Energy Day and Night from Solar/Fuel Cell Combination

Thanks for sharing, James, it's good to get the news out on these kind of developments. Cheers!

Thanks for getting the word out, to both of you!

Thanks for the feedback. I've worked on electrocatalysis and enjoy thinking about it. This is a good story that seems quite practical. Best wishes!

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Perfect timing; have been doing research on this for information and this & Sam's articles will really help me. Thank you very much!

Very cool!

excellent article

How about showing some comparison between batteries and fuel cells?
Batteries are here now.
Batteries are a simple two step process and are well understood.
To store a lot of energy with hydrogen you have to either combine it chemically with something or put it in a big heavy tank, it gets worse if you have to move it around.
Fuel cells have their niches, can you explain why you prefer to pay more for a fuel cell than to use a battery system?

Bruce, you are asserting that I said things about batteries vs. fuel cells that I never said.

I never said I prefer to pay more for a fuel cell than a battery. I don't even know what you mean by this (how do you set prices on things that aren't being sold yet (i.e. fuel cells for home use that would be coupled with a complete photovoltaic/electrolytic system with provision for gas storage, gas use and water recovery)?

I'm a little surprised by the tine of your comment because most people have the exact opposite reaction when they hear about batteries, say in relation to solar energy or electric cars: they say, "Oh, the batteries will never work, they won't last long enough, they'll cost a fortune and end up in landfill in a few years, etc., etc." None of these statements is close to the truth, in the sense that modern batteries (of more than one basic technology) last a long time, 15-25 years in some applications. But, you are a pro-battery guy, so this probably isn't news to you.

I'm neither for nor against batteries, in general terms, I'm simply for sensible practices and policies that provide energy for society without destroying the environment. Let's call this "my philosophy".

I'm curious though, what makes you think that fuel cells aren't here now? Some aren't, but some are. The military is using fuel cells now in serious field tests. A glance at the program of the Small Fuel Cells 2008 conference shows that practical, working examples are on the agenda. One of the pioneers of fuel cells just passed away at age 76 (Geoff Ballard). Fuel cells are not new at all, but there are new ways to use them and new materials to make them or facilitate their use being invented and developed all the time.

With the above philosophy of mine in mind, there is probably no such thing as reaching the point where, bingo, we don't have to improve things any more for the rest of the future of civilization. We'll want to continue to improve efficiency as much as possible. Read Steve B. and Sam Carana's posts and comments, for example, for information about the inefficiency of power transmission and the value of local electricity generation.

The current article is about research results that allow electrolysis of water to be done with vastly inexpensive materials vs. the current norm. By reporting on this technological advance, I'm not making a case for or against anything, I am relaying information in a way that I hope people will understand. I wrote this article because, although the discoveries were widely reported, I saw many questions on blogs and newspaper websites indicating that some of the fundamental importance of the discoveries was being missed by a number of readers, and I tried to address those specific points of misunderstanding through the way that I chose to emphasize things. I'm not selling anything here, I'm just informing people in a nontechnical way about some technical advances. I believe it is important to do so because there is tremendous misunderstanding, even among the enthusiast community, regarding a whole range of energy issues. If I think I can add something to the discussion, I do.

Take, for example, the series of three articles and a follow-up column by Loyd Case of ExtremeTech, who documented the process of turning his home into a solar-powered home with photovoltaic cells. He wrote the follow-up article because so many people kept asking "where are the batteries, how much do they cost and how long do they last?" There were no batteries in his system at all, but there was a lot of information provided, people missed this message until he spelled it out. He simply sells his excess electricity to the grid during the day and buys power from the grid at night. After the first (nearly) full month of operation, his electricity bill was under $12.

The alternative to having no batteries is to pay a lot more for a battery-based system (and perhaps not buy any power back from the grid). .. or to use your electric car's battery as a storage system for some of the excess electricity... or to use a fuel cell, or any number of other options. What is most cost-effective now may be quite different from the best solution in 10 years, and will depend on where you live, the tax code, etc.

How do you know what the niches for fuel cells are if you don't know the best ways to generate the fuel for the cells? Those "niches" might be much larger under some circumstances. Or not. The point of this science, as reported in my story, is make more things possible. Nobody is suggesting that foolish choices should become part of the solution.

