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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?"
The municipal power plant isn't going anywhere.
Our house has all electric utilities - stove, oven water heater, dryer, home heating (in-wall heaters, no central furnace). I'm too lazy to add up the exact numbers, but we're probably paying $2000-2500 a year for electricity (Washington state).
#DeleteChrome
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.
It will never work.
It's been done before.
They'll get bought out.
The laws of themodynamics make everything impossible.
Only if the cost of the fuel cell pack + installation, and the on-going cost of propane (not natural gas??) is cheaper over 3-4 years than the cost of electricity.
In places where power goes out during storms, it might be fruitful to get one anyway.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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.
then our Italian friend, Andrea Rossi.
Source: NSF funded researcher. Disclaimer: NSF-funded researcher.
Great, so if you use the waste heat it throws off, you can get 80% efficiency. How is this different from the efficiency of using a Bunsen burner-heated teakettle to turn a little turbine for power, and claiming the waste heat as usable energy? Plus there's the entertainment value of the whistling sound of the kettle itself ...
What are the figures without the waste heat thrown in? RTFA was no help ...
And some tranks.
It's an energy conversion device. It converts fuel to electricity.
The universities and other entities involved with funding the research are not shafted when these startups happen. Spinoff companies are great for universities. They get paid for their ownership on the patent(s).
I work at a research management company.
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.
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I had thought fuel cell was an energy storage device, not a generator?
There isn't actually a strict boundary, it just depends on how much of the universe you wish to consider:
A fuel cell is always a means of turning inputs with chemical potential energy into electricity, at some loss from inefficiency. If you start your calculations with synthesizing your inputs (cracking water for hydrogen, say), you will need more energy to produce the fuel (because that is also inefficient) than you will ever gain by sending it through the fuel cell. It's just a way of moving/storing the energy.
If you start your calculations with a fuel already provided, or counting only the cost of extracting and purifying the fuel(as with, say, drilling for natural gas, or hooking up a propane cylinder) it counts as a generator, since your accounting ignores the original synthesis costs and only considers the upside, and possibly a few logistical costs.
More specifically it converts specific types of fuel to energy. Usually Hydrogen and Oxygen get converted to Water, and the reaction releases an appreciable amount of dc voltage.
Systems like this that take propane, or natural gas, (pretty much any hydrocarbon fuel is an option, though as the chains get longer you run into other problems, we're not likely to see conversion of tar to electricity any time soon) first strip the hydrogen out of the hydrocarbon, and capture and sequester, or release the remaining carbon,
This works as long as that fuel source is not cost prohibitive. You're not likely to get Reliant to deliver a gas line to the middle of no where just so you can have electricity, and if you decide to go with delivered propane, I recommend spending time actually running your entire load off the system to see what your usage patern would be like if the AC line were cut for several days at a time, and size your propane delivery and reserve to support those needs. (Do remember to allow for additional load that may be seasonal, for example lines brought down by an ice storm in the middle of winter are probably going to result in a different demand pattern for the propane than wind storm in the middle of summer. It's also likely to result in different delivery limitations of the propane, and power restoration by the AC provider.)
An alternative to natural gas would be to electrolicize water using solar or wind power (or even a small hydroelectric plant,) then use a straight hydrogen and oxygen fuel cell to recombine the molecules as your demand for power comes up. There are issues with this of course, you're going to have to find a way to stuff the hydrogen into something that you can extract it from later, though there are a number of possibilities for that already. No real need to worry about the Oxygen molecules. The percentage of O2 in the atmosphere is high enough that most fuel cell systems that work in earth normal atmosphere can use it. (you run into issues in space and deep sea situations, and in theory on other planets, but we're pretty much ignoring those situations here.
You never know...
"[it] can run at an 80 percent efficiency when used to provide both heat and power." This makes no sense. If you count the heat produced, any combustible material can easily yield much better than 80 percent efficiency just by burning it. Condensing natural gas boilers, for example, routinely run at >95% efficiency. Of course, they're producing all heat and no electricity, but by the specified criteria, that's more efficient than the Cube. Straight % efficiency in producing electricity only, would be a much more useful number. I doubt that they're only counting electricity in the 80%, but it's ambiguous as written.
The company is Redox Power Systems, not Diverse Energy. Diverse Energy's fuel cell uses ammonia as a fuel source, not natural gas. The summary is mixing up 2 different fuel cell technologies. (I know broke the rules and read the articles.)
There is no way they will ever get approval with the cronyism walking around to ever have someone generate all of their own electricity.
People are already being targeted for growing their own food by "STORM TROOPERS" which barge in with machine guns and kill everyone and ask questions later.
That includes a bullet for the family dog, cat and canary.
People don't understand what is going on with power, and forget the whole ENRON thing (which is still going on by the way, it just changed hands to people who are unaccountable.)
There is no way the Oil/Electric Gas companies will permit such a device _ever_.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I've read these stories and looked up fuel cell research for years, and it's very frustrating when I consider to actually buy a fuel cell. It always turns out that the smallest model costs like a car or the largest model is a science class demonstrator kit. A 5kw fuel cell that costs only double the cost of a 5kw Honda generator would likely find lots of consumer interest, but despite "promising research" since the '70s (and before, I'm sure), the one people would want to own never makes an appearance in the marketplace.
ok, firstly, that "80% efficiency when it provides both heat and power" is a copout. any engine can be 100% efficient when you classify usable energy output as both heat and electricity. i wanna know the efficiency of the electricity production.
secondly, how long is the lifetime of the unit? how much fuel can it process before the catalyst or membrane or whatever wears out? and how expensive is the catalyst? is it still made out of freaking platinum?
thirdly, can this thing be used in vehicles? planes? cause thats the real application of something like this.
