries, according to the DoE.

    They'd be a great replacement for generators as well. Imagine a fuel cell in every cellular tower, with a CNG tank on-site in case both the power and gas lines fail (and can be refilled by truck). Imagine your central heating boiler being for home and water heating was generating free electricity as well as heat for a combined ~80% efficiency (almost as good as condensing boiler). Imagine every city block has a fuel cell the size of a utility cabinet, reducing transmission losses and easing strain on the power grid.

    High efficiency, plus fuel flexibility, plus almost zero maintenance (and nearly no noise), and little pollution, makes these things possible, where they aren't all that practical with conventional heat/combustion engines.

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  6. Re:imagine a firefighter's worse nightmare by rahvin112 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is a famous saying that if Natural gas was developed and proposed for residential use today (for the first time) everyone would freak out because of how dangerous it is.

    Every house in areas that already have natural gas heating already have everything you claim to be worried about.Gas is actually incredibly safe, it needs a precise mixture with oxygen to be explosive or burn. Yet it still kills thousands every year.

    Its paranoia like yours that handicaps society.

  7. Re:More ripping off the taxpayer by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "We wouldn't be #1 if we didn't fund this research."

    Sure you would.

    #1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe.

    #2 According to NationMaster.com, the United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.

    #3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.

    #4 The United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.

    #5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.

    #6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.

    #7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

    #8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

    #9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

    #10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.

    #11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.

    #12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.

    #13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.

    #14 Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else in the world.

    #15 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe. 89 percent is made in the U.S.A. and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.

    #16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year. Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.

    #17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does. In fact, U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.

    #18 The United States has far more foreign military bases than any other country does.

    #19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.

    #20 The U.S. has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse. Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.