Hydrogen Fuel Cell

[Norcon]

CHP below.

 

[Hysteresis]

Why are people so obsessed with energy ?.
My Dad toiled in the fields with a horse and plough. Treaded flax with his bare feet and walked 3 mile to school and no engines.
His Dad and him drove their produce by foot to the local market 8 mile away which helped feed the local population. They both tended livestock 40 mile away on taken ground using bicycles to get there and back !.
Why does a farmer nowadays have his produce transported from one end of the country to another?.
Indeed why do Irish people buy fish which are transported from Germany , that were originally caught in their waters a few mile off shore ?. Why do Irish trawlers dump hundreds of tons of dead fish into the Irish sea each year to rot on the sea bed and people starving ?
Waste, waste waste ,waste waste, waste..............
And the obsession with energy drives us to continue on this never ending cycle of waste.
Rant over...

Did you write a Ponty Python sketch a few years ago Norcon.
I'm delighted I don't have to work in those conditions in order to survive, maybe that is the very reason we are all so obsessed with energy these days.
Although I do agtree whole hearedly with your comments on transportation madness and waste, waste, waste. The same wastage to which you refer happens in everything in todays life including the transportation of biscuits from one end of the country to the other then back again. Also the driving about of empty lorries to get them to the correct locations due to archaic logistics.
Even sort all this out and we will still worry about energy because we are all conditioned to 'the good life' and we don't want it to end.

 

[Space cat]

I read somewhere recently of the development of a Hydrogen Fired Central heating system which uses Natural gas as the fuel source. The combustion of the Hydrogen is virtually pollution free and the energy output of the Boiler is 25% greater than that of a similar Narural gas fired unit.

Hydrogen combustion is indeed pollution free because the only combustion product is water but what happens to the carbon? I can't see any way of getting 25% more energy out of the original methane if you don't burn the carbon as well.

Presumably these devices work by breaking down CH4 into Carbon and Hydrogen. The Hydrogen will be used as a clean fuel, but what happens then to the carbon that is left. Is Carbon in gaseous form not a pollutant like CO or CO2.

Carbon doesn't exist in gaseous form at the temperatures found inside a domestic boiler. Try an old fashioned carbon arc sun lamp. My grandmother had one. Carbon itself is dirty but inert. In that sense it's not a pollutant but I just don't believe that this new boiler isn't oxidizing it somehow.

Heard about 8 years ago that BG where developing some sort of power source that gave out more energy than was put in but not heard mention of it for a while

That'll be because it didn't work. It's time the infamous cold fusion experiment was put to rest. We need a proper investigation into what really happens when you expose certain metals to monatomic hydrogen.

there is a growing theory that oil is not actually a fossil fuel and is a by product of what happens within the earths core

It's a plausible theory that oil, or at least methane, is oozing out of the core and mantle. There was a lot of methane in the early solar system; the gas planets still have most of theirs. On the other hand, I'm sure the biologists are right. At least some of the oil is formed from the anaerobic decay of organic matter.

the output of the fuel cell is electricity but DC. In order to use it domestically therefore it will need to have an invertor of some kind which are not 100%

That's not a problem. The waste energy from the inverter is heat - which is what the boiler is primarily there to provide. The idea of selling spare power back to the electricity supplier isn't that ridiculous - but will they believe the meter when it's gone backwards?

I am assuming they use the petrol/diesel engine to drive a larger alternator than the vehicle was originally supplied with and then use this alternator to electolysise water and use the resulting Hydrogen to fuel the engine. Quite how it can produce enough Hydrogen to do this is a little puzzling, but that how I assume it works.

It's a scam! You can use engine power to drive an alternator to split water but you can only get a fraction of that power back by burning the hydrogen in the engine. You are using high grade, ie zero entropy, kinetic energy to produce equally high grade electrical energy which is then used to get hydrogen out of water. And what do you do with the hydrogen? You burn it in the engine! Result; most of the energy goes out of the exhaust pipe as heat. WDIK has said it:

basically there is no working example of an over unity fuel cell, you cant get out more than put in.

You can appear to get more out than you put in. Just look at the internal combustion engine. What happens is that you release what was put in by nature millions of years ago. The Fuel cell is just another example of a way of releasing the stored energy.

But you can't get more out than nature put in. Fossil fuels are just stored solar power.

Now fission certainly produces more than WE put in, that energy was provided at the Big Bang.

Not quite. The energy in heavy nuclides was put in when some dying star imploded. That was certainly a very big bang but not THE big bang.

Fusion however at this point in time does require greater input than output presumably because we are trying to create our own little 'Big Bang'.

What we are trying to create is our own star. The fusion reaction itself is well understood. What makes it difficult here on Earth is that we lack the gravitational field of a real star so we have to devise an alternative, magnetic, container. It would be fair to say that the energy input was supplied by THE big bang. If the theory is correct, it made the protons (hydrogen nuclei) which stars fuse into the more stable helium.

I'm delighted I don't have to work in those conditions in order to survive, maybe that is the very reason we are all so obsessed with energy these days.

You certainly got that right!

