Fuel Cell Breakthrough
Here’s a supposed breakthrough in fuel cells on which I thought readers may want to comment. I’ve always believed that the cost and longevity of the fuel cell itself is really not the gating issue here, but rather the creation and distribution of hydrogen.
Am I wrong? (I hate it when that happens.) 🙂
I think it’s important to regard hydrogen as merely a means of transporting energy, rather than as a fuel.
Among the crucial aspects to consider are how (by what method from what raw material and using what energy source) the hydrogen would be produced, what methods would be used to store it as energy for use in transportation (both at the station and in the vehicles), and how the hydrogen is then used to power the vehicles’ drive trains.
This development seems potentially valuable if all the other aspects are properly considered.
Here are some excerpts from an article which can be accessed by the link at the end.
Why a Hydrogen Economy Doesn’t Make Sense
In a recent study, fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy. The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use — an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future. Only niche applications like submarines and spacecraft might use hydrogen.
“More energy is needed to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds than can ever be recovered from its use,” Bossel explains to PhysOrg.com. “Therefore, making the new chemical energy carrier form natural gas would not make sense, as it would increase the gas consumption and the emission of CO2. Instead, the dwindling fossil fuel reserves must be replaced by energy from renewable sources.”
“An electron economy can offer the shortest, most efficient and most economical way of transporting the sustainable ‘green’ energy to the consumer,” he says. “With the exception of biomass and some solar or geothermal heat, wind, water, solar, geothermal, heat from waste incineration, etc. become available as electricity. Electricity could provide power for cars, comfortable temperature in buildings, heat, light, communication, etc.
“In a sustainable energy future, electricity will become the prime energy carrier. We now have to focus our research on electricity storage, electric cars and the modernization of the existing electricity infrastructure.”
Here is a link to the whole story.
http://phys.org/news85074285.html
A hydrogen economy is essentially an electron economy with a proton as an electron carrier. All these objections outlining why a hydrogen “doesn’t make sense” are simply a list of problems to be overcome so that it does. This argument is a lot like objections to heavier-than-air flight before compact engines and lightweight alloys, etc. were developed. Many of these objections to a hydrogen economy are becoming rapidly untrue. Platinum is no longer necessary for fuel cells. Inexpensive and efficient hydrogen production, and organic hydrogen carriers roughly equivalent to gasoline, combustible even in conventional engines, and even rechargeable are at various stages already from laboratory success as demonstrations of principle to commercialization. The organic fuel carrier is already being commercialized at a very limited scale. The storage density of the organic hydrogen carrier is roughly the same as gasoline.
Robert,
The organic fuel carrier you mention – is that a carbon substrate?
Cameron