Off-grid Fuel Cell microgeneration Japanese-style
GeaVox
of a Hydrogen Economy, my enthusiasm for H2 Fuel Cells has not waned,
in spite of much skepticism from friends, colleagues, scientists and
even renewables' pundits. Today on the BBC News Website, an article
vindicates my loyalty to this now 100+ years old technology:
Japan aims its home fuel cells at Europe - By Michael Fitzpatrick
Tokyo
Following the success of a half-price subsidy for CO2-busting fuel-
cell heat and energy generators for homes, Japan is now poised to ship
its attention to supplying the UK and Germany with this hi-tech next-
generation energy source.
With over 5,000 fuel cells providing heat and energy for conventional
homes up and down Japan, the BBC has learnt that companies such as
electronics giant Panasonic are in talks with EU governments about the
possibility of bringing these proven energy and carbon-saving devices
to market in Europe and elsewhere.
Panasonic has described the interest in its commercial fuel-cell
project from the German, Korean and UK governments as "intense", and
is confident that Japan, as the first to start commercial sales for
homes last year, will be the forerunner in bringing the technology
into common use.
Fuel cells - a technology that has been around for more than 100 years
- convert fuels such as hydrogen and natural gas into electricity
through an electrochemical reaction. The resultant heat generated also
warms buildings in gas-boiler-sized boxes known as cogeneration fuel
cells.
The idea is to generate all of the heating and hot water and the
majority of the electricity needed by a typical UK home, without the
need to be connected to the energy wasteful national grid.
Such efficient use of gas supplies can save the consumer around 25% of
total energy costs, and reduce each home's CO2 emissions by up to 2.5
tonnes per annum, according to their makers.
They also claim customers can earn back the system's relatively high
cost, running at present into thousands of pounds, within a few years
through utility bill savings.
Cost issue
Panasonic and Toshiba, another manufacturer of home-use fuel cells in
Japan, sell their cogeneration fuel cells through energy companies
such as Tokyo Gas for around 3.1 to 2.2 million yen. Panasonic claims
around 3,000 customers so far, including the Japanese PM's office.
Half that price is met by the government on each purchase, while other
incentives bring the real price down for consumers to about 1 million
yen (£7,300).
Fuel cells
Residential fuel cells already provide heat and energy for a few homes
in Japan
"If the price falls again still, its popularity will gain momentum,"
general manager of Panasonic's fuel cell project, Mr Yasumasa
Kurosaki, told the BBC. He added that the company aimed at fixing the
per-unit price at around 500,000 yen, and get it even lower in the
near future.
With economies of scale, Panasonic says, such devices could be
competitively priced at around a couple of thousand of pounds by 2013.
"With over 40,000 hours running time already logged, we have proven
the safety, reliability and CO2 savings of our devices in the real
world while sales are improving gradually. We expect next year's sales
to be up 20-30% on the last fiscal year," he said.
The UK government has estimated that microgeneration products, such as
fuel-cell combined-heat-and-power (CHP) units, have the potential to
supply over one-third of the country's total electricity needs and
help meet its environmental obligations.
However, high capital costs are still a major barrier to widespread
adoption of fuel-cell technology.
Fuel-cell makers have yet to turn a profit despite the massive
investments in Japan and elsewhere around the world.
But some are optimistic the gas-burning-without-combustion systems
could be the answer to soaring fuel costs and lowering carbon
emissions.
Pay-back time
"Once fuel cells hit the US$5,000 (£3,300) mark, which we imagine will
happen in the next 2 years, these units will become as compelling to
home owners as energy-saving water-heaters and double-glazing," Tokyo-
based entrepreneur and business analyst Terrie Lloyd told the BBC.
"It will be hard to ignore a product that might save US$2,500 or more
a year on energy bills."
The UK government meanwhile recently announced further support for the
adoption of the technology with a money-back feed-in-tariff (FIT) for
all fuel-cell owners that starts this April.
Under the FIT, any household installing a fuel cell will receive a
generation payment of 10p/kWh for all electricity generated over a 10-
year period, plus an additional export payment of 3p/kWh for any
electricity that is not consumed in the home and is fed back into the
grid.
Importantly, households will still retain the efficiency savings on
their energy bills, providing an incentive to consume any electricity
generated on-site, in preference to exporting to the grid.
"On average, a home fuel user can expect about £360-a-year cash-back
in addition to the energy bill savings from consuming the electricity
generated on-site," according to the UK's leading fuel-cell maker,
Ceres Power.
