An Inexpensive Fuel-Cell Generator

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518516/an-inexpensive-fuel-cell-generator/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]An Inexpensive Fuel-Cell Generator[/font]

[font size=4]A startup says its technical advances could make fuel cells as cheap as grid power.[/font]

By Kevin Bullis on August 22, 2013

[font size=3]People could soon get cleaner energy from a compact fuel-cell generator in their backyards, at costs cheaper than power from the grid. At least, that’s the hope of Redox Power Systems, a startup based in Fulton, Maryland, which plans to offer a substantially cheaper fuel cell next year.

Redox is developing fuel cells that feed on natural gas, propane, or diesel. The cells, which generate electricity through electrochemical reactions rather than combustion, could allow businesses to continue operating through power outages like those caused by massive storms such as Hurricane Sandy, but they promise to be far cleaner and quieter than diesel generators. They can also provide continuous power, not just emergency backup power, so utilities could use them as distributed power sources that ease congestion on the grid, preventing blackouts and lowering the overall cost of electricity.

Redox’s claims sound a lot like those made in 2010 by Bloom Energy (see “Bloom Reveals New Fuel Cells”), a well-funded fuel-cell startup in Sunnyvale, California. But Bloom’s fuel cells are based on relatively conventional technology, and so far they have proved far too expensive for homes. Redox claims to have developed fuel cells based on novel materials that could cut costs by nearly 90 percent. The first product will be a 25-kilowatt generator that Redox says produces enough electricity for a grocery store. The company eventually plans to sell smaller versions for homes.

Redox’s fuel cells are based on highly conductive materials developed at the University of Maryland that help increase power output by a factor of 10 at lower temperatures (see “Gasoline Fuel Cell Would Boost Electric Car Range”). The company says its fuel cells will pay for themselves with electricity-bill savings in two years.

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[PoliticAverse]

1. "Fuel cells are notorious for requiring expensive maintenance and not lasting more than a few years"

Good luck to them, I hope they succeed.

[Yo_Mama]

2. I'll put them on the watch list

I do think that sooner or later there will be a fuel cell breakthrough that will be a game changer. I'd like to see one that doesn't run on fossil fuels, though.

[kristopher]

3. All fuel cells run on hydrogen

The source of the hydrogen is where things get tricky.

Pure hydrogen has two primary drawbacks for transportation, 1) its energy density is low unless you compress it, which requires energy. 2) It would require a distribution infrastructure to be built; this could consist of stations which separate hydrogen on location instead of pipelines and trucks.

If we want to avoid the energy penalty of compressing the hydrogen, we can take it as a hydrocarbon and use a 'reforming' process to break the hydrogen away from the carbon. If we use fossil fuels, of course that is problematic, even though it does produce a dramatic increase in efficiency per unit of carbon emitted.

To be carbon neutral we'd need to obtain the hydrogen from either biofuel or from water using renewable energy to break apart water. That's the idea with the fueling stations that have their own H2 manufacturing ability.

All practical systems today either have a very low system efficiency (<30%) or they run on reformed fossil fuels. There are promising technologies out there, but so far batteries look like they are going to carry the day for personal transportation.

I'd look to heavy duty transport and stationary uses as being where the first practical applications find a home.

[Yo_Mama]

4. Hmm

I do think the hydrogen model is winning out, but direct methanol fuel cells are in use commercially and in the military, for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-methanol_fuel_cell

There are options for fuel cells other than hydrogen, and they will probably increase.

It will be interesting if diesel-powered fuel cells take off:
http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/news-events/news-archive/2013/may/powercell-unveils-prototype-fuel-cell-for-producing-electricity-from-road-diesel

That unit above is specifically intended for trucks. Hardly carbon neutral, though.

I think Japan is going to be the breakthrough market for the home-type units:
http://www.gizmag.com/ene-farm-home-fuel-cell-panasonic/25856/

As for carbon neutrality, it's hard to know. The main benefit of fuel cells are that they can ease distribution issues. Denmark is really a leader in this field with their plans to go to a wind-manufactured hydrogen based system:
http://energy.ruc.dk/Beijing.pdf

As noted, Denmark will not be able to handle the projected increase in their wind supply, and they intend to use the wind power through the intermediate storage in hydrogen. This would be a carbon-neutral enterprise.

In Europe and elsewhere, a number of think tanks have proposed distributing hydrogen by filtering it into the gas lines.

Given the large drop in PV solar costs, and the possibility in certain areas of high-yield thermal solar, it's entirely possible that commercial solar plants might, within ten years, install solar to hydrogen manufacturing and use fuel cells to deliver power when the sun is not shining. It's actually far cheaper than one would think due to the much lower grid costs.

Lolland is real and shows how these apps might be extremely beneficial for remote communities:
http://www.care2.com/causes/lolland-hydrogen-powered-community.html

On this board we have focused a lot on the drop in solar cell costs, for the obvious reasons. But we rarely talk about the implicit costs of the transmission system which rise rather dramatically when it must cope with highly variable inputs and distributions. The model of decentralized power production so often talked about is running up against the practical barriers of distribution and grid instability.

