Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Becoming Too Big to Ignore
Nasdaq.com Travis Hoium October 25, 2015
The boom in electric vehicles has brought a lot of attention to batteries for applications like energy storage and transportation. But it's not the only energy storage medium that's growing at a rapid rate.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the fuel cell industry nearly doubled in 2014 to $2.2 billion with more than 50,000 fuel cells shipped. Here's what you need to know about this important industry...snip
More advantages of hydrogen over batteries
For vehicles or materials handling, the shorter refill times are an advantage over batteries, but in energy storage, hydrogen holds a massive advantage. Batteries are great at storing a limited amount of energy for minutes or hours, but they aren't good for storage on a massive level.
With enough storage tanks, a hydrogen-producing station could produce clean hydrogen and store it for weeks or months at a time. This dynamic gives energy storage options to maximize value creation and potentially eliminate the intermittency challenge with renewable energy...snip
Hydrogen has a big upside
Electric vehicles have been all the rage for a couple of years now, but when we look out decades, I think there's far greater upside for fuel cells...snip
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/hydrogen-fuel-cells-are-becoming-too-big-to-ignore-cm534278
Apple’s fuel cell farm next to its data center in Maiden, North Carolina Credit: Gigaom/Katie Fehrenbacher
Related: Taking on climate change with technology
Climate change technology: Better fuel
The received wisdom is that the electric car is the future. But, while it's hard to resist the charms of Elon Musk and his Tesla Model S, you simply cannot beat the energy density of good old-fashioned petrol. Kilogram-for-kilogram you'll go further; and the problem becomes even more pronounced when you try to get a 40-tonne articulated lorry from Bristol to Brussels...
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/410998,taking-on-climate-change-with-technology.aspx
= new reply since forum marked as read
Because everybody knows two things about hydrogen. (NOT everybody!)
1. Hydrogen is not an energy source on Earth because there are no natural sources of molecular hydrogen, I.E., H2.
2. Generating molecular hydrogen always takes more energy than is generated by burning the generated hydrogen. ALWAYS! Google Laws of Thermodynamics for details.
So if, for example, you generate hydrogen by electrolysis using power from a coal-fired power plant, you are shooting your self in the foot.
On the other hand if you are doing the same from a solar panel power plant to bridge power through night when the Sun is below the horizon, that would be good policy.
Hydrogen can at best be characterized as an energy storage medium, not a source itself. Furthermore, it is not even sure that is the most efficient of storage mediums, although it might be. The trouble is storing the stuff. Hydrogen is really, really difficult to store.
We just are no way close to a hydrogen economy. I doubt such a thing will ever exist. Generating molecular hydrogen from water takes a whole lot of energy. What other source on Earth has more hydrogen than water?
Those advocating hydrogen power have to answer these issues.
Nevertheless, it is good that some are doing the research because I am all for the "all of the above" approach. That is until it dips into utter woo woo (which this obviously is not).
Regarding hydrogen one must always ask, where is the hydrogen coming from?
Arthur Eddington:
Such are the claims of anybody claiming that hydrogen is an energy source.
The primary questions are:
1. Where does the hydrogen come from?
2. How much energy does it take to generate it?
3. Where does that energy come from?
4. How much energy does the resulting hydrogen itself generate?
Hints:
1. There is no natural pure hydrogen on Earth. The largest source of hydrogen is undoubtedly water, a simple molecule, H2O.
2. Hydrolysis takes a lot of energy. Look it up. There is a lot of research going into this, however advancements are incremental, not revolutionary. This is a tough cookie to crack. We likely won't get much better at it because one must after all break the chemical bonds which themselves have a certain binding energy dictated by the physics, not by hopes and wishes.
3. Ideally one would use solar or wind to generate the hydrogen so that the whole cycle would be a clean energy one. In fact, this is the soul argument for hydrogen that actually works. Except for the answers in #1 and #2, hydrogen would not even exist on Earth. So its only use is to store existing energy, not generate it, because of #1 it is not an energy source. But what use is it if you are burning coal to generate the energy to make hydrogen? None whatsoever. (Thermodynamics again, see the Eddington quote.)
