I received an email asking if I know anything about using a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity for your home. Specifically, the person was curious about a new generator called a BlueGen developed in Autralia.
I should state upfront that I know little about fuel cell technology beyond what I have read in science fiction (of which I have read a lot!), and what I have followed in the daily news. According to science fiction fuel cell technology will be the power source of the future … by easily converting abundantly available water to hydrogen and oxygen the hero of the book always seems to have unlimited, clean power to accomplish his goals. According to what I have followed in the daily news fuel cell technology is a very promising method of power generation … if we can work the bugs out of it (and they have been saying this for a long time now).
According to the link above about the BlueGen line of generators, companies may actually be making some progress in making a viable product. The catch is that these units are not turning water into hydrogen, at least not directly and not cleanly. The generator uses another fuel (like propane or natural gas) and via the process of fossil fuel reforming generates hydrogen and waste products of heat and carbon dioxide. In other words, my picture of one of these generators is a lot like the gas powered generator you might use to keep your fridge and freezer running if the electrical grid fails for a period of time. The hydrogen fuel cell can be viewed as the alternator of the generator, and in this case the alternator is spun via fossil fuel reforming.
The difference is that apparently a hydrogen fuel cell generator is much more efficient than an equivalent gas generator … maybe as much as two times more efficient from what I have read. This is good … you could get the same power production, generate less green house gas and use less fossil fuel … definitely a step in the right direction! I gather that is the intended use in Australia; with one of these systems running on your property and grid-tied to the electrical network you will be able to produce power more cheaply than the utility can provide it and sell the excess back to the utility. I have mixed feelings about grid tied systems despite intending to implement one myself. We are still relying on a centralized grid for power production with all of its inherent issues; reliability, line losses during distribution, cost and dependence on a remote system.
What is more interesting to me is the ability to use different sources to provide the fuel for the fuel reformation process; a biogas digester for example, or my personal favorite wood gas from a wood gasifier! In other words, from my reading anyway, the fuel for this generator does not have to be a fossil fuel. It sounds like a wood gasifier hooked up to a hydrogen fuel cell would be more efficient than using it to power a gas engine to generate electricity. I am now excited!
Having said all this … I will not be rushing out to get my hands on one of these generators until I see and read about some actual installations!
Hi, Chris. My thinking on this is that if the methane is from a biogenerator-a methane digestor for example-the use of the BlueGen will have a bonus not mentioned in the company’s literature (that i noticed): turning a very intense greehouse gas-methane-into water and a smaller amount of a somewhat less intense greenhouse, co2. It remains to be seen IF the fuel cell appliance can be powered by a methane digester, of course. For some applications, the heat put out by this could be used by a thermo-electric system to generate more electricity. If the heat isn’t used to heat water, that is. Cheers, Chris Green.
Wow! This is very Twilight Zone – I JUST pressed “send” on an e-mail to a production company I work with. Attached to the e-mail are several documents I have proofread. They discuss cutting-edge research in hydrogen power. The national university located in Fukuoka has opened a center for hydrogen research. From the brochure: “The hydrogen projects at the Ito Campus aim to realize a society powered by environmentally-friendly hydrogen energy, and are being implemented under close cooperation between the university, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and the Fukuoka Strategy Conference for Hydrogen Energy.” They have a couple of high-profile projects going on right now, one of which is a “Hydro Town”, populated by a number of families and powered by fuel cell energy. They also have a hydrogen station on campus where they can supply fuel to cars that run on hydrogen. I guess it’s not all science fiction anymore…
Hi Christie,
This is neat!
You would not happen to have any links to the town?
Chris
So, that will add a fifth use to Mike’s Earthship water cycle then!
– Collect water, turn it into hydrogen for storage. Use hydrogen to power house, water coming back!
– ….. do regular Eartship cycle stuff with water
Hi Chris –
A quick search over my lunchtime tea turned up a brief explanation on an English page ofthe METI website:
http://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2011/0113_02.html
This about fuel cells for cars:
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201101140284.html
Oh! Here’s the mother lode – the Kyushu University hydrogen energy research center’s page. Click “English” in the top right corner to see what they have in English (a quick look shows some info on the Hydrogen Town in the “practical demonstrations” topic)
http://www.mech.kyushu-u.ac.jp/h2/
Happy reading!
A hydrogen fuel cell takes in hydrogen and oxygen and produces water. A fuel cell does NOT crack water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen in this case is the fuel. To ‘make’ hydrogen, one needs a electrolysis machine, a steam cracker, or maybe even a biological reactor of some sort. These all require energy to run. This energy can be from solar/wind or other renewable, but there is always a loss.
Other fuel cells take methane as a fuel, and produce water and carbon monoxide. note that ‘methane (CH4)’ does NOT have to mean ‘Natural Gas’. Most living things make methane, and I’m sure you can find stories of dairies or pig farms producing power from their sludge, mainly by having the sludge be eaten by microorganisms which give off methane.
Note again that there is plenty of losses in the cycles here, I’m not sure how many ‘cows’ equals how many lightbulbs. But there are losses.
FCs tend to require rather ‘clean’ inputs, so an additional scrubber is usually required, reducing efficiency.
For all of that though, if you have a good source of H2, or CH4 (from a carbon neutral source), then a FC can be great. They are still rather expensive, as they tend to require platinum and gold in their construction. :/
Thanks for the clarification Tim. I think the fuel cell originally asked about uses propane or natural gas to generate methane?
I’m all for the benefits hydrogen and fuel cells will have for our environment. Has anyone done a serious review of the long term (decades/hundreds of years) consequences of converting massive amounts of water to hydrogen? “Burning” hydrogen will produce water and that is fine. However, hydrogen is hard to contain so there will be losses into the atmosphere. Hydrogen is so light that gravity can not keep it on earth. It can literally float away into space. This happens now through natural processes. We should be sure this is a truly sustainable long term model for energy production before launching massive consumption of such a critical resource. I hope it is.
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you writing this post
and the rest of the website is extremely good.