Fuel cells may be a very big component of the eventual solution in many areas. I expect the cost of fuel cells to drop significantly within ten years, and then abruptly all bets are off.

[oldhippie]

5. That is correct. Direct methanol Fuel Cells ......

... have some very advantageous characteristics for many consumer, industrial, and military applications. One of the main ones being not having to deal with hydrogen.

I worked for 4 years with a German company developing DMFC applications for the US and German armies. It was an interesting project.

http://www.sfc.com/en/markets/overview

[kristopher]

7. I stand corrected - sort of...

I forgot about the DMFC. It is an interesting technology and I regret the omission.

As for the rest of your list, did you bother to read the material on the two other HFCs you posted about?

The Powercell uses a reformer to extract H2.

PowerPac is a fuel cell system that converts road diesel to electricity with high efficiency.
The PowerPac auxiliary power unit consists of three modules:
The fuel reformer module (converts standard low sulphur diesel to a hydrogen rich gas)
The fuel cell module (combines the hydrogen stream from the fuel reformer with air to produce power)
The power electronics module to deliver power to the user
- See more at: http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/news-events/news-archive/2013/may/powercell-unveils-prototype-fuel-cell-for-producing-electricity-from-road-diesel#sthash.zlSYKUJf.dpuf

The Panasonic also uses a reformer:

The fuel cell generates electricity by extracting hydrogen from the city gas supply using a fuel processor and reacting it with oxygen in the atmosphere.

Now, as to the use of fuel cells in conjunction with renewables as a means of storage. I don't know what the future is going to look like in detail, but the fact is that storage is expensive. Hydrogen and HFCs are no different. The often posted study by Kempton etal of 99% renewables in the PJM service area looks at the question in detail and concludes that even with V2G as a large resource (it's significantly less expensive than other forms of grid storage) it is still less expensive to overbuild generating capacity than it is to pay for the kind of storage you are envisioning.

But, like I say, you never know how values will develop in the future. For example as solar costs decline I can see a world where utilities try to screw people on solar's value in order to preserve the utility's market share. I can see that being a strong motivator for people to spend more than is optimal for the sheer joy of knowing they are no longer doing business with 'those bastards'. Spite can cause us to value things in odd ways, you know?

Finally while the price of fuel cells might drop, so too will the cost of EV sized battery packs - especially when they are leftovers from the auto fleet. And then there are the end-use storage options that should start to become common - things like rooftop ice storage or ceramic heat-storing home/commercial heating systems.

There are a lot of things in energy that are going to be different and it is wise to get a handle on the entire range of potential options before attaching too much value to any one technology.

[Yo_Mama]

9. Yeah, I know

Sorry for the confusion. I was just musing about the carbon neutrality issue.

Fuel cells have been around for a while, and there are multiple fuels. Gas and coal gas, possibly infiltrated with hydrogen will probably be in use in cities within 20 years. As long as you can oxidize it to get the free electrons, you can use whatever fuel is available.

I do suspect that hydrogen fuel cells will win out for CHP commercial and res apps.

You know really, all bets are off. By the time you create a process that can create pretty large quantities of hydrogen from xylose:
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=129921&CultureCode=en
Paper here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201300766/abstract

If you can efficiently generate hydrogen from xylose without high temps, that means that you can make hydrogen from straw and crop waste. The end cost is not known, but the low-temp aspect of the described process is very encouraging.

The world is changing and it is changing fast. Some of these breakthroughs are going to come together and start producing synergies.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Compression may not be the monster you like to make it out to be

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-pressure_electrolysis

[font face=Serif][font size=5]High-pressure electrolysis[/font]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[font size=3]High-pressure electrolysis (HPE) is the electrolysis of water by decomposition of water (H[font size="1"]₂[/font]O) into oxygen (O[font size="1"]₂[/font]) and hydrogen gas (H[font size="1"]₂[/font]) due to the passing of an electric current through the water. The difference with a standard proton exchange membrane electrolyzer is the compressed hydrogen output around 120–200 Bar (1740–2900 psi) at 70 °C. By pressurising the hydrogen in the electrolyser the need for an external hydrogen compressor is eliminated, the average energy consumption for internal differential pressure compression is around 3%.

[font size=4]Approaches[/font]

As the required compression power for water is less than that for hydrogen-gas the water is pumped up to a high-pressure, in the other approach differential pressure is used. There is also an importance for the electrolyser stacks to be able to accept a fluctuating electrical input, such as that found with renewable energy. This then enables the ability to help with grid balancing and energy storage.

