The £3,000 mini power station (fuel cell)

[jpak]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/03/12/cnpower12.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/03/12/ixcitytop.html

The traditional household boiler could soon be a thing of the past. Ceres Power, the Aim-listed group, has successfully designed and tested a 1kW fuel cell stack that generates sufficient power for the average home.

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The technology is expected to cost the same as a conventional premium boiler - between £2,500 and £3,000. Executives at Ceres believe their technology could save between 30 and 40 per cent of total electricity costs in the home. It would also significantly cut down the emission of greenhouse gases.

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[TreasonousBastard]

1. Great idea, but gas sources are...

becoming as limited as oil sources. If natural gas prices spike a few more times, this gadget could cost more than conventional electricity or heat.

What are the byproducts? A fuel cell powered by hydrogen lets out primarily water, but natural gas has those pesky carbon atoms lurking in the molecules that would either end up as a pile of soot on the floor or, more likely, as much CO2 as a conventional burner would put out (depending on its efficiency for converting the gas to energy).

[skids]

2. No soot.

They are still fossil fueled so there's still an associated carbon load. However we should support these micro-cogen units because the overall carbon load is slashed -- the waste heat from electricity generation is normally vented into the surrounding biosphere -- in this scenario it heats the household water supply and perhaps even the air during winter seasons. That saves a lot.

I do like the stirling variants (Whispergen) better, though, because they could potentially be reworked to utilize solar preheat as an additional energy input.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Better there should be soot...

rather than CO2. I'm sure we could find a use if pure carbon were collected from this thing.

Anyway, you're probably right that the net effect would be fewer carbon emissions with the greater efficiency and if wind, nuclear, etc., aren't too much of the calculation. Total cost to the user still might be a problem with gas prices.

Stirling's intrigued me and I wondered what happened to it. Scientific American used to have ads for tiny ones, and I built a demonstration one with a couple of coffee cans years ago, but haven't seen much since. Peeked at Whispergen, and they claim 90% efficiency, which is miraculous, to say the least. Should give them a closer look to see how they do it. I thought of Stirling more as a secondary source using waste heat, or some solar application.

[skids]

4. There is some active stirling development...

...here:

http://www.stirlingenergy.com/breaking_news.htm

[TreasonousBastard]

5. That's the kind of thing...

I had in mind years ago when I was fooling around with a solar parabola to make steam. Thought it would be the perfect place for a stirling engine, but never got the steam going, so gave up the whole thing. Back yard gadgetry took more time and money than I had.

So, it was a good idea after all. Kinda pissed I didn't get a chance to do anything with it, but at least someone is. And, no, I didn't get ripped off-- I'm far from the only one who was thinking about that.