Cheaper Fuel Cells

Technology Review ^ | 4/5/2006 | Kevin Bullis

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[scooter2]

Very interesting news. I wonder if the oil producers will be able to bury this?

[AbeKrieger]

could be a major step toward making them affordable

I'll be waiting down by the ethanol pump.

[nuke rocketeer]

Even if they can get the cost comparable to a gasoline/diesel IC engine, the cost of the fuel will still be prohibitive. Hydrogen is hideously expensive to make and methanol, while cheaper than hydrogen, still takes more energy to create that you can get out of it.

[Regulator]

Fuel Cells and all other power producing methods will never work, science and engineering are at a standstill, oil will always be the only way that power can be produced for anything, and when it runs out (but it won't: reference Abiotic "don't worry be happy theory") we'll all go back to the caves.

Right?

/Standard FR Luddite Rant

[JimRed]

Bio-neural circuitry from Voyager coming next!

[lmailbvmbipfwedu]

I would like to have a fuel cell running my house. The government won't allow it. If I get rid of the power company I risk having my house condemned as being unfit for human occupation. The same goes for water and gas. WRT automobiles, who is going to pay the gas taxes?

[umgud]

Can you imagine explaining cell phone technology to a telegraph operator? I am always amazed at how far we've come and am certainly optimistic and looking forward to where we will be in times to come.

Damn the Luddites.

[r9etb]

Even if they can get the cost comparable to a gasoline/diesel IC engine, the cost of the fuel will still be prohibitive. Hydrogen is hideously expensive to make and methanol, while cheaper than hydrogen, still takes more energy to create that you can get out of it.

There are advances on that front too, though -- somebody posted something coupla weeks back about an advance in catalyst technology that improves the liberation of hydrogen from things like methane.

[babyface00]

I wonder if this will work with natural gas.

That would make fuel-celled homes easy to accomplish (if you already have NG).

[taxcontrol]

You can use existing gasoline to produce hydrogen.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002106.html

Combine these two technologies and you get a fuel cell that runs off the hydrogen produced from gasoline. This could create an intermediate step for the deployment of the hydrogen infrastructure.

For example, your car stores enough hydrogen to go say 100 to 150 miles, granted, much shorter than today's cars but this still accounts for more than 80% of today's travel. That means you have to visit the hydrogen/gas station more frequently. This station has a converter that converts their gas supply to hydrogen and enables a hydrogen pump without the dangers of storing large volumes of hydrogen on premise. It also allows existing gas pumps to be converted into hydrogen pumps without massive overhauls of the gas station.

Consumers get the choice of either gasoline or hydrogen. As more hydrogen cars come into play, more gas pumps can be converted, adapting to the market place. Over time, other technologies such as conversion of NG to hydrogen can also supplement the gasoline supply.

This does not remove our dependence on oil but it would allow us to adapt over time. Down the road, it may be possible to create a hydrogen gas supply out to such stations.

[Wonder Warthog]

"....methanol, while cheaper than hydrogen, still takes more energy to create that you can get out of it."

Nope--not true.

[RightWhale]

if the oil producers will be able to bury this?

They already own much of the alternative energy technology.

[Wonder Warthog]

The article appears pretty misleading. The membrane material is STILL a form of Nafion--just with some added cross-linking agent and an added surface pattern. Not really a fundamentally new piece of materials sciene.

The quoted performance improvements "are" impressive, but I think they still need to get away from fluorocarbon polymer skeletons to get the costs down more.

[Regulator]

and am certainly optimistic and looking forward to where we will be in times to come

It is incredible, isn't it?

One of the office luddites told me a few years ago "Oh, I don't need a cell phone because what would I do with it?"

Now he has a company issued Treo, basically lives off the damn thing. Guess he figured out something to do with it...

[Sarajevo]

The government won't allow it.

Check out your state laws. Many states will allow you to sell excess energy back to the power company. It's basically stored on the grid until needed. That way, you can run your fuel cell, receive tax credits, and make a small profit.

[Krusty]

I disagree. There have been great improvements made in this area. Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe; eventually we're going to find a way to store it cheaply.

That's not to say I favor mandates or anything else that crams alternative fuels down our throats. If there is a market for something, eventually some scientist/inventor/researcher will find a way to produce the product, and it will be cheaper to buy and operate that vehicle. So why try to stand in the way, predicting failure? Just say, "I'm cautiously optimistic."

[nuke rocketeer]

The problem with hydrogen is NOT storage, but getting it. The chemical bonds it makes with other elements to form methane, water etc are very hard to break. The energy required to break these bonds exceeds the energy you will then get out of it by a large margin.

[Rockitz]

We use >4000 psi composite-wrapped storage bottles on rockets and they're pretty pricey- more than the cost of almost any new car on the lot at today's prices.