[camle]

something sounds too good to be true here. I remember pons & fleichman's cold fusion breakthrough.

has this been peer reviewed? published in a scientific journal? has anybopdy duplicated the research?

if not then there's a good chance it's PR generating bunk.

[The_Victor]

How much energy is required to produce the ethanol?

I'm guessing this is still an energy sink, not an energy source.

[Jack of all Trades]

Hydrogen does not emit any pollution or greenhouse gases.

WRONG. Water vapor is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.

At least the article correctly acknowledged the realities of producing H2. 99% of the time Hydrogen is portrayed as a limitless resource being suppressed by the evil oil industry.

[Petronski]

Fine, where do we get the ethanol, and at what cost?

[BipolarBob]

posted yesterday by wallcrawlr and Pioneer Press

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for posting this!

[DoctorMichael]

"...too good to be true..."
"...How much energy is required to produce the ethanol?..."

My best guess is that they use some sort of electrolysis setup to break the ethanol down and then collect the hydrogen. If this is true then you would need some power source generating electricity to drive this step............a coal-fired or nuclear power plant, anyone?

Horror of horrors, you'd be back to unacceptable (to the Greenies) technology.

[Eala]

The cell could produce 1 kilowatt of power, nearly enough for an average home.

I don't think so. I did a little assessment of the electric usage of my (rural) house, with the thought of installing a generator, and the peak figure (what it actually has to be able to put out if you don't want brownouts) came out considerably higher than that.

[spunkets]

"The Minnesota researchers envision people buying ethanol to power the small fuel cell in their basements."

...in additon to wearing rags and munching on fruits, nuts and lots of fiber. BTW, water is the most prevalent and potent greenhouse gas and they also left out the CO₂ it takes to produce the alcohol. 1KW will power a computer, or TV and a few light bulbs, that's it.

[philosofy123]

Where are you going to get the ethanol from? How much energy do you have to spend to get ethanol? This question is very important. If it is going to be net negative energy gain, then it is foolish to do. For example you can take water and use electricity to decompose it to hydrogen and oxygen. The amount of hydrogen produced from this process (electrolysis) is less than the electric energy used. Hence, unless the electricity used cost you nothing, then this process is net loss. If we followed the French in standardizing nuclear power plants, we could be now sitting pretty, with practically free electricity. We complicated that industry so much, and allowed a failed high school science politicians, and journalists to create fear in our population.

[ScudEast]

The thing I don't understand is - what application is there for burning Hydrogen (apart from space rockets) which can't be fulfilled by just burning ethanol. Can anyone enlighten me?

[fella]

Why bother with all this when the ethanol can go straight into the tank with only a few modifacations to the car. The only emisions would be CO2 and water and you could drink the fuel.