While I somewhat agree with Karel in that hydrogen is over-hyped, I still think it is the way to the future. Let's face the facts: oil is going to get much more expensive and then we will run out of it. We need other ways to power vehicles, warm houses and power our equipment. While much of hydrogen today is produced using fossile fuels, there's no need to do so, as Iceland's example (among others) shows. Hydrogen is a "vehicle": the trick is to get the power from where it is produced (be that a hydropower plant, nuclear plant, geothermal powerstation or an array of dwarfs rubbing cats against pieces of carpet) to where it is needed. You can't carry electricity in a bucket, but you can carry hydrogen - although admittedly you need a special bucket.
Not everything can be hooked to the electricity grid, so other methods of delivery are needed. Batteries have limited lifespans and are heavy. They also need recharging. Fuel cells might be the answer, or at least an improvement: they just need to get smaller, cheaper and more efficient. As Voller ABC shows, the answer might be a combination of batteries and fuel cells, to combine the good sides of the two.
Sure, hydrogen delivery is expensive and energy-consuming. But so is delivering oil and petrol. But once the delivery system is in place, the cost and the energy needed per unit served will drastically drop, and obtaining hydrogen will become more convenient for the end users. Just like the network of gas stations today, we will hopefully have a network of hydrogen stations in the future. Or, hydrogen could be delivered at the gas stations just like propane or barbecue coal and other types of fuels are even today.
What Voller have done is to make a product that uses this technology and works, while being portable and simple enough for any consumer to operate. It's expensive and not terribly efficient, the pumps make a lot of noise, but I believe that just like the first mass-marketed solar panels, these will find a niche: people who find them useful already as they are, and will pioneer the technology and then feed money and experience to the companies developing new, better versions.
As I see it, the hydrogen economy as a model can work, and can improve the state of the environment once it has reached a large enough penetration. The point is, if you switch to hydrogen, you can at least in theory push your carbon emissions to zero, while that's not even theoretically possible with oil or other fossile fuels. This might be a long way away, and the steps along the way can be small, but at least there is a goal.
Fuel cells are quickly getting more and more common, and as Toshiba has showed they are catching up on batteries and will then overtake. This technology is not yet for everyone, but already as it is, Voller's ABC could be very handy at summer cottages, holiday homes, boats, caravans etc. where you don't have access to power grids, and batteries would be too bulky. And for things like lighthouses, weather stations, traffic controls etc. they can drastically reduce the need for maintenance, battery changing etc.
There is a lot of basic research going on in this field and new techniques and materials are in the pipeline. As the fuel cell products out there are pioneers, I think they must be judged in relation to the bigger picture, rather than from the immediate, narrow point of view of usability/design/price, as we do with the 43256876th portable mp3 player that comes out.
The Cobra Tag may help you win that losing battle, acting as a Bluetooth device that attaches to your key ring and connects to your phone, it gives you the opportunity to find the missing item if it's less than 30 feet away.
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While I somewhat agree with Karel in that hydrogen is over-hyped, I still think it is the way to the future. Let's face the facts: oil is going to get much more expensive and then we will run out of it. We need other ways to power vehicles, warm houses and power our equipment. While much of hydrogen today is produced using fossile fuels, there's no need to do so, as Iceland's example (among others) shows. Hydrogen is a "vehicle": the trick is to get the power from where it is produced (be that a hydropower plant, nuclear plant, geothermal powerstation or an array of dwarfs rubbing cats against pieces of carpet) to where it is needed. You can't carry electricity in a bucket, but you can carry hydrogen - although admittedly you need a special bucket.
Not everything can be hooked to the electricity grid, so other methods of delivery are needed. Batteries have limited lifespans and are heavy. They also need recharging. Fuel cells might be the answer, or at least an improvement: they just need to get smaller, cheaper and more efficient. As Voller ABC shows, the answer might be a combination of batteries and fuel cells, to combine the good sides of the two.
Sure, hydrogen delivery is expensive and energy-consuming. But so is delivering oil and petrol. But once the delivery system is in place, the cost and the energy needed per unit served will drastically drop, and obtaining hydrogen will become more convenient for the end users. Just like the network of gas stations today, we will hopefully have a network of hydrogen stations in the future. Or, hydrogen could be delivered at the gas stations just like propane or barbecue coal and other types of fuels are even today.
What Voller have done is to make a product that uses this technology and works, while being portable and simple enough for any consumer to operate. It's expensive and not terribly efficient, the pumps make a lot of noise, but I believe that just like the first mass-marketed solar panels, these will find a niche: people who find them useful already as they are, and will pioneer the technology and then feed money and experience to the companies developing new, better versions.
As I see it, the hydrogen economy as a model can work, and can improve the state of the environment once it has reached a large enough penetration. The point is, if you switch to hydrogen, you can at least in theory push your carbon emissions to zero, while that's not even theoretically possible with oil or other fossile fuels. This might be a long way away, and the steps along the way can be small, but at least there is a goal.
Fuel cells are quickly getting more and more common, and as Toshiba has showed they are catching up on batteries and will then overtake. This technology is not yet for everyone, but already as it is, Voller's ABC could be very handy at summer cottages, holiday homes, boats, caravans etc. where you don't have access to power grids, and batteries would be too bulky. And for things like lighthouses, weather stations, traffic controls etc. they can drastically reduce the need for maintenance, battery changing etc.
There is a lot of basic research going on in this field and new techniques and materials are in the pipeline. As the fuel cell products out there are pioneers, I think they must be judged in relation to the bigger picture, rather than from the immediate, narrow point of view of usability/design/price, as we do with the 43256876th portable mp3 player that comes out.