With oil prices in free-fall and the world's economies in the toilet, short-sighted governments and
C02-denying GM execs will undoubtedly defer priority given to clean energies in the next round of fiscal budgets. Too bad, because Korea's S&P Energy Research Institute has just issued a press release about a new discovery it claims puts the era of clean energy within reach. Dr. Sen Kim claims to have achieved the separation of
Hydrogen using just 0.1kwh of energy compared to the traditional 4 - 4.5kwh required using the ol' electrolytic method. Dr. Kim postulates that "manufacturing the H2 by our method will lower the cost of H2 as much as 20 - 30 times" compared to electrolytic H2. That makes SPERI's method suitable for H2 fuel production from say, an
in-home hydrogen fueling station. So is this the solution to all of our clean energy concerns? Perhaps, but we've heard these
economical hydrogen-generation claims before. Let's wait for the claim to be more thoroughly vetted by bigger brains than our own before getting too hopeful.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jack H @ Oct 20th 2008 6:01AM
with this, the tokomac in France, and solar/wind power, we should be able to power most of the world with clean energy
not problem solved, but problem solving
Pretol @ Oct 20th 2008 2:03PM
Maybe with wind and solar. But not with this... I'm glad you're optimistic... but let's be a little more critical of bogus Korean discoveries of worm-holes into other energy universii (?), and overnight efficiency/cost increases of 3000%, and other discoveries that claim to instantly solve global warming, economy, energy crisii (?) at once.
thethirdmoose @ Oct 20th 2008 5:11PM
The tokamak uses more energy than it produces.
From My Cube @ Oct 20th 2008 6:02AM
I think this is a 10th time this month weve seen things as game altering....when will these types of things make it to the market? Probably not soon enough
teej @ Oct 20th 2008 10:19AM
unfortunately, as long as greed and money are the glues of the world, the infrastructural innovations like these will take years upon years for these to hit consumer actuality.
Pretol @ Oct 20th 2008 1:37PM
Running at 1500% efficiency is also known as BULLSHIT. So yeah, I don't think this "technology" will arrive soon enough.
Brad @ Oct 20th 2008 2:32PM
Well, 30x cheaper still isn't cheap enough. Currently available technology puts Hydrogen at about $500/kg. We need it down below $5 before it will be economically viable, and then we still need a safe means to store, and distribute it. Distributed generation is extremely inefficient. That's why we don't all grow our own crops. Specialization breeds efficiency.
Oh, and @teej:
"unfortunately, as long as greed and money are the glues of the world, the infrastructural innovations like these will take years upon years for these to hit consumer actuality."
No, we just need to align the greatest public benefit with that greed and money. Greed and wealth have been fundamental driving forces for humanity for as long as we've even the most rudimentary of social groups. To go against that is to pretend we live a world we don't, and that's just childish. As long as there are more people than there are resources to meet their needs, greed and wealth will be driving forces. And since we're a few billion over capacity as it is, I don't see that changing any time soon.
skeptic @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:44PM
Never. This is pure vaporware, possibly even fraudulent.
Sort of like Popular Mechanics claiming the flying car is just 2 years away... for the past 50 years.
rita hainsworth @ Oct 20th 2008 6:05AM
Just cleared a space in my bedroom for one of these....
notYou @ Oct 20th 2008 7:32AM
Yes, but can it fit in there with the two of those you've already got?
Jonathan-DBOSS @ Oct 20th 2008 9:50AM
lol, +1
Mike @ Oct 20th 2008 10:39AM
double lol +2
Roy Garringer @ Oct 20th 2008 2:16PM
Please... lose the avatar/icon/picture. It's really offensive, at least to me.
Jonas @ Oct 20th 2008 6:06AM
i can has cold fusion?
Sebbe @ Oct 20th 2008 6:27AM
Word
Andre @ Oct 20th 2008 6:30AM
I know it's fashionable to bash on GM and all, but they along with Honda are actually at the forefront of hydrogen fuel cell technology.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14848423/
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-09-24-gm-hydrogen-usat_x.htm
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=435410
Duoae @ Oct 20th 2008 7:02AM
Well, that was a few years ago and even then their efforts are tentative and relatively poorly funded as it is. The same way that the big oil companies had a load invested in renewable technologies but have scaled it back in recent times - they're happy to ride the oil wave until it beaches them and then they can just close up shop.
