A rare free report from Pike Research (login required) on the outlook for hydrogen fuel cells in 2012. While it remains an approach with much promise, the technological hurdles to a hydrogen economy are as great today as they were when the National Academy of Science produce it’s much-commented-upon report back in 2004. Personally, I remain convinced that carbon fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) will continue to dominate the global energy picture for at least the first half of this century. The global financial situation will constrain governments for years to come, and alternative energies are going to have to earn their market share without resort to government subsidies.
Archive for the ‘fuel cells’ Category
Direct fuel cells as cost effective carbon capture engines?
October 4, 2011FuelCell Energy, Inc. has been awarded $3M by the Department of Energy to examine the possibility of utilizing direct fuel cells (DFCs) to cheaply and cleanly separate CO2 emissions from a variety of industrial and energy production facilities. Carbon capture is the most expensive and energy intensive part of the CCS process (Sequestration – the removal and storage of the CO2 in a safe place is the other part). If DFCs can be shown to be efficient and cost effective, it would provide a huge boost to the goal of capturing and sequestering a large amount of CO2. Effective CCS would go along way toward mollifying environmental fears about unconventional petroleum sources like tar sands and shale oil, as well as enabling large scale coal-to-liquid fuel production.
The nexus of fuel cell technology, wastewater treatment and electricity generation
August 19, 2011from PhysOrg.com: “Yanbiao Liu and his colleagues from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, have succeeded in building a device capable of both cleaning wastewater and producing electricity from it.”
Meanwhile, in California, Greenbang reports on a tri-generation fuel cell that clean wastewater, generates electricity, and provides hydrogen to fueling stations for hydrogen powered vehicles.
