Portable hydrogen fuel cell

[ShrimpBurrito]

Need power and don't want to listen to a generator? Not enough sun for solar panels? Enter the portable hydrogen fuel cell.

Looks to be about the size of a 6 or 12-pack of beer, and packs 200 Wh of energy. At 12VDC, that's roughly 16 Ah. When it runs out, swap in another cartridge, add water, and you have another cell.

No price yet, so perhaps this is all academic. It's supposed to launch late this year. But I think I remember reading that replacement cartridges were going to be about $20. And they already have refilling stations for smaller cartridges.

http://www.horizonfuelcell.com/store/hydropak.htm
http://www.horizonfuelcell.com/file/...k_brochure.pdf

They already have a smaller unit launched (the "MiniPak") that powers small devices, like an MP3 player, cell phone charging, etc.

http://www.horizonfuelcell.com/store/minipak.htm

While I don't see replacement cartridges for this smaller unit, they do have a refilling station that they will soon launch, but again, no price.

http://www.horizonfuelcell.com/store/hydrofill.htm

But it looks like you simply insert the cartridge, add water, plug it in, and presumably through electrolysis, it generates hydrogen. The cartridge then somehow stores it as a low pressure solid.

Something to keep you eye on perhaps, at least for a price. Interesting stuff.

Dave

Don't want to burst your bubble on this but fuel cells get pretty expensive very quickly. The newer technology is by far cheaper, but running on hydrogen is technically difficult thing to do.

Hydrogen is bulking and a tiny molecule (I know its an element, but hydrogen usually travels in pairs). It is so tiny it can find its way through most containers. In order to equivalent energy it has to heavily compressed. That works, but it makes the containers somewhat dangerous.

The other option is to use methane which is far easier to handle than hydrogen. In liquid form methane is much warmer than hydrogen and much easier to store and transport.

The neat thing about fuel cells is that the byproduct is mostly water.

I noticed that they are not posting the price of their fuel cells. But when you consider that cell phone charger is $99 for 2 watts, that would mean a 3KW (3000W/2W * $99) would be $148,500. If you look at their 500W unit, which consumes 6.5 l/min of H2, their HydroStik only stores 16 litres of hydrogen. That is just under 3 minutes of runtime.

From what I have read, a 3 KW unit would actually be a couple of order of magnitudes less than $150K. It is a very promising technology, but it gets its fuel from coal, oil (sources of methane or hydrogen), or seawater (nuclear, hydroelectric, etc splitting seawater into hydrogen and oxygen)...

[wbmiller3]

I'd love to see consumer fuel cells but I didn't know the technology was this close. The 1970's vintage shuttle cells cost a couple of million bucks each (not counting tanks and plumbing) and produce 7 kw. They weigh 250 lbs, are about 1 ft x 1 ft x 3 ft, and have to be actively cooled.

If fuel cell technology had progressed like PCs in the same time, these would now be the size and cost of D cell batteries....

What level of efficiency can be achieved?

Electricity is consumed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

This hydrogen is then used to generate electricity .

There is a net loss. How bad is it?

Imagine if all the cars in the world ran on hydrogen fuel cells. How many nuclear power pants would it take to produce the electricity to split the water to handle that kind of volume?

There are over 600 million motor vehicles in the world today. If present trends continue, the number of cars on Earth will double in the next 30 years. (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/...Stasenko.shtml)

To keep it simple, assume each vehicle is driven 15,000 miles each year.

Any electricity from the grid that is used to generate this hydrogen means that the equivalent electricity is not available for other purposes, like dvd players and televisions, unless more electrical generating plants are constructed (solar, hydro, dino oil, nucleur, wind, water, etc.)

Energy is never free.

On edit:

600 million cars, times 15 thousand miles per year, devided by 30 miles per gallon equals 300,000,000,000 gallons of gas per year.

Unless I did the math incorrectly.

I am just working from memory, but the fuel cells are pretty efficient, especially the high temperature ones.

There are a lot of advantages with fuel cells. First is obvious byproduct dihydrogen oxide. I many areas of the world this byproduct would be welcomed.

The other advantage are that components don't degrade the way batteries do. Batteries do not last very long at all. After a few years they have to be sent away for processing.

The big problem in using hydrogen as a fuel source is the volume of hydrogen required. I believe the equivalent 20 gallon gas tank would be 60+ gallons in size (actually more and much more expensive). Also just imagine turning in your two 5 gallon propane tanks for a pair of 15s.

I am all for green energy, but people need to realistic about it, understand its limitations, and fully explore its negatives.

Very little research is being done on the negatives of wind farming (beyond the bird problem) or solar. That is there is very few research grants on these issues, which is why we are afflicted with ethanol despite its negative impacts on mileage and increasing the price of food...