My take on the article is that they're actually just using a oxidation reaction to produce the H2. Not sure which metal they would use but possibly some reversible transition metal process such as FeO to Fe2O3 reacting with water, releasing H2 in the process. Or possibly even simpler taking *2 Fe + 3 H2O -> Fe2O3 + 3 H2 and reducing it with coke to reform the iron.... of course that produces CO2....
*This process is pretty slow but can be sped up with an electrical current.
lejupp @ Oct 20th 2008 7:12AM
Fuel cells are, have been and will alway be the technology of the future.
Amz @ Oct 20th 2008 7:26AM
@lejupp: what about when we reach the future?
Andre @ Oct 20th 2008 7:29AM
@ Duoae:
"Well, that was a few years ago and even then their efforts are tentative and relatively poorly funded as it is."
I spent ten seconds googling those articles. I specifically picked older ones to show that this wasn't a new development. And a billion dollars is relatively poorly funded?
Oh, and here's a more recent article:
http://www.switched.com/2008/01/09/gms-cadillac-provoq-the-hydrogen-powered-car/
Duoae @ Oct 20th 2008 10:58AM
@ Andre.
They're not really using new technology and as far as i'm aware there aren't many institutions that are developing the technology that are funded by corporations - it's tending to be government. Maybe GM and co. have their own in-house developments but as that article points out they're more focused on methanol and electric than hydrogen - specifically because they were always using compressed or liquid H2 which really is quite infeasible on a large scale (for consumers)
Frankly i agree with them dropping H2 from automobiles. It's better to go electric-only with a backup methanol/ethanol engine. Fuel cells are too expensive even if their technology has become more efficient.... also they can degrade quite quickly.
One last thing.... is the billion figure from overall car development from every company? Where's that figure coming from? I've never heard that before.
happy_penguin @ Oct 20th 2008 11:14AM
You are correct, Andre. General Motors has hydrogen powered vehicles on the road with independent testers right now. I believe that Chrysler and Ford has their own programs as well but I don't know where they stand. GM has had this technology in development for years and if this "new process" for producing hydrogen is solid and shared with all manufacturers it will be a good thing. But one point I always try to make is that all of this new tech is going to cost the end user a lot of money and it will come as needed. Conversion to hydrogen will not happen quickly but when it does it will be good. Bolting a fuel cell to a Volt or it's equivalent will be easier because you already have an electric platform. This is why I believe that the Volt, not Prius or Tesla, is the most promising next platform for now and the future.
Andre @ Oct 20th 2008 11:20AM
@Duoae
Please, re-read that article. Ethanol is a stopgap and GM is aware of that. As for the billion dollars, I read it in a different article I can't find now, but here's a pretty good one:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/fuelcellcars.html
(for the third time--I guess Engadget and Firefox don't play nicely together)
macserv @ Oct 20th 2008 1:39PM
@Duoae: GM has put their primary clean-fuel focus on hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles for well over a decade now. They have deployed their technology in several places over the last few years, including public transportation and power for industrial facilities in remote locations. They also have deployed Project Driveway, putting the Fuel Cell Equinox into the hands of actual drivers. The GM Sequel has officially been in their production pipeline since last year.
Your anti-hydrogen sentiment is a somewhat unjustified now... there are definitely refinements to be made, but the high hurdles have all been cleared. GM's new fuel-cell powerplants are very efficient compared to just a few years ago, and the issues with storing compressed hydrogen are no longer prohibitive to releasing a production vehicle. GM's electric motors are already much more efficient than even the finest internal-combustion engines. It's time to reject any system that involves burning things for power... it's just wasteful and arcane.
Duoae @ Oct 20th 2008 6:17PM
@ Andre: I re-read both articles. The first one states that the fuels are options - either one is viable (according to them). The last one you quoted from wired states that GM are 'betting' $1 billion not that they've invested that much.
