New Fuel Cell Twice As Efficient As Generators 246
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.)"
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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List price for a 5 kW unit is $175,000. Present systems are still demonstration units and carry the cost associated with not only the system itself but some custom engineering which typically results from each customer's intended installation. Acumentrics normally provides site installation support and monitoring which is also provided in the quotation.
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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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.
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.
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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It was pretty obvious that he was talking about fuel that we pump up from the ground, not the end of all stored energy period (i hate when someone assumes a ludicrous position of their opponent so they can swear its wrong). This is fuel with the obvious advantage that we didn't need to spend any energy to create it, only to go get it. If we've gotte
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The only thing that could send gas prices over $5/barrel is the
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Yes, we can. It's all about how much infrastructure the oil companies want to buy, which is based on their forecasts as to where oil prices will be when the facilities go online. It's not like there's a shortage of tar sands surface area or anything. The same applies to coal. It's not like there's a shortage of coal mining capacity or land to build plants on. It's all about how much they want to invest in infra
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I don't think it's a given at all. As oil becomes more expensive alternatives will become competitive and the price stabilizes, increases more slowly than predicted, or even falls as the alternatives become more efficient. Just sticking with alternative sources of petroleu
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The market for fuel cells is vastly greater than the market for RO systems. Poor peo
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Blue-collar (Score:2, Interesting)
--
US job growth through solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
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Remember the boom for computers? Gary Geek was the only guy in town that knew computers. In the 1980's, he set up a store, sold Geek Brand Computers that he built in the back. Wrote a small flat-file system to catalog the local radio stations music, and opened a BBS with 4, count them 4 modems.
By the mid-80's, he was taking mail order for the computers he advertised in Byte and Computer Shopper.
By the late 80's, he had closed his store front. Spun off his programming operations, and was building and shipp
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"Home fuel-cell installations will be the next big thing for the small guy to make big. The power companies would be wise to
In Soviet Russia, you fight the power.
In Corporate America, the power fights you!
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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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Legal Incentives Required (Score:3, Interesting)
The argument that cost is the sole factor i
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http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/hippies/make-your-
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].
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Oooh! Thanks for the template! (Score:2, Funny)
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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?
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)?
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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.
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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.
Re:Any kind of fuel?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Any kind of fuel?? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystem
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They are not new (Score:3, Informative)
If I understand right, the flexible fuel use is one of the advantages of the high temperatures (along with non-catalytic electrodes that aren't adversely affected by car
It needs a name... (Score:5, Funny)
Not perfect ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not perfect ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not perfect ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not perfect ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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The reason natural gas power plants have been falling out of favor is the extreme volatility in price of natural gas. Things might be different on that side of the pond, what with you guys being so close to the North Sea and Norway, but that volatility means you'd be paying less in the summer (when you don't need the heat) and paying a small fortune in the winter.
Couple that with the nearly inevitable fact that a home unit will be less efficient than a power plant, and I'd be willing to
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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Asking price is 10k Euro for the smallest model (1 kW electrical, 14 kW heat), that's incl installation. Most of their info in Dutch, though.
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I, obviously, haven't bothered reading the article, or the summary much so I don't know if this thing can work off natural gas. If not I don't know how much harder it is to pipe diesal into peoples homes or whatever but I'm sure the payoff would beat mass truckage in the long t
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
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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.Your traditional generator is designed to be cheap (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Your traditional generator is designed to be ch (Score:3, Interesting)
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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
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Re:Your traditional generator is designed to be ch (Score:2)
Expect it to be under serious evaluation by the US Army, US Coastguard, probably also the Navy and emergency services. And if it does perform as implied they will be paying military procurement prices -
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?
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These days the batteries are also measured while nog being used. When their are nearly discharged, they are charged automatically. This happens in a way so the life expectancy will be maximized.
Of course there's still Murphy's law, and batteries can fail a whole lot earlier!
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The only time your batteries should be being discharged a
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except from the website it can only be started up 100 times before damage occurs. That is a major show stopper right there.
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)
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So, good for backup power, but maybe not so good for getting yourself off the grid.
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People, "the grid" is merely a transport/exchange medium, not a power-generation method.
As far as "being off-grid" as a goal -- why? It just means you have reduced your options.
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It takes some sort of fuel and oxidizes it.
and there is no CO2 byproduct either
Of course. And the hydrogen is generated magically "out of thin air" ? Last thing I heard was that today, most hydrogen is generated from natural gas.
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Oxidation -- Loss of one or more electrons by an atom, molecule, or ion. Oxidation is accompanied by an increase in oxidation number on the atoms, molecules, or ions that lose electrons. Combustion -- The rapid oxidation of fuel gases accompanied by flame and the production of heat, or heat and light.
Is there a flame in a fuel cell?
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.
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Even then the carbon load from natural gas is much lower than from Coal. Again hype without facts.
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Wow, cherry-pick much? How long did you Google to find countries that have the lowest possible fossil fuel consumption? Except for Japan, anyway. Percentage wise, Japan's use of fossil fuels (~65%) is almost as bad as the US (~71%).
Just for shits & giggles, let's include China - a rapidly industrializing country whose electrical conspution is and will continue to expand rapidly - with ~82% of their pow
Compare to combined cycle? (Score:2)
Agree, TFA is more hype without facts.
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:2)
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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)
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1 - it most be very simple.
2 - it can not use any exotic or expensive materials.
3 - it cant be legislated to have all kinds of silly requirements that are expensive.
Electric cars and efficient small cars here in the USA are expensive because of the incredibly retarded safety laws we have. The Smart Car is available in Canada for reasonable prices. the ones sold legally here in the states are 3X the price because of silly crap added. el
How do they clean the fuel cell elements? (Score:3, Interesting)
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I've worked once as a consultant in a factory with several blast furnaces - the furnaces themselves never needed cleaning.
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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.
Yaaaay! Mr. Fusion! (Score:2)
:-)
The skeptic speaks (Score:2)
I'll believe it's viability when I see people buying it.
Maybe I'm jaded..but why is it that every new cool tech that's announced is always at least 10 years away from deployment. Plus I never hear about that revolutionary tech that was announced 10 years ago...where is it?
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
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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
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Great idea...except... (Score:3, Informative)
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If the patent is broad enough to stop others from making it, but narrow enough to be granted not only will prior art will stop anyone else from patenting the same thing again, but you get paid.
If you want to be altruistic, no point in paying for a patent. Just publish the technical specifications for
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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Sure, concrete production emits a lot of CO2.
But that hardly makes a nuclear plant 'carbon intensive' because a 'lot' of concrete is used in it's production. Carbon intensive would be for things like coal - which produces carbon dioxide day in and day out in massive qu