"His energy bill is $0.00 " for his solar-hydrogen house.

[Eric J in MN]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070315/ts_csm/chydro

EAST AMWELL, N.J. - Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days.

Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates.

It sounds promising, even utopian: homemade, storable energy that doesn't contribute to global warming. But does Strizki's method – converting electricity generated from renewable sources into hydrogen – make sense for widespread adoption?

According to some renewable-energy experts, the answer is "no," at least not anytime soon. The system is too expensive, they say, and the process of creating hydrogen from clean sources is itself laced with inefficiency – the numbers just don't add up.

Strizki's response: "Nothing is as wildly expensive as destroying the whole planet."

[Lorien]

1. .

"Nothing is as wildly expensive as destroying the whole planet."

Amen.

[Rex]

2. Ooooh good point.

Nothing more costly than losing the entire planet.

[The Doctor.]

19. Well....

It's not the 'planet' we will lose...

It's "Life as we've known it" that will fall to our appetites.

Many species will become extinct, the missing links in the food chain will cause starvation among billions. But quite enough of us, we clever primates, will come up with a multitude of disparate stop-gap measures that will save the race from the abyss.

It won't be pretty, but no matter how bad it gets, the Earth will survive... even if we don't.

[robinlynne]

3. expensive.. how many billions have they stolen in these 6 years?

[Eric J in MN]

6. That's different. The war spending is off-budget.

Always more money for war. Giving the Pentagon $87 billion then $100 billion then another $100 billion every 6 months is a great way to support the troops.

(sarcasm)

[Orangepeel]

4. I'm very optimistic about technology

prohibitively expensive now doesn't mean prohibitively expensive later. If someone in the US doesn't figure out how to make such a system cheaply, someone in Japan or South Korea will.

[Eric J in MN]

7. Yes, the critics don't seem to be taking into account...

...the cost savings of mass producing the machinery in that guy's house.

[karlrschneider]

11. I'd love to be optimistic but what about the cost*of MAKING those gizmos?

...?

*cost...not just monetary, but environmentally...

[glitch]

5. I don't know this guy.

But I love him. K & R.

[karlrschneider]

8. Even solar energy isn't eternally 'renewable'. But it will outlast humans, so it's probably

the best thing to go with.

[shireen]

10. by about 5 billion years .... nt

[karlrschneider]

12. Which argument COULD be used (with, technically, justification) to promote

using up our geological resources as well. Not that I agree, but the argument is there to be considered.

[NuttyFluffers]

21. if we survive that long, we can switch from solar to "stellar" energy, right? ;)

in 5 billion years we'd likely be interstellar civilization (but more likely pulverized dust and at best remote memories), so by then we can substitute 'solar' energy (for our star Sol) and replace it with any other ol' star's energy. the only point this technology wouldn't be 'eternally renewable' would be when all the stars of the universe are snuffed out. true, you could be a few light years away from the nearest "light station," and thus probably doomed to die in a cold uncaring universe, but the point still stands. the basic technological premise of this energy generation method is about as eternal as eternal can be in this temporal plane. well, as long as we aren't all replaced by a singularity...
;)

[Cha]

9. Power companies don't

like that trend!

Didn't they squelch something in the last century that was invented so we wouldn't have to be chatteled to electricity?

[karlrschneider]

13. Maybe, but not all electric utilities are totally venal

We're in a coop and as members have a say in its operation. It's "almost" non-profit, in a way, that is we the 'customers' are also the 'shareholders'.

[Cha]

28. That sounds like a nice one..and so

rare these days. We are under national grid and they are our masters.

[babylonsister]

14. It's not viable now, and will never be unless we decide to live without oil.

Or at least attempt it. The huge corporations that give brazillions of bucks to someone for showing up will argue, as will all the people who depend on the industry.
Strizki has reached the pinnacle and I hope all those people who have made so much money lately follow his lead.