@ Macserv:
"GM has put their primary clean-fuel focus on hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles for well over a decade now." And you know what? Despite all this effort, despite all the BP trial stations and the public transport demonstrations we're still no nearer to a hydrogen solution for transport.
"Your anti-hydrogen sentiment is a somewhat unjustified now... there are definitely refinements to be made, but the high hurdles have all been cleared."
Okay, well i know they're not mandatory, but none of the 'requirements' outlined by the DOE back in the day for what they considered a safe and successful hydrogen system for vehicles have been fulfilled in full for any system. The high hurdles have definitely not been cleared because all the technology these cars use has been available for the last 15 years - the major hurdles are H2 storage and policy. Incremental steps in electric engine and fuel cell efficiency have been made but the main problem is onboard storage and frankly neither compressed gas cylinders or liquid storage are safe or practical in a car.
"GM's new fuel-cell powerplants are very efficient compared to just a few years ago"
I'm not sure what you mean by a powerplant. Are you talking about a static application as opposed to in a vehicle? Or are you just meaning the fuel cell within the vehicle.
"and the issues with storing compressed hydrogen are no longer prohibitive to releasing a production vehicle."
The issues are quite clear and are not easily surmountable. To store enough H2 for a decent amount of travel time with no backup system such as a fully charged battery or organic fuel combustion engine you need to have a cylinder at a pressure of several hundred bar. On our campus we have recently had some hydrogen 'minicabs' installed for (well, they're really only useful for publicity) transport that require refueling at 300+ bar and require a trained operator to do so. The general public cannot do this - not only is it dangerous (and the reason why health and safety really restrict and control the environment for research in labs that contain hydrogen) but the public have trouble with much less complicated and volatile systems such as petrol/diesel - it's also really quite energy intensive. That energy has to come from somewhere and you don't get it back when the H2 is used up. The same problem with Liquid H2.
The second problem with implementing H2 in vehicles is the cost and maintenance of fuel cells. It's pretty much impossible to get a company to provide a warranty past 1 year for a fuel cell. They're actually really unreliable in the sense that they could last 10 years or they could last 2.... plus they use very expensive materials at a high level of technology which really doesn't need to be in a car.... they can be poisoned fairly easily and any impurities introduced during refuelling can therefore damage them - which means scrubbers have to be introduced into the system which is also another expensive part of the machine.
"GM's electric motors are already much more efficient than even the finest internal-combustion engines. It's time to reject any system that involves burning things for power... it's just wasteful and arcane."
I agree. Like i said - it makes more sense to move to entirely electric engines for vehicles and save H2 production and utilisation for large-scale endeavours were the benefit is more pronounced - such as renewable resources. H2 is a perfect 'battery' considering the efficiency of the 'absolute' (guaranteed to not be in any of these vehicles) latest generation of fuel cells..... though last year i was told to expect some massive jumps in normal battery technology which would render hydrogen impotent even in these large scale applications.
Andre @ Oct 20th 2008 7:25PM
@Duoae:
It's in the third article linked:
"GM has invested more than $1 billion in fuel-cell vehicle research and development in the last several years."
There are five articles about GM and hydrogen linked here. There's a tiny blurb about ethanol in *one* of them. You do the math.
Duoae @ Oct 21st 2008 5:13AM
@ Andre : Ah okay - you should have been more clear about which of the five articles in this little thread you were talking about. I thought you were talking about the wired one.
"There are five articles about GM and hydrogen linked here. There's a tiny blurb about ethanol in *one* of them. You do the math."
Do the math? What do you mean by that? It makes no sense. Do you even know how the media works? Have you worked in that area? Hydrogen-powered cars are more 'event worthy' than ethanol/methanol-powered cars. Hydrogen was in vogue for the last 10-15 years (and is now falling a little to the side) and as such we had the stupid media reporting on carbon nanotubes as a storage technology when their wt% H2 stored was pathetic.
Secondly, the article that talks about the ethanol has two paragraphs dedicated to the technology out of a total of seven with three of them talking about a anti-collision/automatic driving system and the other two being the introduction to the vehicle itself - which is primarily powered by electricity charging and not the hydrogen/ethanol/diesel engine which is a standby.
