Re: OT: need some help with fuel cells
Technomage-hawke wrote: On Thursday 24 April 2008, Stephen P Rufle wrote: I remember reading about this guy in Wired magazine. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=9 http://www.siei.org/mainpage.html The cost of his system seem a bit high, but maybe it would be a good place to start for the feasibility of different ideas. read that one. and no, I don't have $50,000 to spend. I was hoping for something more along the lines of $1,000 or less. Interesting... I thought I read about that guy before and that his total system costs were closer to $500,000, not $50,000. Maybe it's a different guy doing the exact same thing. In any event, I can't imagine that any non-toy system could be made for under $1000. Each of the components necessary are typically pretty expensive. A solar system approaching the kilowatt range (less isn't very useful except for playing around) is in the multi-thousands by itself. Electrolysis machines aren't cheap, either. And what about storing the hydrogen? That's going to take some huge tanks unless you have even more (expensive) specialized equipment. All that said, if you can figure out an inexpensive way to do it, I would absolutely love to hear about it! I've been researching alternative energy solutions lately and am only recently getting over the initial shock of finding out just how expensive they all are. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: OT: need some help with fuel cells
On Thursday 24 April 2008, koder wrote: Recreational vehicles and yachts use solar panels to power some decently sized storage batteries. If you put up enough of them you can run a computer system. batteries are all fine and good, but require frequent replacement (every 1-2 years down here in the desert), and have hazardous materials in large quantities. Unfortunately the cost of solar is escalating. My original system cost under a thousand dollars. Today it would probably be twice that. yep. that makes it harder for those on a fixed income to get anything worthwhile out of such systems as well (cost higher than cash available).I am sure I could build a full sized panel over time (by adding smaller modules to it). Of course when I build the next one I will ask it to do more with the additional expense. My wish list consists of more panels, bigger batteries, and a wind powered generator for cloudy days. same here, except I would like to build all my stuff from easily available materials. call it a poor man's energy policy. :) There are a number of sites in the net dealing with the topic of solar direct to batteries. They are far from complete. You will have to supplement with written material. I'm already getting that and worse. a lot of the diagrams online for any fuel cell are of the simple overlay type that are meaningless to those of us who want to build such a unit. so far, I have found NO technical diagrams or even any materials lists for something as simple as a PEM fuel cell. Now I have found plenty of places that sell individual parts for such (such as the backing plates, the PEM material itself and the field flow plates). This is some different from the fuel cell systems you asked about, but the fuel cells are using battery and solar and adding in the inefficiency of the hydrogen. The hydrogen is great for energy containment and transportation such as powering your car, but the equipment is a bit pricey. actually, from my reading, hydrogen is very efficient (unless you burn it in a system similar to internal combustion engines, then you are stuck with the waste heat, mechanical losses, etc). Direct conversion to electricity is 5-6X more efficient at a minimum (unless you are having to convert carbon heavy fuels using a reformer, then it drops below 50%). Cost will be directly related to how much electric you intend to use and store. You can start with part of it and expand as budget, knowledge and goals expand. well, from what I have been able to determine, one can get (from a properly designed fuel cell) approximately 3 watts/cm^2 of fuel cell surface area. that means that you don't need something monstrous to power a house. a fuel cell stack made up of plates 10x10 cm 10 cm deep will give you roughly 3 KW of usable energy. This is not theoretical, its the same type of units they use on the space shuttle. If you want to go further let me know. There are several people in the area working on this. I definitely do. hey, if it means getting a paying job to do this as well, I'm all in! --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: OT: need some help with fuel cells
On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 13:22 -0700, Technomage-hawke wrote: On Thursday 24 April 2008, koder wrote: Recreational vehicles and yachts use solar panels to power some decently sized storage batteries. If you put up enough of them you can run a computer system. batteries are all fine and good, but require frequent replacement (every 1-2 years down here in the desert), and have hazardous materials in large quantities. Unfortunately the cost of solar is escalating. My original system cost under a thousand dollars. Today it would probably be twice that. yep. that makes it harder for those on a fixed income to get anything worthwhile out of such systems as well (cost higher than cash available).I am sure I could build a full sized panel over time (by adding smaller modules to it). Of course when I build the next one I will ask it to do more with the additional