 

[Hysteresis]

Hi Space Cat,
You are simply repeating a lot of what I said, and I totally agree with you.
The Central Heating unit to which I referred is a design project which is about to be marketed in 2009. Have a look at the various links throughout this thread and you will see what is being marketed. The various contributors to the original question give links that enlightened my original concept that the CH unit burnt Hydrogen derived from CH4. My thoughts were wrong and the unit in fact used a fuel cell which produces DC electricity and Heat(somehow but the technology is a mystery to me). All the manufacturers are claiming is that the system is 25% more efficient that just burning CH4.
As I said, the DC electricity would need an invertor to make it domestically useable. With respect to selling excess power back to suppliers, once again this has been addressed via various links. What is required is a new type of meter which allows for energy export, the present meter would not allow this in its present form.
You seemed to suggest I supported the notion that it is possible to get more out of a system than is put in, which I don't. You have misunderstood what I actually said. What I stated was that you could get more out than WE apparently put in, (note 'we' in Capitals, maybe it should have been in italics). What we do is release energy that was stored millions of years ago by nature. In that sense WE did not put it in, nature did, we are just releasing it. That is basically what you are repeating.
The CH Fuel Cell Designers, manufacturers and marketers, simply claim that it does it more efficient, 25% more efficiently than pure burning hydrogen in the presence of Oxygen. As to whether these claims are true I am not sufficiently knowledgeable of the process to comment.
Now this water powered car 'Thingy'. I agree entirely with you that electrolysing water to produce Hydrogen for burning, cannot be viable as this truly is putting energy into a system which cannot produce more than is put in, and in that respect I obviously totally agree. But again you have misunderstood what I said, or rather meant. I said that as the guy claimed a better FUEL consumption, my assumption was that the car was still burning petrol or diesel. Note I say Assume. I do not know what the process is that the guy is claiming increases efficiency. It may be something totally different to Electrolysis. Following the link to the manufacturers would maybe give some information. As the system it is claimed be fitted in a couple of hours suggests something very simple such as the process I have suggested. I very much doubt the numbers being claimed, but I cannot support those doubts not knowing what the process is that drives the vehicle. If indeed it is electrolysis it has got to be a scam as you suggest.
I think we are in total agreement with all that has been said, and you have misunderstood or not read the postings.

 

[Norcon]

You're all doomed. You think machines can solve all mans problems and when one is solved another arises.
Travel into deepest Ireland and people are still cutting turf by hand from the bog and using horses and carts for transport.
Go into the rainforest and tribes of people are further back in time and quite happy. The biggest threat to their way of life being greedy westerners accustomed to lavish lifestyles and decadent materialism.

 

[Hysteresis]

You're all doomed. You think machines can solve all mans problems and when one is solved another arises.
Travel into deepest Ireland and people are still cutting turf by hand from the bog and using horses and carts for transport.
Go into the rainforest and tribes of people are further back in time and quite happy. The biggest threat to their way of life being greedy westerners accustomed to lavish lifestyles and decadent materialism.

Not quite what the original question was about, but I do agree with you. Don't forget those Irish Bogs will also eventually run out.
Also remember we used to live in caves and all was well but very uncomfortable. So man develops ways and means of bettering his existence which leads to were we are today. Man is by nature and evolution a greedy character and generally wants more and more. Although life in the rainforest sounds very idyllic and romantic, I am not so sure I would like to live with the dangers of decease and infection that goes with it. I know that some of the deceases are western introduced but there are many others which are not and they suffer the consequences.

 

[Space cat]

You have misunderstood what I actually said. What I stated was that you could get more out than WE apparently put in

You're quite right; I read it in a hurry.

Also remember we used to live in caves and all was well but very uncomfortable. So man develops ways and means of bettering his existence which leads to were we are today.

I couldn't agree more. I certainly prefer to have the benefits of modern technology, warts and all. Those who idolize the 'simple' life tend to forget that they have the rest of us as backup. What do they do if their home-grown potatoes don't grow? They go to the supermarket, that's what!

And what do they do if they get sick? Yes, I know most medicines are derived from plants and fungi but what if they need surgery - or an X-ray - or radiotherapy!

And what if some two-bit tyrant says "Pay me if you want the sun to come up tomorrow. " They have a jolly good laugh of course. Stone Age man had to take such threats seriously.

Having said all that, I would guess that those who lived during the Renaissance also thought that they had it all - or, at the very least, that what they didn't have they would soon get. How little did they know! They had free speech. So do we - along with free love and free radio! "Er, what's radio? "

OK, you get the point - but why should we think that we know any better?

 

[joe-90]

i think that the fact oil is running out

That's not what your Uncle in Texas told you now is it? He said there was loads of the stuff.

 

[joe-90]

Heard about 8 years ago that BG where developing some sort of power source that gave out more energy than was put in but not heard mention of it for a while

That's the same principle as the American banks - you can take more money out than you put in.

 

[tim west]

You're all doomed. You think machines can solve all mans problems and when one is solved another arises.
Travel into deepest Ireland and people are still cutting turf by hand from the bog and using horses and carts for transport.
Go into the rainforest and tribes of people are further back in time and quite happy. The biggest threat to their way of life being greedy westerners accustomed to lavish lifestyles and decadent materialism.

Hear hear

 

[scatmanjohn]

Heard about 8 years ago that BG where developing some sort of power source that gave out more energy than was put in but not heard mention of it for a while

are you talking about the CHP boiler namsag? had a stirling engine in it to recoup some of the energy used to theat the house.

seems to have died on its a**e, im not sorry as it would have undoubtedly been a cow to service.

http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=7066[/QUOTE]


Its not died on its arse..BG are ploughing bucket fulls of money at it

http://www.cerespower.com/

http://www.disenco.com/