So, I think you have misread me, and I hope I have clarified things. If not, please let me know. Thanks for the feedback!

p.s Bruce, The whole point of the hypothetical system described by Nocera of MIT, based on his new electrolysis catalysts being combined with PV (solar) cells and fuel cells, is that the hydrogen does not have to be moved anywhere at all. It goes into a tank during the day, coming from the electrolytic cell, and then comes out of the tank at night to feed the fuel cell. The tank is at your home. No power or hydrogen transmission occurs except over very small distances,

Also, thanks to Robin, t b, Rhonda and Dan for the comments and feedback.

james, can you tell me which costs more a battery or a fuel cell?
how much does a fuel cell cost, and where can i get one?
i am just asking you some simple questions, i don't know how you
wrote 80 lines and did not answer my question?

Thanks, but I would rather have dental work that read anything by Sam Carana.

As more wind turbines become operational, there will be a growing surplus of electricity at night, when there's plenty of wind but little demand for electricity. It makes sense to use at least some of this electricity surplus to produce hydrogen, as there are cases where carrying hydrogen is more efficient than storing all required power in batteries. Most media attention has been given until now to hydrogen cars, such as Honda's Clarity.

As I reported earlier this year, emissions from the world's merchant fleet are estimated at 1.12 billion tons of CO2 per year, or nearly 4.5% of all global CO2 emissions. To cross an ocean requires a lot of energy, the required battery capacity would be huge. Therefore, it makes sense to power ships with hydrogen.

I can also see applications for hydrogen in aviation. As I also reported earlier this year, Boeing has demonstrated that planes can fly on hydrogen. This makes sense, as the weight of batteries makes it hard for planes to fly on battery power alone, especially over longer distances.

Clearly, there's a huge market for hydrogen, and not merely in transportation. We're just waiting for politicians to wake up and do the right thing.

I did answer your question, at least twice. I said that the kind of fuel cells discussed in my article are not available at a meaningful market price because there isn't a meaningful market yet, and that fuel cells are being made under contract for the military, which makes their true price hard to determine; I gave the link to the description of the military methanol fuel cell so you can see the raw numbers for yourself. I figured you could use Google as well as I, but entry 4 from a search of " uses of fuel cells 2008 military" brings us to fuelcellstore.com, where you can buy a 30 watt cell for $900 and a 300W model for $3000. There are many other models available.

H-300 (300W stack and peripherals)
H-300 PEM Fuel Cell System Includes control electronics, connectors, and electronic valves.

$2,999.00

H-30 (30W+controls+20L MH Storage)
Our Products: Fuel Cell Systems > Fuel Cell Systems 1W < 100W
SKU: 72090003
Weight: 2 lbs
H-30 PEM Fuel Cell System Includes control electronics, H2 storage, valve and regulator. More details...
Price: $899.00

So this is more of an informative article informing the reader that
fuel cells exist? That is a positive thing to do. I thought you
were advocating solving the energy problem with fuel cells at
this point or demanding the government subsidizing fuel cells?

I think it may be misleading in the sense that you say fuel cells
are on the market, but the article talks about photo-voltaics
and ways to produce hydrogen. You could be more clear about
separating the stages of making H2, storing the H2, and then
the fuel cell part of making electricity and that these are
separate costs.

Maybe you misunderstand me when I asked you how much
a fuel cell cost, I am asking a bigger question, like in the first
line of my post, compare batteries and fuel cells right now,
and maybe some idea when fuel cells may be competitive
for the application you mention of powering your house.

I have been reading Popular Science/Mechanics for a long time
and there are lots of what seem like great ideas that turn out
not to happen.

One of the reasons for the dental work comment is that it's
difficult if not impossible to point out the true fact that the
government and industry are not deliberately doing the
wrong thing as regards fuel cells or some other technologies
and there are reasons that we do not see them as alternatives
in many cases, like they do not exist in the form that solves
our particular problem, but as listeners to Art Bell prove, people
love conspiracies and talk that makes everything look trivial.

