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New Fuel Cell Twice As Efficient As Generators
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Jun 04, 2007 06:59 AM
from the when-and-how-much dept.
from the when-and-how-much dept.
Hank Green writes "A new kind of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell has been developed that can consume any kind of fuel, from hydrogen to bio-diesel; it is over two times more efficient than traditional generators. Acumentrics is attempting to market the technology to off-grid applications (like National Parks) and also for home use as personal Combined Heat and Power plants that are extremely efficient (half as carbon-intensive as grid power.)"
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The Product Page (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Product Page (Score:4, Funny)
Remember: it's a bunch of tubes, not a big truck!
I don't see a price on that page, by the way...
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Re:The Product Page (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, and at HomeDepot, I can get a 7kW Generator with a 12 hour run-time @ half usage, for around $550. Sure, it produces carbons, but, I'm willing to bet that if the price of gasoline doubled, I still wouldn't be able to off-lay the cost of the fuel cell in this lifetime.
The trick to getting the American public to switch to greener alternative power systems is:
Oh, did I mention that it should demonstrate the ability to SCREW over OPEC, Government, and Corporations?
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ya know, this fuel-cell thingy has an Ethernet port on it. So if someone could find a way to add a really slick, totally anonymous P2P client on the thing, and it could demonstrate the ability to also SCREW over the RIAA, MPAA, Disney, all makers of DRM, and maybe some spammers, too, we would just be ALL set, now wouldn't we?
Re:The Product Page (Score:5, Interesting)
So where 175k may be way over the top at 50k these could sell like hot cakes.
Parent
Re:The Product Page (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point, gasoline is going to be too expensive to use as common fuel. It maybe in 10 years, like they've predicted for the last 15 or 20 years, or it maybe in in 30 or 40... But I expect to live that long. If the price hasn't doubled again in the next 10 years, I'll be very surprised.
You said 'lifetime', and I assume you meant yours. But let's assume you meant 'lifetime of the generator', because they won't last forever. At current prices, it definitely makes sense to buy the gas generator, as it's unlikely they'll both last more than 10 or 15 years.
But the price of a brand new product is always inflated to make back R&D costs quickly, then drops for sale to the less affluent folk in the world. Better production technology helps bring the cost down, too. I seriously doubt the hardware itself actually costs $175k... At a guess, let's say it comes down to 1/100th of that, $17.5k... It won't be long until it's a lot cheaper than the gas version.
In short, comparing the price of a newly-announced product to the price of a product that's been common for years doesn't work well in the long run.
I definitely agree with the 'screw over opec/etc', though... Even if it costs more, many people will be willing to adopt it for just that purpose.
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Re:The Product Page (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you *know* wrong. Worst case, we can make petroleum from carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide plus water and energy, via Fisher-Tropsh or Sabatier synthesis. You require that there be a concept of "peak energy", not "peak oil", which is something that few are arguing for. Technically, sure, there will be peak energy eventually. There's a few hundred years of coal in known reserves (coal exploration hasn't been done all that widely since reserves are so well known, but power usage will continue to grow). If you consider the use of breeder reactors, thorium, and seawater fuel extraction, at current energy consumption there's ~10k years of nuclear fuel at current consumption rates (hard to predict how our usage needs will be that far out). Deuterium-based fusion (we sure have a long time to get it right...), hundreds of thousands to millions of years at current rates. Solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and proton-proton fusion, billions of years.
Of course, you don't have to resort to using H2O as your hydrogen feedstock for Fischer-Tropsh or Sabatier synthesis as long as we have coal for coal liquifaction, tar sands, methane hydrates/clathrates, TDP, possibly shale, biofuels for replacements, and so on. Many of these are nasty for the environment, but that doesn't change the fact that they are indeed fuel options.
What's currently running out is cheap light natural sweet crude. That's all. The era of $1/gal gasoline is over. Welcome to the era of $2-4/gal gasoline.
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Re:The Product Page (Score:4, Interesting)
Awareness of the coming energy crisis and our pernicious dependence on foreign oil has sparked an increase in R&D and general interest in alternative energy that is orders of magnitude higher than anything ever witnessed before. As this page [energy.gov] demonstrates, yes, there has been sporadic research on SOFCs dating back to the 1930s, but all of it pales in comparison to the infusion of human and financial capital we're now seeing. The capitalist incentive to develop alternative energy never existed so long as oil was basically free, and of course miniscule amounts of government funding would never amount to much. But that was yesterday. This is the tipping point.
