Korean tech makes hydrogen up to 30 times cheaper to produce -- clean energy solved?
By Thomas Ricker 
posted October 20th 2008 5:55AM
posted October 20th 2008 5:55AM
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.
@ matt
Creating steam IS breaking hydrogen bonds. I think you mean breaking the covalent bonds which hold H2O together.
The fact that the energy SPENT to produce Hydrogen is lower now will NOT solve any energy problems.
People, please think!!! GENERATING Energy is DIFFERENT from producing fuel!!!!
Energy generation must be energy POSITIVE. Hydrogen FUEL PRODUCTION IS ENERGY NEGATIVE! That means that you spend more energy to produce Hydrogen than it yelds. The fact now that it takes less energy to do so does not change this fact.
as credible as the embryo clone claim...
Considering Korea's history in fake discoveries i'll take this with a plate of salt
yes...because the misdeeds of a few bad-eggs reflects on the morality of the entire country.
...if this were true, all Americans should be seen as redneck, uneducated, intolerant, racist, gun-toting religious freaks with nothing better to do but kill people in other nations all the while touting their 'obvious' superiority to the rest of the world.
-1 for the home team.
"schmitty338 @ Oct 20th 2008 10:02AM
yes...because the misdeeds of a few bad-eggs reflects on the morality of the entire country.
...if this were true, all Americans should be seen as redneck, uneducated, intolerant, racist, gun-toting religious freaks with nothing better to do but kill people in other nations all the while touting their 'obvious' superiority to the rest of the world."
I think this already happened.
Even if they have found an energy cheap way of producing Hydrogen it still needs to be stored and transported. Which means dangerous high pressure tanks, energy expensive compression, evaporation losses and perhaps even extreme cryogenics. Now can we please all forget about Hydrogen as a portable fuel. It just ain't going to happen.
...moron?
"dangerous high pressure tanks, energy expensive compression, evaporation losses and perhaps even extreme cryogenics"
hmmmm...I have seen this argument before....oh right natural gas and propane. there are many many vehicles which have been around for a LONG time driving around with "dangerous high pressure tanks . . . and extreme cryogenics"....it's a non-issue. All methods of energy storage have inherent risks. I.e. almost all of us drive around essentially strapped to between 50-100L of highly volatile gasoline sitting in a relatively weak sheet-metal container and nobody thinks twice about it, yet many people die in car fires fueled by the very stuff that gets them around. Once hydrogen, like gasoline, propane, and natural gas, are implemented widely as a fuel-source, people will accept it and all those thoughts of explosions and danger will once again be pushed aside by our want to get to where we are going post haste, no matter the energy costs of risks.
Schmitty--
Hydrogen is *nothing* like propane or LNG, and it shows you've either never worked in safety at NASA *or* never worked with industrial processes using hydrogen. Massive hydrocarbons are much easier to contain than random protons temporarily keeping company with an electron
@solarbuddy,
Actually I have worked in labs that use H2 gas....you are thinking of hydrogen ions, not hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas is NOTHING like "random protons temporarily keeping company with an electron"...hydrogen gas is made up of molecules of hydrogen consisting of 2 protons bound together by a covalent bond of 2 electrons...hydrogen ions do not exist on earth other than for minute fractions of a second during the intermediate phases of chemical reactions, or in highly controlled laboratory settings such as particle excellerators where hydrogen is stripped of its electron to yield unstable free protons.
Schmitty--that was sarcasm, not a physical description of H2. My point is that it is *small* and given the slightest chance it gets out into the world explosively.
SPERI is Korean for "STEORN"
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Jugernut_Power_Extreme_HHO_Resonance_Generator is someone else who believes in fantasy. If I am to get it correctly, we should be able to burn the hydrogen in an IC engine hooked to a generator, plug that back into the reactor and wa-la perpetual energy. The same, in some sense, could be said about this process, you can not get more energy out than you put in. If you were to take the hydrogen from this process and feed to back to a fuel cell, extracting all the energy you could, then routing that power back to what ever process is responsible for this magic, we have created an energy "amplifier" and wa-la another example of perpetual energy. I don't think so. Hydrogen is just an energy transport medium, and not a very good one. Batteries, Supercaps, LNG, etc are all much better. As for GM, I can't believe they are putting one more cent into IC engine development, they have got to be the most wastefully energy conversion devices ever invented. The oxidation of hydrocarbons is a viable power source in itself, but not if 50% plus of the energy is wasted as heat from the gitgo.
You probably mean, "Voila!" But you make a good point.
Yet another waste of time. The only way to solve the clean energy problem is to tap into solar and geothermal energy, which includes wind and the various forms hydroelectric energy. The sun and earth will be around longer than humans will.
what's the betting we'll never, ever hear about this again. Always happens with these so called revolutionary technical innovations: you hear about them once, then they disappear.
Shame on Engadget for posting this garbage. And shame on all you readers that are even considering this as an "energy alternative". I don't know what planet you are from, or how well you think we've tapped into the energy from hell (or some other parallel universe). But electrolysis is a 50-70% efficiency process. A quick calculation 50%*30=1500% shows that these Koreans have achieved a miracle. Gee I wonder why big companies are not researching this "awesome" idea. Maybe it's some conspiracy by the big companies to keep dumb ideas from getting to dumb people.
Next thing we know, we'll have water prices skyrocketing...
Hydrogen Production is one thing, but storage is the real problem! Ever try to keep a balloon full of Helium? Guess what! the helium leaks out! Hydrogen's a lot smaller! This is an over-exaggerated example, but the point is clear.
This is epic! Now if only we can get those damn NORTH Koreans on track...
Just power the grid. The most efficient way to move
energy (at the moment) is down a wire. (electricity)
To even consider moving hydrogen to power cars
or the home is dangerous and pointless. Use it to
make electricity (at a main generating plant) and
send it down the wire - much easier, and safer! jt.
It's a zero trust worthy institute wrote bull sh** press release in English.
I've checked their web site and the company is a joke.
S&P Energy Research Institute seems a bogus proxy institute of S&P Marketing co, which again is non trust-worthy micro-sized trading firm.
According to their institute 'history', they've started the project by Sept 2008 and accomplished this within two months.
They've listed a bunch of old Uzbekistani scientists as their R&Ders which I strongly doubt their ability to come to any closer to what they claim. They're even not Koreans!!!
It seems that this shitty trading firm decided to fake an institute for luring blind research money for their own use or something.
I'm a Korean and I'm deeply ashamed that this kind of mishap occurs from time to time.
For my own defence, Korean government is actually seriously keen on improving sustainable energies and they've heavily invested on this field since 2003. There's been substantial improvements on photo-voltaics which I don't think is ever publicized.
However, I'm truly ashamed for the ruthless fuss this deceitful company from my own country has dared to create.
As far as hydrogen car safety skepticism goes, there's isn't enough information for either side of the argument. Fuel cells have been "proven" just as safe as gasoline cars. I'd go with Honda's findings that it can be just as safe if the proper precautions are taken by the OEM.
As for producing H2 at 20 to 30 times less cost than electrolysis, it's awesome. It's as awesome as cold fusion at room temperature and creating mass our of thin air. I hope to God this is true but I'm not holding my breathe. If it were true, why isn't the rest of the scientific community all over this find? This find would mean that an unreal power source has been identified. The power to environmental cost is astronomical. If this were true, this could be all over every news station on the planet. It's not, thus my skepticism.