Motley Fool: This Hydrogen Project Could Be the Future of Energy

[nationalize the fed]

Travis Hoium | The Motley Fool | Sep 23, 2015

Renewable energy provides an incredible opportunity for building a cleaner energy future. But it comes with a number of inherent downsides as well.

Wind, solar, tidal, and almost any other source of renewable energy is intermittent by nature, meaning it isn't on 24/7 and can only provide power at certain times. As the industry grows and more renewable energy is connected to the grid, this can create challenges for both grid operators and renewable energy developers.

But what if we rethought the grid altogether? What if electricity from renewable energy could be easily stored for future use -- even in our cars? That would truly be an energy revolution.

The future of renewable energy and fuel


ITM Power's M1 hydrogen filling station near Sheffield. Credit-ITM Power

It isn't often that an energy project is built that could change the energy industry, but one was just completed in the United Kingdom. ITM Power has built a project that consists of a 225 kW wind turbine, an electrolyser that turns the turbine's electricity into hydrogen, a 200 kg hydrogen storage system, and a hydrogen-dispensing unit and fuel cell for providing backup power...snip

...This could have a number of implications for the energy industry...snip

...But ITM Power's system could show a path to a hydrogen-fuel future. If electrolysers are used to turn electricity into hydrogen (which is fairly simple, but inefficient) it could make hydrogen fueling much easier than it is today. It could also make it possible to put a hydrogen filling station at each gas station, or generate hydrogen from a local renewable-energy power plant. That could make hydrogen both easier to find for drivers and also much cleaner than competing sources of energy -- including electricity...snip
Read More: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/23/this-hydrogen-project-could-be-future-of-energy.aspx

******************

BBC: First 'zero-emissions' hydrogen filling station opens in England

A zero-emissions refuelling station for hydrogen-powered cars - claimed to be the first of its kind in the country - has opened. ITM Power created the site at the Advanced Manufacturing Park near the M1 in Rotherham.

It uses electricity generated by a wind turbine to split water into its constituent parts: hydrogen and oxygen. A hydrogen car could now fill up with enough fuel for it to reach London from South Yorkshire, the company said.

Rebecca Markillie, of Sheffield based ITM, said: "It's the perfect solution. It's a clean fuel utilising wind power, we start with water and end with water".

A hydrogen-powered car only emits water vapour as it runs...
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-34278051

DU post: http://www.democraticunderground.com/112791246

ITM Power: Energy Storage | Clean Fuel
http://www.itm-power.com/

[portlander23]

1. Have they cracked the cost of generation and logistics of transportation and storage?

What you need to know about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles

If you want a 100 percent green FCV, you need to make your hydrogen in a non-polluting way. That's no easy task, but the best way right now is using hydrogen electrolysis, in which hydrogen and oxygen gases are produced by passing a current through water. The best systems can only produce hydrogen with about 80 percent of the energy of the electricity used to create it, however -- not exactly an efficient solution.

This is what always gets me about hydrogen fuel cells- the greenest way to produce hydrogen is electrolysis, and electrolysis is a very energy expensive. Isn't it easier to directly charge a battery?

The other hitch is the energy density of hydrogen.

Energy Density: Why Gasoline Is Here To Stay

And while oil and gas are easy to transport in pipelines and fuel tanks — they pack a lot of energy into a dense, stable form — hydrogen presents a host of technical and economic challenges. The lightest gas in the universe isn't easy to corral. Skeptics say that hydrogen promises to be a needlessly expensive solution for applications for which simpler, cheaper and cleaner alternatives already exist. "You have to step back and ask, 'What is the point?'" says Joseph Romm, executive director of the Center for Energy & Climate Solutions.

At room temperature and pressure, hydrogen's density is so low that it contains less than one-three-hundredth the energy in an equivalent volume of gasoline. In order to fit into a reasonably sized storage tank, hydrogen has to be somehow squeezed into a denser form.

Even in portable form, hydrogen is a tough substance to move from place to place. It can embrittle steel and other metals, weakening them to the point of fracture.

It's very hard to store and distribute.

I hope someone can crack this, but I'm not sure how viable a hydrogen economy would be at this point.

[nationalize the fed]

2. wait

electrolysis is a very energy expensive.

What happens to wind energy when there is no demand? It's wasted. Same with solar photons. Every solar photon that doesn't hit a solar panel is wasted. This energy can be used to create Hydrogen and then used later.

It's very hard to store and distribute.

Proof that it is not hard to store and distribute: Search "Plug Power" + forklifts. Many companies like BMW and Wal Mart are switching the batteries in their forklifts for fuel cells. These hydrogen forklifts are fueled on site- in a fraction of the time it takes to recharge the batteries.