The Honda Clarity from this diagram appears to almost be the same as as a gas hydrib electric,
where a power generating source charges a battery and powers the car.

Except in the Clarity instead of gasoline which is cheap you have a tank full of expensive and rare hydrogen, and instead of an internal combustion engine which is cheap as well and well understood, there is a fuel-cell - both already contain batteries.

Granted that prices will go down and conditions will change, but it seems like to me that it will always be cheaper, lighter and simpler to generate electriticity somewhere somehow when it is clean, cheap and convenient, and transmit it to where it is needed and store it in a battery if necessary. We only add in the generators, ICE or FC because current batteries are slow charging and low capacity for too long distance driving.

My questions were predicated on my belief that battery technology will likely improve enough to stay ahead in most applications of ICE and FC to where it is simpler and cheaper and probably always will be than adding in a H2 tank and a FC just for the sake of doing so, with enough certainty to make subsidies of H2 as are happening now an unnecessary gamble.

I don't really mean to attack you, I just want to get your reaction to that discussion.

Bruce, thanks for all of the comments. I don't feel you are attacking me, though I feel you are responding to someone else's article, but that doesn't really matter if we can have a productive discussion. I'll respond in more detail later, but I did want to react to your "expensive and rare hydrogen" statement: hydrogen is neither expensive nor rare. I have a tank of it in my laboratory at all times (literally), and use it constantly. It is produced on a massive industrial scale and is cheap, and this has been the case for about a hundred years. Hydrogen can be ordered in huge amounts. Also, there are technologies like hydrolysis that, today, produce commercially viable hydrogen supplies "on site", i.e. locally, exactly the way that is described by Nocera in his hypothetical solar/fuel cell combo linked by hydrolysis (though these local production methods account for only a few percent of present production). I already had this discussion after another Gather post, and provided data about how many tons of hydrogen per year are generated, etc. The answer is "(50 million tons) are produced every year—enough hydrogen to fuel 250 million fuel cell cars. Some of this hydrogen is being used to fuel vehicles," from Air Products, a (perhaps the) major producer of hydrogen worldwide. Please see the Air Products website in the previous link and/or the comments after the article at this link for more info on industrial hydrogen production. Best wishes. Jim

James:
> hydrogen is neither expensive nor rare

Well, I cannot buy it at any price at a gas station, though I guess
there are a few hydrogen fuel stations in operation. My impression
was that the H2 is being subsidized.

In terms of expense, can you quantify that on an energy density
basis with gasoline? What is the cost per energy unit of
hydrogen that you buy with equivalent gasoline?

If we have 50 millions tons of H2 produced in a year, what is
happening with it now? How is it the bulk of it being generated?

from the link I supplied:
The majority of merchant hydrogen is produced by a process called steam methane reforming (SMR). Hydrogen is generated from a hydrocarbon (such as natural gas) and water at high temperatures in catalytic reactors. The hydrogen is typically purified using pressure swing adsorption.

Some of the merchant hydrogen sold is recovered from industrial processes. While this is still fossil fuel based, it is allowing us to recover the hydrogen for direct application instead of being combusted by its industrial producer for its heating value.

About 95% of the total global hydrogen production is captive meaning it is used at the site where it is produced. (Merchant hydrogen represents the balance.) Much of the hydrogen produced from coal is in China for ammonia production.

question
How do you get the hydrogen to the customer?
answer

Hydrogen can be delivered to your site by truck as a liquid or compressed gas, or it can be generated on-site. It is also delivered by pipeline. The primary reason hydrogen is liquefied is for its higher storage density, which allows easier deliver. For industrial customers that use large quantities of hydrogen, the production facility is often built at the point of use. Electrolysis may also be used to generate hydrogen on-site for very small users. In the future, as small reforming generator technology improves, an additional on-site sourcing option for the full range of users will become available.

question
What does hydrogen cost?
answer

The cost of hydrogen is dependent on the production technology, the cost of the feedstock, and power. Delivery, storage and fuel delivery equipment are also part of the cost. Our industrial customers see a wide range in price difference depending on their geography, delivery method and use quantity. It is our belief that hydrogen has the potential to compete with gasoline when the improved efficiency of the fuel cell is taken into consideration.

