Researchers at Purdue University have further developed a technology that could represent a pollution-free energy source for a range of potential applications, from golf carts to submarines and cars to emergency portable generators.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070827174310.htm
Comments 2
Quick word out about the hydrogen economy, and this technology in general:
This technology does not create hydrogen from water without a cost. Nothing does, because hydrogen is for our purposes, an energy carrier, not an energy source.
In this case the energetic cost is in the form of oxidising aluminium to alumninium oxide. Now transporting aluminium around the country instead of hydrogen… well both are problematic. Hydrogen leaks out of metal pipes and requires much broader circumference pipes than natural gas to be efficient. Aluminium is a solid so it may have to be trucked/trained.
Most environmentalists want to shut down the aluminium industry because smelting is a gigantuan user of electricity. Turning aluminium oxide back into aluminium is adding more of the same burden, at a time when we desperately need to be reducing electricity use, not enlarging it.
Take a step back and hydrogen economy story looks sadly little more than a feelgood myth – albeit one with a pretty serious budget. It promises life can continue just as we know it, only with nicer exhaust fumes, once we get off fossil fuels. There are a great number of reasons why this is unlikely. If you digest only the celebrated scientific ‘breakthroughs’ like the above, you might miss the bigger picture.
This article, perhaps not the most balanced, nevertheless brings up an overwhelming number of challenges:
The Hydrogen Economy – Energy and Economic Black Hole
Alice Friedman, EnergyPulse
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=940
This is interesting because it’s from within the fuel cell industry:
An Early Retirement For The Hydrogen Fuel Cell
Ulf Bossel, Lucerne Fuel Cell Conference
http://www.energybulletin.net/18120.html
Better, I think, to focus on renewable energy solutions which are cheap, simple, long lived, easy to repair and maintain, embedded in system of changed lifestyles and habits, as we get used to a world with less transport.
To paraphrase David Fleming, relocalisation and radical lifestyle changes are at the fringe of what is practically possibile — but have the definative argument in their favour that there is no alternative.
Hope that’s some renewable fuel for thought…
Best, Adam
Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 11:04 am ¶hey adam,
Have to agree with you there. Hydrogen technology has a lot of challenges to overcome. The issues are discussed in depth in The Hype about Hydrogen, by Joseph Romm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hype_about_Hydrogen
cheers, iain.
Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 11:14 am ¶