General Electric's Game-Changing Fuel Cell May Spark A Revolution

SeekingAlpha ^ | 29 Jul 2014 | David Alton Clark

[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." [...]

[GraceG]

Cool, but seeing as GE gets so much money from US the Taxpayer the information on how to make this should be publically available via FOIA request...

[mountainlion]

I am not going to sigh up to read about the article.

[Ben Mugged]

Plasma Reformers have been producing large quantities of hydrogen and syngas for many years using garbage as fuel. I saw an operational unit in 2001.

[BitWielder1]

What's the efficiency of this system compared to a simple gas powered generator alone?

[Mycroft Holmes]

I am not going to sigh up to read about the article.

---

Here is press release from GE. Same words, no wall.

	Freedom ≠ Free Stuff☭
	I, for one, welcome our new Cybernetic Overlords /.
Mash Dobbshead® for HTML, bop Hello_Cthlhu for XAMPP

[Fester Chugabrew]

It will be a wonderful thing to see a breakthrough that gets the typical household off the grid. Research and development of this nature is worthy of taxpayer support.

[PapaBear3625]

At 65% efficiency, depending on what the minimum size is, it may be a more cost effective solution for office buildings to have a fuel cell than to buy electricity. It may also make feasible the replacement of diesel/electric locomotives with LNG/electric.

[Cheerio]

We’ve heard all this before - immediately coming to mind is cold fusion. And then there is “FREE” electricity from space. Ya right!!

[Foundahardheadedwoman]

I won’t sign up either but do wonder if this can be scaled down to a neighborhood size unit or eventually a single home unit. I despise GE and their head honcho Immelt for his corrupt dealings with Obama and their mercury bulb we are forced to use. Did own stock in the past but no more, can not support these crooks.

[shove_it]

Thanks for that link.

[Red Badger]

I wonder if it can be scaled DOWN to fit in a Big Rig or automobile?..............

[shove_it]

That’s the holy grail.

[Red Badger]

For those who worship Gaea..............

[expat2]

Sounds good, but why is my BS meter ringing? The big bugbear with fuel cells over at least 50 years has been electrode poisoning. I kind of doubt they have licked that problem with this high-temperature gizmo.

[riverdawg]

“I despise GE and their head honcho Immelt for his corrupt dealings with Obama and their mercury bulb we are forced to use”

Use LED bulbs. No mercury, and they emit a warmer light than CFLs, IMO.

[ckilmer]

Anyone know how these low cost fuel cells would stack up against lithium ion batteries as far as costs/efficiency/etc for storing energy.

It looks like they’re too big for mobile transportation. But...—Since it looks like these machines require some electricity to run—it may be that they could be used to store energy from solar or wind facilities.

That’s a market that Musk would like to have with his lithium ion batteries—but those babies are expensive. These look much cheaper—except that they have to have a continuous supply of natural gas.

[Mr. Lucky]

If the project isn’t worthy of private support, it isn’t worthy of government support. If the project is worthy of private support, the government should stay out of the way.

[catnipman]

“We’ve heard all this before - immediately coming to mind is cold fusion. And then there is “FREE” electricity from space. Ya right!!”

Yep. I’ve lost count over the decades of all of the miracle battery companies on the verge of going public if they could just get the “manufacturing” issues resolved. And then there’s all the miracle battery companies that actually did go public and then went bankrupt.

And then you have all of your miracle fuel cell breakthroughs. Killer bees, killer sunspots, the killer computer virus, the coffee crop will fail next year, the chocolate crop will fail next year: each of these runs in a two year news cycle on slow news days.

[MrB]

“Plasma Reformers”?

Pretty fancy name for “smoldering garbage in a barrel”.