I have gotten bombarded by too many people asking me if the story headlined above is true. It isn't. Not even close.
Science magazine, which published the supposedly "major discovery" by MIT's Daniel Nocera, headlined their story, "New Catalyst Marks Major Step in the March Toward Hydrogen Fuel" ($ub. req'd). Doh! But who needs a major step towards hydrogen?
And Science seems to be having problems with the laws of physics, as we'll see. I thought I had explained this to Scientific American, but given their puff piece -- the findings "help pave the way for a future hydrogen economy" -- I obviously failed. Let me try again.
MIT had the sexier headline on unleashing the solar revolution. Too bad that headline isn't accurate for two mains reasons: The solar revolution already has been unleashed, and if it hadn't been, this technology wouldn't do the trick even if were near commercial, which it isn't. MIT reports:
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative [!] into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.
As we'll see, they have not developed an efficient storage process -- and we have no idea if it's cheap because they don't have anything near a commercial prototype (indeed, they have not even solved all of the scientific challenges). But in any case, we already have an inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy -- it's called solar baseload.
Yes, solar PV would benefit from cheap storage, but PV's biggest problem is simply its high price, which is expected to drop rapidly in the coming years. And, in any case, for industrialized countries, you can't get too excited about storing daytime PV electricity -- which avoids expensive peak power -- and shifting it to the nighttime, where extra power is almost worthless.
But I digress. It is the details of this "major discovery" that render it quite unexciting and unmajor:
Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."
Note to Nocera: "Nirvana"? That takes the hype about hydrogen to a new level. In any case, solar power is already unlimited and soon. Solar baseload and solar PV are seeing explosive growth now and by 2015, they will probably both be cheaper than new nuclear -- and cheaper than new coal and new natural gas if we have a price for emitting carbon dioxide that comes anywhere near close the damage those emissions due to the climate.
Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.
[In the voice of Jon Stewart] Oh press release from my beloved alma mater, why do you mock me? Who exactly is going to buy this electrolyzer, plus a home hydrogen storage system, plus an expensive fuel cell -- for the sole purpose of taking valuable zero-carbon peak electricity and throwing more than half of it away in the round trip, all for the luxury of having nighttime power which we can buy for virtually nothing on the grid. Why not just run your friggin' electric car on cheap wind power that blows mainly at night?
And the coverage gets better -- if by better I mean worse -- courtesy of Science:
The catalyst isn't perfect. It still requires excess electricity to start the water-splitting reaction, energy that isn't recovered and stored in the fuel.
Oh related story from a beloved science journal that published "A Road Map for U.S. Carbon Reductions," why do you mock me? Did Science really think that even an illustrious MIT scientist could violate the laws of physics and split water into hydrogen and oxygen using less energy than is recoverd and stored in the fuel (i. e. emitted when the oxygen and hydrogen are recombined)? If you could do that, why bother with solar energy -- just split the damn water and recombine it, extract the excess energy, and repeat over and over and over again. You'd have a terrific free-energy-generating perpetual motion machine and a Nobel prize and probably never grow old and get to date Uma Thurman.
And for now, the catalyst can accept only low levels of electrical current. Nocera says he's hopeful that both problems can be solved, and because the catalysts are so easy to make, he expects progress will be swift.
No. I'm sure Nocera does not believe the first problem can be solved as it would require violating laws of thermodynamics, and he is a "Professor or Energy" at MIT.
Why are so many serious people confused on this point? Even Scientific American ran this absurd caption:
Water Refinery?: A new catalyst and polymer might prove key in delivering cost-effective -- and plentiful -- hydrogen from water.
Water refinery? Oh magazine that once published an article I wrote with Andy Frank on plug-in hybrids [PDF], why do you mock me? You can't "refine" water like you can refine petroleum. You can't extract energy when you split water. You extract energy when you make water. Water is the end state of generating energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen. Water is a waste product, like carbon dioxide, though an especially useful waste product.
Back to Science magazine:
Further work is also needed to reduce the cost of cathodes and to link the electrodes to solar cells to provide clean electricity. A final big push will be to see if the catalyst or others like it can operate in seawater. If so, future societies could use sunlight to generate hydrogen from seawater and then pipe it to large banks of fuel cells on shore that could convert it into electricity and fresh water, thereby using the sun and oceans to fill two of the world's greatest needs.
