Garageland: Hydrogen in the Garage - first hydrogen-solar powered home in North America

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/01/24/hydrogen_garage/

Garageland: Hydrogen in the Garage

Eugene Sonn
JANUARY 24, 2009

President Obama and Congress are promising to kick into high-gear negotiations over the $800 billion economic stimulus package this week. One hundred billion of that reportedly could go to alternative energy and energy efficiency. There's a guy in New Jersey who's been living inside all those energy buzzwords these last few years. He's turned the garage at his house into a hydrogen and solar power plant. As part of our series Garageland, Reporter Eugene Sonn takes us to the first hydrogen-solar powered home in North America.

---

…

The roof holds row after row of tidy solar panels. There's a second set parked next to the garage. Strizki walks around the other side of the garage to show off the project's centerpiece. There's a white metal case the size of a corner mailbox. Inside, lots of hoses and wires circle the guts of the operation.

"The fuel cell stack is right here. It has a car radiator on it and we can use the excess heat from the fuel cell in the winter to heat the garage," Strizki says.

Strizki's two-bay garage is big enough that you could run a small repair shop in it, if it weren't so full of stuff. He's kept the solar panels and the rest of his renewable energy dream in the garage to keep peace with his wife. "The boss says basically I can do what I want in my shop, as long as it doesn't affect her shop," he says.

Strizki calls what he does out here "bottling sunshine." His whole house runs off the solar panels. When they create excess electricity, he saves it by running it through an electrolyzer. It uses the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. He stores the hydrogen in 10 1000-gallon tanks. When the panels aren't producing enough juice, the fuel cell kicks in. Hydrogen gets run through the fuel cell, where it combines with oxygen. The chemical reaction creates electricity all over again. The whole process is run by three laptops sitting on one side of the garage.

…

[Botany]

1. wow!

:bounce:

[kestrel91316]

2. But, but, solar power is doomed to fail because ENERGY CAN'T BE STORED!!1!!11!!!

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Somebody forgot to tell Strizki

http://www.hydrogen.asn.au/hydrogen-fuel-cell-smart-house-australia.htm

[NNadir]

8. Oh yeah. There's lots of people living in Camden who can fill their backyard safely

with a brazillion hydrogen tanks filled with a brazillion solar cells and threaten to blow all their neighbors to kingdom come because they are ignorant dolts trying to make a stupid point.

So?

How much did your super dooper solar system and array of tanks cost you?.

Now that you have built and are using this great distributed energy system, maybe you will tell us how much it costs the government to come and audit and inspect your system to make sure that you don't wipe out half the block with your big industrial sized load of obliviousness.

I note, with due contempt, that the storage of energy has been known for many centuries, even before the mathematical formalisms developed most notably by Gibbs, but by many other great minds that Amory Lovins never heard of. In theory it has long been understood that one could build a giant rubber band and wrap it up to store solar energy for ever and ever and ever and ever, at least until one's favorite television show comes on.

And speaking of Amory Lovins, how is that great plan for molten solar tank in every yuppie suburban backyard - the one's he was talking about so confidently 32 years ago working out?

Has yours held up, or did it leak, and salinate every milliliter of ground water in a radius of 20 miles.

You would have to be a complete scientific ignoramus to understand that energy storage has always been possible, but you'd have to be a dumb ass "solar will save us" handwaver to be completely ignorant of the laws of thermodynamics.

Distributed energy sucks, because it's cowboy individualist stuff like the car which is the most obvious example of distributed energy known.

I note with due contempt, that the Utsira wind-to-hydrogen scheme that was being hyped for year after year after year by dumb anti-nukes in this very space has never been scaled up to more than the original ten houses. We don't even know if that expensive load of bullshit marketing is still working. The last we heard, funding was to end in 2008.

[jpak]

14. I note with due contempt that the NJ molten salt breeder reactor is a fraud

:rofl:

[zeemike]

4. It is about time someone did that.

And it could be improved on by some engineering.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. I've wanted to do something like this for years

and just never got off my ass and did it. The technology is there, it's just a little more brute force and wasteful than it could be. But it's there.

