10 replies to this topic

[E3 wise]

Wow, it’s just amazing how much has been going on in the world of Hydrogen energy and especially Renewable Hydrogen Energy in the last month or so.  I want to give you some quick headlines and links to try and catch everyone up.

A first a quick personal note, Lois and I are always asked by people at conferences we speak at, why we don’t, quote “Do a study to show why hydrogen can be such an integral part of the Renewable Energy Transformation (RET).  Our answer is always the same, we pass on a list of the three or four latest peer review studies in the last 3 or 4 months showing exactly what we are talking about, because honestly for the last 20 years there have been 15 to 20 quote “Studies” a year, once again, from peer reviewed major educational, scientific, or industrial sources.

Then we explain that the viability, the science, the integration is all possible and economically practical, what we need is faster transformation.

Oh I noticed in one of these links, the author stated that it takes a lot of electricity to make hydrogen.  Actually it takes a whopping 1.24 volts of DC (direst current) to produce hydrogen from fresh water. Just wanted you to know. Jeff

Storing Renewable Energy In Hydrogen Could Help Stabilize Output, Researchers Find http://www.huffingto...html?ref=topbar

A Cheaper Way to Make Hydrogen from Water http://www.technolog...gen-from-water/

Staying on the production of low cost hydrogen this story got a lot of interest from several different news outlet’s.  Our big interest is its ability to produce hydrogen, heat, desalinate water, and a whole lot more.

Scientist develops a multi-purpose wonder material to tackle environmental challenges http://phys.org/news...ironmental.html

Hydrogen Car News

Fuel-cell Vehicles Twice As Fuel-Efficient As Gas-Powered
http://autoblog.ca/r...gaspowered-cars

27 Hydrogen Stations Opened in 2012
http://www.hydrogenc...opened-in-2012/

Hyundai Becomes First Company to Mass Produce Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars
http://www.usnews.co...-fuel-cell-cars

and finally an article that points out a cool fact that we were already aware of, but it’s nice to get some attention.

Clean Energy Patents hit new record in 2012- Led by Hydrogen
http://www.renewable...nt-growth-index

This is a few for now, read our postings on Solar, Wind and all renewable.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Wow.
Thanks for all those info links.

[DeeNeely]

Quote

Actually it takes a whopping 1.24 volts of DC (direst current) to produce hydrogen from fresh water. Just wanted you to know. Jeff

The voltage amount doesn't tell you how much electricity it takes. It only tells you the voltage at which it is applied and this will change depending on the size of the production process. Of course, you can make an example project using small voltage and low amperage, but for any significant amount of production this isn't true.

Quote

Hydrogen can be made via high pressure electrolysis or low pressure electrolysis of water. Current best processes have an efficiency of 50% to 80%, so that 1 kg of hydrogen (which has a specific energy of 143 MJ/kg, about 40 kWh/kg) requires 50 to 79 kWh of electricity. At 0.08 $/kWh, that's $4.00/kg, which is with traditional methods 3 to 10 times the price of hydrogen from steam reformation of natural gas. http://en.wikipedia....olysis_of_water

There are ways to increase the efficiency, but they require high temperature or high pressure.

[E3 wise]

Right now the cost of compression is the largest part of hydrogen fueling, several companies like Honda, Toyota and MCI have developed much lower cost compression, although I appreciate the Wiki reference it is simply out dated and reflects 2010 information, for the systems we are using in our designs in Germany right now, converted to US dollars, and without any taxes, which of course would be added by local, state and federal governments the cost is $2.85 to $3.25 per kilogram. Add say the taxes and it is just slightly cheaper today to fuel an FCV, but when you factor the average range of 60 miles per kg to 74 miles per kg and the fact that all FCVs use 5.5 kg to fill up and you find it is cheaper to fuel an FCV.  The Hyundai averages 425 miles at a cost of roughly $21.00 as compared to my SUV which averages 28 mpg for 425 miles my current cost is $76.00 almost four times more.

Fuel it from home from excess solar as we plan to do in a couple of years and the cost goes down only slightly.

[Phil]

$50K is still a little pricey, guess I'll have to wait a few more years!  Glad to see home fueling stations are still getting a lot of attention.

[E3 wise]

Hey Phil
i was talking to the director of marketing for Hyundai / Kia here in the US.  Although he could not give me a specific price he was able to give me a range for the costs. Currently the Hyundai is projected at 30,000 to 32,000 still pricy, but they project the Kia to be 24,000 to 26,000. Robert insists that as second and third year cars come on line prices will drop.  As far as fueling from home costs are still up in air.  I look for costs to be comparable to an electric charging for homes soon, of course you will need solar, but for folks like us, that's already covered.

[Phil]

$30K might be doable depending on the ride.  What I'd really like is a Ford Escape FCV or equivalent, (mini SUV).  My two Saturn VUE's have been great but one is already over a decade old.  I'll have to see what Hyundai and Kia put out when the time comes.

From what I've seen $4-6K for a home hydrogen station.  Electric charging stations are running in the $1K price range.  It would be sweet if hydrogen got that cheap!

Are they looking at the '16-'17 timeframe for US launch?  Something to look forward to!

[E3 wise]

New Hydrogen News 04/08/13

  The idea of hydrogen production or fuel cells being powered from bio mass is not a new idea.  Bi reformers, reactors and landfill gas have all been explored with a wide area of developed over the last two decades or longer.  The largest developed sector so far has been with landfill gas, methane specifically to power MCFC’s (molten carbonate fuel cell), SOFC’s (solid oxide fuel cells) or with reforming produce hydrogen for standard PEM, (proton exchange membrane).

   This story has been making a big splash all over the energy wires this weekend. Here is a link for quick story

http://now.msn.com/v...gen-from-plants

If you want a little more information check out the same story here

http://www.dailytech...rticle30286.htm

One thing in some of the responses to the story someone posted a response titled One Problem   saying hydrogen cannot be used with ICE (internal combustion engines), wrong with conversion regular cars can be modified to run off hydrogen, several companies have developed conversion kits in Europe, Japan and the United States.

[Phil]

Check this out!  

http://www.hydrogenc...les-of-driving/

High reliability and elimination of platinum to boot.  FCV's are looking more and more viable all the time.

[E3 wise]

Renewable Hydrogen on the Big Island  -http://theenergycoll...ogen-big-island    For those who are not familiar with how renewables, in this case solar energy can be used to produce hydrogen and store it for future energy use this article is a good example.  It provides some really good pictures and gives a good overview of what we are doing on a much larger scale in Germany.

[E3 wise]

The systems pictured are a lot like the technology being used by both Honda and Toyota for their Fuel Cell Cars home refueling stations and also for renewable hydrogen for both industrial and farming solutions.  here is another story on what Toyota is doing to advance Fuel Cell Cars       Toyota Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is on Hydrogen Fuel http://wallstcheatsh...ogen-fuel.html/   this is just one example of how auto makers are going all in on fuel cell cars both in California and nationally.  Our sources inside the industry are saying that a similar program is in the works for key states like Texas, South Carolina,  Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and others to be announced. All of these states already have hydrogen companies and state incentives present to help bring in the hydrogen infrastructure needed.  Toyota FCV.JPG   38.33K   0 downloads