My understanding is that up to half the energy available at a large plant can be lost through the resistance (heat conversion) and other factors (induction?) in the lines before it gets to it's point of use.
No, average loss from power plant to customer is about 7%. Even very long (1000+ mile) HVDC lines only add a few percent.
“Can every headline ending in a question mark be answered by the word 'no'?”
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
And your understanding is way off. Power transmission is over 90% efficient, even more than 95% efficient in areas with newer equipment.You can even do long distance transmission without getting anywhere near 50% loss, A single 5 GW, 2000 km line would be about 95% efficient.
The cost of natural gas will soar through the stratosphere once these become widespread. It's bad enough when a spike occurs due to an excessive winter season (2005 for example). Early adopters will benefit. Everyone else will get fucked once LNG futures rise.
Life is not for the lazy.
Taxes have funded our advances for decades.
Where have you been?
Thing is, businesses wouldn't fund much of the research that gets done... and for good reason: most of it doesn't result in profitable technologies and products.
We wouldn't be #1 if we didn't fund this research.
Personally, I would reduce defense and increase research spending by a factor of ten.
5'7, 150lbs, and powers 5 houses for minimum wage.
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.
Our taxes go on that kind of thing because without funding it, the scientists will leave to other countries, and in 5 years time this is what you will have:
An economy trying to recover, just about
No researchers with cool ideas for how to spend the money you now have on projects that could run the economy for the next while
No graduates from uni worth anything because they've had no one worth anything teaching them anything.
Basically, because the people who are running the country have some foresight, and realise that we need to spend money to make money. Unlike you, you idiot.
"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.
Go USA!
Watch this Heartland Institute video
25kW/33hp is more than adequate if people could only let go of the idea that their cars need to weigh two tonnes and have a large overcapacity for the majority of their needs.
There are a lot more considerations than just fuel economy for most of us.
A single-occupant commuter vehicle with a space frame and carbon fibre body weighing more like 500kg would have excellent performance with 25kW.
So we're supposed to buy a second car just to commute to/from work? Very few people have the luxury of buying a car just to handle their daily commute. If you're one who does, good for you. The rest of us are going to remain stuck making tradeoffs among the various requirements of our lives.
Average # of passengers is almost always >1 so your proposed vehicle immediately becomes useless the moment you need to carry a passenger. Such a vehicle would be virtually unusable where I live for 4+ months of the year. (top tip - light cars are demonstrably dangerous to drive in 1-2 feet of snow which happens regularly in some places) A light car like that wouldn't likely be particularly comfortable, quiet or pleasant to drive. Not to mention it would virtually require owning a second vehicle or keeping a rental company on retainer. Add in that it would cost $ to insure, require space to park, and create a bunch of extra pollution just creating the thing. Let's not forget that most of us have families and do a significant amount of driving with at least one extra person in the car. Frankly I'd be better off buying a motorcycle except for the risk to life and limb.
I like how you play fast and loose with the facts, like arbitrarily switching back and forth between absolute values and per-capita values, depending on which one puts the US at the top...
1) The US is only #1 in incarcerations because China is #1 in executions...
2) Obesity is falling slightly in the US, while other countries are rising. Some reports say the UK has surpassed the US, but in a few years the US will definitely lose it's #1 spot.
3) Divorce and marriage laws could use some reforms.
4) TV is NOT A BAD THING. The US/UK might be #1 just because we have more leisure hours. Or perhaps because we have the best entertainment, news, and documentary industries.
5) Only if you emphasize the "illegal" part of it. Legalizing drug use like other countries doesn't make the behavior better or worse.
6) We have nice cars. We have more cars total, and per-capita, than anywhere else in the world, so it only makes sense that thefts would be higher in absolute terms.
7) "Reported" crimes are a GOOD thing. That means you have a working police and court system, and people are more likely to report crimes. It's the unreported ones that are a sign of your country going horribly wrong.
8) See above.
9) See above.
10) See above.
11) US heath care is always better in some ways than other systems around the world. And recent reforms (see: Obamacare) are going to bring prices down in the next few years.
12) We get all the best pharmaceuticals, our doctors correctly diagnose medical issues, and our insurance pays for them.
13) Keeping suicide rates down is a good thing. We're not #1 there, are we?
14) We have good, expensive schools, and we get good, higher paying jobs than elsewhere, so we can afford to incur and later pay off that debt.
15) Sounds like a strong entertainment industry is bringing-in more jobs to California, and exports are strong.
16) "Largest" everything (in absolute terms) happens a LOT when you have the largest economy (by far). And a lot of the reason for it is one of the strongest consumer economies in the world, which is also NOT a bad thing.
17) The US provides military services for more than 7 countries. NATO countries all depend on the US to some degree. The US maintaining a large blue-water navy is protecting the trade routes all other countries use, but don't spend the money to defend.
18) See above.
19) Simplification of the tax system would be good, but companies are managing, and the economy is doing just fine.
20) See #16. "Largest..." everything happens a lot when you've got the biggest economy. The US also has the best credit worthiness rating in the world, so you really can't claim there's a problem with the amount of debt.
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