looking for anyone who has or will have info on hydrogen fuel cells or anyone who has a fuel cell system in their homestead .

-- joncollins (jjpc42@aol.com), May 06, 2001

Answers

Response to hydrogen fuel cells

Check out the Alternative Energy archive - there's a LOT of stuff in there - don't just go by the headings either - a lot of the good material rambled away from the initial point of the thread.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), May 07, 2001.

There is currently an article on fuel cells at www.newyorktimes.com. Search on fuel cell. Article note the cost is still far, far too expensive for ordinary use. For example, one which will produce 100 kilowtts costs $900,000. To make one practical for home use, the cost would need to come down to at least $500 a kilowatt. I rather suspect they will be like solar cells. Remember years ago it was predicted they would be brought down to $1 a watt. Development still hasn't seem to crack the $10 a watt threshold.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), May 10, 2001.

do a search fo GE Microgen.

-- JC (survivors00@hotmail.com), May 10, 2001.

Hey, guys, unless you happen to have a hydrogen vent on your property, you're still gonna have to buy fuel; most likely propane. JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), May 10, 2001.

Ken, I just noticed what you said about solar cell "Development still hasn't seem to crack the $10 a watt threshold."

What is this a threshold OF? It dropped below ten bucks a watt years ago. Even my little mom and pop alternative energy retailer sells them for under six bucks a watt.

During y2k I found a wholesale source for about four bucks a watt.

With today's (and tomorrow's) energy costs, solar electric is actually looking pretty cost competitive. (See the article written by the owner of Real Goods about this. When, or if, our power rate goes up to 15 cents per kwh (it's at just over six cents now), I'll be setting up a solar system. Maybe sooner.

To keep costs down, I will be using the system where you spin the meter backwards, rather than buying and dealing with all those yucky batteries, which make the long term cost of solar SO much more expensive, especially considering the replacement costs for the batteries.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), May 10, 2001.

Joe, what needs to be done is research into powering the fuel cells with other hydrogen rich materials, like natural oils from plants.

-- JC (survivors00@hotmail.com), May 10, 2001.

JOJ:

I stand corrected. The prices I have seen were for small scale projects which would be higher than larger ones, and included the cost of batteries and rewiring.

Still, the economics are questionable. I live in a singlewide and am fairly thrifty with electrical usage. Yearly usage is still about 1.5 kilowatts per hour. At even $4 per watt, that would be a $6,000 system. My total electric bill for the year is only about $1,000. Someone may say a six-year payback is OK, but... A unit even in the sunbelt should only be expected to produce maximum load for perhaps an average of eight hours a day, from say 10AM - 6PM. Low load in the mornings and evenings and none at night.

Last I heard utilities are only required to buy your excess production or total production with a separate meter at their cost of production. Say you pay eight cents a kwh. Their cost of production may only be three cents a kwh. The rest is other expenses such as putting up and maintaining lines, office staff, equipment, payroll, etc. I simply cannot see where the economics are there to be an independent producer using solar.

-- Ken S.in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), May 10, 2001.

Ken, I'm not sure what you mean that "Yearly usage is still about 1.5 kilowatts per hour". Do you mean your AVERAGE use, throughout the year, is 1.5 kilowatt hours/hour? There are 8760 hours in a year, approximately. If you divide that number into your total cost of $1000 for the year, you get 11.4 cents per kwh. Is this your rate? (glad I live in Oregon:)

There are two things about solar electric I'd like to point out. First, if the only reason a person wants to use it is to save money, you're right; it's not there yet. But if he want to save money, IN THE LONG RUN, assuming power rates go up, and/or if he goes solar to help solve the problem of power shortages, and pollution, then he may be comfortable paying a bit more than current market rate.

Also, there are some states which have "net metering", which is how I plan to do this. It doesn't matter what time of day the sun is shining its brightest, because all you're doing is using the power company as a "battery". When your system is producing more than you need (like during mid day), the meter spins backwards. At night, or in cloudy weather, or even when you're just using a lot of power, like air conditioning or whatever, the meter spins frontwards. Basically, you get paid for whatever you produce.

UNLESS you live in a state whose power companies are allowed not to pay you for any power you may produce over the amount you buy from THEM. They get this excess power for free!

You'd have to check with your state's boo-rats to find out the situation where you live.

On the other hand, if you look at Home Power Magazine, they have a section on "Guerilla Power". There are folks out there (shame, shame) who just go ahead and hook up their solar systems to the grid, spin the meter part of the month, and don't bother to tell the Power People what they are doing.

If they wire it safely, I don't see any problem wtih this. If you don't wire it right, you could electrocute someone. Just like you could with a portable generator hooked into your house wiring.

In San Diego, my son in law's mom, as of the last time I saw her quite a few months ago, was paying 43 cents per kwh. This is way more than the cost of solar; it's even pretty much a wash if you go whole hog, with batteries, trackers, and the whole enchilada.

I think we are going to see more and more people going solar, even with the roadblocks dubya is so fond of putting up. The price may even keep coming down; I hope.

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), May 10, 2001.

JOJ:

You are correct. I can only find five months of electric notices. Dividing by five and multiplying by twelve produces an annual cost in the $1,500 range. Average kilowatt usage per hour appears to be right at 2. Cost per kwh from last notice is $.072. Thus, even at $4 per kilowatt, I'd still be looking at a $8,000 system to meet my average needs, and then only when it is producing at maximum production.

