Good questions.
First, the fuel is Hydrogen and Nickel, and 400 Watts of electrical power.
Copper is the waste product, along with 10,000+ Watts of steam.
The steam does 2 things, first it turns a steam turbine to generate electrical power, and the exta is used for heating.
This man is building 128 of these units, which will all heat water together, to get his 1 Megawatt plant operational by the end of this year. He is financing this himself.
An counce of Nickel currently costs about 30 cents. His machine burns 7 ounces with Hydrogen and runs about 6 months. So, we are talking about $2.10 worth of Nickel.
Now, in full disclosure - not all the Nickel reacts- in fact less than 1% reacts. He doesn’t know the particulars - and at this point in time has bigger problems to dedicate himself to. I have no doubt that more efficient means of processing the Nickel, or making it more consumable will be created later down the road. But in the grand scheme of things - this really is a ‘who cares?’ type of issue.
Nickel is the 25th most abundant element on earth. We ain’t gonna run out anytime soon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements
you're kidding right.
As soon as this works, vast nickel deposits will be declared national parks or wildlife refuges the world over, and Krugman will begin writing about Peak Nickel.