So we would place large solar-energy-gathering systems on the turbulent ocean and build large hydrogen pipelines and large banks of fuel cells? No, no, and no. Honestly, people, baseload solar can do all of that for far less cost. Nobody is going to spend a gazillion dollars for a process that throws away more than half the original solar electricity, even if it were practical, which I doubt. And solar baseload can also desalinate water, as can ocean thermal energy.
Back to the MIT release:
Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.
Why does professor of energy Nocera hope for something so unlikely and unuseful and expensive and inefficient? Most homes probably couldn't put enough PV panels on their house to generate excess solar energy anyway, even if anybody ever developed unaffordable household fuel cell.
I'll keep my PV panels for peak power and in a few years buy a plug-in (and lease the battery) and run it on nighttime wind and not have to waste money on a household fuel cell -- which are currently wildly expensive -- while trying to convince my neighbors and my local zoning board that generating and storing hydrogen in my home is not an unsafe, industrial activity that should require massive ventilation, blow-out walls, and a 50-foot clearance between my house and any neighboring buildings.
Final note to science journalist and scientists: Please stop using words like "major discovery" or "nirvana" or "revolutionary" or "breakthrough" or even "cost-effective" in the same sentence as "hydrogen."
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
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amazingdrx Posted 3:28 pm
04 Aug 2008
The scientific illiteracy in this press release.
"...developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases."
Hmmm, well it's called electrolysis isn't it, first developed in 1800?
"Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials"
"Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water,"
Platinum abundant? It is rare and extremely expensive. Catalytic converters are now being stolen from cars for the Platinum. The thieves get 100 bucks from scrap dealers for the 1000+ dollar items.
"In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source"
That has already happened. Solar concentrating PV/heat cogeneration and solar concentrating furnaces with heat storage have acomplished that.
"MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine."
This has too. With concentrating solar furnace molten salt base load power.
No need to proceeed, there doesn't seem to be one thing that the reporter got right in this article. I'm afraid to watch the video out of fear that the researcher will follow suit.
A complete hydrogen powered home was featured a year or two ago. The storage tanks, electrolyzers, and fuel cells cost 300,000 bucks if I remember correctly.
But have no fear, thanks to this huge breakthrough... "...within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell."
No problem, just wait 10 years. Instead of going solar now.
Damn, I did it, watched the video. Is duuhbya appointing research professors at MIT now? This guy actually had a diagram where oxygen was stored to feed the fuel cell.
So you compress the hydrogen and the oxygen? Oxygen that any other fuel cell design (except in airless space) gets from the air? The energy to store the compressed gas defeats the efficiency of this design with hydrogen compression alone.
But compressing the oxygen needlessly? Yur doin' a heckuva job Nocera..ie.
What has happened to our scientific and research community that this can happen?
You want a hydrogen storage breakthrough MIT? Try nano tech metal hydride if you really want to do something useful.
Recent nano tech methane storage has nearly reached the energy density of liquid fuel. And because of the high efficiecy of solid oxide fuel cell/tubines (that don't use expensive elements like Platinum), 5 times that of an ICE, a plugin hybrid with this nano tech fuel storage will beat gas guzzlers all hollow on energy density. Look for methane powered airplanes soon.
You could do that with hydrogen, at least the nano tech storage part. But hydrogen fuel cells are built with Platinum, which is prohibitively expensive. And so does producing the hydrogen.
Methane is naturally ocurring and can also be derived from biogas, at a huge offset of GHG if it is made from waste.
I smell majical hydrogen economy diversionary tactics in this. Delay, divert, and keep on guzzlin', neeehaaaaww! The old texas (corporate lobbyist) oil shill three step.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:36 pm
04 Aug 2008
I can see why you would be worried about such a discovery, as it decreases the need for a lot of the things you and Al Gore hope to make your money on in the next 10 years.
With storage, we need fewer solar panels.
With storage, we need fewer wind turbines.
With storage, plus the new superconducting ribbon cable, we may find that the most efficient distribution system involves a highly networked grid (rather than tinshack style panels on everyone's roof) with hydrogen as the common currency.