The company plans to go into mass production after completing field
studies this year. Initial prices for its generators are not yet
available but they are unlikely to match Japanese competitiveness,
says Mr Lloyd, as Japan has achieved a big start with widespread
commercialization last year.
Export possibilities
Despite high prices, some think the market is ready to explode. Tokyo-
based research firm Fuji-Keizai Group has estimated Japan's market for
fuel cells will expand nearly 100-fold from fiscal 2009 to 1.61
trillion yen in fiscal 2025 owing to uptake of the technology for
housing and vehicles.
Fuel-cell systems for housing, says its report, will serve as a
driving force for the market until 2018 when fuel-celled cars are
expected to take over demand.
Panasonic is bullish about possible exports of Japanese know-how to
the UK and Germany where gas is generally cheaper than electricity per
kW and solar cells offer a poor return on investment.
Mr Kurosaki said he was confident Panasonic could reduce costs,
increase efficiency and extend the life of its units which now have a
lifespan of 10 years to make an attractive package to overseas buyers
and governments looking to cut CO2 emissions quickly.
With gas fuel for Japan's fuel cells more costly per kW than
electricity in Japan, some analysts see Japan's nascent fuel-cell
industry reaping benefits abroad.
And with such high prices for gas in energy-poor Japan, take up of the
new technology may well fizzle out along with the government subsidies
that support the current market. Cutting capital costs and boosting
sales to compete abroad seems the only likelihood of success for the
Japanese makers if they are to scale up and be competitive without
subsidies.
John Russell
cell heat and energy generators for homes, Japan is now poised to ship
its attention to supplying the UK and Germany with this hi-tech next-
generation energy source."
Sure it's high-tech, but it's NOT an energy source! Natural gas or hydrogen
are the energy sources; fuel-cells are just a means of turning one sort of
energy into another: in this case natural gas or hydrogen into both
electricity and heat.
Natural gas is, of course, a fossil fuel and while I agree it's cleaner than
alternatives, it still produces CO2. We're also running out of it from the
North Sea and have to import it from Russia. The benefit of domestic-level
CHP lies in both the avoidance of transmission losses and the recovery of
heat for warming the home (which is of benefit in the UK only 6 months of
the year at most). Of course gas prices, like all fuels, are on the rise.
And for anyone out of town, piped gas is not an option anyway so it's
'off-grid' only for those 'on-grid' -- if you see what I mean.
Fuel cells using hydrogen, while totally non-polluting at the point of
energy generation, require electricity to produce the hydrogen. If that
hydrogen is produced by burning fossil fuel to create electricity then we're
hardly any further forward. If renewable energy is used to produce hydrogen
to power CHP systems and if the losses are added up between the wind turbine
(say) and the domestic setting in which the hydrogen is turned into
electricity and heat, then the overall efficiency would not be that good.
Hydrogen as a fuel source is the equivalent of batteries (though arguably
slightly less efficient); a means of storing energy until it's needed. The
car manufacturers are really keen on hydrogen, not because it produces less
CO2 for the big picture but because it pushes the GHG problem back up the
supply chain to the power stations.
What would be good for me is a wood-burning domestic CHP system, which has
always been my dream. At the moment the only way I could achieve this would
be by using a small wood-fired steam engine powering an alternator. This is
a little project I've got lined up for my retirement.
And the ultimate would be a domestic biogas CHP unit, into which you'd chuck
all biodegradable household and garden waste (including human and animals
faeces) and which would produce electricity and heat, plus compost to chuck
on your veg patch. Now that would really be something, and would be
completely carbon neutral!
Best wishes,
JR
Cost issue
Fuel cells
Pay-back time
Export possibilities
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Harold Chandler
Harold Chandler
PAdam...@aol.com
What would be good for me is a wood-burning domestic CHP system, which has
always been my dream. At the moment the only way I could achieve this would
be by using a small wood-fired steam engine powering an alternator. This is
a little project I've got lined up for my retirement.
And the ultimate would be a domestic biogas CHP unit, into which you'd chuck
all biodegradable household and garden waste (including human and animals
faeces) and which would produce electricity and heat, plus compost to chuck
on your veg patch. Now that would really be something, and would be
completely carbon neutral!
GeaVox
familiar with.
Other objections include:
The vast quantity of Pt required for electrolysis "There isn't enough
Platinum on earth!"
The difficulty of storing H2 cryogenically or under pressure "Uses as
much energy to store as it carries"
The 'exchange rate' of energy required to produce : energy stored.
The highly explosive nature of H2: "It ignites with just a static
spark!"