The cost of hydrogen produced at a large SMR is approximately equal on an energy equivalent basis to gasoline at a refinery.

Currently, most hydrogen is produced from natural gas. That's still a lot better than oil, from many perspectives. According to the California Energy Commission, critical greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline. The oil used by ships is of the most polluting kind. Eventually, I expect most hydrogen to be economically produced from water with solar and wind energy. Within years, I expect that legislation will be put into place encouraging ships to be powered by hydrogen, rather than oil.

Currently, the market is heavily distorted - the price of oil is kept low artificially, such as through manipulation of the EPA by the Bush administration. This is bound to change, let me quote:

"Kai Ryssdal: When it comes to producing greenhouse gases, airplanes, ships and heavy agricultural equipment are pretty much in a class by themselves. So today, five states and a coalition of environmental groups said they're going to sue the Environmental Protection Agency to force it do something about that."
- above quoted from:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977411392

The market has already recognized that wind energy is economic. Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is putting his money in wind turbines, making a $2 billion investment as the first step in a multibillion-dollar plan to build a wind farm in Pampa, Texas.

"A 2005 Stanford University study found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global demand 7 times over — even if only 20% of wind power could be captured. Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns. That's a lot of money, but it's a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it's a bargain."
- above quoted from:
http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/

As the number of wind turbines grows, there will be a growing surplus of electricity at night, when there's plenty of wind but little demand for electricity. As said, it makes sense to use at least some of this electricity surplus to produce hydrogen. As prices of electrolyzers and fuel cells come down, hydrogen will in many cases be the way to go.

Since off-shore wind turbines can produce twice as much electricity as land-based turbines, I expect the Hydrogen Economy to take off at seaports. Electricity from wind turbines will go over the grid to hydrogen filling stations that will use electrolyzers to produce hydrogen and store it in compressed form in tanks. Those hydrogen filling stations will subsequently supply hydrogen to numerous ships, cars, buses and trucks in the area.

At the same time, technical innovations such as mentioned in the article will allow many places to store solar energy in the form of hydrogen, thus having access to power around the clock, without a need to be connected to the grid.

Hi James, thanks for your responses. That is as I
thought. So in this case can you explain what happens to
the carbon in the methane when it is reformed into hydrogen?
Is it sequestered in some way to add some value to forming
the natural gas it into hydrogen making it "greener"?

So, James, then basically this diverting natural
gas to the production of hydrogen. I suspect that there
is a cost to this as well, can you informs us about that?

I think where there is "captive" hydrogen it is a great byproduct
and energy should be reclaimed from that wherever possible.

James - in its liquid form I believe hydrogen has much
more energy density than gasoline. Do you have an opinion
on the safety of the transport of large amounts of hydrogen
by pressurized container this way, versus gasoline or electrical
transmission?

James, electrolysis for the small users you
mentioned would be taking electrical energy and using
up part of it to create H2, correct? Why would they want
to do that?

So, James, not to questions your motives, but you
are making your livelihood from hydrogen, right?

When you say:

> It is our belief that hydrogen has the potential to compete
> with gasoline when the improved efficiency of the fuel cell
> is taken into consideration.


You are referring to using natural gas to create hydrogen
I think, right?

So, part of the questions I would want to know is, how does
this reduce CO2.

What is the loss in terms of the energy that could be used by
just running a car on natural gas as some cars already do?

I'm making the assumption that there is cost to build hydrogen
cars, which might be reasonable if a generic electric car can be
designed with ICE, battery, or FC power modules. What about
creating a huge fleet of hydrogen cars, is that a good long term
investment? And the stations and all the rest of the infrastructure?
Can you point to any studies that justify this.

I have mostly assumed that Schwarzenegger's Hydrogen Highway
project is mostly hype and subsidies. What do you think?

Then finally how long do you expect the natural gas to be
available to create hydrogen?

My bias is that electricity is a better energy currency, it is
massless to transmit, if you ignore the initial mass of transmision
lines, and can be used for about anything anywhere.

This then calls into question battery technology which
in terms of a pluggable electric/hybrid seems to be here
already at least as a start. James how are you
expecting batteries to compare with other modes
of energy storage?

