Posted on 07/29/2014 10:19:37 AM PDT by shove_it
~snip~ The details behind the new fuel cell
The new fuel cell uses stainless steel in place of platinum and rare metals. Johanna Wellington, advanced technology leader at General Electric Global Research and the head of General Electric's fuel cell business, states:
"The cost challenges associated with the technology have stumped a lot of people for a long time. But we made it work, and we made it work economically. It's a game-changer. The new fuel cell can generate electricity at any location with a supply of natural gas. It can get going quickly, does not need new transmission lines and produces lower emissions than conventional power plants."
This is tremendous news and truly is a game changer if it comes to fruition. How did General Electric do it is the question.
[...]
"The system generates electricity by feeding hydrogen-rich fuel heated to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit through the channels cut under the anode. Equally hot air travels over the cathode. An electrochemical reaction mediated by the solid electrolyte between the hydrogen in the fuel and the oxygen in the air generates electricity, water, heat and synthetic gas, or syngas. This syngas, which contains residual hydrogen, still holds enough energy for more power generation. The fuel cell feeds the syngas to a Jenbacher engine attached to the fuel cell to generate additional electricity, bringing the electrical efficiency to 65 percent." [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
I just wish another energy raw material - natural gas - was not a required raw material for the fuel cell.
Yes, the price of natural gas is making it more attractive in grid generated electricity, but it is less efficient (creates less heat for a comparable input compared to coal, fuel oil or nuclear) and grid generated electricity has a lot of inefficiency (energy loss) naturally, in the grid itself.
It is also true that when it comes to heating, natural gas heaters now deliver close to 90% of the energy potential input. That makes heating a more efficient direct use of the natural gas than the 65% efficiency of using it for a fuel cell.
On the other hand, that 65% efficiency of the fuel cell IS greater than the efficiency of power-grid generated use of natural gas for electricity, when all factors including losses via the distribution system are considered.
In the question of whether or not the fuel cell is enough of a paradigm changer to bring natural gas into the home as a generator of electricity for the home, via fuel cells, that will require lots of other technical and economic questions and answers.
Fuel cells do not store energy. They directly generate electricity from fuel (using natural gas in this case).
There are conditions where both public and private interests combine in a good way. I certainly would not want to see unqualified taxpayer assistance in developing energy independence.
The fuel cell also emits heat, which can be used to drive a conventional turbine, or used directly for heating and generating hot water.
Dang! Expect the ChiComs, Koreans and Japanese to steal it in about 6 months.
One of the added "benefits" of off-shore manufacturing everything.
a) China will hack GE's computers and steal the technology or pay (or threaten) a Chinese American engineer to steal it for them. They will then sell a crappier version.
b)The Korean gov will make a billion dollar 'loan' to Korean chaebol that will hire a 1000 Korean engineers to reproduce the technology and offer cheap credit to customers until the GE unit goes out of business;
c)The Japanese will order several units, completely reverse engineer it, make improvements with new patents and sell a more reliable unit.
In any possible scenario, we're screwed. But hey, we get "free trade".
Toyota is coming out with a fuel cell vehicle within the next year. They say that the reason they have not produced a full electric is that they believe electric will never do what most people need a car to do, a fuel cell is more efficient, and they spent, and are spending funds on fuel cell instead of electric.
I know because I just left a meeting with Toyota recently and that was a big part of the conversation.
Toyota will be they first out with a fuel cell vehicle.
So, who is stealing from who? Or whom.....?
I'm not saying they stole everything: but we certainly subsidized their advances through unfair competition.
I’ll keep using my incandescents until the supply in my bulb closets is exhausted.
Anyone know how these low cost fuel cells would stack up against lithium ion batteries as far as costs/efficiency/etc for storing energy.
Fuel cells do not store energy. They directly generate electricity from fuel (using natural gas in this case).
..............
So they have no storage capacity. Rather they just convert energy in the form of natural gas to electricity which has to be immediately used. The actual stored energy in fuel cells is the natural gas.
Correct?
Correct. Fuel cell is for electric generation, not electric storage.
Toyota’s Hydrogen vs. Tesla’s Batteries: Which Car Will Win?
I still have the old higher wattage incandescent bulbs. I have heard the same about the LED bulbs and will switch when I run out of the old type. May be a while. Thanks.
I agree. I don’t like being forced to sign up for a website just to finish reading an excerpted article.
Seeking Alpha must be excerpted. See post #6 for a link to GE’s press release.
One way to deal with SeekingAlpha is to disable JavaScript for their domain.
Of course, that also keeps the comments from loading, and the comments are often more valuable than the article.
I just sign up for such sites with a throw-away email address I have on live.com. It currently has over 57,000 messages in its inbox, and the only ones that are marked "read" are those where I needed to click to complete a signup.
So is a lithium-ion battery. Or any other type of battery. A fuel cell is really just another type of battery. All of them produce electricity electrochemically.
If you actually aim to store electricity as electricity, you want a capacitor. Recently, so-called supercapacitors have been developed, which are capable of storing useful amounts of energy, but they're starting to blur the line between electric and chemical storage, e.g., pseudocapacitors.
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