The impossibility of using mercaptans to make the H2 leaks detectable,
because "it combines with anything, so it just changes the mercaptans
to a slightly different gas!"
<smiles>
Yes, I have heard it all.. so, one thing at a time.
On Mar 16, 7:15 pm, "John Russell" <j...@winsford.info> wrote:
> Sure it's high-tech, but it's NOT an energy source!
Yes, don't the media love treating readers as though we are all
idiots? ;oD
Fuel Cells are chemical converters that electrochemically recombine H2
and O2 and return to us the electron that was freed during
electrolysis as well as the water that it was freed from.
> Natural gas or hydrogen are the energy sources;
No, they are not, they too are just the storage media, chemical
storage media.
> fuel-cells are just a means of turning one sort of energy into another
> : in this case natural gas or hydrogen into both electricity and heat.
And water... don't forget that most precious byproduct: as chemically
pure as distilled water, suitable for surgery or the most demanding
chemical process or manufacturing application.
> Natural gas is, of course, a fossil fuel and while I agree it's cleaner than
> alternatives, it still produces CO2. We're also running out of it from the
> North Sea and have to import it from Russia.
I am not a great supporter of natural gas FCs, I have to say, I
believe Proton Exchange Membrane H2 Fuel Cells, such as Ballard Power
Systems (in your neck of the wood, John) have already perfected OEM-
ready engine blocks and stationary FC stacks are the future.
http://www.ballard.com/
http://www.americanhydrogenassociation.org/ahaknow.html
Why has Japan gone with Gas FCs? Natural Gas is already widely
available, while H2 production on the necessary scale is still in its
infancy... more like embryonic!
Nevertheless, the National Hydrogen Association's impressive members'
list suggests it isn't the only show in town...
http://www.hydrogenassociation.org/about/members.asp?sort=2#null
> The benefit of domestic-level CHP lies in both the avoidance of transmission losses
Absolutely! (see my original post, about GM's "Green Rip-off" about
FiTs)
> and the recovery of heat for warming the home
Or water, using heat exchangers.
> (which is of benefit in the UK only 6 months of the year at most)
LOL! Perhaps to Britons, to us immigrants - soft Southerners and
Sassanachs - it's more like 9 months! :oD
> Of course gas prices, like all fuels, are on the rise.
And will therefore eventually reach levels that will make mass Wind/
Solar infrastructure H2 projects profitable.
> And for anyone out of town, piped gas is not an option anyway so it's
> 'off-grid' only for those 'on-grid' -- if you see what I mean.
Not really; H2 diffuses at x3 the rate of natural gas, but the
attendant problems (see top) are the fact that leaks are very
dangerous, because it is such an explosive gas.
BTW, before someone comes out with the Hinderburg.. there are so many
theories about the cause of that disaster, H2 was only one component
of an accident waiting to happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenberg_disaster.
> Fuel cells using hydrogen, while totally non-polluting at the point of
> energy generation, require electricity to produce the hydrogen.
> If that
> hydrogen is produced by burning fossil fuel to create electricity then we're
> hardly any further forward.
Quite. So...? The solution is:
1) Generate electricity where Kinetic energy AND water are abundant...
2) use reverse osmosis or passive solar distillation to desalinate the
water
3) electrolyse the water using the electricity generated*
4) store the H2 and O2 evolved (see choices of H2 storage**)
5) transport either the H2 (either in its gaseous form, via the
existing gas pipe network), in pressurised gas cylinders in cryogenic
storage (slush*), or as Metal hydrides***
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_electrolysis
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_hydrides
Why bother?
Advantages of a Hydrogen economy*.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy [note the dubious
article neutrality]
Read the debate on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hydrogen_economy
H2O only requires 2.3 eV current to electrolyse, his means that a
relatively high power source (in Watts) can be stepped down to give a
lot of low voltage current.
In fact, too high a voltage and the water instantly evaporates!
The choice therefore exists, given the appropriate 'intelligent'
switching equipment, to select one of two operating modes:
A) if the current is of a quality sufficient for DC trasnsmission, it
is simply relayed into the national grid; or
B) If the current is low quality, it is converted to AC and stepped
down, to give the low voltage required for electrolysis
If renewable energy is used to produce hydrogen, it is a good energy
medium that allows renewable energy to be stored and consumed on-
demand.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7101708.stm
http://www.ukha.org/
http://www.americanhydrogenassociation.org/
http://www.hydrogenassociation.org/
http://www.hydrogen-economy.org.uk/
http://www.chfca.ca/
http://www.dwv-info.de/e/index.html
http://www.mhfca.org/marine_hydrogen_fuel_cell_association/1,1,12828.html
http://www.hydrogenconference.org/
> to power CHP systems and if the losses are added up between the wind turbine
> (say) and the domestic setting in which the hydrogen is turned into
> electricity and heat, then the overall efficiency would not be that good.