[Nederland]

6. I wonder...

...how the efficiency of this compares with storing the electricity in batteries as is normally done. Anyone know?

[Massacure]

7. Batteries would be more efficient.

In Wikipedia's article on fuel cells, they claim a 'round trip' efficiency of 30-50% between converting electricity to hydrogen and hydrogen to electricity. Batteries charge at efficiencies of roughly 90% and loss a couple percent of their charge per month.

Of course hydrogen has advantages over batteries in power density for mobile applications. I highly doubt hydrogen will ever be used for vehicles though. I think either batteries will either increase in power density and beat hydrogen to the punch, or engineers will find biofuels to be easier to work with. If is used for fuel production, Hydrogen will probably be used for the Fischer-Tropsch of biomass.

[Nederland]

9. In other words

...what this guy is doing makes no sense.

[madokie]

10. Apparently some would think that

Not me

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. One of the problems with batteries is that they tend to wear out

Another problem is that batteries tend to be larger and heavier. Fuel cells also tend to degrade.

People are working to extend the life of both. The question is, "Which will be best in which applications?"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080328114403.htm

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Bye-Bye, Batteries?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/110120/byebye_batteries.html

Bye-Bye, Batteries?

Long-lasting fuel cells favored to (eventually) power portable devices.

Lincoln Spector, special to PCWorld.com

Today's digital devices are smaller and more powerful than ever, but a roadblock obstructs further miniaturization: the batteries. Manufacturers can produce smaller notebooks, cell phones, and PDAs, but today's cumbersome power sources make the small packages impractical.

…

Small, relatively simple fuel cells that use methanol as their primary fuel could appear in mobile devices as early as next year. Fuel cells don't require recharging: When they run out of power, you simply replace the empty methanol cartridge with a full one.

These cartridges will pack a lot of energy.

"Methanol has 40 or 60 times the energy efficiency of lithium ion," the primary storage component of the best batteries, estimates Dr. Brian Barnett, managing director of the TIAX LLC consulting firm.

But the gains in energy density may be less dramatic at first. Early fuel cells will probably have as much as a 5-to-1 advantage over similar-size (but heavier) batteries, Barnett says. Theoretically, the ratio could increase to 10-to-1 as the technology improves.

…

Now, let's say, for example, you had a car. One power source is heavier and bulkier than the other. Which one do you think would be more practical? (i.e. Even if battery storage is more efficient, is it enough more efficient to justify the inefficiency of hauling around heavy batteries?)

Remember, the inspiration to use Li-ion batteries in cars came from their previous use in portable electronics (such as laptops, cell phones, iPods…) If those devices start using fuel cells…

[kristopher]

15. Look at it systemically

Where are you going to get enough fuel for the fuel cells? Exploitable renewable technologies produce electricity directly so that is the form of energy that you need to start from. How does the author propose to get that electricity into a high density liquid fuel similar to what we are now using? If we could do that, why even bother with fuel cells? Why not just work to increase the efficiency of the ICE and run them on this magically produced fuel?

The problems associated with transportation are distinctly different than portable electronics. This is a cockamamie suggestion of the sort that just confuses the issues we are dealing with.

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. How … to get that electricity into a high density liquid fuel?

Here's one way:
http://www.mitsuichem.com/release/2008/080825e.htm

Mitsui Chemicals to Establish a Pilot Facility to Study a Methanol Synthesis Process from CO₂

August 25, 2008
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.

Mitsui Chemicals Inc. (“MCI”) has decided to begin construction of a pilot facility which will be used to continue the company’s efforts to develop a methanol synthetic process from CO₂.

MCI has formulated a new Mid-term Business Plan (08MTP), in which the company, operating under the concept of “Creating Innovative Values,” aims to create new values through the completion of the three dimensional strategy consisting of Economy, Environment and Society and the generation of new technologies.