expense. My wish list consists of more panels, bigger batteries, and a wind powered generator for cloudy days. same here, except I would like to build all my stuff from easily available materials. call it a poor man's energy policy. :) There are a number of sites in the net dealing with the topic of solar direct to batteries. They are far from complete. You will have to supplement with written material. I'm already getting that and worse. a lot of the diagrams online for any fuel cell are of the simple overlay type that are meaningless to those of us who want to build such a unit. so far, I have found NO technical diagrams or even any materials lists for something as simple as a PEM fuel cell. Now I have found plenty of places that sell individual parts for such (such as the backing plates, the PEM material itself and the field flow plates). This is some different from the fuel cell systems you asked about, but the fuel cells are using battery and solar and adding in the inefficiency of the hydrogen. The hydrogen is great for energy containment and transportation such as powering your car, but the equipment is a bit pricey. actually, from my reading, hydrogen is very efficient (unless you burn it in a system similar to internal combustion engines, then you are stuck with the waste heat, mechanical losses, etc). Direct conversion to electricity is 5-6X more efficient at a minimum (unless you are having to convert carbon heavy fuels using a reformer, then it drops below 50%). Cost will be directly related to how much electric you intend to use and store. You can start with part of it and expand as budget, knowledge and goals expand. well, from what I have been able to determine, one can get (from a properly designed fuel cell) approximately 3 watts/cm^2 of fuel cell surface area. that means that you don't need something monstrous to power a house. a fuel cell stack made up of plates 10x10 cm 10 cm deep will give you roughly 3 KW of usable energy. This is not theoretical, its the same type of units they use on the space shuttle. If you want to go further let me know. There are several people in the area working on this. I definitely do. hey, if it means getting a paying job to do this as well, I'm all in! A paying job? Argh, that is a supreme sacrifice. I am seeing fuel hydrogen cells offered for about $10.00 per watt of output. Larger models will lower cost per watt. The thing is how to obtain the fuel for it. If you are going to use solar panels you will need a lot of them. It can be done, but it will cost. Hydrogen, if you are going that route, will be just a storage medium. You lose degrees of efficiency each time you convert from one type of energy to another. A system designer needs to sit down with their slip stick and figure out how much power they want to supply for what. How you are going to store if for times the sun is not out, and how you are going to get it back out of storage when you need it. When you do your calculations don't forget that the difference between 12 volts and 120 is a factor of ten. A single digit slip like that will cause yo a great deal of embarrassment and grief. Heating and cooling will use astounding amounts of energy. Harold --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: OT: need some help with fuel cells
I remember reading about this guy in Wired magazine. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=9 http://www.siei.org/mainpage.html The cost of his system seem a bit high, but maybe it would be a good place to start for the feasibility of different ideas. Technomage-hawke wrote: ok, I know some of you are engineering types. I am starting to look at the idea of home building a fuel cell here that can power my machines off the grid if need be. I am not worried about the fuel source itself (hydrogen can be easily got with some solar cells, graphic electrodes and starage media). What I am worried about is this: 1. Building one cheaply 2. available materials (preferably from lowe's or home depot) with the exception of the electrolytic material and possibly the catalyst materials) 3. a method of containment (A good quality housing that will keep the 2 parts of the fuel seperate until introduced into the catalyzing chamber) any other suggestions that would help. In a way, this would be a different sort of open source project. I am not looking to make this proprietary and would love to have a means of backup power for extended periods (especially considering how expensive electricity and natural gas are going to get in the not too distant future). any good ideas will help. I'd like to be able to engineer and assemble a small test unit in my garage with only a minimal of technical know-how (I can learn if I have to). - Eric --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss -- Stephen P Rufle [EMAIL PROTECTED] H1:480-626-8022 H2:480-802-7173 Yahoo IM: stephen_rufle AOL IM: stephen1rufle --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: OT: need some help with fuel cells
On Thursday 24 April 2008, Stephen P Rufle wrote: I remember reading about this guy in Wired magazine. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=9 http://www.siei.org/mainpage.html The cost of his system seem a bit high, but maybe it would be a good place to start for the feasibility of different ideas. read that one. and no, I don't have $50,000 to spend. I was hoping for something more along the lines of $1,000 or less. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: OT: need some help with fuel cells
