Hydrogen Economy

After taking a field trip to the Morgantown coal fire power plant in Maryland, and then a trip to a home completely off the grid, I have been fascinated by the idea of a hydrogen economy.

We currently live in an carbon-energy based economy, and to some extent that carbon is absolutely necessary. (Plastics, polymers, etc.) However, when it comes to production of raw energy, the time has come to move away from this archaic technology.

When visiting the Morgantown plant one thing became increasingly clear, this energy source is inefficient and out of date. The plant produces electricity by pulverizing high-sulfur coal. This coal is then blown into burners that heat giant steam ovens. It is this steam that turns some really massive turbines that generate electricity. Simple right? The problem is not the simplicity, but rather the efficiency. 62-64% of the available energy in the coal is wasted in the steam and turbines. Energy is not being created here but rather converted from fossilized solar energy in an ineffective way.

This half of the trip was in stark contrast to the second half. The plant was professional and organized. I felt like I was back working for UPS again, the organization and efficiency of the work staff was evident. This was a company that knew what they had and how to turn a profit, thus their facility oozed a big business aura.

The second half was a trip to the home of Scott Sklar, (http://www.thestellagroupltd.com). He is a private homeowner that started his own business helping companies to go green. Specifically he consults and guides companies to develop and install renewable energy sources on the site of their business. While Scott is very professional in his understanding of his business, his home is not run like a Fortune 500 company.

Scott has installed and retrofitted his old Arlington home to be as “green” and efficient as possible. He insulated his walls with high rating R values. (R value is the ability to insulate, the higher the number the higher the insulation value). He has even found windows that are specially insulated with gel between the panes raising the R value 5+ times a normal windows ability.

He brought in a drilling rig and installed a geothermal heating and cooling system. This system draws on the constant temperatures of the deep ground to help in the heating and cooling of your home. In deep winter when the temperatures outside are freezing, the heater only has to heat the home from the temperature of the deep ground. Thus instead of heating from 30 degrees to 70 degrees, he can heat from 55-60 degrees to 70. This drastically reduces heating and cooling costs and energy consumption.

On top of his home, there are two types of solar energy collectors. First is a solar hot water heater. This is a simple device that captures solar energy into a solution that heats fast and hot in the sun, this solution then is piped into a core in the hot water heater. The second solar energy collector is a solar panel. In fact there are many solar panels, and a few different kinds of them too. Solar panels are made of silicon and wires. As the cosmic rays from the sun hit the silicon it gets excited and bounces around. Then if wires are placed across the panels of silicon an extra electron bounces off the panel and into the wire creating an electrical current. This is truly the most renewable energy source, the energy from the sun. (A giant fusion core reactor 8 light minutes away). He has also installed a wind turbine. The wind turbine is set up to collect the solar energy that hits earth in a secondary way. This energy heats the earth, and as it rotates it creates pockets of warm and cold air as well as high and low pressure air. This in turn causes the wind to blow, which then turns the blades of his turbine which generates electricity.

In addition to the solar panels, geothermal, wind turbine, and extra insulation Scott has installed a hydrogen fuel cell generator. This is a simple system that while expensive to install, ($25k), is an efficient and cheap way to produce electricity. Because of all the other energy sources and efficient appliances in his home, Scott only uses the fuel cell system during peak energy use times or when the city grid loses power.
He gets the hydrogen delivered and spends less than thirty dollars a month on the gas. The size of system he has is capable of producing about half of his energy needs if used primarily.

This is a lengthy description of the technology that he has employed in his home, but his has gone above and beyond even his own needs. He does this to show the available technologies and how they can be applied on a practical and cost effective basis. I have added the description to show how many options are available to help get off a carbon based energy economy.

There are many that argue that the reasons that America should get away from carbon energy is to stop the unnatural advances of global warming. I am not completely sold on the idea that humans are the cause of global warming, or that we can do anything about it. My reasons for wanting to get away from carbon energy are more to do with self preservation, national security, and a general desire to keep the environment the way we found it.

In the United states we currently get the vast majority of our energy from carbon based energy sources. The diagram shows this as grey verses green, which represents renewable sources. The problem of chief importance is that carbon fuels are non-renewable. There is only so much oil to be had in the world, and the demand for it is exponentially increasing. The use of coal in America is scarring the mountains and damaging the environment in many ways. Yet even though we get half of our electricity from coal, and we have vast reserves of it, we will run out eventually. It seems so foolish to use up a limited resource that does more harm than good. I don’t feel like my electric lifestyle is worth the lives and damage it costs us. (Not to mention the soldiers lives fought to secure our energy needs in the Middle East).

Thankfully this is not a problem that is without a solution. We live in a society dominated by the internal combustion engine and coal fire, but have developed the technology to transfer our allegiance from carbon to hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cell for home and industry, even major power plants, are the future of energy in the United States and the world.



This is a diagram that shows how a hydrogen fuel cell works. Pure hydrogen is passed through a “cell” that combines hydrogen ions with the oxygen in air. This simple act generates an electrical current, with water and heat as a waste product. If you are using pure hydrogen, then it is possible to achieve really high efficiency rates.

This technology can be used in a variety of fields from cars to power plants. In fact if all homes had a hydrogen fuel cell and some other form of renewable energy such as a solar panel or wind turbine, then the demand for electricity from the power grid would be vastly diminished, calling for much less coal to be burned. If the majority of cars ran on hydrogen then the emissions problems in America would be a thing of the past.

The problem with a hydrogen economy as is proposes is the source and cost of said hydrogen. In order to make the change happen, for it will require a great deal of initial capital investment, carbon fuel must be to expensive to continue using. Also a problem is the source of the hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most abundant and simple element in the universe, but on Earth there are two ways of procuring it.

The first way and the cheapest, is to separate it from natural gas. This cannot be a long term solution, as natural gas is a carbon fuel. However it can help solidify the hydrogen economy while more renewable sources of hydrogen are built. My ultimate solution for this renewable hydrogen is water. If you pass an electric current through water, electrolysis, you produce hydrogen. If this electric current is obtained from a farm of wind turbines or solar panels, then a hydrogen plant would be cheap and feasible.

This is what I believe is the future of energy production is in America and the rest of the world. In fact there are many countries attempting to get off their dependence on oil. Europe has many applications of renewable energy. The best example has to be Iceland. They have the worlds first hydrogen station, and produce the bulk of their energy from renewable sources. While they have the advantage, or disadvantage, of living on a volcano, their ideas on energy are pushing us in the right direction.

We can become free of the burden of carbon fuel, economically, environmentally, and politically if we could switch to a more healthy blend of renewable energy sources. Hydrogen will take us in the future.

Sources:
First 4 pictures Charlie Corrick
http://www.nist.gov/msel/polymers/electronics_materials/images/FuelCellSchematic.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/spas/1/0/1/k/1/icelandsites002.jpg
http://www.cartype.com/pics/5268/full/fuel-cell_emblem.jpg
http://www.greenpower.gov.au/admin%5Cfile%5Ccontent12%5Cc5%5Chow_greenpower_works.jpg
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/fuel-cell.htm