Meet the Joule Box

[nationalize the fed]

A Portable Hydrogen Power Plant

The joule is a derived unit of energy, work, or amount of heat in the International System of Units. It is equal to the energy expended (or work done) in applying a force of one newton through a distance of one metre (1 newton metre or N·m), or in passing an electric current of one ampere through a resistance of one ohm for one second. It is named after the English physicist James Prescott Joule (1818–1889)

That's Mike Strizki, a pioneer in Hydrogen energy. Strizki was featured in a Scientific American article:

Inside the Solar-Hydrogen House: No More Power Bills--Ever

A New Jersey resident generates and stores all the power he needs with solar panels and hydrogen

EAST AMWELL, N.J.—Mike Strizki has not paid an electric, oil or gas bill—nor has he spent a nickel to fill up his Mercury Sable—in nearly two years. Instead, the 51-year-old civil engineer makes all the fuel he needs using a system he built in the capacious garage of his home, which employs photovoltaic (PV) panels to turn sunlight into electricity that is harnessed in turn to extract hydrogen from tap water...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hydrogen-house/

'And what will they burn instead of coal?' asked Pencroft. 'Water,'replied Harding. 'But water decomposed into its primitive elements. yes, my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light. Water will be the coal of the future.'
--Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island , 1874

[NYC_SKP]

1. "Water will be the coal of the future"? No, not ever. Please stop with these falsehoods.

Mr. Strizki is a nice man and he has a nice "proof of concept" thingy going on there.

I could have told him and everyone else that ten years ago, and others have been explaining the same things since the 1960s.

Mr. Stizki's unit has batteries and capacitors and generates hydrogen, very nice, it could have worked without the H2 or been exclusively H2, nothing new here but a lot to go wrong.

I like these proof of concept projects, I build them for a living, though at a far smaller scale. We call them "prototypes" that we use to test our "concepts" and to find faults and consider ways to improve upon the design.

Very nice concept there, Mr. Strizki.

Now, what really stinks about the article and video is the degree to which they imply that everyone will have such technologies.

I imagine that maybe, one day, the top 1% might have such things but by then we'll all be toast so, prolly not.

The stinkiest thing overall for your OP, NTF, is that gratuitous and unfounded bullshit quote from Mysterious Island.

"Water will be the coal of the future"???

Fuck that shit. Do you not realize that one of the top bits of misinformation floating around is that Hydrogen is an "energy source?"

Water is a medium, water is not coal, water will never be coal. Just stop trying to deceive people here.

The Real Science of Hydrogen

Hydrogen is only a source of energy if it can be taken in its pure form and reacted with another chemical, such as oxygen. But all the hydrogen on Earth, except that in hydrocarbons, has already been oxidized, so none of it is available as fuel. If you want to get plentiful unbound hydrogen, the closest place it can be found is on the surface of the Sun; mining this hydrogen supply would be quite a trick. After the Sun, the next closest source of free hydrogen would be the atmosphere of Jupiter. Jupiter is surrounded by radiation belts so intense that they are deadly to humans and electronics. It also has a massive gravity field that would severely impair hydrogen export operations. These would also be complicated by the 2.5-year Jupiter-to-Earth flight transit time (during which any liquid hydrogen launched would probably boil away), and the fact that upon re-entry at Earth, the imagined hydrogen shipping capsule would face heat loads about eight times higher than those withstood by a space shuttle returning from orbit.

So if we put aside the spectacularly improbable prospect of fueling our planet with extraterrestrial hydrogen imports, the only way to get free hydrogen on Earth is to make it. The trouble is that making hydrogen requires more energy than the hydrogen so produced can provide. Hydrogen, therefore, is not a source of energy. It simply is a carrier of energy. And it is, as we shall see, an extremely poor one.

The spokesmen for the hydrogen hoax claim that hydrogen will be manufactured from water via electrolysis. It is certainly possible to make hydrogen this way, but it is very expensive — so much so, that only four percent of all hydrogen currently produced in the United States is produced in this manner. The rest is made by breaking down hydrocarbons, through processes like pyrolysis of natural gas or steam reforming of coal.

