Could be another pie in the sky idea, but one could always hope. – Anthony
A new catalyst could help speed development of inexpensive home-brewed solar energy systems for powering homes and plug-in cars during the day (left) and for producing electricity from a fuel cell at night (right). Credit: Patrick Gillooly/MIT
BOSTON — The era of personalized energy systems — in which individual homes and small businesses produce their own energy for heating, cooling and powering cars — took another step toward reality today as scientists reported discovery of a powerful new catalyst that is a key element in such a system. They described the advance, which could help free homes and businesses from dependence on the electric company and the corner gasoline station, at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, being held here this week.
“Our goal is to make each home its own power station,” said study leader Daniel Nocera, Ph.D. “We’re working toward development of ‘personalized’ energy units that can be manufactured, distributed and installed inexpensively. There certainly are major obstacles to be overcome — existing fuel cells and solar cells must be improved, for instance. Nevertheless, one can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic system.”
Such a system would consist of rooftop solar energy panels to produce electricity for heating, cooking, lighting, and to charge the batteries on the homeowners’ electric cars. Surplus electricity would go to an “electrolyzer,” a device that breaks down ordinary water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen. Both would be stored in tanks. In the dark of night, when the solar panels cease production, the system would shift gears, feeding the stored hydrogen and oxygen into a fuel cell that produces electricity (and clean drinking water as a byproduct). Such a system would produce clean electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week — even when the sun isn’t shining.
Nocera’s report focused on the electrolyzer, which needs catalysts — materials that jumpstart chemical reactions like the ones that break water up into hydrogen and oxygen. He is with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. Good catalysts already are available for the part of the electrolyzer that produces hydrogen. Lacking, however, have been inexpensive, long-lasting catalysts for the production of oxygen. The new catalyst fills that gap and boosts oxygen production by 200-fold. It eliminates the need for expensive platinum catalysts and potentially toxic chemicals used in making them.
The new catalyst has been licensed to Sun Catalytix, which envisions developing safe, super-efficient versions of the electrolyzer, suitable for homes and small businesses, within two years.
The National Science Foundation and the Chesonis Family Foundation provided funding for this study. Nocera did the research with post-doctoral researcher Mircea Dinca and doctoral candidate Yogesh Surendranath. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency has recently awarded the team with a grant, which it plans to use to search for related compounds that can further increase the efficiency of its electrolyzer technology. The team hopes that nickel-borate belongs to a family of compounds that can be optimized for super-efficient, long-term energy storage technologies.
The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
“Want to bet hemp is involved?”
Careful Alvin because there may well be alternative energy sources involved like LSD and Ecstasy and I wouldn’t want you misplacing scarce resources with these people.
More techno-babble.
35 years ago I was installing solar flat plate waterheaters that would heat water too hot to be legal. Real promoters were bragging about future PV systems that would produce electricity and hydrogen fuel. Anyone out there ever actually worked with hydrogen? It is a real nightmare to deal with in industrial settings. Anyone that thinks hydrogen is a general use fuel for the future would play with nitroglysern. Leaks are very common as hydrogen will sneak through the most tiny hole or crack, and the smallest amount can explode. Just ask NASA engineers about the fun in handling hydrogen.
It really galls me that here in New Jersey, the bankrupt government is spending tax dollars subsidizing the installation of home solar PV arrays.
New Jersey is simply too far North, with too cloudy of a climate to ever be an optimal place for PV power generation.
You can take the numbers from aPV array in Mojave, California, and cut the power output by a factor of three if you put an identical array in New Jersey.
So, what ends up happening is that the PV array in New Jersey will NEVER EVER produce as much energy as it took to construct, install, and maintain the array.
What was the point of the tax subsidy?
On the other hand, there is a perfectly viable option for the Mid-Atlantic states in reducing energy consumption dramatically.
You see, when you dig down five feet, it is 54 deg. F., and if you pump water from down there, or mount a long loop of hose underground, you can obtain 54 deg. F water all day long, year round.
Hook it up to a heat pump, and in the summer you get air conditioning.
In the winter, reverse the cycle, and get space heating.
I installed a 2 ton (24,000 btu) geothermal heat pump in my place.
Uses 3.5 gpm of 65F measured water temp. in, 85F water out, that’s 24,000 btu’s of FREE ENERGY right there.
The difference in efficiency is due to the much smaller heat differential between the 60F water heat sink and the condenser, vs. 105F air with a conventional unit.
My 2 ton unit draws less than 4 amps at 240V, and cools a 2000s.f. space.
A similarly sized conventional air conditioner would draw 12 amps.
