Comments on: How cheap gas, weather & fuel cells are driving the consumerization of energy

By: Just_chris

Just_chris — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:33:14 +0000

3 of the of the 4 links in Jeff Williams comments are for bio-gas powered fuel cell plants. According to fuel cell energy’s web page 40% of it’s California installations are bio-gas powered. A lot of the data centers are looking to use bio-gas if you want a more info on bio-gas projects I suggest googleing “bloom bio-gas” or “Fuelcell energy bio-gas”. As for the other emissions there are fundamental reasons why fuel cells do not make them. Sulfur is a poison for fuel cell catalysts so is removed from the fuel before entering the fuel cell stack so there is no SOx. Fuel cells do not operate at high pressure so NOx cannot form, without NOx there is no ozone. Explaining why fuel cells don’t make carbon particles is a bit trickier but essentially a fuel cell is not that dissimilar in construction to a giant catalytic converter (please note the high temperature fuel cells do not have platinum catalysts in the cells unlike catalytic converters which do). Fuelcell energy have excellent data sheets in their product brochures that give good detail on the emissions from their plants (http://www.fuelcellenergy.com/dfc3000.php). Since fuel cells are in general far better than combustion engines from an emissions perspective most fuel cell companies will provide this data on their web page or on request.

By: JustAThinker

JustAThinker — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:13:44 +0000

Chris, can you provide some technical details on your claims?

By: Just_chris

Just_chris — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:45:27 +0000

Largest fuel cell plant in the world is US developed and US manufactured. Well at least the fuel cells are, they are made in kit form and then sent for assembly in south Korea.

By: Just_chris

Just_chris — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:31:39 +0000

Quite a few of the recent fuel cell plants going in are running off bio-gas which is a pretty green way of doing things. Fuel cells also produce fewer other emissions such as nox and carbon particles making them in general a greener option than other combustion technologies. I agree with the sentiment though, they might have less impact than other technologies but they are not zero emission.

By: Just_chris

Just_chris — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:19:48 +0000

Nice article, fuel cells are slowly coming of age. Fuel cells today do a good industry review each year for those who want a bit more of a global view. I think it is worth mentioning that this quiet revolution is not one technology or one application or even one nation. The forty thousand micro chp’s in Japan used for peak shaving are very different to blooms big uninterruptible power supplies or boc’s little lighting unit for building sites. In a similar vain the molten carbonate, phos acid, polymer and solid oxide fuel cells might fill similar markets but are very different technologies. I think because of these differences we’ll probably not notice fuel cells sneaking into our life. In fact I think they already are….

By: Felix Kramer

Felix Kramer — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 06:32:16 +0000

The increasingly unmentioned elephant in the room is methane losses at ever stage of the natural gas fuel cycle. Latest estimea dorm US government show 9 percent, not the already bad 3%. Methane has about a 20x impact as a greenhouse gas as natural gas. Start with the links at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/02/1388021/bridge-to-nowhere-noaa-confirms-high-methane-leakage-rate-up-to-9-from-gas-fields-gutting-climate-benefit/

By: Harshavardhan Ravula

Harshavardhan Ravula — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 01:00:00 +0000

Great article. It will be great if you can share what is the cost differential by using fuel cells

By: Eric_G

Eric_G — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:21:33 +0000

Too bad the tech is only affordable because it’s subsidized. As for gas, the boom is mostly because there’s an excess of supply. Once the demand catches up through building of new pipelines, prices will rise to their traditional average.

Meanwhile the real low cost, green energy continues to be vilified in the MSM.

By: ronwagn

ronwagn — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 19:27:38 +0000

Fuel cells need to be able to compete with conventiona natural gas generators and turbines. If they can beat the, they will be the way to go. Right now they exist because of a green aura.

Natural gas is the future of energy. It is replacing dirty old coal plants, and dangerous expensive nuclear plants. It will fuel cars, vans, buses, locomotives, aircraft, ships, tractors, air conditioners, engines of all kinds. It costs far less. It will help keep us out of more useless wars, where we shed our blood and money. It is used to make many products. It lowers CO2 emissions. Over 3,900 natural gas story links on my free blog. An annotated bibliography of live links, updated daily. The worldwide picture of natural gas.
ronwagnersrants . blogspot . com

By: Warren

Warren — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 17:24:23 +0000

I retired from the Electric Power Research Institute in 1998 and moved to Baja California and have lived in a solar home ever since. In 1998, the manager of generation and storage division at EPRI showed me a fuel cell, residential home size, that he had in his office from overseas and said I should see these being rolled out in the USA around 2002 or 2003.

It is now 2013 and still hasn’t happened and as far as I am concerned as long as the utility companies in the old country can stop this from happening, it isn’t going to happen. They stand to lose to much.