4. This gets to the core of what Eddington is saying. The amount of energy generated by burning the hydrogen will always be less energy than what was required to generate it. Period! End of discussion on this point. Again, read the Eddington quote because he had it precisely correct.
QED
My best to you.
The energy needed to free the hydrogen will always be more than the energy generated by consuming the resulting hydrogen. ALWAYS!
For the third fucking time in this thread I have to quote Arthur Eddington, who was dead on the subject here:
"If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations-then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation-well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
Therefore, hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not an energy source. That is why hydrogen only works if one uses a clean source, like solar, wind or something that needs storage for down periods. It may also be useful for things like airliners which are unlikely to become fully solar powered but require an energy dense fuel.
But the whole argument for hydrogen fuel collapses if one is burning coal to generate energy to generate the hydrogen!
That is my point! And it is an important one. Again, Eddington and Thermo.
I appreciate your response, and you are correct. However, it does not take away from my points.
My best to you.
And if that could be done relatively efficiently, than hydrogen would be useful for storing solar energy for nighttime use. However, one would have to have enough solar energy to both supply the grid plus provide for generating the hydrogen for nighttime power. And as we all known, we lose that battle if there is not enough.
We are far behind in the research on this. Certainly solar is a win-win, but how in the fuck does one safely and cheaply store it for nighttime? The same with wind power, or any other power source that is not constant.
Storage is the big problem with nearly all green power generation options, except fission which has a whole lot of other issues, like what the fuck do you do with the shit when you are done with it?
This is why we are all likely totally fucked unless we dig in and solve some of these big problems.
But, Senator Inhofe still says that it is all a big fraud. And Rushbo. And. And. And.
It is like shoveling water uphill to convince people that this is a huge issue.
My best to you, my friend.
We can give you credit for being persistent. And speaking of credit, you're going to need it since the energy storage market is growing by leaps and bounds and in spite of being front and center in the research arena for decades, hydrogen isn't even a blip on the market's radar.
This article gives a good sampling of the wide range of energy storage applications:
http://www.supersmartenergy.com/energy-storage-and-renewable-integration/
This article reviews the main technologies that are vying to meet those needs:
Global advanced energy storage systems market size was estimated at 3.7GW in 2014 and may reach 11.3 GW by 2022 growing with an estimated CAGR of 15.0% from 2015 to 2022.
North America dominated the regional demand with an estimated market share of 47.5% in 2014. Favourable environment regulations to curb CO2 emissions are likely to drive this regions demand. Asia Pacific is likely to witness high growth rates with an estimated CAGR of 15.7% from 2015 to 2022. Presence of large scale manufacturing units particularly in China and India is anticipated to drive Asia Pacific’s market growth.
European market valuation exceeded USD 340 million in 2014. Renewable energy installation programs by European Union couple with preference given to electric vehicle production in countries such as France and Germany is expected to drive regional demand.
Highly fragmented energy storage systems market share is characterised by joint ventures and continuous research programs for developing technologies used in difference applications. Key industry participants include LG Chem, AES Energy, Alevo, Nippon Chemi-Con, Samsung SDI, A123 Systems, LLC, Duke Energy and GE.
For the purpose of this study, Radiant Insights has segmented the Advanced Energy Systems Market on the basis of technology and region:
Global Advanced Energy Storage Systems Technology Overview (Capacity, Mega Watts; Revenue, USD Million, 2012–2022)
Batteries
Flywheel
Thermal
Compressed Air
Molten Salt
Why? Simple. It is an extremely inefficient means of storage. That translates into high cost both in terms of input energy and the infrastructure required to produce that energy, which means the energy retrieved from hydrogen storage via fuel cells is also much more expensive than the alternatives.