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The story source (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm whining, is there a template for stories about huge technological advances in energy production? Like "A startup has developed a new form of [insert name of your favourite green energy production system here]. It takes the existing process of [current way to produce power] and optimises it by [super high level technical details of magical new system], resulting in an efficiency improvement of [insert random number greater than 1 here, without citing details about how it was measured or what the costs of the new procedure are]. Read more about it on [insert link to your blog].
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Please cease and desist from using my intellectual property.
Signed,
R. Piquepaille
Speaking of templates... (Score:5, Funny)
Reply Template #1
Oh, wow! That's great! Too bad <insert name of particularly reviled industry> is going to buy it out before it gets big, just like it did with <insert name of 100-mpg-carburetor / perpetual motion machine / free energy source>!
Reply Template #2
Are you kidding? This was already published in <insert link and name of mainstream publication / snopes.com >. How is this "News for Nerds"?
Reply Template #3
It'll never work. This idea violates <insert name of sacred precept being violated, such as the first law of thermodynamics or the Boy Scout Law>. How could you have fallen for this, you idiot?
Reply Template #4
Frist P0st... oh, did someone beat me to that?
Parent
I think they're missing the bigger picture: (Score:5, Funny)
a good acronym.
duh.
I can't even talk about this without a decent acronym.
Re:I think they're missing the bigger picture: (Score:4, Funny)
"American Standard Solid-FUel Cell Kickstart System" (ASS-FUCKS)?
Parent
Any kind of fuel?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh wait...
"Acumentrics' 5000 Power System operates directly from natural gas, propane, biofuels, LPG or hydrogen. "
Looks like once again the Slashdot summary is overblown and misleading.
Anyway - sounds like a promising technology. I'll keep tabs on it.
Re:Any kind of fuel?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really -- it's a matter of semantics. The summary is using "fuel" not to mean "anything", but rather, "fuel" as we think of it currently in common parlance. And as the summary immediately follows with examples, I think it's pretty clear what's being talked about.
I'm all for criticism where it's warranted, but in this case, I think the summary is actually rather good.
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Re:Any kind of fuel?? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Any kind of fuel?? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystem
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It needs a name... (Score:5, Funny)
Not perfect ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not perfect ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Not perfect ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not perfect ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Not perfect ... (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd only use such a generator when you want heat and not when you just want electricity. The rest of the time you'd use mains electricity.
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Re:Not perfect ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The spec sheet: http://www.acumentrics.com/243ebdc5-db1f-410d-991
The home version: http://www.acumentrics.com/6d853cb3-92b2-46f3-b7f
Parent
Re:Not perfect ... behavior under partial load? (Score:5, Interesting)
By the way, from Acumentrics FAQ:
That means you can shut it down about 100 times. Any more shutdowns and you may start to damage your unit. So if your nighttime load is near zero, sorry unlike a diesel, no cutover to batteries. You gotta keep the generator hot. This is gonna adversely affect the efficiency of home use.Parent
Your traditional generator is designed to be cheap (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Your traditional generator is designed to be ch (Score:3, Interesting)
5kw Back up plan (Score:4, Informative)
I am planing a hybrid system for the house when we get one.
will consist of Outback inverters, batteries, little solar wind/panels and last but not least is a generator.
The idea is during a short power outage run off batteries - if it is a long one the generator will start up and
charge the batteries. the solar and wind will be added in stages starting with the pannels
Using CFL's for lighting and auto transfer of vital circuts to the back up system. ie Beer fridge
The idea is that the generator will run at 80-90% load instead of wide fluctuations of 10-90 % the difference is is 2 - 4 hours of run time to a tank so i will use less fuel during a longer outage.
Also being conservative on power consumtion during that time i can even extend my fuel supply
Can also get exaust to water exchanger and use it to help heat the house in winter if needed.
The big advantage is that i can handle larger surge loads then just useing a generator which would have to be 2 to 3 time as large for start up of motors and short peak loads. Ie well pump and sump pump were rural.
Will cost more then just the generator but is way less the $175,000
Parent
Use as backup generator? (Score:4, Insightful)
One would think that you could get racks of the things to get generation capacity in excess of 5KW since the units already consist of multiple tubes. It would simply mean removing the individual DC/AC converters and using one big one.
Anyone have any idea what the maintenance cycles are on fuel cells and how long you can let one sit idle?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
except from the website it can only be started up 100 times before damage occurs. That is a major show stopper right there.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The only time your batteries should be being discharged a
Check their "Test Stand" (Score:3, Interesting)
That looks interesting. I couldn't find a price though. According to their FAQ a 5kw unit costs 175,000 dollars, I think the test unit should be less though since it has fewer tubes.
