Hydrogen Power on the Cheap?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blog...e/2936846.html

If this works and can be mass replicated for general use, Cool.

Sounds like the best way to put hydrogen fuel to good use -- NOW -- is by building hydrogen-using power plants with its own electolyzer.

Later on, we can figure how to miniaturize it for portability, like a hydrogen car that runs on water.

Nah scrap all that, we just need toinstall a really big pipeline to Jupiter! It has plenty of liquid metalic hydrogen to spare :D

Could be cool, qite often it's the little clever ways they can refine processes that make the difference, and never the 'big inventions' these days. For instance recently they created a way f making super thin photovoltaic cells laminated one on top of the other, which increases output tenfold and brings the price of photovoltaic cells into realistic use: as this technology is alwso far to expensive to be used commonly!

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Originally Posted by REG

Sounds like the best way to put hydrogen fuel to good use -- NOW -- is by building hydrogen-using power plants with its own electolyzer.

Later on, we can figure how to miniaturize it for portability, like a hydrogen car that runs on water.

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I'm afraid you are missing one important point here. It takes more power (in the form of electricity) to split up water into oxygen and hydrogen, than will be released by burning the hydrogen. This means that by first creating hydrogen and then using this hydrogen to power generators feeding into the electricity network, you would be wasting energy.
The advantage of hydrogen is that it can be transported easily, is safer than regular fuel, and requires less space than the batteries in an electric car with otherwise equal properties (speed, range, ...) would.

Nontheless, I can see a future for hydrogen power plants. Due to the inconsistent availability of regenerative energy like solar and wind power, excess energy could be used to create hydrogen, which could then be used to create electricity at night, or when the wind isn't bowing.

This is true yes, but Hydrogen is a completelly clean fuel - aka it's byproduct is just water, so if it can be produced from renuable energy sources, then it should be more efficient, and cleaner than anything else !

I never really got the whole craze for 'hydrogen' or even 'electric' cars, as what's the point of not pumping out fossil fuels CO2 emissions out of the back of your car, when it's just going to be pumped out of the power station down the road! Unless the technology is produced hand in hand with greener energy production, you're just moving the problem elsewhere! Bio-alcohol and bio-diesel make much more sense, as though they are poluting, they are carbon neutral, and you're not wasting as much energy converting them from one form to another (Several pioneering technologies have managed to catalyse the production of both, making it cleaner and less poluting to make them.

Hydrogen does also have another minor caveat.. it's the smalest atom in the periodic table, so there is a problem actually storing it for extended periods, it leaks through any substance ! The rate of attrition is very small, and not by any means dangerous (not enough volume to cause explosions!) but it would eventually all leak away over the course of months :D It's why in Trek they keep it as close to absolute zero as possible, so it's less mobile :)

So you use the supervoltaic cells mentioned above to convert solar power to run the electrolysis to make the hydrogen to burn in the hydrocars.


Or... you use the supervoltaic cells to create the electricity to run the electric cars.

Or... you put the supervoltaic cells in orbit, 10 kilometers on a side, convert the solar energy to microwaves, transmit the microwaves to a receiving center, and use the power to boil the water / to turn the turbines to make the electricity to run... everything. For the next billion years or so.