With hydrogen, cars can be lean and well built. Kludgey hybrids become 8-track players of the 00's. You can even use basic ICE V-8s and V-6s with hydrogen. People can go back to buying SUVs and trucks like they want to. And quite frankly, they could get a great bargain now and convert their SUVs to hydrogen for a few hundred dollars later.
With this class of discovery, there's no more arguing about CO2. It goes away.
With this class of discovery, the best "carrier" is private enterprise and startups -- in other words, capitalism trumps Government programs and argument...which become unnecessary.
So, if you go carrying pictures of Albert Gore, you ain't gonna make with anyone anyhow.
This is a peaceful, quiet revolution...silently powered by...hydrogen.......whoooshh....
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scatter Posted 7:01 pm
04 Aug 2008
Say what?
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GreyFlcn Posted 9:52 pm
04 Aug 2008
Say what?
This stuff:
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/05/next_ge ...
-David Ahlport
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amazingdrx Posted 12:18 am
05 Aug 2008
"..whoooshh...."
Majical hydrogen economy, take us away...ahhhh, what a relief to forget all about the daunting task of saving the climate with real renewable energy and conservation.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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RSM Posted 12:34 am
05 Aug 2008
Cooled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen for it's entire length... Sure sounds like a solution to me.
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vakibs Posted 12:36 am
05 Aug 2008
They can be a fossil-fuel economy, or a solar economy, or a nuclear economy. But there cannot be a hydrogen economy. This is one of the dirt clouds that float in the media ether.
We would always need to store energy. We can build Lithium ion batteries, or heat rocks and store them in a sealed environment, or lift up large lakes in barrages, or compress air, or create hydrogen, or ...
Each one of these technologies has its own +s and -s. There are several factors to consider in evaluating them (a) the energy capacity per volume (b) the energy capacity per weight (c) the energy loss during conversions (d) the cost of raw materials for making them (e) the environmental side-effects.
Apparently, the MIT guys made a discovery which will improve factor (c) of using Hydrogen fuel cells. i.e, they use lesser energy for making Hydrogen. Okay, cool. But as usual, the media hype blows it out of proportion and makes it look like something else.
Dr. Romm and Dr.X don't like Hydrogen for storing energy. They don't like centralized grid for distributing energy. They don't like nuclear power for generating energy. They don't like ...
But instead of mixing up all their likes and dislikes into one huge conglomerate, why don't they stick to the point in question ? Please limit criticism on Hydrogen to where it belongs - that is within the domain of energy storage.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:44 am
05 Aug 2008
But why limit this critique to storage? The majical hydrogen economy is vulnerable on overall efficiency, practicality, cost, and it's obvious use by denier and delayer industry shilling as well.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:48 am
05 Aug 2008
As Romm sort of ran through with his sarcastic comments about being 50 feet from a building with hyrdrogen, hydrogen is very explosive. I'm not using the Hindenburg as an example, my father ran a physics lab for a few decades, and according to him any lab with stored hydrogen has to train the people who use it, the procedures to use it are very careful, you have to be -- well, very careful, because if it blows up, and according to him, it's worse than a gasoline explosion.
That's on top of the leakage problem -- since it's the world's smallest molecule, it can get through just about anything. That's why there's little in the atmosphere, it escapes into space.
So for anything lesser than a big building with trained staff, and a whole bunch of precautions, stored hydrogen won't work (nevermind compressed hydrogen, multiply everything plus cost).
Whether you can feed hydrogen directly into fuel cells I don't know, and I don't know if that makes sense anyway.
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:19 am
05 Aug 2008
Man, the Green Aristocracy is out in full force to suppress this discovery! Sorry boys, but we don't need your billion dollar master plans and landscapes littered with solar panels and wind turbines.
Let's answer the critics:
1) Dangerous. Hydrogen is more volatile and also packs the most energy per cubic liter of any other fuel. True. But more dangerous? Remember what hydrogen is: a gas...it floats! Once the storage unit is ruptured, what happens? Right...it goes up.
What about gasoline? Nope...it stays on the ground and burns.