[Gregorian]

15. This system has been in use for decades.

It's not the first system. That's a lie. I hate to put it so bluntly. Look at back issues of Home Power magazine and you'll find people using these. They're actually quite complex. It's far from being a solution to our energy problems. But pretty darned cool. If you're into this kind of thing.
I love his response. But I think we need to start opening our minds to what the actual problem is. For some reason it's essentially unspeakable.

I should add that using hydrogen as storage (and not as combustion material) is a really good technique.

[EVDebs]

16. Combine this with the Co-Housing movement and maybe affordable housing nationwide

becomes a possibility. BTW, our grid-tied solar-electric system (installed on our detached garage roof) currently is giving 12kwh now on sunny days, as high as 21kwh a day in June with lows average around 2-3 during cloudy short winter days. Watching the meter run backwards is neat but you still need to air dry laundry and do things at off peak hours (common sense).

It will be around 11 years for payback on the system and the panels and inverter are said to last around 20 yrs. I'm looking at the new thin film solar stips for roofs, see this article in motherearthnews

http://www.motherearthliving.com/issues/motherearthliving/alternative_energy/New-Thin-Film-Solar-Panels-Fast-Simple-Smart_354-1.html

[msongs]

17. nice link to article on how to build your own hybrid electric car (from the 80's!) nt

[EVDebs]

18. Thanks, I'm into Ernest Callenbach's ''green triangle"

What's good for the environment is good for your health and your money and vice versa all the way around. BTW, is this the link to the article you just mentioned ?

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Alternative-Energy/1979-07-01/An-Amazing-75-MPG-Hybrid-Electic-Car.aspx

It looks intriguing

[Dead_Parrot]

20. No, his energy bill was $500,000.

Hands up who'e got half a million kicking around for that sort of set-up. Anyone? And this is hadly a new invention - all this technology has been around for decades but nobody uses it because, err, it's too expensive.

Destroying the planet is indeed as expensive as it gets: although spending $3,250,000,000,000,000.00 so everybody can have Strizki's setup comes pretty damn close.

And it may be emission-free now, but manufacturing that much steel and silicon will have released hundreds of tons of CO₂.

"We've been called by some A-list Hollywood types interested in powering their islands."

Whew, I guess we're all saved, then. :eyes:

[0rganism]

22. you gotta factor in some economies of scale, tho

any one-off prototype is going to be more expensive than what eventually succeeds on the consumer market. His rig illustrates that it's possible in theory, given some refinement. Knock it back by an order of magnitude ($50000), and it amortizes to something like a normal utilities bill over 20 years.

[Dead_Parrot]

23. But that's the point - nothing here is a prototype.

PV panels are mass-produced in a fairly competitive market. So are hydrogen electrolysers and fuel cells - you can buy a 1kW fuel cell off the shelf for $10k. So are the pipes and tanks: he's actually done it on the cheap, propane tanks aren't spec'd for hydrogen and he'll probably start having embrittlement problems in a few years.

All of this kit has already been refined for decades (mainly by the chemical industry): although plugging it together like this is new, no one part he has is revolutionary at all.

[EVDebs]

24. Still, some of this can be done cheaply and onthefly sotospeak

See my post above re Motherearthnews article on a doityourself hybrid car

[gatorboy]

25. The system is too expensive?

Again, how much are we spending in billions on the Iraq war each month?

[earth mom]

26. Big Business ain't making nothing off him-he better watch out!

That's the REAL reason we don't have a viable energy policy in place. There's not much money to be made off the sun. :grr:

[roguevalley]

27. I have a high efficiency washer and dryer and they cost about $50

a year together to run. I want to change my frig for a high efficiency one that I saw today that costs $15 a year. It is AWESOMELY PLEASING to get an electrical bill where you are going down when everyone else is going up. We have gone down $70 a month so far and we are going to do better. I want solar here but we are in a moderate zone. Will look into it anyway. I have to say, doing green is so satisfying and it is a sickness. Once you start, you can't stop.