Solar-Hydrogen Powered-House
A friend asks:
Out of curiosity, did you ever hear of Mike Strizky and his purely hydrogen powered house in Hopewell, NJ?
No, that’s cool. Actually, of course, the power is coming from the solar PV; it’s stored in the hydrogen. Personally, I’m not too great a fan of hydrogen. I think that batteries will soon prove affordable, especially as the scale at which they’ll be used in electric transportation and utility-scale storage will drive further cost reductions. I hasten to add that not everyone agrees with me on this.
Hydrogen fuel cells have significant efficiency limits that (I believe) are impossible to cross, since the migration of the ion through the electrolyte produces heat.
I believe a large part of the problem that causes the low round trip efficiency in a hydrogen fuel cell/electrolysis system lies in the electrolysis, not the HFC. But I don’t remember where I learned this, so I could be wrong.
Batteries also produce heat when their ions migrate through the electrolyte, and I think this would be minimized with H+, since it’s the smallest possible ion.