So hydrogen is far safer than any other fuel...imagine if Bin Laden had crashed a zeppelin into the WTC...the fuel would have evaporated instantly instead of dripping into the building and burning.
Hydrogen: Safer!
2) Platium: As many of the articles have noted, the amount of platinum needed in the new process is trivial compared to the electrolysis of the "1800s" that you seem familiar with...perhaps, Rip Van Winkle, you should read a few of the articles in detail before taking pixel to screen.
New Process: Cheaper!
3) It's Only a storage medium.
Gee, this one must be funded by Pickens or something...WTF is that supposed to mean? Oil is "storage medium". Now they're saying that fuel cells, whose only purpose is to produce, not store, energy, are "storage mediums". Stick it boys...it just ain't true. Hydrogen is a fuel...it powers the FCX Honda and the BMW Hydrogen 7.
Hydrogen: Your grandchild's fuel...
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Cjenki01 Posted 2:20 am
05 Aug 2008
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vakibs Posted 2:39 am
05 Aug 2008
I take my word back, amazingdrx. There is certainly a need for education here. Jabailo seems to be an interesting specimen.
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GRLCowan Posted 3:27 am
05 Aug 2008
It's amazing they were able to keep him alive:
The energy is in the H2 inside the H20 molecule. The catalyst helps separate the H2 from the 0. But -- the energy holding the H2 to the 0 is not proportional to the energy available in the H2!
(Actually, it is.)
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gzuckier Posted 3:46 am
05 Aug 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:48 am
05 Aug 2008
But you also need particularly dense tanks to hold the stuff or it will leak away, the other side of that coin. If there was a way to get the hydrogen into the fuel cell without first storing it as a gas, that would improve the safety problem considerably, as far as I know.
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:46 am
05 Aug 2008
The lesson to be learned here is that researchers are not usually also polymaths. They are specialists. In general, they don't know anymore about the rest of the world than anyone else and in many cases, much less. Once a "scientist" starts talking about a subject outside his or her expertise, they sound about as ignorant as the next guy. Witness Hawking's remarks about mankind's need to colonize other worlds.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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perk Posted 7:51 am
05 Aug 2008
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MAD MAC Posted 2:24 pm
05 Aug 2008
Victory in Pattani
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christophersj Posted 4:06 pm
05 Aug 2008
Also, although I am aware of some of these problems for hydrogen, and that energy is lost during the process of storage, but how does it compare to even the best batteries today? Is there a comparison chart?
Why be so negative about a battery that doesn't lose its charge over long periods of time and can be used as a "currency"? So home use may not be ideal -- so why throw the baby out with the bath water? I could see large 18 wheelers and trains using the fuel at special stations in industrial sectors.
And if our PV and solar thermal and wind are becoming so much more efficient and powerful, then perhaps they WILL provide more than what is needed at peak day times. Why not store it then?
These are sincere questions from me as an environmentalist. I certainly do not participate in this strong pro/con game around hydrogen and don't understand the political references made here around it. How can one be politically biased about a battery? It either works better or worse than other carbon free techniques and one chooses the most efficient.
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quinceseed Posted 6:15 pm
05 Aug 2008
dat converter for mac ,
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vakibs Posted 9:48 pm
05 Aug 2008
You are right on the point. Hydrogen has some advantages - such as energy efficiency per weight. It also has some key disadvantages - like flammability.
My hunch is that Hydrogen, along with other fuel cells, could be useful for large vehicles, particularly airplanes which cannot be electrified.
Some methods of energy storage will take heat as input. Hydrogen production can get a boost from a lot of heat. Energy intensive biofuel cultivation can also take heat as input. Water desalination can also use heat as input.
Nuclear energy produces a lot of waste heat. Currently this waste heat is considered as a disadvantage and ecologically harmful (usually this heat is dissipated through fresh water from rivers, which is a terrible idea). But instead, this heat can be redirected to one of the above methods (hydrogen/desalination/..). This puts nuclear energy at an advantage . People who are categorically opposed to nuclear power oppose Hydrogen for this reason. Welcome to the world of environmental politics.
In reality, Hydrogen is innocent. Its merits should be judged purely based on its capacity as an energy carrier.
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JoulesBurn Posted 10:21 am
06 Aug 2008
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4378
JB
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