If a utility is forced to allow customers with alternative energy systems reverse flow through their meters, they are actually losing money since that for each kwh not billed, there is no contribution being made to overhead. Again, say cost of energy production is $.03 per kwh. They are forced to buy energy from you for $.072, so the cost of energy is over double what they can produce or purchase it for elsewhere. However, with a separate meter, they can buy energy from you for $.03 and resell it for $.072, which makes the contribution to their overhead (all costs above production or purchase).

There is no battery in the electrical power system. Once energy is produced, unless it is utilized, it just disappears. Even a fuel cell does not act as a battery. It only produces power when it is operating, and needs some energy source of its own, such as natural gas or propane. I doubt you can go down to the local Shop & Go and buy a bottle of hydrogen.

While solar power doesn't seem practical for my situation, I do have the option of hydro. I have a pond about an acre and a half in size, with a levee at one side. Were I to have a trench dug out and put in a 3/4" plastic line, I could get enough head (at least four feet) to drive a small hydroelectric turbine (Penton, I think) 24-hours a day since the pond is spring fed.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), May 12, 2001.

Hey Ken, if I had a pond like that I would have put some sort of machine in just for the entertainment value! hehehe Seriously though, I don't think a Pelton wheel is the best for a low head, the only one I have seen operates on a 600 foot head. There is something called a cross flow turbine, or similar name, that I have been told is best for a low head.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), May 12, 2001.

John:

When the pond was being put in, I installed an 8" line through the levee to a ditch in case I needed to drain it down 4' for weed control or whatever. Has an up and down gate value at the ditch. When it is not quite closed, it will shoot out a constant stream of water to the other side of the ditch. That's why I suspect a small scale hydro system would work.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), May 12, 2001.

I saw an article not that long ago about someone who increased the output of his solar cells by directing mirrors at them. I don't THINK it would hurt them, and it almost certainly would't do anything for peak output, put it was a way of making sure they operated at peak for much longer, because they were getting more light. Helped mornings and late afternoons, and also extended things outside summer. Mirrors plus frames were a lot cheaper than buying more solar cells.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), May 13, 2001.

Ken, I agree that the power companies who are forced to buy power from small providers, like you (and this is the case in thirty states as of this date, and more are coming around all the time) would APPEAR to be losing money. Yet the economy of power companies is a strange beast.

I used to build "Super Good Cents" homes. The local power company would pay me as much as $3500 to build these houses to a higher than normal energy standard. The reason they were willing to do this (this was a voluntary program for me and for the power company) is that they figured that it was a lot cheaper to subsidize conservation than to build new power plants, which would cost big bucks up front, and whose power would cost more per kilowatts than that produced by their existing power plants.

The same would seem to be true for the Renewable Energy programs, such as the one where the power company has to pay for RE power. They actually may be coming out ahead by buying this power at retail rates. I don't know for sure, though.

I realize there is no actual battery in the electrical power system. It only acts "like" a battery. You are mistaken in saying that "Once energy is produced, unless it is utilized, it just disappears" The law of conservation of energy contradicts that. Energy never disappears; it merely changes form. In the case of the power produced by your solar panels, once it goes through the (backwards turning) meter, it is USED by the power company. By flowing directly into the grid, it is used by whomever is closest (in terms of electrical gradient). One of the advantages of this is that it is generally used very close by your point of production. This means that the power company is in actuality getting the power for somewhat LESS than retail, because they are not having to absorb line losses in their cost, like they do for most other power sources. For instance, if SoCalEdison gets their power from Bonneville, they lose a lot of power to line loss (also called resistance)

Ha, says someone who has been paying good attention--JOJ says that the law of conservation of energy says that can't happen. Well, sir, you're right. It's not really "lost", it has just been turned into another form of energy, namely heat. Waste heat, in this example.

I've heard lots of figures on how much is lost in this process, and it's different depending on many things: load, voltage, size of conductors, condition of the lines, and, importantly-whether the power is transmitted in DC or AC form. DC has a lot less line loss, all things considered, because the electrons utilize the entire cross section of the transmission lines, as opposed to just the outside of the lines, as AC does.

My ex father in law, and engineer with SoCalEdison, told me that, for a "normal" situation (AC, and not a "super high voltage line") the big power companies lose about fifty percent of the power at the source to line loss every five hundred miles. So if you generate power at Bonneville, and ship it south to California, half of it is lost in the first five hundred miles, and half of that is lost in the second five hundred miles, with the result that three fourths of the original power is gone to waste heat. Bad news, if his figures are correct.

I;m no expert at fuel cells, but as I understand them, one of their strengths is that they can convert power back into hydrogen, such as when a fuel celled car is using its electric motor as a brake. Then this newly created hydrogen is used to produce electricity, and power the car, when it goes back to needing power instead of brakes.

Ken, lucky you, if you have the ability to utilize that hydro! Hydro is the greatest, in my book.

Realize that the amount of hydro you can get from your situation is fairly easily computed: Power (in kilowatts)=head (in feet) times flow (in cubic feet per second) divided by 11.8

This gives you theoretical power, and is generally about twice what you'll get on a small hydro system, due to inefficiencies in various parts of the installation.

If you have a way to measure how much water you actually could run continuously through the system, you can calculate this. I can tell you that whatever you can run through a three quarter inch pipe will not exactly knock your socks off, when you do the math. (a cfs is equal to approximately 440 gallons per minute)

The beauty of hydro, though, is that it produces power 24 hours per day, regardless of sunshine.

I wish I had a way to do hydro. Unfortunately, the only real possibility involves gettng access through my neighbors' and BLM's property.

Good luch with yours!

JOJ

-- jumpofff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), May 16, 2001.