--- Horace > It appears to me this is a world changing > development.
I hope you are right. However, this is not the first so-called world changing development in water splitting. Many observers thought we were on the brink of the "hydrogen age" with "Hot Elly" a few years ago. And NREL / DoE had a nuclear process which was almost as promising. These two announcements were part of the reason that we heard so much hype about the coming "hydrogen age" a few years ago. Then - sadly - all available Federal money was sucked into the War-on-Terror. And don't we all feel so much more secure because of that! Hot Elly is the German device that used waste heat to reach very high efficiency, and they were claiming to be able to go to solar heat "real soon now". It used cheap zircon cermamic as electrodes - no need for metal at those temps - but this (apparently) never got out of the lab - or else google alerts has lost its 'scent'... ... or hopefully perhaps it has gone underground for competitive reasons. It made a lot of sense. Here is the quote from the German Aerospace Center (circa 2004): "The Hot Elly project has demonstrated that a breakthrough in water electrolysis efficiencies is possible by going to high temperatures (900-1000°C). The electrical efficiencies demonstrated in the Hot Elly electrolyser was close to 92% compared to 50-60% in traditional alkaline electrolysers." "By making use of an external source of heat such as concentrated solar, it is possible to increase the electrical efficiency even further." As we kibitzers on Vo have opined many times, there is no cheaper way to use solar energy than concentrating the suns energy with mirrors for heating water to high temperature. Once the steam has been split, the remnant heat content is still quite substantial and could be used with advanced thermoelectrics. Yet no one is doing this today AFAIK. Jones
