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samboct -> RE: Energy crisis solved. That was easy.... (2/22/2010 5:02:09 PM)
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"I mostly agree with you about the suppression of ideas and concepts.
I think that is the biggest reason we won't see huge advances in power storage devices for quite some time. Too much money to be lost by those that are currently making it."
Sorry- no conspiracy theories needed. Fuel cells have always been rather complicated- the plumbing on the fuel cells that were flown in space in the 60s and 70s is truly Rube Goldberg. However, fuel cells do have the potential to be more efficient than combustion processes- they're not Carnot cycles.1 The major problem with fuel cells to date has been the expensive catalysts needed such as platinum (that's for a PEM cell)- that and although the cell can be simple in theory, in practice, there's been some design challenges. Molten carbonate fuel cells used for stationary power are getting cheaper though (no platinum needed)- people have been working on substituting metal plates for the ceramic plates, so if they've got a radically cheaper cell, that'd be my guess. Each reaction in a fuel cell typically generates between 0.3 and 0.7 V therefore, you need a lot of plates to get to a useable voltage. And you need the same flow of reactants to each cell, and each cell needs to be at the same temp- begin to get the idea why they haven't been easy to mfg? Also- the reaction conditions are hot, with lots of salt and I think acid- so the plates need to be replaced periodically. It's been hard to make an economic case for fuel cells since they are still immature technology competing against combustion technologies which have been developed over a century.
Solar cells have been improving fairly steadily over the last few decades. They got a big boost from Carter's funding, then as that dried up with Rayguns in the White House, progress slowed somewhat- but didn't stop. They're also not mature- a big chunk of the recent improvements has to do with the incorporation of nanoengineered materials- which have only been available for a decade or so. Fuel cells may also benefit from better materials.
Note that GM's reason that the EV1 died was a materials failure- the NiMH batteries being developed for the car didn't cut it and the car had to use lead acids. If the car had the batteries that have been developed for the Prius- it probably would have been a different story. Sometimes you really do stretch a little too far....
I work with some of the companies in this area- most of them are struggling. They will make far more money with successful commercialization. The entrenched interests such as coal, oil and nuclear power plants are doing their damnedest to lobby to make certain that new regulations which would tilt the playing field toward new technologies aren't passed. Regulations such as taxing CO2, making the nuclear industry responsible for its own insurance for real as well as its own cleanup, better enforcement of existing environmental regulations concerning coal mining and ash disposal- that kind of thing which would make the existing technologies have pricing that reflect their true costs- rather than taxpayer subsidies. Yes, wind and solar get subsidies- but Japan has shown that once the industry gets going- it no longer needs subsidies. And don't we need some good jobs anyway?
1 Ken- fuel cells in CT are considered fossil fuel replacements because one of the companies- Fuel Cell Energy in Danbury has presented a pretty good case that they are more efficient at converting methane to power than any existing combustion plant. I've heard efficiencies pushing 70% if you combine the waste heat of the fuel cell with hot water production as a co-generation system. You can get away with this in a fuel cell because they're very quiet- there have been a number of successful installations in hotels, jails, hospitals etc.
Sam
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