Thirdly this is the latest article you linked to and hydrogen is the least prominently featured in this - with the car being essentially electric-based. I'd hazard a guess that it's the most up-to-date and accurate. So you 'do the math' (whatever that means in this context).
I have to point out that the term 'fuel cell' applies to several fuels as the 'combustion engine' does. You can have methanol/ethanol fuel cells and hydrogen fuel cells. Saying that they've put $1 billion into fuel cell vehicle research encompasses all the fuel types. They definitely haven't invested that much into hydrogen-only research because frankly we're not seeing it (or more accurately i've not seen it and it is my area of research).... if they have then they must be throwing money out of a window because most research groups are surviving on less than £10 million in grants for the last 10 years and still coming up with those incremental improvements.
But as i keep saying fuel cell vehicles make no economic sense - they should just move to electric..... and GM seems to be in agreement if you take the latest article.
Zach @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:18PM
GM pretends to be at the forefront. Honda actually has hydrogen cars on the road that could be in mass production within a year. The cost doesn't make sense right now though. GM isn't quite that far but you're right, they're doing better than most other OEMs.
Matt @ Oct 20th 2008 6:32AM
WTF?
1 cubic meter of Hydrogen gas contains 3kWh of energy. They want to put in 0.1kWh and be able to pull out 3kWh?
They might talk about some endothermal reaction were on puts in 0.1kWh and about 3kWh ore more are drawn from the surrounding air. But the article mentioned does not state this.
brando_commando @ Oct 20th 2008 3:11PM
that damn law of conservation of energy, it never goes away. can we just forget about it for a week and pretend some miracle catalyst has been invented? :)
purezerg @ Oct 20th 2008 7:12AM
I presume it's the similiar concept to stanley meyer. go google him. or better still, youtube.
A.C.E.R. @ Oct 20th 2008 7:21AM
wtf is right, what you said makes no sense at all
Martin @ Oct 20th 2008 6:33AM
The post doesn't even make sense. "the same 90% (or greater) efficiency using just 0.1kwh of energy compared to the traditional 4 - 4.5kwh required" The way that translates to me is: We found a way of making just a tiny bit of hydrogen, but just as efficient as making a lot of hydrogen. That may be nice, but no breakthrough.
Martin @ Oct 20th 2008 6:41AM
Disregard that, I just read the link. There they are claiming to have basically built a pertuum mobile, which is even more ridiculous. Come on engadget, you're smarter than that!
hyperspaced @ Oct 20th 2008 7:26AM
it says, that with the same conversion efficiency (90%) we use less energy.
Just an example (not real numbers):
I can create 900 ml of H2 from 1000 ml of H2O using 0.1 KWh instead of 4.4 KWh
Probably, he found a super-catalyst to achieve that.
IF (and that's a *big* IF) what he claims is true, then we can all say bye-bye to gasoline. Even houses with roofs covered with PV cells will be able to produce H2. Combined with a hybrid-vehicle (hydrogen-batteries), you can say goodbye to oil-crisis.
That thought alone (and the demise of Shell, BP etc.) makes me think that it's too good to be true.
David @ Oct 20th 2008 1:59PM
The only way the article makes sense is if there is energy coming from an oxidation reaction in which some other material ends up being combined with the oxygen and thus gets consumed in the process. This is just accounting cheating because, to complete the cycle, you eventually have to reclaim the oxidized material and consume the rest (or more) of the energy that you claimed to have saved when producing the initial hydrogen. Same as with Jerry Woodall's use of gallium tablets. Now, such a process might be useful in the sense that it would allow consumers to produce hydrogen with little power draw from their home wiring, with a delivery service bringing new and removing the spent "oxidation consumable" periodically. However, this is just a reworking of how to transport things around, so that solids rather than hydrogen are being transported. It doesn't end up generating hydrogen more efficiently and thus doesn't make hydrogen-as-energy-storage into a more efficient method.
Holger @ Oct 20th 2008 6:33AM
Hm.. let's just hope they find some funding and get this tech out fast... and ofc that it lives up to the claims they make...
