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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.
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.
Source: NSF funded researcher. Disclaimer: NSF-funded researcher.
And some tranks.
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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...
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.)
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.
There is one place where a fuel cell that can work with butane and propane would have a -ton- of demand: The RV industry.
As it stands now, most RVs come with absorption refrigerators. These units have the advantage of being able to work with a boiler and a propane flame as well as an electric resistance element. However, they will destroy themselves if run off-level (the sodium chromate which is used as a rust blocker gets "cooked" out, and eventually will completely block the tube, cause a small pinhole leak. From there, the ammonia leaks out and the refrigerator is done for.
A range of absorption refrigerators have been also recalled, because there are reports of them causing fires.
Having a propane fuel cell means that the absorption refrigerator can be given the heave-ho. Instead, the fuell cell can charge the house batteries, and a compressor refrigerator that runs from 12 volts or 120/240VAC via an alternator can be used. This setup would be functionally identical to having to use the absorption fridge, but without the worry about having to have the RV perfectly level. Compressor fridges cool their contents a lot faster than the absorption fridge counterparts as well.
So, even though propane fuel cells wouldn't be useful for primary electricity, they would come in handy with RVs.
As another advantage, the power from a fuel cell would offset the electricity used to power a RV furnace's fans, which means that one doesn't have to have a loud generator or run a vehicle's engine for recharging. For people boondocking, one of the biggest considerations is running a generator as little as possible, because even the quiet ones do make noise.
If this Redox model can be scaled down to 5 kilowatts, this would completely replace the inefficient generator on the RV (generators have the Otto engine cycle which loses a good chunk of energy out the exhaust pipe coupled with the losses of energy from turning rotational energy into electrical. A fuel cell would use a fraction of the propane a propane generator uses.) This would allow running the air conditioner and microwave and other electric appliances.
Take this smaller to being able to do 300-500 watts, and this will compete with the EFOY fuel cells that are used in combination with solar charging systems to keep batteries topped off.
I'm hoping some commercial products come from this. Truma in Europe has a usable propane fuel cell, as well as top notch RV water heaters and furnaces... but they seem to have no interest in selling their products across the pond, and US water heaters and furnaces can be viewed as extremely primitive in comparison. For example, a Truma water heater has a passive mechanism to drain it when the water inside hits 35 degrees to prevent it from getting damaged due to freezing. No US heater has this.
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!
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