Geothermal heat pumps beat the living crap out of PV arrays around here.
peterhodges says:7:28 pm “whiskey”
If only. Not quite whiskey but it would warm (burn) your gullet.
However, when the product is more valuable than the ingredients then the means of production can be costly, yet still economical. As Jimash @6:25 pm says about solar, “it’s a mess.”
Austin Helm says: “lighting technology” ??
September 1, 2010 at 8:52 pm
I own (so full disclosure) a few shares of this company that, so far, has not made me rich. I like the idea though.
http://vu1corporation.com/
I live in vancouver BC and we just got screwed with a 4.5cent per litre carbon tax and I am pissed.So I went to the scrap dealer and got stainless steal plates $2 per lb. and started making browns gas to put on my VW.I have had good results so far and it is simple to do .I will do anything to avoid the tax!!! If you look up stanley meyers on youtube its interesting.
@ur momisugly P.G. Sharrow, re hazards of Hydrogen. Yup, been there, done that on industrial scale (hydrogen from steam-methane reformers in refineries, also as a byproduct from chlorine via electrolysis, hydrogen recovery from mixed hydrocarbon fuel gases, purification, compression, bottling).
The industrial history is many decades long and the knowledge exists to process hydrogen safely. But I do not ever want to see hydrogen in a residential setting, or commercial (office buildings) or retail (shopping malls). Far too many problems for the inexperienced to be left alone around a hydrogen system.
For starters, hydrogen heats up when it leaks from a high pressure to a lower pressure (reverse Joule-Thomson effect). It also auto-ignites. The flame is essentially invisible during daytime, as it burns with a very pale blue flame. It does indeed creep into the tiniest of crevices and causes metal embrittlement. For domestic use, or commercial or retail, an on-site generation system such as that described in the above article would require compression – a major source of leaks – then storage at high pressure; again a major source of leaks or catastrophic failure, fire, explosion, injury or death.
So, we have a gas that can and does create an almost invisible flame, jetting out at high pressure (note the Honda article stored the hydrogen at 5,000 psi), a sure recipe for disaster.
Here’s a link to a video of a hydrogen flame in a laboratory. At around 1:38 minutes, the flame is invisible with the laboratory lights on. Then at 1:44 the lights are turned off and the flame appears as a pale blue light.
Now, who wants one of these in their home? Or office? Or at the shopping mall?
Anybody?
anticlimactic says:
September 1, 2010 at 7:25 pm
“In the UK [and much of the northern hemisphere] most energy would be produced in summer, and most energy would be needed in winter [a problem with most renewables]*. How will this system change that?”
Most renewables except wind, tidal, geothermal, (passive) solar, rain, hydro and biomass?
There are some people who spend a lot of time living in an RV off the grid. They usually use a combination of a LOT of batteries, roof-top solar, and often wind, supplemented with a generator for prolonged cloudiness. It works OK in the desert in winter or the Oregon coast in summer. Propane heats the water, runs the refer, and cooks the food.
In the Frozen North the double barrel wood stove and propane or kerosene or Coleman lanterns did the heat and light, and the battery radio tuned to ‘Caribou Clatter’ at 6pm on the AM dial served for communications not that many years ago.
These are quite compact living spaces and the owners have spent what was needed based on whats available and fit for purpose, and they are not running AC and microwaves. Conclusion is that solar and wind in favorable conditions allow a residence to meet perhaps 80% of their useage provided they forego the heavy uses.
Perhaps the catalyst will work, but efficiency isn’t likely to approach that of the central power station irrespective of the fuel source.
BMW has a duel fuel car now.The problem has always been storage tanks and they now have them.This is an internalcombustion car.H2 without O is not volatile until O is introduced.There are also many H2 cutting torches commercialy available now.All you do is plug it in,no more acetaline tanks or O tanks,they also burn much hotter,its cheap and clean.
342 Watts per square meter is the theoretical average solar energy received over 24 hour cycle with 250 Watts per square meter being the practical maximum. That is the direct output before going through the ineficiencies of conversion to electricity and of battery storage.
Might be a good idea to have a look on the web site of Blacklight Power.
http://www.blacklightpower.com/
Reply: That site is just hilarious. Hydrino would make a great name for a little Italian sea monster. ~ ctm
When you can go to Walmart or Costco and pick up a personal nuclear reactor along with the weekly groceries, then our energy problems are over.
It may happen sooner than we think. My grandfather was around to see the advent of the car, flight, and then space travel. I’m sure he didn’t see that coming when he was growing up in the 1890’s.
I’ll need to increase my solar system !