I'm not sure how viable a hydrogen economy would be at this point.

Just watch Japan. They are working overtime on the case. The 2020 Olympics will show the world that it's possible.

Japan rises to challenge of becoming ‘hydrogen society’
Hydrogen viewed as key to energy needs after Fukushima
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/10/12/national/japan-rises-challenge-becoming-hydrogen-society/

Also see: 20 Hydrogen Myths by Amory Lovins/RMI institute

http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E03-05_TwentyHydrogenMyths

This peer-reviewed white paper offers both lay and technical readers a documented primer on basic hydrogen facts, weighs competing opinions, and corrects twenty widespread misconceptions. Some of these include the following: a hydrogen industry would need to be developed from scratch; hydrogen is too dangerous for common use; making hydrogen uses more energy than it yields; we lack a mechanism to store hydrogen in cars; and hydrogen is too expensive to compete with gasoline. This paper explains why the rapidly growing engagement of business, civil society, and government in devising and achieving a transition to a hydrogen economy is warranted and, if properly done, could yield important national and global benefits.

[portlander23]

4. I hope it works

Really I do. I would love to be out of date on this stuff.

[NNadir]

5. Oh please...

RMI? Really?

Peer reviewed?

RMI? What peer exactly? Hunter Lovins? Harvey Wasserman?

Forty years ago, Amory Lovins predicted we'd all be using solar powered molten salt tanks in our back yard. Right now, though, the solar industry doesn't produce enough energy to run all the servers dedicated to telling how great it is.

As for RMI's self declared "chief scientist" (who is remarkably unfamiliar with um, science) I touched on Amory's grand vision elsewhere, focusing in particular on what a bourgeois provincial he actually is and was:

World Energy Demand, Ethical World Energy Demand, Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come


Nearly half a century after Lovins said we'd all go solar "by 2000," the solar industry is not a significant for of energy, although it is a significant source of electronic waste. Despite two trillion dollars spent in the last ten years on this toxic crap, it doesn't produce two of the 560 exajoules humanity consumes each year.

A good place to start learning about the so called fantasy about the "hydrogen economy" would not involve going to the RMI website. It would instead involve opening a science book, and, among other things, learning enough math to read the parts about the laws of thermodynamics.

If hydrogen is so great, how come Amory spends so much time collecting "consulting fees" from companies that mine and refine oil sands?

[LiberalArkie]

3. According to the article, the electricity is from on site windmill and the hydrogen is made on site.

[imthevicar]

6. Congratulations!

I've only been preaching this for 35 years. But what do I know right?

[Binkie The Clown]

7. Some kinds of bullshit never die. This is one of those kinds.

The number of wind generators and solar panels that would have to be built to provide the same amount of energy currently provided by fossil fuels is economically and logistically impossible. The figures have been published many times, but always roundly ignored by the true believers in a hydrogen future. Truth is, it ain't gonna happen. Not now. Not ever. Especially given the fragile state of the economy.

Our present per capita energy consumption is not sustainable by anything short of a major cheap fusion breakthrough.

[kristopher]

8. Engaging in slinging BS...

I agree with the point that hydrogen isn't going to happen.
You are on the right track when you look to amount of renewable infrastructure as the reason for hydrogen's failure.

Your last sentence, however, demonstrates a deeply flawed understanding of the issues at play. Why would we want to maintain our present per capita level of energy consumption when so much of the energy from fossil fuels is wasted as heat?

Have you ever seen this chart:



Note the right side and the amount of "rejected energy" shown - very little of that needs to be replaced.

The other category of "energy services" is what we need in order to get the same amount of work done that is currently performed by our per capita energy number.

When people talk about the role of energy efficiency in solving the problem, this is the fundamental idea that is being discussed. Moving to LED's and Electric Vehicles are parts of the energy efficiency effort. Individually, those efforts seem trivial, but when you realize that collectively the savings they represent amount to 3/5ths of our primary energy consumption the role of "energy efficiency" usually takes on a wholly new meaning for most people.

The problem with hydrogen storage is the amount of "rejected energy" that is embodied in the energy storage and recovery process - it is horrible in comparison to effective alternatives in almost all applications.

For example, if I want to power my business with solar plus storage and a battery set up would require 100 solar panels to meet all my needs, then the low efficiency of a Hydrogen storage setup would require 160 of those same solar panels to deliver the same end use energy.



Renewable energy is entirely capable of powering a modern culture. That is a fact established as far back as 1992 during the efforts preparing for the Rio Earth Summit. Nothing has been learned since that contradicts those conclusions.

Nuclear fusion or fission is not required.