LongNights @ Oct 20th 2008 6:37AM
Gee you forgot to mention that the Auto Companies (American especially), not to mention fuel companies, well be left behind and then expect the government (read the American People) to bail them out (reference the 70s). It is interesting that the basic Universal energy is Hydrogen and yet little attention is made to have it the come to market.
solarbuddy @ Oct 20th 2008 12:39PM
Hello! Has anyone in this thread actually USED hydrogen in quantities sufficient to refuel a fuel cell? Please raise your hands now--yep-, NOBODY. You have no idea how scary it is, how easily it slips out in whatever you're using it with to make scary "BOOMS" that can blow the hair off your head faster than you can blink. I worked in an annealing shop with a hydrogen furnace and just LIGHTING the sucker scared the pants off everyone.
You are nuts if you think the slack-jawed yokels of the future will be able to refuel their hydrogen cars without a significant chance of blowing the neighborhood to hell. Haven't you ever seen those videos of retards driving off from the gas station dragging a pump along?
Reader @ Oct 20th 2008 7:01AM
Calling bullshit on this one, for the record.
Trent @ Oct 20th 2008 7:05AM
This is no big breakthrough. We are 10 if not 20 years out for hydrogen cars if they happen to be. I work for Honda/Acura so I know a little more than most. Remember electric cars 10 plus years ago about how they were gonna solved the hyped up environmental damage being caused by cars? No one wanted them and no one wants them now. Putt Putt!!!
A.C.E.R. @ Oct 20th 2008 7:32AM
I work for GM, so I know a little less than most. I killed the electric car and then got laid off after people stopped buying our vehicles. Vroom Vroom!!!
iEye @ Oct 20th 2008 7:30AM
I just found a way to solve the worlds energy needs with a cold fusion reactor, FREE energy for everyone only $99 at wal-mart, now we can power electric cars and charge iPhones for only 3 pennies a day....
You are welcome, I just detroyed the world economy!
* So how many assasins do you think are out to kill me? I would say every oil pig and 001->007
A.C.E.R. @ Oct 20th 2008 7:36AM
Count me in for the job too...
Spawn Xe @ Oct 20th 2008 7:43AM
006 is dead
solarbuddy @ Oct 20th 2008 12:42PM
Ooh! Me Too! But seriously, can you imagine anything worse for the planet than something like fusion-in-a-jar? Every third-world hopeful will begin using megawatts annually and the whole troposphere will superheat. BUT--I know somebody will offer this as a solution--we can beam the excess heat OUT INTO SPACE!
Idiots.
mcsn @ Oct 20th 2008 7:46AM
No amount of work will ever turn hydrogen into a clean energy source. It's an energy storage method, not an energy generation method. We don't have free hydrogen floating around our atmosphere or oceans; it must always essentially be "un-burned", by using as much energy as is released by burning it. Since there's always inefficiencies at both ends of the process, this always results in a net energy loss. (This is the reader's digest version. Let's keep it simple for the plebians.) The (badly translated) article in question is utter nonsense.
The only way I can think of to extract hydrogen and use it to end up with a net energy profit is to fuse it into higher elements, and I feel confident in saying that functional in-home fusion reactors might be a liiiiittle ways off in the future.
Technex @ Oct 20th 2008 1:26PM
I agree, but we must all remember that the IC engines are pretty un-efficient (no matter how cool sounding/looking they are) they generate a lot of heat, are very heavy and have lots of friction etc.
Sadly they'll be going for quite a bit longer as it's just the norm, we need to get electric motors in every car, cheaply and have them rechargeable at home. Power stations can be powered by waves, wind and sun, this IMO is the only way to go. It can be done, it's just a matter of greedy people higher up in the chain.
Det. @ Oct 20th 2008 8:08AM
God I hope this isn't another one of those fabricated korean discoveries.
matt @ Oct 20th 2008 8:24AM
sounds like it's complete bullshit to me.
http://www.clean-energy.kr/
their web page has a picture of a nuclear power plant with "CO2 REDUCTION TECHNOLOGY" on it. these people couldn't figure out that nuclear power plants produce steam yet they figured out some super special awesome way of breaking hydrogen bonds. right.