At 13kwh per day it delivers about a third of my total ‘house only’ usage, meaning I need about 45kwh in total.
To charge a car (assuming at night when I get home) as well, asuming it uses 20kw/h each day without taking into acount the efficiency loss of the hydrogen production and fuel cell conversion back to electricity, and also the loss in charging the car batteries.
This means I will need at least 100kwh of solar generation per day. My roof mounted system generates about 0.65kwh /sq. metre, meaning I will now need >150 sq. metres of panels instead of the current 20 sq. metres.
Maybe I can use this an excuse to my wife to build the big garage extension ? At any rate it would seem that in a green world we will need big houses with large roof areas (+ and a big garage).
See – it’s not all bad 🙂
“one can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic system”
Dont think they will ever afford it.Unless they first invoke free markeds and democracy.
I myself have been waiting for such a system for 30 years now. Still cannot buy it.
Not interested in in PhD papers. Tell me when I can order such a system.
Reply to :
That site is just hilarious. Hydrino would make a great name for a little Italian sea monster. ~ ctm
May be the Hydrino theory of Mills is wrong, but the heat (cheap energy) seems to be real.
There is another theorie about the Casimir Cavities which seems to have more support according to Jan Naudts. He has published a studie named :
As you know, science is never settled !
Sorry
I forgot the name of the article from Jan Naudts :
I researched off-grid power systems while I lived in semi-rural New Zealand as I, luckily, had access to significant wind (Wellington/Wairarapa region) and a stream. Hydro was very doable, and would have privided plenty of power, even fed back into the grid if I wanted. However, these systems, for maximum efficiency, that is the generating and consuming systems, the voltage rating of the appliances need to be matched. So if your generating system is rated at 6v, 12v or 24v DC, you need matched, DC, appliances. An DC – AC coverter, although always improving, still wastes a lot of power. At that time, I was looking at a 12v generating system, and a fridge, made in Sweeden, cost ~NZ$12,000. I calculated that the generating system on it’s own would cost ~NZ35,000, including deep cycle batteries, the best being available only from the US at that time and a backup petrol generator. It was prohibitively expensive, so the idea was binned.
Lot of good comments here.
Fuel cells, hi tech waste of time
Solar ok but limited by physical constraints, I.E. watts per square metre.
Attitude, If you dont think you can do it, you will not, its that simple.
Corporations want profit and control, they dont want people producing their own power, it wrecks their monopoly, refer to so called wind power.
There are many viable options, domestic wind turbines (not fans), in flow water turbines, group geothermal and of course sustainable bio-fuels.
The golden egg is a cheap way to crack water, energy wise that is and zero point energy. Both eminently doable if not already done.
The problem is not the technology or process, its patents, cash and will power.
My adage, if it works, thats it stop messing about.
Having seen the results of a hydrogen explosion in a battery room, count me out.
Storing hydrogen AT HOME???
I can not believe the ACS is recommending that. I have seen a hydrogen tank blow through a brick wall at a lab where I worked and that was only due to a cylinder failure not an explosion. At another plant a propane tank explosion took out an entire production line. Raytheon AND the Union agreed that mishandling a gas cylinder was a first time firing offense in the 1950’s.
Hydrogen is very explosive and ANY gas cylinder must be handled with care. I cringe every time I see a helium tank at a store or fair that is in use blowing up balloons but the idiots failed to chained it upright. I have chewed out many vendors for that sin.
One of the biggest headaches with hydrogen is gas leaks. all the fittings need to be checked frequently because a tight fitting can develop a leak over night. OSHA will not allow motorized vehicles anywhere near an in use H2 tank for that reason. A leak, a spark and you and your lab are history.
Hydrogen – LEL – (Lower explosive limit) – 4%; UEL (Upper explosive limit) – 96%. Smallest gas molecule, very difficult to seal.
I think a lot of comments here miss the fundamental point, which is that this is a potentially excellent system for some subset of all possible applications. What we need is diversity in energy generation — appropriate sources on a case-by-case basis. If you live in Arizona, this will be a great way to run as much air-con as you want/need to live there. If you live in Northern Canada, use hydro-power. The UK has access to all the tidal power one could want. Horses for courses, and coal for backup 🙂
In addition to the other great points brought up in the comments is anyone else bothered that technology “discovered” using government (DOE) and the NSF is being licensed to a private company so they can exploit it for money? If this is such a holy grail breakthrough why isn’t the NSF and DOE just sharing the results?
I’m open to any method of generating electricity without having to pay today’s outrageous utility prices. And if it takes money out of the pockets of greedy windfarmers, so much the better.
Question is, just how economic will all this be?