Not as beautiful as it seemed

Since the creation of this blog we have presented a lot of pros for you to support fuell cells and I think it's time to present some cons about them:

Firstly, this was previously mentioned but being such a new technology means they are still expensive, and more needs to happen in their commercial development before costs can become really competitive because price would have to fall by a factor of 10 for fuel cells to become economically viable (http://www.columbia.edu/~ajs120/hydrogen/web-pages/h-fuel-cell-disadv.html  .Although this high price can be because the little experience and research on this sector just as the first computers or mobile phones.

In addition, hydrogen needs to be made. We can't just get hydrogen from the ground like oil, gas, or coal. We need to use energy to make the hydrogen. Because of this hydrogen is NOT an energy source, but an energy store. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081211191617AAFOqnG

Moreover, hydrogen has much less volumetric energy density than oil or  diesel and this makes storage more difficult. Nowadays, development has made posible to increment its energy denstiy by storing hydrogen at 200-350 bar. However, its energy density is still nearly ten times less than oil's. Other storage methods can be used such as luiquid hydrogen wich requires high energy is needed to mantain it in adecuate temperature (-250ºC) or metal hidride storing, wich is very expensive and pretucs are very heavy and have a svery slow recharge. But as storage systems are more complicated than this we prefer to dedicate a whole entry to them.  http://www.fuelcell.no/hydrogen_storage_es.htm 

Finally, new lithium batteries are leaving fuel cell behind as they are cheaper, easier to store, and the car industry is already using them far more.For example, emerging thin-film lithium polymer batteries created in labs by Solidcore, Cymbet, NASA Glenn Research Center, Voltaflex, ITN, and others have energy densities up to 900 Wh/L and high-pressure hydrogen gas has an energy volume-density of about 400 watt-hours per liter. http://peakenergy.blogspot.com.es/2005/01/batteries-vs-fuel-cells.html

Another step forward

Scientists never rest, and thanks to that we don't stop moving forward in our race against our more and more limited resources. I believe fuel cells are the energy of the future, due to its cleanness, reliability and efficiency. Yet, we could say that we are not ready for them yet, as for them to be fully operative they require a lot little details to be implanted, such as house-size Hydrogen tanks, recharging stations and such.

Scientists in London, however, are bringing the future to us by making the production of fuel cells cheaper and more efficient -see link http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/automotive/news/scientists-develop-new-method-of-making-hydrogen-fuel-cells/1011947.article#ixzz1oXAqpKqE-, which will I'm sure encourage companies and countries in the world consider this option in the near future when oil suffers another strike, or simply threatens to disappear.

I specially like the way they have improved the existing fuel cells, because I consider it a very clever idea, and a good one, as it has also helped surpass a handicap they had, which was the series formation that led to an overall fail every time one of them failed.

Also, it brings the hope of near innovations, which is always good news. I am personally looking forward to hearing from them, as I'm sure it will only mean that we are nearer from getting free from toxic batteries and pollution caused by oil engines.

Stuart Island

Stuart Island is in the San Juans, Washington, and is about 2 miles long. 

An experimental program is going on in this island, for the Stuart Island Energy Initiative has built a complete system where solar panels generates the power to put working some electrolyzers, which produces hydrogen. This hydrogen is stored on a tank of 1900 litres, in a pression of 10 and 80 bar. This fuel is used finally in a fuel cell of 48 V, and it gives enough electric energy for all the living in the whole island. 

This project started in 2004 Fuel Cell Conference in Denver, and it took 2 years to be ready. That's mainly because of the difficulty of arriving to this island, which hasn't got any ship or ferry service. 

The idea of this program is to develop a clean and pollution-free energy system expecting to get to a world wide energy infrastructure. It is known that fuel cells only exhales water vapor, but still the main problem is in the way of getting the hydrogen, because the way we have today isn't carbon-neutral. A clean way isn't supposed to be achieved in few years.

Another advantage of using hydrogen is that it stores a lot of energy per kilogram, because of its small weight. However, the energy released in the combustion of hydrogen by the reaction is 242 kJ/mole, and it is less that the energy taken from natural gas (800 kJ/mole). We also must say that 242 kJ of hydrogen occupies the same volume as 800 kJ of natural gas. However, gasoline is the master of energy. Did you know that gasoline is more energy-dense than dynamite? This is thanks to its density - a mole of gasoline releases 5500 kJ, and in 22.4 liters (the volume of 242 kJ of hydrogen) there are 160 moles of gasoline, containing 900.000 kJ of energy.

The fact is that people choose fuel cells over batteries because they find it cheaper and more reliable for large-scale energy storage. And as this island shows, "a hydrogen system is practical and appropriate, here and now!

If you have any cuestions about this special island, I give you the e-mails of the three man who put working this proyect:

Stephen Friend at apathseeker@hotmail.com

Jason Lerner at wapalco@gmail.com

Charles Delahunt at cdelahunt@siei.org

Source: http://siei.org