Neither type of hydrogen is even remotely economical as fuel. The wholesale cost of commercial grade liquid hydrogen (made the cheap way, from hydrocarbons) shipped to large customers in the United States is about $6 per kilogram. High purity hydrogen made from electrolysis for scientific applications costs considerably more. Dispensed in compressed gas cylinders to retail customers, the current price of commercial grade hydrogen is about $100 per kilogram. For comparison, a kilogram of hydrogen contains about the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline. This means that even if hydrogen cars were available and hydrogen stations existed to fuel them, no one with the power to choose otherwise would ever buy such vehicles. This fact alone makes the hydrogen economy a non-starter in a free society.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax

[nationalize the fed]

4. Tell Honda NOW before they spend another $

First green hydrogen refuelling station opens

Solar-powered hydrogen available to drivers at Honda's Swindon factory


Solar Farm near Honda's Swindon UK factory

Gas supplier BOC has opened the UK's first “green” commercial-scale hydrogen refuelling station at the Honda factory in Swindon to test the commercial viability of the technology.

The refuelling station at Swindon uses electricity from a nearby 15MW capacity solar photovoltaic plant to power an industrial electrolyser, which produces hydrogen from water to be dispensed for several applications.

The hydrogen leaves the electrolyser, which was manufactured by Belgian company Hydrogenics and consumes around 4,9 kWh/Nm3 of electricity, at 9bar. The hydrogen is then compressed in a single stage up to 900bar and stored for use in several applications: a dual pressure refuelling pump for cars that use hydrogen at 700bar and commercial vehicles at 350bar; a forklift refuelling station within the honda factory operating at 350bar, and a small building which uses a M-Field fuel cell system operating at around 5bar to supply heat and light.

The hydrogen station can produce and dispense 3kg of hydrogen an hour, up to 200kg a day, and store up to 135kg. When the pressure drops in the hydrogen store, the system responds by producing more hydrogen to repressurise and “top-up” the storage. The hydrogen production and storage process takes around 90 minutes from start to finish. ..

MORE from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
http://www.imeche.org/news/engineering/first-green-hydrogen-refuelling-station-opens

Please stop with these falsehoods.

Here's the way it's going to work, NYC SKP:

Do not tell me what to do and I will not tell you what to do.

Get it? Good.

#hydrogenclaptrap

[dumbcat]

7. Can you explain this a little?

The hydrogen leaves the electrolyser, which was manufactured by Belgian company Hydrogenics and consumes around 4,9 kWh/Nm3 of electricity, ...

What, exactly, is 4,9 kWh/Nm3 of electricity? Electrical energy (in the commercial world, as this is) is usually expressed as kWh. How many kWh of electrical energy are required to produce a kg of H2 at delivery pressure? That is the key parameter we are looking for here.

[NYC_SKP]

8. They can't. I can. NM3 means "Normal Cubic Meter".

So the 4.9 kWh/Nm3 of H2 indicates the electricity needed to electrolyze one cubic meter of Hydrogen at normal temperature and pressure, usually taken to be 20.0 C and 1.01 bar (one atmosphere).

The OP likes to post about projects that are just research and fluff as if they prove that we're headed for a hydrogen economy.

It's claptrap.

Toyota and Honda are making a lot of H2 prototypes and pilot runs, they get funds from the government and industries, and it's a good thing. Other car makers do it to.

I drove a H2 powered Mercedes back in 2008. It's just an electric car that uses compressed H2 instead of a big battery pack for stored energy.

Don't stop questioning! The OP also posts projects done by Gas Companies like BOC in Great Britain and Linde here in the states. They sell gas, put some solar modules together and throw a party.

Woo Hoo

[dumbcat]

11. Thanks,

I should have figured out the NM3 reference, but somehow I was trying to see where newton-meters was involved.

I've read the best current tech hydrolyzers from Giner are using almost 50kWh to produce 1 kg of H2 at some delivery pressure (I forget the pressure, but 900 psi sticks in my mind.)

I like to watch the kWh required for all these "portable" H2 fueling stations that falsely imply they are using the couple of kW of solar panels on their canopy to produce their H2. Nobody seems to want to show the math.

Just to save me the google search, do you know off the top of your head how many NM3 per kg of H2? Should be around 10?

ETA: Found it. Looks like about 11.13?

[nationalize the fed]

13. ~40-50 kWh to make a Kilo of H2

A Nissan Leaf gets about ~100 miles per 34 kWh

A Kg of H2 can move a car about 80 miles

Some R&D can reduce the amount of electricity required to make a kilo of H2, as well as finding alternatives to platinum.

[caraher]

2. "Although the device cost $500,000 to construct..."

yes, you too can be energy-independent for merely a half-million bucks.

let's see, 100 million US households x $500,000 each is a mere $50 trillion. Then we move on to do the industrial and commercial sectors...

The question is not and never has been whether this is possible. It's a question of resource allocation. Neither time nor money is on the side of the hydrogen economy as a response to issues like climate change.