In the Environment area of the plan, the company’s basic strategy is “the development of innovative process contributing to significant reduction of GHG.” As a part of its efforts, MCI has been pushing forward the development of “Chemical immobilization of CO₂,” which synthesizes methanol, later used in the production of olefins and aromatics, using the CO₂ emitted from factories and hydrogen obtained from water photolysis.

MCI takes a step further in the efforts to industrialize this technology, establishing a pilot facility aimed at putting methanol synthesis and the separation and capture processes for CO₂(as described in the appendix) into practical use.

…

http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/sunshine.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2007

Sandia’s Sunshine to Petrol project seeks fuel from thin air

Team to chemically transform carbon dioxide into carbon-neutral liquid fuels

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Using concentrated solar energy to reverse combustion, a research team from Sandia National Laboratories is building a prototype device intended to chemically “reenergize” carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using concentrated solar power. The carbon monoxide could then be used to make hydrogen or serve as a building block to synthesize a liquid combustible fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

The prototype device, called the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5, for short), will break a carbon-oxygen bond in the carbon dioxide to form carbon monoxide and oxygen in two distinct steps. It is a major piece of an approach to converting carbon dioxide into fuel from sunlight.

The Sandia research team calls this approach “Sunshine to Petrol” (S2P). “Liquid Solar Fuel” is the end product — the methanol, gasoline, or other liquid fuel made from water and the carbon monoxide produced using solar energy.

Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratory.

…

[kristopher]

17. Uh huh...

And this is relevant to our transportation infrastructure how?

[OKIsItJustMe]

18. "And this is relevant to our transportation infrastructure how?"

I'm sorry? I believe you asked, "How … to get that electricity into a high density liquid fuel similar to what we are now using?"

I gave you an answer. Are you objecting to that?

A "high density liquid fuel" can be burned in an ICE, or (potentially more efficiently) in a fuel cell. Either of which can power a vehicle.

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. Micro Fuel Cells Get Closer to Replacing Batteries

http://www.physorg.com/news146139643.html

Micro Fuel Cells Get Closer to Replacing Batteries

November 17th, 2008 By Lisa Zyga in Technology / Energy

(PhysOrg.com) -- Mobile electronics have the potential to offer digital luxuries beyond our imagination, but they will never get there on today’s lithium ion batteries. Power has been the weak spot in the development of more advanced mobile electronics, and the need for power will become even more important as devices feature more energy-sapping applications.

One alternative to lithium ion batteries is fuel cells, due to their advantage of a high energy density – potentially, sixteen times higher than lithium ion batteries. Although researchers have been working on fuel cells for several years, they still face several challenges.

In a recent study, a team of researchers has developed micro-sized direct methanol fuel cells (microDMFC) that achieve significantly improved fuel efficiency and maintain a good power density while operating at room temperature. The energy density (measured in watt-hours per liter) of the new fuel cells is 385 Wh/L, which is superior to lithium ions batteries’ value of 270 Wh/L.

The research, led by Dr. Steve Arscott at the Institute of Electronics, Microelectronics and Nanotechnology (IEMN) in France, working in collaboration with SHARP Corporation in Nara, Japan, is published in a recent issue of the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, and a second study has been accepted to the Journal of Power Sources.

Both studies use methanol fuel cells, in which methanol is the fuel and serves as the anode, while air is the oxidant and serves as the cathode. The methanol and air circulate through the fuel cell in microscopic microchannels etched in silicon wafers. When the methanol and air react in the presence of an electrolyte, electricity is produced.

…

[kristopher]

21. Micro being the key word.

[kristopher]

20. Silly games.

OK, if you must. How do you propose to *efficiently* get that electricity into a high density liquid fuel similar to what we are now using? How much additional generating infrastructure will be required to obtain the as yet unspecified value of the energy density of the liquid fuel? How does that compare to the inefficiencies of hauling around 600 lbs of batteries?

You know full well the methanol powered fuel cell premise is nonsense.

