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The week I started this blog in August 2008, there were three major fuel-cell related discoveries making the rounds in the science magazines. Since then, there have been new announcements every week of an improved catalyst or membrane or electrolyte. As these discoveries mature into real products and enter the market, the option of using fuel cells for energy storage, both for homes as well as vehicles, will become more and more cost-effective.
Energy storage is potentially a big part of the zero-net energy house picture, and is certainly critical for the hydrogen automobile transition. I thought I'd highlight a few recent discoveries and advances in the world of fuel cells, the "energy storage of the future."
Beautiful sunset (photo by Santa Rosa OLD SKOOL, CC 2.0 license)
This is the first post in a series on zero-net energy homes. Over the course of the series I will be covering all aspects of this topic, from the technology and knowledge available today, to the changes needed in technology, building codes, trade skills, design approaches, and will to achieve the goal of all new homes eventually being zero net energy.
Blaze (image by Nicholas T, CC 2.0 license)
Oh Snap! Now some German scientists have (in effect) taken a swing at Stanford professor Mark Z. Jacobson, who concluded in a recent paper that biofuels are a bad policy direction (see summary post here).
In their paper , Prof. Jürgen O. Metzger from Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany and Prof. Aloys Huettermann from the University of Goettingen in Germany say that growing and using biofuels for all the earth's energy needs is not only possible without jeopardizing the global food supply, but also economically feasible.
Garage of the Future (photo by Elsie esq., CC 2.0 Attribution License)
The Rocky Mountain Institute's Andrew Demaria that combine smart cars, a smart home network, and much smarter utilities into a synergistic system that optimizes power usage. After describing a "day in the life" of a smart garage:
Given the utility is experiencing a peak load period, it asks my house if it can use the spare power in the car's battery and send that electricity elsewhere in the grid. What's more, it will pay me for that power. Since I like being paid, I have already programmed the system to accept such requests.
Methanol fuel cell. Image via Wikipedia
I plan to do an in-depth post or series on soon, because there is so much breakthrough work going on in this research area. Fuel cells are interesting on so many fronts - for example, they're probably the best way to use the hydrogen generated by Daniel Nocera's new hydrogen splitting method, announced in mid-August. And just since August, researchers have announced big improvements or cost reductions in every component of the fuel cell - membrane, catalyst, and electrodes.
Top Five Stories
August was a great month for energy storage breakthroughs! In addition, a big talking head talks big, and a business-of-green-energy announcement make my list of top stories.
1. Hydrogen from water
2. Fuel cell breakthrough #1: cheap catalyst
3. Fuel cell breakthrough #2: better cathode
4. Al Gore's call to action: The U.S. should "produce all electricity from carbon-free sources by 2018." (Actually from late July, but my blog didn't start until August!)
5. Green energy investment up 60% YoY in 2007, on target for 60% YoY growth in 2008
Wicked Barrel, by batintherain (Creative Commons license)
My very basic analysis of Al Gore's call to action for "100% carbon free electricity" yesterday had the virtue of being dead simple. of did back in July, based on wind energy generation, that reaches a similar conclusion to mine:
The short answer is: while 100% is probably unrealistic, it's not unreasonable to expect to be able to get pretty close to that number (say, in the 50-90% range) in that timeframe, and it is very likely that it makes a LOT of sense economically.
I posted yesterday about three new breakthrough discoveries related to energy storage from the last week, but they keep on coming - here's another:
Some researchers at Melbourne's Monash University in Australia have made yet another breakthrough related to making fuel cells more feasible for general purpose use. Their breakthrough is related to a new cathode design, made with a much cheaper material than the typical platinum. The result is an order of magnitude reduction in the materials cost for the fuel cell.
It's been a great week for energy! In separate announcements, scientists at MIT, a university in Spain, and at an energy startup in Texas made some amazing claims that to me indicate that what we think we know about alternative energy and energy efficiency, we don't know.