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http://world.honda.com/news/2012/4120327Solar-Hydrogen-Station/index.html

[font face=Serif]March 27, 2012
[font size=5]Honda Introduces Solar Hydrogen Station on Saitama Prefectural Office Grounds[/font]

[font size=4]FCX Clarity Used in Electric Vehicle Testing Program to Serve as Mobile Electric Generator[/font]

[font size=3]TOKYO, Japan, March 27, 2012 - Honda Motor Co., Ltd. unveiled a Solar Hydrogen Station on the grounds of the Saitama Prefectural Office. The initiative is part of the Electric Vehicle Testing Program for Honda’s next-generation personal mobility products with Saitama Prefecture, in which Honda, Iwatani and Saitama Prefecture collaborate to build. In a further initiative, Honda has equipped the FCX Clarity fuel cell electric vehicle with an outlet to function as a 9kW power source. Since the FCX Clarity uses a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to produce power with zero CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] emissions, with its new outlet, the vehicle will be able to serve as a zero-emission mobile electric generator.



This is the first installation in Japan of a total system to produce, store and dispense hydrogen with ZERO CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] emissions. A high pressure water electrolysis system, uniquely developed by Honda, produces hydrogen. With no mechanical compressor, the system is nearly silent and highly energy efficient. Using Solar and grid power, the system is capable of producing 1.5kg of hydrogen within 24 hours which enables an FCX Clarity to run approximately 150km or 90 miles. Honda aims to further develop the system to offer clean energy sources for the home in the future.[/font][/font]

http://world.honda.com/news/2010/c100127New-Solar-Hydrogen-Station/

[font face=Serif]January 27, 2010
[font size=5]Honda Begins Operation of New Solar Hydrogen Station[/font]
[font size=4] Los Angeles-based Station to Re-fuel Honda Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle[/font]

[font size=3]TORRANCE, Calif, U.S.A., January 27, 2010 - Honda began operation of a next generation solar hydrogen station prototype at the Los Angeles Center of Honda R&D Americas, Inc., intended for ultimate use as a home refueling appliance capable of an overnight refill of fuel cell electric vehicles.



Designed as a single, integrated unit to fit in the user's garage, Honda's next generation Solar Hydrogen Station reduces the size of the system, while producing enough hydrogen (0.5kg) via an 8-hour overnight fill for daily commuting (10,000 miles per year) for a fuel cell electric vehicle.

The previous solar hydrogen station system required both an electrolyzer and a separate compressor unit to create high pressure hydrogen. The compressor was the largest and most expensive component and reduced system efficiency. By creating a new high differential pressure electrolyzer, Honda engineers were able to eliminate the compressor entirely - a world's first for a home use system. This innovation also reduces the size of other key components to make the new station the world's most compact system, while improving system efficiency by more than 25% (value calculated based on simulations) compared to the solar hydrogen station system it replaces.

Compatible with a "Smart Grid" energy system, the Honda Solar Hydrogen Station would enable users to refill their vehicle overnight without the requirement of hydrogen storage, which would lower CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] emissions by using less expensive off-peak electrical power. During daytime peak power times, the Solar Hydrogen Station can export renewable electricity to the grid, providing a cost benefit to the customer, while remaining energy neutral.

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[kristopher]

8. I have a simple request for you

If you want to convince me of an advance in HFCs (or any other technology actually) show me the system efficiency numbers. The problem with H for transport is an abysmal system efficiency of <30% or so vs >90% for batteries.

That simply can't and will not be ignored. The Honda piece mentions the 25% increase in system efficiency but when the base is at 30% that only brings them up to 37.5%.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. I’ve shown you efficiencies before

For example:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=39662
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=39729

[kristopher]

12. The fact that you go to such lengths to confuse the subject says it all...

No where is the SYSTEM EFFICIENCY of using hydrogen as electric storage clearly laid out. From the thread at your first link, however you recommend a presentation of an NREL study that, on slide 9, gives us a sample of the information YOU need to provide as a promoter of this technology.
http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/pdfs/48360.pdf

It it comparing the benefit of spilled wind with storage via hydrogen. Their illustration channels 16% of the wind farm's output into hydrogen storage and show that 5% of the wind farm's output is recovered and delivered to the grid. An 11/16ths loss is 68.75% of the input.

What you ALWAYS play on to hide this crucial fact is the fact that this loss doesn't occur in one fell swoop but is incurred incrementally across several stages involved in the storage and recovery process. You tout "major improvements in efficiency" for one step or another, but when the effect of these so called major improvements are examined in the context of their effect on the entire system, they are shown to be little more than a minor bump in overall performance.

Why can't you just be direct and sincere?

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Why can’t you discuss something without insulting anyone who disagrees with you?

Honestly…

[kristopher]

14. Why can't you discuss fuel cells without dissembling and misleading?

I consider that type of behavior to be extremely rude and insulting. It tends to make me curt.

[oldhippie]

15. Gee .....

You noticed that, too, huh?

[quadrature]

10. if this thing ran on natural gas...

it would be a blessing to mankind.

other than that,
forget it