[OKIsItJustMe]

22. "You know full well the methanol powered fuel cell premise is nonsense." (Tell MIT that.)

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/fuel-cell-0516.html

MIT creates new material for fuel cells

Increases power output by more than 50 percent

Elizabeth A. Thomson, News Office
May 16, 2008

MIT engineers have improved the power output of one type of fuel cell by more than 50 percent through technology that could help these environmentally friendly energy storage devices find a much broader market, particularly in portable electronics.

The new material key to the work is also considerably less expensive than its conventional industrial counterpart, among other advantages.

"Our goal is to replace traditional fuel-cell membranes with these cost-effective, highly tunable and better-performing materials," said Paula T. Hammond, Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering and leader of the research team. She noted that the new material also has potential for use in other electrochemical systems such as batteries.

…

The MIT team focused on direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs), in which the methanol is directly used as the fuel and reforming of alcohol down to hydrogen is not required. Such a fuel cell is attractive because the only waste products are water and carbon dioxide (the latter produced in small quantities). Also, because methanol is a liquid, it is easier to store and transport than hydrogen gas, and is safer (it won't explode). Methanol also has a high energy density--a little goes a long way, making it especially interesting for portable devices.

…

[OKIsItJustMe]

23. "You know full well the methanol powered fuel cell premise is nonsense." (Tell Patrick Takahashi)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-takahashi/is-there-an-option-more-p_b_150824.html

Patrick Takahashi
Posted December 15, 2008 | 12:30 PM (EST)

Is There An Option More Promising Than The Plug-In Electric Vehicle?

…

Per unit volume, a fuel cell should be able to provide five times more energy than the lithium battery. Chapter 3 of Simple Solutions for Planet Earth found in one of the boxes to the right provides the details on fuel cells, but, in short, this device works like a battery to produce electricity, but uses hydrogen as the energy source instead of lithium, lead or cadmium. However, and this defies common sense, one gallon of methanol has more accessible hydrogen than one gallon of liquid hydrogen. Thus, the logic argues for producing methanol from biomass to power a fuel cell, as hydrogen is very expensive to manufacture, store and deliver. This simplest of alcohols is the only biofuel capable of directly and efficiently being utilized by a fuel cell without passing through an expensive reformer.

Yes, methanol has only half the energy value of gasoline, but the fuel cell has at least twice the efficiency of the internal combustion engine, so there is a wash, here, regarding onboard storage. And methanol is no more toxic than gasoline. You shouldn't drink either one.

But we have problem. The U.S. Department of Energy has prohibited providing funds for vehicular DMFCs, and furthermore, stopped supporting biomass to methanol R&D. It has mostly to do with ethanol and biodiesel being selected as the only national biofuels. Thus, we are probably a decade away, if not longer, from being able to convert to a biomethanol economy for transportation.

Thus, unless some sudden advancement can be realized in bringing a transport DMFC to the marketplace, it makes sense to cultivate options such as the plug-in electrical car system, hoping that electricity from the renewables can enjoy a quick commercial transition. In any event, watch out for the direct methanol fuel cell, for this virtually ignored opportunity could well either someday replace vehicles powered by batteries or in parallel maybe develop even faster.

[kristopher]

24. Yes nonsense.

Unless you are endorsing a continuation of a carbon based economy, that is. The system efficiency has dramatic, negative consequences for the overall infrastructure requirements. That's why you've avoided that issue with irrelevant C&P having nothing to do with the systemic problems presented by recovering energy as electricity then trying to store it in methanol.

[OKIsItJustMe]

25. Nonsense to you

Not to others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_economy

[kristopher]

26. Nonsense period.

UNLESS YOU WANT TO CONTINUE USING CARBON BASED ENERGY:

from your wiki link:
The methanol needed in the methanol economy can be synthesized from a wide array of carbon sources including still available fossil fuels and biomass but also CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning power plants and other industries and eventually even the CO2 contained in the air.