The Verne quote is pure fiction and intended to mislead, as already pointed out. Claptrap, if you will...

[NYC_SKP]

3. I'm reminded of all the fuss over Bloom Boxes. Turn out to be Natural Gas Industry Wet Dream.

Cleaner than NG power plant electricity but still fossil fuel, Bloom Boxes were touted as magical clean energy machines.

Well, cleaner but not magical. http://www.bloomenergy.com/clean-energy/

They are a way around peak day pricing, time of use power pricing structures and tiered pricing structures, but still impact the grid in that they use natural gas needed by the grid.

Most people don't know how the electric grids work, and even fewer realize that gas infrastructure and supply impacts the grid, the two are by no means independent of the other.

Oh well, nice to dream.

[nationalize the fed]

5. You also need to notify eBay

eBay Data Center Runs Almost Entirely On Bloom Fuel Cells



eBay is raising the bar (again) when it comes to sourcing power for massive data centers.

Its massive new facility in Salt Lake City – the main hub of technology powering more than $175 billion in annual e-commerce activity – uses fuel cells “servers” from Bloom Energy as the primary power source.

It is the first facility in the world to do so, and it’s not an insignificant amount of power. Of the 8 megawatts of power needed to run and cool the facility, 6 megawatts are being generated by five banks of Bloom Energy Servers (30 units in all). Natural gas is being used as the fuel source for the Bloom technology.

In a blog post describing the project, two of the eBay executives responsible for the project describe the rationale:

“This not only makes the commerce activity powered by this facility cleaner, but according to a new white paper released today by the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, it’s also expected to increase the availability and reliability of our infrastructure...
MORE: http://www.forbes.com/sites/heatherclancy/2013/10/02/new-ebay-data-center-runs-almost-entirely-on-bloom-fuel-cells/




A Cleaner, Greener Future

On September 26, 2013, eBay Inc. will open our newest and largest data center to date. Located in Salt Lake City, UT, the facility will be critical in achieving our target of enabling $300 billion in commerce volume by 2015. The data center houses some of the world's newest data center technology from partners like Dell and HP. And as the first facility of its kind in the world to use Bloom Energy Servers as on-site, primary power, it tangibly advances our vision for a more environmentally sustainable commerce future...
MORE: http://tech.ebay.com/

Introducing Our Salt Lake City Data Center: Advancing Our Commitment to Cleaner, Greener Commerce
September 26, 2013 / Green / Social Innovation / Technology

What do fuel cells, eBay Inc., and the Silicon Slopes of Utah have in common? They’re all a part of today’s exciting launch of our new state-of-the-art, environmentally minded facility!...
MORE: http://blog.ebay.com/introducing-our-salt-lake-city-data-center-advancing-our-commitment-to-cleaner-greener-commerce/

A Peek Inside eBay's Utah Data Center

You might want to consider the fact that you do not know as much as you think you do, NYC SKP

[NYC_SKP]

9. "Natural gas is being used as the fuel source" No Fucking Shit. What did I Say?

I've been to that fucking data center.

You're killing me with your obvious lack of real world experience with energy technologies.

[nationalize the fed]

6. You're right because the price of mass produced Tech never drops

What a comedy show these Hydrogen threads are.

No wonder the US can't do anything but drone bomb suspects and frack natural gas anymore.

I'll use the Verne quote every chance I get from now on

'And what will they burn instead of coal?' asked Pencroft. 'Water,'replied Harding. 'But water decomposed into its primitive elements. yes, my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light. Water will be the coal of the future.'
--Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island , 1874

[caraher]

10. Please do

The Verne quote serves as an admirable warning label that each post containing it is more likely to reflect fiction and propaganda than fact. The slightest acquaintance with thermodynamics is sufficient to expose the absurdity of likening water to coal.

[NYC_SKP]

12. Science fiction: part science, part fiction! Here's MY favorite energy quote. No fiction here:

.

“No matter what we attempt to do, no matter to what fields we turn our efforts, we are dependent on power. We have to evolve means of obtaining energy from stores which are forever inexhaustible, to perfect methods which do not imply consumption and waste of any material whatever.

If we use fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations.”

http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/07/04/nikola-tesla-quotes-vol1/

Beware any scheme that involves proprietary equipment and middlemen and specialized infrastructure. That is the petroleum industry, and it is the hydrogen industry.

Hydrogen is not now and never will be a source of energy; it is an energy carrier.

[Gregorian]

14. A stopgap measure until batteries are more effective. Push electrons, not molecules!