Since I've already answered these questions numerous times, it's a good idea if Brude took his foot out of his mouth before some serious dental work is needed.

Bruce, if you go back to the original article, it describes a process for making hydrogen without any hydrocarbons- it uses electrolysis of water. No CO2 is generated. Electrolysis is presently used and commercially viable in some circumstances, but a much cheaper and cleaner way to carry it out could make electrolysis to generate oxygen and hydrogen a highly popular and distributed process. That is the point. The point has nothing to do with hydrocarbons except eliminating them.

Electrolysis = good, maybe very useful, doesn't generate CO2, generates hydrogen and oxygen which can power fuel cells.
Hydrocarbons = bad, currently far too useful and used far too much, and simultaneously very damaging.
Solar cells = good, presently useful and being used.

You claimed that hydrogen was expensive. I provided the facts that it is not. Hydrogen doesn't have to become expensive if hydrocarbons are no longer the source, especially if better electrolysis is developed (as in with catalysts that avoid noble metals).

If you would forget about the massless nature of electricity transmission and take the time to read about the massive energy losses incurred by this transmission, you would see why local production and not transmission is the way to go. Whether the electricity is stored by batteries or by generation of oxygen and hydrogen from the electrolysis of water is secondary; clearly batteries are more mature at present, but who can say what will be invented? If electrolysis is developed, we'll have options and then a sensible cost analysis can be made for hydrogen that is produced from non-carbon sources vs other energy storage media.

I'm not expecting anything in particular- I don't tell the future. However, I believe that pushing the science and technology to its limits of clean/green application, in battery design, energy storage by other means, and in related areas, will give us more options, on a practical level, than we have now.

Depending on the application, batteries may be ideal. They may also be far too heavy and far too bulky for other applications. That is exactly why the military is using methanol fuel cells to power laptops and other electronics in the field. Some batteries are adding too much weight to gear and don't last long enough to be sufficiently reliable or practical.

If you are going to plan the future based on what we could do yesterday instead of what we will be able to do tomorrow, you will rarely get things right, at least over any significant time span. However, I have nothing against batteries and hope we are all driving battery-powered electric cars powered by solar energy and regenerative braking as fast as we can reasonably afford it (without wasting the resources that went into making our current cars). I don't understand why this is an either or matter with you, or why you expect an sensible comparisons to be made between technologies that are commercialized (if pitifully so in the US) vs technologies that are being developed.

You keep changing the subject on me and don't seem to want to read the material I provide. It has become annoying, in part because you don't seem to be taking in more than random bits of the information I'm providing. As for this claim that I'm making my living from hydrogen, it is nonsensical to an extreme. I spend money on hydrogen, but not much- maybe about $100 a year. It has no more (or less) to do with my making a living than the fact that I use computers, pens and pencils. You must have the attitude that anyone who understands something is too contaminated to make sensible decisions about it. This is a form of anti-intellectualism. It is a disease in the USA.

Matt: "Does anyone remember that pure hydrogen is very flammable and explosive? Remember the Hindenburgh?"

It wasn't the hydrogen that was the problem with the Hindenburg, it was the lining. Remember that gasoline is also very flammable and explosive. Hydrogen is very light and thus goes upwards, which is much safer than being doused in burning gasoline. The fact that hydrogen is lighter than air and diffuses in air quickly makes it safer than most fuels. Well-constructed containers should prevent leaks. If leakage nevertheless occurs, the hydrogen will move up and away from the source of the leak. If the hydrogen subsequently inflamed, the risk of the container itself exploding is much less than in the case of a petrol tank leak, since the hydrogen will immediately diffuse into the air. Also, the heat resulting from burning hydrogen is significantly less than heat from burning oil, natural gas or gasoline.

Safety-wise I would rather travel in a hydrogen car or a hydrogen-powered ship or plane.

Matt: hydrogen is not particularly explosive, though one can't be cavalier about it (but the same can be said for gasoline, we we carry around at high speed every day, connected to hot engines). This has been discussed at length in many places, including the example of the Hindenburg. From the Air Products site:

Safety Issues and Concerns

The hazards of handling this gas must be kept in perspective, despite incidents such as the Hindenburg disaster. Unknown to many, this incident was not directly attributable to hydrogen, but to extreme flammability of the outer varnish containing aluminum particles when the vessel was struck by lightning.