Today methanol is produced exclusively from methane through syngas. Although conventional natural gas resources are currently the preferred feedstock for the production of methanol, unconventional gas resources such as coalbed methane, tight sand gas and eventually the very large methane hydrate resources present under the continental shelves of the seas and Siberian and Canadian tundra could also be used. Besides methane all other conventional or unconventional (tar sands, oil shale,etc.) fossil fuels could be utilized to produce methanol.

Besides the conventional route to methanol from methane passing through syngas generation by steam reforming combined (or not) with partial oxidation, new and more efficient ways to produce methanol from methane are being developed.

[OKIsItJustMe]

27. Well! I guess that settles it!

You say it is nonsense, and so it must be. Q.E.D.

How can I argue with such irrefutable logic?

http://www.technologyreview.com/biztech/wtr_16466,296,p1.html?a=f

…

TR: How do you make methanol?

GO: One approach is to produce methanol by converting still-existing huge reserves of natural gas, but in entirely different, new ways. Today, methanol is made exclusively from natural gas. Natural gas is incompletely burned, or converted, to synthesis gas, which can then be put together into methanol. Now we have developed ways to completely eliminate the use of synthesis gas.

The second approach involves carbon dioxide. We were co-inventors of the direct methanol fuel cell. This fuel cell uses methanol and produces CO2 and water. It occurred to us that maybe you could reverse the process. And, indeed, you can take carbon dioxide and water, and if you have electric power, you can chemically reduce it into methanol.

So the second leg of our methanol economy approach is to regenerate or recycle carbon dioxide initially from sources where it is present in high concentrations, like flue gases from a power plant burning natural gas. But eventually, and this won't come overnight, we could just take out carbon dioxide from air.

…

GO: I think we should explore all possibilities. There is no silver bullet. There is no single solution. I sincerely believe, however, that if you look really impartially, but hard-nosed, at the figures, the needs are so enormous that biological sources per se won't solve them. The president mentioned making ethanol from cellulosic materials. In principle it's possible, but it's a very difficult, undeveloped, and, in my mind, unrealistic technology. Batteries, sure, we should try to find better batteries. But realistically today, fuel cells are a lot more convenient than any battery.

…

[kristopher]

28. As long as you ignore the costs it is a fine system...

What is happening here is a nice reflection of the entire energy research and *development* landscape. There have been a lot of avenues pursued over the past 30 years, and we have had the time to thoroughly analyze the way they might all fit together to shape the future of energy.
The result is that many technologies are in the drawer, but some of them are going to be used much more than others - and for good reason.

Fuel cells are going to be valuable, but not in the personal transportation sector. Aside from the membrane problems, either they are only viable with fossil fuels or the energy penalty for producing a fuel is far too high. It isn't complicated.

They might be great for *micro* generation.

They might be the way to go for heavy equipment and hauling.

Then again they may not. The thing is they aren't suitable for the personal transportation sector, which is why no one is organizing the planning around them.

[OKIsItJustMe]

29. … no one is organizing the planning around (fuel cells) …

… The thing is (fuel cells) aren't suitable for the personal transportation sector, which is why no one is organizing the planning around them.

You're right of course. Absolutely no one.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/fuelcells/
http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fuelcell.shtml
http://www.epa.gov/fuelcell/
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/annual_review08_fuelcells.html
…

[kristopher]

30. Right, as I said

There are a lot of things in the drawer. Lots of good points and niches for lots of different technologies.

Now, do a comparison of how many commercial enterprises are planning to market how many lines of BEV vs the number and lines of fuel cell.

Now please stop being silly.

[NickB79]

12. Ahem. The system cost $550,000

From the link:

"Making that machine hasn't been cheap. Strizki put $100,000 of his own money into it. He got $250,000 from the State Board of Public Utilities for a demonstration project. He raised another $200,000 from green technology companies. All told, the garage power plant cost way more than his house."

[daggahead]

31. This is old news ...

Srtitzki got some grants from the NJ government to cover the costs.

This is a great start, but impractical if you don't have a few acres and a few hundred thousand dollars laying around.