> Hydrogen as a fuel source is the equivalent of batteries (though arguably
> slightly less efficient);
On the contrary! H2 as a power release medium is faster and more
efficient than most batteries.
> a means of storing energy until it's needed. The
> car manufacturers are really keen on hydrogen, not because it produces less
> CO2 for the big picture but because it pushes the GHG problem back up the
> supply chain to the power stations.
Not in the least, John... I believe you've been sold a bill of goods
the oil industry wants people to buy. Wind and solar production is
one medium, but some promising research in Germany illustrated the
benefits of stripping biogas from sewage, reforming it to store as
hydrogen, as the conversion is only relatively more complex than
removing H2S (Hydrogen sulphide, the 'rotten eggs' gas associated with
CH4 in the putrefaction process and that gives methane (which is
actually odourless) its distinctive smell and is highly neurotoxic at
concentrations > 300ppm.
>
> What would be good for me is a wood-burning domestic CHP system, which has
> always been my dream.
Wood is not entirely carbon neutral, it acts as a C sink, as the plant
grows, but is released as it is combusted; what's more, bark actually
contains aromatics, which are not entirely harmless, and the
disruption to the ecosystem from vast scale use of wood as a solid
fuel is immense.
When compared, the Wind/solar production of H2 is rather benign, while
its use in Fuel Cells is very much so, because of the aforementioned
production of water byproduct.
> At the moment the only way I could achieve this would
> be by using a small wood-fired steam engine powering an alternator. This is
> a little project I've got lined up for my retirement.
Nice one! Me, I am hoping that he stationary stacks come online in
the next 10 years or so, making a wind generator a sensible
investment.
> And the ultimate would be a domestic biogas CHP unit, into which you'd chuck
> all biodegradable household and garden waste (including human and animals
> faeces) and which would produce electricity and heat, plus compost to chuck
> on your veg patch. Now that would really be something, and would be
> completely carbon neutral!
If it's pretty leakproof and doesn't release any CH4, yes,
absolutely! Perhaps you'd like to check out my first post on the
Great Green Rip-off, it has the link to the first Biogas plant in
Denmark, a place we visited, near Odense. They may be able to help
with advice for H2S removal, they seemed to use nothing more complex
than a lot of plastic discs with a cross in the middle... I believe
at the time of our visit (1998) they had already built another 27.
Must go to bed now... OOOPS! I can hear grumbling upstairs! "Turn
off t' AirPort when you come up!" :oD which which in Lancashire
parlance translate to "you've been tapping away for aaaages! bloody
come to bed, lass, I want to go to sleep, I am fair knackered!!" LOL!
> Best wishes,
And to you, John.
Good night!
John Russell
Because I don't have an off-grid fuel cell! And they'll probably be
expensive at first. When they become available I'd be tempted though; but I
wouldn't want to chuck thousands into R&D on my own when there are others
more knowledgeable and with more experience. I don't want to be re-inventing
the wheel. Would a fuel cell is optimised to run on natural gas? Would it
need any mods to run on Syngas, which I assume will be quite dirty? This is
interesting and seems to back up this thought:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1183/
The idea of producing gas from waste is very attractive; in fact it answers
my criticism of the idea of 'waste', in that waste becomes a valuable fuel
and therefore, by definition, it's no longer 'waste'. In fact I'd like to
see legislation to require all necessary packaging to be made from materials
which can have sufficient value in a secondary role to ensure they don't end
up in a landfill, a ditch, blowing around the countryside or in the stomach
of a seabird or fish.
Best wishes,
JR
> --
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PAdam...@aol.com
Patrick writes: "Why not instead design a small plant to turn wood into
syngas - to be used on your off-grid fuel cell, while producing charcoal as
a by product... "
Because I don't have an off-grid fuel cell! And they'll probably be
expensive at first. When they become available I'd be tempted though; but I
wouldn't want to chuck thousands into R&D on my own when there are others
more knowledgeable and with more experience. I don't want to be re-inventing
the wheel. Would a fuel cell is optimised to run on natural gas? Would it
need any mods to run on Syngas, which I assume will be quite dirty? This is
interesting and seems to back up this thought:
John Russell
I'll put my responses [in brackets] below -- I hope you can work out which
they are (oh, how I detest plain text!)
