Posted on 04/22/2024 10:32:26 AM PDT by Freedom4US
I’m sitting here re-charging my RV battery bank. Just messing around seeing how this stuff works.
One trend is RV manufacturers now furnish 12 volt DC powered refrigerators. Even the small units pull 10 amps, on hot days I can see 40 amps or so daily would be routine. Using a generator and the installed RV converter, it needs re-charging often, and while the performance is good, it is what it is.
A propane powered refrigerator, on the other hand, will run for a month on a standard 20 pound barbecue tank.
Out in the desert, water looms critical when “boondocking” or camping at remote sites. Remember the Apollo program?
One of the then-new technologies they employed for powering the Command and Service modules were called Fuel Cells. While they have been around for a really long time, they refined them and used them to good effect.
They run on Oxygen and Hydrogen. And produce gobs of electricity. Aren’t both Oxygen and Hydrogen available at Welding supply houses? I guess Hydrogen is “Cryogenic”, is that a show stopper? Can’t fill up a tank like propane?
These fuel cells would be *perfect* for the RV industry. Cabins. Etc. Oh - Did You Know what the byproduct of a hydrogen oxygen fuel cell is?
Pure water. Exactly what is needed at remote sites! What say you engineering Freepers? What happened to fuel cells?
Thirty years ago there was a flurry of excitement about fuel cells. Plug Power was supposed to be an up and coming player. Its stock was about 5 dollars iirc, so I bought some.. Sold later in the year, as they didn’t perform much. Today they are 2.50.
The other thing about hydrogen is that it’s a giant PITA to transport and store, and has a super-low energy density compared to other conventional fuels. From a safety standpoint, it’s probably fine outdoors, but the NFPA hydrogen standard (NFPA 2) makes it clear that wide adoption of hydrogen fuel for cars would quickly run into some real challenges for things like parking structures. The hydrogen is so buoyant that concentrations of gas above the “LEL or lower explosive limit) can form pretty easily if the gas were ever to be released and get trapped.
California is pushing this hard for hydrogen fuels, but as a practical matter, there are a lot of challenges to overcome.
I have an invention I call “Densified Hydrogen” that solves the fuel cell problems. What you do is bond hydrogen to long chains of carbon and it will turn into an energy dense room temperature liquid. Genius.
The company is FCEL. Check it out.
Private residences too.
Thank you for that information.
I think purely of the challenges to hydrogen fuel based on its chemical bonding properties and bond energies. I welcome the information on its physical properties.
California, unfortunately, has been overrun by leftists. This is why I did not return to CA after I retired. Leftists love pie-in-the-sky schemes, and don’t seem very focused on what is possible or practical. Sad.
The fundamental problem with all leftists is they never ever think things through before implementing them
I recall that the big hype back in the 1990s was that it would be a source of energy, not an energy storage system.
As energy storage, if we could address the problems of hydrogen flammability and storage, the idea of fuel cells is a little more reasonable.
There is also an issue with gullibility among leftists.
If only public schools taught skills like critical thinking.
It’s Toyota’s preferred technology for powering EVs versus batteries. They’re been working on it for years now and have it very refined.
“...bond hydrogen to long chains of carbon and it will turn into an energy dense room temperature liquid...”
Do you mean gasoline? Wow!
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