Stealth company claims hydrogen fuel breakthrough at Space Center

[Baitball Blogger]

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A secretive company focused on new hydrogen fuel technology has launched a multimillion-dollar round of fundraising from its headquarters at Kennedy Space Center.

Called Joi Scientific, the company claims to have found a revolutionary process to create hydrogen fuel from water – a new green source of energy.


The company co-founder, veteran technologist Traver Kennedy, says he has landed a significant investment in the company’s Series A round, which is the first institutional investment in venture capital terms.

Kennedy was a leading technologist and vice president for Fort Lauderdale-based Citrix until 2005. While there, he helped to launch the movement toward cloud-based software.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/brinkmann-on-business/os-joi-scientific-hydrogen-fuel-20151009-post.html

[PatrickforO]

1. We'll see where this goes - it is encouraging.

Too bad big oil will play really dirty to keep it unavailable and unprofitable.

[randome]

2. With oil prices falling and expected to fall more, they may not have any choice.

I know the '11th dimensional chess' snippet is greatly over-used but I think Obama really was playing the oil companies when he said, in essence, 'Go ahead and look in the Arctic'. The indications already pointed to nothing worthwhile being there considering the time and money involved in getting it out.

So if corporate profits are to rise appreciably again, the oil companies will need to make inroads in a new type of energy business.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[jberryhill]

3. Cavitation Assisted Sonochemical Hydrogen Production System

Looks like they bought up some technology formerly owned by an outfit called Molecular Power Systems LLC which relates to a purported ultrasonic cavitation and catalyst-mediated hydrolysis process.

http://www.google.com/patents/US20120058405

[ProfessorGAC]

4. I've Been Hearing Noise On This For A Long Time

Not when i was there, but from people i worked with at Argonne NL back in the 70's mentioned something about this approach (don't know that it's exactly the same) probably 18 o 20 years ago.

Perhaps they've gotten to the point where the economics are far more attractive.

[longship]

5. "a new green source of energy"

Sorry, but hydrogen is not an energy source. There is no molecular hydrogen extant on Earth. To create molecular hydrogen one has to free it from other compounds, like electrolysis of water. Because of thermodynamics, that will always take more energy than the freed hydrogen would give back.

Hydrogen is more properly termed an energy storage medium, as which it could be very well suited.

However, not a source, speaking strictly.

Also, there is a lot of hydrogen kookery out there. A "secret" company is suspect until they publish something in the scientific literature or are otherwise open with their technology.

So I am a tad skeptical of this.

[nilram]

10. +1000. This is not a source of energy, just another kind of battery.

Wondering where the surge in hydrogen news lately has come from.

[longship]

11. Well, these hydrogen stories come out regularly.

Some are outright scams (cars that run on water, power from salt water, etc.).

But there is quite a bit of legit research going on in hydrogen power, one would presume because energy storage is more or less the secret to sustainable green energy. Wide spread solar and wind power would require it.

[Kelvin Mace]

6. I've read story like this about once of month for over a decade

And yet to seen anything come of it.

There are no published patents for Joi yet, and Kennedy declined to describe the technology in detail yet. But there may be clues to Joi’s technology in patents published for Kennedy’s previous company, called Molecular Power Systems (MPS).

A patent related to MPS indicates that it hoped to make fuel cells cheaper and more available.

“This patent eliminates the need for storage and thus transport, (of hydrogen) by creating a scalable process to generate hydrogen from water, in-situ, wherever it is needed,” the patent said.

Splitting hydrogen from water require electricity, LOTS of electricity. The BEST process I have seen claims it takes 51kWh of electricity to create 1 kg of hydrogen. 1 Kg of hydrogen will propel a Hyundai Tuscon FCV about 47 miles. The same amount of electricity will take my Nissan Leaf 160+ miles.

And, the energy required just involves making it. The hydrogen then has to be stored under pressure (around 10,000 psi) for fueling purposes.

The process they are claiming would have to lower the energy cost of hydrogen production to 1/4 current requirements to compete with an EV.

Color me skeptical.

[MineralMan]

7. They'll have to show their work, I think.

Lots of folks are working on hydrogen generation that uses less energy than the hydrogen produced can provide. So far, no dice, despite a lot of money spent on this research.

"Secret" companies rarely ever demonstrate anything functional, but do manage to get lots of funding, nevertheless.

Show your work, folks. Let's see a working model that generates useful amounts of hydrogen with a positive energy profile. I can hardly wait.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. +1

[olddots]

9. If there was something there

everybody would be looking for a piece of it even rhe oil preditors .

[edhopper]

12. I am still waiting for

Lockheed's small fusion reactor.