It's small enough that you could put it in the corner of your garage.
The website describes it as a tool for learning about fuel cells etc., but I think that would be limited by virtue of the tubes being manufactured (and sealed I assume). But it would be useful for "complete system" prototyping and experimentation.
Half as carbon intensive as grid power? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll borrow this one from others (Score:4, Funny)
Factless hype. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you get your power from hydro-electric or nuclear.
Less than half as carbon intensive as coal, oil fired, or natural-gas? Or is taking the US grid as a whole?
Please try and give more than hype.
This may be great power system but I would like a little more in the way of facts in the summary.
To clear up a few questions (Score:5, Informative)
For what it's worth:
- Research & engineering has reduced startup time from 8 hours to more like a few minutes
- There are several automotive companies (Delphi, BMW, Rolls-Royce) looking into the use of SOFCs
- Hydrogen fuel-cells are a false economy on their own - they are for energy STORAGE, not generation. SOFCs however are very, very efficient generators, and portable to boot. They're just also incredibly expensive ATM.
Okay, that last one wasn't from wikipedia, but it needed saying.Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's where the hybrid-car equation breaks down; producing the fuel cells for those cars is so environmentally unfriendly that it takes many years to break even. By the time the current generation hybrid-cars is about to break even, most likely it'll be more environmentally friendly to buy a new car with the latest technology at that point in time.
A little clarification (Score:3, Informative)
Even more interesting..... (Score:3, Insightful)
How do they clean the fuel cell elements? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I've worked once as a consultant in a factory with several blast furnaces - the furnaces themselves never needed cleaning.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yep. That's also how they keep diesel particulate filters working. Every couple of hundred miles, raise the exhaust temperature for a few minutes, and you're good again.
Total cost of ownership over time, otherwise B.S. (Score:4, Insightful)
Twice the efficiency _is_ technologically interesting. But a generator lasts, what, 10-20-30 years? These cells are what? One use recycled? So how many dozens, hundreds, or whatever fuel cells need to be built to get that "doubled efficiency" of building one generator? And what's the closed system total cost of each system over time?
I notice the article is suspiciously devoid of "$" signs.
Not twice as efficient as generators ... can't be (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the figures cited above, it is impossible for fuel cells to be twice as efficient as modern power stations. That would mean they could get 118% efficiency.
The other issue is global warming and greenhouse gases. At a large power plant, it is feasible to sequester carbon dioxide. That wouldn't work with a zillion small fuel cells scattered around the country. These fuel cells aren't an environmental panacea and may not even be that good for the environment unless their only fuel is hydrogen.
The devil is in the details. IOW, fuggetaboutit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's see.. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the only possible course is this:
Found company "Example A limited" on the cheap, stock capital 1$. You are of course owner and CEO of that company, filing your patent with the USPTO. The sole purpose of this company is licensing this single patent, the only employee is you and its only asset is your invention.
Then found company "Example B limited". Same procedure, you are owner and CEO. The purpose of this company is producing useful merchandise from your invention, which is of course only licensed (for 1$/year) from company A.
If you have 300$ to burn, you could even create a small holding structure, with "Example holding limited" as the "root" node becoming the owner of company A and B, further protecting you against liability and lawsuit risks, which always arise when dealing with start-ups in fierce competition and a 2 ton gorilla in the market.
Whatever happens to company B doesn't affect A in any way under most circumstances (except for malice and severe negligence, I think). And as company A doesn't do anything other than holding a patent and licensing it to anyone who wants, it won't go down easily.
If the worst case happens and B goes bust, you could still license your patent through A on your terms, for 1$/year for everyone except BigOil Inc., who would have to pony up, say, half a billion per month. Your patent, your terms.
Sticking it to The Man for fun and profit. Behave responsibly
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
if you are (even temporarily) successful, file (some) eerily similar patents and found a NEW tiny company for everyone of them. Then shift your manufacturing/moneymaking business along to using the "new" patents. Every "new" patent is a layer of armor around your initial invention and a large "I am an industrious and successful inventor"-sign above your head, attracting and safeguarding investors and partners.
(Which of course must only invest in company B, not in your patent "holding cells" and nev
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Somewhat offtopic but (Score:5, Insightful)
1) How much of the concrete production comes from building Nuclear powerplants?
2) Electricity Generation is a bigger culprit, so going nuclear (I've been watching Heroes too much) would go in the right direction...
3) Transportation is also a (much) bigger culprit, and electricity will probably end up playing a large role in alternatives to fossilized carbon.
So, the first point isn't really a point, and nuclear energy could save much on the 2 biggest culprits...
Anything else?
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