On Thu, 2008-04-24 at 10:47 -0700, Technomage-hawke wrote: On Thursday 24 April 2008, Stephen P Rufle wrote: I remember reading about this guy in Wired magazine. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=9 http://www.siei.org/mainpage.html The cost of his system seem a bit high, but maybe it would be a good place to start for the feasibility of different ideas. read that one. and no, I don't have $50,000 to spend. I was hoping for something more along the lines of $1,000 or less. --- Recreational vehicles and yachts use solar panels to power some decently sized storage batteries. If you put up enough of them you can run a computer system. Naturally the length of time the system will run is a function of the size of your power source compared to your computer setup. Unfortunately the cost of solar is escalating. My original system cost under a thousand dollars. Today it would probably be twice that. Of course when I build the next one I will ask it to do more with the additional expense. My wish list consists of more panels, bigger batteries, and a wind powered generator for cloudy days. There are a number of sites in the net dealing with the topic of solar direct to batteries. They are far from complete. You will have to supplement with written material. This is some different from the fuel cell systems you asked about, but the fuel cells are using battery and solar and adding in the inefficiency of the hydrogen. The hydrogen is great for energy containment and transportation such as powering your car, but the equipment is a bit pricey. Cost will be directly related to how much electric you intend to use and store. You can start with part of it and expand as budget, knowledge and goals expand. If you want to go further let me know. There are several people in the area working on this. Harold --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: OT: need some help with fuel cells
On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 11:00 AM, koder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 2008-04-24 at 10:47 -0700, Technomage-hawke wrote: On Thursday 24 April 2008, Stephen P Rufle wrote: I remember reading about this guy in Wired magazine. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=9 http://www.siei.org/mainpage.html The cost of his system seem a bit high, but maybe it would be a good place to start for the feasibility of different ideas. read that one. and no, I don't have $50,000 to spend. I was hoping for something more along the lines of $1,000 or less. --- Recreational vehicles and yachts use solar panels to power some decently sized storage batteries. If you put up enough of them you can run a computer system. Naturally the length of time the system will run is a function of the size of your power source compared to your computer setup. Unfortunately the cost of solar is escalating. My original system cost under a thousand dollars. Today it would probably be twice that. Thats odd, I heard many reports that the per-watt cost of solar power has come down considerably. -jmz Of course when I build the next one I will ask it to do more with the additional expense. My wish list consists of more panels, bigger batteries, and a wind powered generator for cloudy days. There are a number of sites in the net dealing with the topic of solar direct to batteries. They are far from complete. You will have to supplement with written material. This is some different from the fuel cell systems you asked about, but the fuel cells are using battery and solar and adding in the inefficiency of the hydrogen. The hydrogen is great for energy containment and transportation such as powering your car, but the equipment is a bit pricey. Cost will be directly related to how much electric you intend to use and store. You can start with part of it and expand as budget, knowledge and goals expand. If you want to go further let me know. There are several people in the area working on this. Harold --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss -- - http://www.joshuazeidner.com/ --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: OT: need some help with fuel cells
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008, Technomage-hawke wrote: ok, I know some of you are engineering types. I am starting to look at the idea of home building a fuel cell here that can power my machines off the grid if need be. I am not worried about the fuel source itself (hydrogen can be easily got with some solar cells, graphic electrodes and starage media). What I am worried about is this: 1. Building one cheaply 2. available materials (preferably from lowe's or home depot) with the exception of the electrolytic material and possibly the catalyst materials) 3. a method of containment (A good quality housing that will keep the 2 parts of the fuel seperate until introduced into the catalyzing chamber) Hydrogen is hard to store in the gaseous state. The extremely small molecular size makes it possible for leaks to occur thru openings too small to pass molecules of other gases. Any such leaks are tough to detect until too late (i.e. kaboom!). Think exploding car batteries due to too rapid charging causing hydrogen buildup. I'm not trying to discourage you but be V careful and do a lot of research on handling and storing hydrogen. Last.put me in your will. -- Bob Holtzman The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. Winston Churchill --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