When hydrogen burns, it has a pale blue, almost invisible flame. Contrary to what some people may believe, it is not inherently explosive. It must be mixed with air or oxygen before detonation can occur. Since it has such a high dispersion coefficient, it dissipates rapidly. Because of this, it is almost impossible for a hydrogen explosion in an open area, and a hydrogen fire will burn out faster than a petrol/gasoline fire.

Thanks for the input, Sam. Thanks for the comment, Matt.

Great information, James and Sam, thanks!

James:

I felt your last post in reply to me was a bit dodgey, or at
least was not as methodical as I was trying to be in asking
my questions in the order I asked them.

You had said in response to my post that by far most
hydrogen was created cheaply from hydrocarbons.
That is understandable, the energy is already in the
hydrocarbons, it is basically just changing chemical
energy from one form to another.

But when I asked about the carbon ramifications did
you switch over to talking about electrolysis ... an important
difference of which is that the energy from electrolysis
is coming from different processes, some of which are not
here quite yet, and then therre is electricity.

When you say you proved that hydrogen was not expensive,
what I get from that is that the hydrogen that already exists
as a gas in the form of hydrocarbons is not expensive, yes,
I agree.

The point I'm trying to get at is that in the oil industry there
is the best sweet crude from Saudi Arabia, and yucky tar
sands from Canada, hydrogen has different sources, and
costs associated with it.

Is it fair to point to a big reservoir of natural gas and to call
it hydrogen because we can convert it to hydrogen.

The whole process I am thinking of when I think about hydrogen
is storing energy the energy, mostly from electricity, but as your
article points the energy input does not have to be electricity
or hydrocarbons, it can be solar too.

What my last post was trying to do was to put these in some
kind of hierarchical perspective so it can be intuitively understood
where fuel cells might be best used, or batteries, or gasoline
for that matter?

??

Hi James, wondering what happened?

If most hydrogen is made from natural gas, is there some benefit
to making H2? We have the tanks, technology, delivery trucks
here now for natural gas, and we do not have to do anything to
it for it to be clean.

Does making H2 from natural gas remove the carbon or add
value to the process, and is that value greater than already
having the infrastructure in place to use natural gas?

I agree with your point that where there is "captive" hydrogen it
is a great byproduct and energy should be reclaimed from that
wherever possible.

In liquid form I believe hydrogen has much
more energy density than gasoline. Do you have an opinion
on the safety of the transport of large amounts of hydrogen
by pressurized container this way, versus gasoline or electrical
transmission?

How about the cost and sense of building a whole new
infrastructure of H2 transport from scratch?

Electrolysis for small users you mentioned would be taking
electrical energy and using up part of it to create H2, right?
What would I gain to create H2 in my house when I already
have electrical service?

What is the loss in terms of the energy that could be used by
just running a car on natural gas as some cars already do?

I'm making the assumption that there is cost to build hydrogen
cars, which might be reasonable if a generic electric car can be
designed with ICE, battery, or FC power modules. What about
creating a huge fleet of hydrogen cars, is that a good long term
investment? And the stations and all the rest of the infrastructure?

Can you point to any studies that justify this, and how much
taxpayer subsidy is going into hydrdogen?
I have mostly heard that Schwarzenegger's Hydrogen Highway
project is mostly hype and subsidies?

Then finally how long do you expect the natural gas to be
available to create hydrogen? The energy in natural gas
is already there and does not have to be generated, but
when it runs out then we have to find other means to
generate the electricitiy, but if we have electricty, why
use the extra step of creating H2 from it.


My bias is that electricity seems a better energy currency, it is
massless to transmit, if you ignore the initial mass of transmision
lines, and can be used for about anything anywhere.

This then calls into question battery technology which
in terms of a pluggable electric/hybrid seems to be here
already at least as a start. James how are you
expecting batteries to compare with other modes
of energy storage?

Thanks for posting on Getting to 3000 Together