----- Original Message -----
From: "GeaVox" <gea...@googlemail.com>
To: "Monbiot Discussions" <monbiot...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 10:16 PM
Subject: [SPAM-LOW] [Monbiot] Re: Off-grid Fuel Cell microgeneration
Japanese-style
Thank you for your reply, John, your argument is one that I am all too
familiar with.
Other objections include:
The vast quantity of Pt required for electrolysis "There isn't enough
Platinum on earth!"
The difficulty of storing H2 cryogenically or under pressure "Uses as
much energy to store as it carries"
The 'exchange rate' of energy required to produce : energy stored.
The highly explosive nature of H2: "It ignites with just a static
spark!"
The impossibility of using mercaptans to make the H2 leaks detectable,
because "it combines with anything, so it just changes the mercaptans
to a slightly different gas!"
<smiles>
Yes, I have heard it all.. so, one thing at a time.
On Mar 16, 7:15 pm, "John Russell" <j...@winsford.info> wrote:
> Sure it's high-tech, but it's NOT an energy source!
Yes, don't the media love treating readers as though we are all
idiots? ;oD
[No, it's because they don't understand it!]
Fuel Cells are chemical converters that electrochemically recombine H2
and O2 and return to us the electron that was freed during
electrolysis as well as the water that it was freed from.
> Natural gas or hydrogen are the energy sources;
No, they are not, they too are just the storage media, chemical
storage media.
[You're, of course, right; but I meant 'energy source' in the same practical
way that coal, oil, wood, a head of water, wind, waves and sunlight are
considered to be 'sources of energy' -- or 'fuel'.]
> fuel-cells are just a means of turning one sort of energy into another
> : in this case natural gas or hydrogen into both electricity and heat.
And water... don't forget that most precious byproduct: as chemically
pure as distilled water, suitable for surgery or the most demanding
chemical process or manufacturing application.
[Of course, but I'm not sure we're short of huge quantities of distilled
water; are we?]
> Natural gas is, of course, a fossil fuel and while I agree it's cleaner
> than
> alternatives, it still produces CO2. We're also running out of it from the
> North Sea and have to import it from Russia.
I am not a great supporter of natural gas FCs, I have to say, I
believe Proton Exchange Membrane H2 Fuel Cells, such as Ballard Power
Systems (in your neck of the wood, John) have already perfected OEM-
ready engine blocks and stationary FC stacks are the future.
http://www.ballard.com/
http://www.americanhydrogenassociation.org/ahaknow.html
Why has Japan gone with Gas FCs? Natural Gas is already widely
available, while H2 production on the necessary scale is still in its
infancy... more like embryonic!
Nevertheless, the National Hydrogen Association's impressive members'
list suggests it isn't the only show in town...
http://www.hydrogenassociation.org/about/members.asp?sort=2#null
> The benefit of domestic-level CHP lies in both the avoidance of
> transmission losses
Absolutely! (see my original post, about GM's "Green Rip-off" about
FiTs)
> and the recovery of heat for warming the home
Or water, using heat exchangers.
[Sure, but I've got solar thermal panels for warming my water.]
> (which is of benefit in the UK only 6 months of the year at most)
LOL! Perhaps to Britons, to us immigrants - soft Southerners and
Sassanachs - it's more like 9 months! :oD
[9 months! OK, perhaps I'm spoilt. Our house -- a barn that I've converted
myself -- is so well insulated that unless outside temperatures fall below
10C there's enough heat generated from domestic activities -- cooking,
domestic hot water pipes, computer, TV, body heat, lightbulbs, etc., to
maintain the house at 18C+ without additional space heating. Before we spend
any money on any sort of power generation, the country should be enabling
everyone to insulate their house like that. If we did we'd probably be able
to shut down three power stations immediately.]
> Of course gas prices, like all fuels, are on the rise.
And will therefore eventually reach levels that will make mass Wind/
Solar infrastructure H2 projects profitable.
> And for anyone out of town, piped gas is not an option anyway so it's
> 'off-grid' only for those 'on-grid' -- if you see what I mean.
Not really; H2 diffuses at x3 the rate of natural gas, but the
attendant problems (see top) are the fact that leaks are very
dangerous, because it is such an explosive gas.
[Not sure you got my meaning. Only cities and some towns have mains gas
supplies. People in the sticks have to have any sort of gas delivered in
lorries.]
Why bother?
[Geez: how much spare time do you think I've got?]
> to power CHP systems and if the losses are added up between the wind
> turbine
> (say) and the domestic setting in which the hydrogen is turned into
> electricity and heat, then the overall efficiency would not be that good.
> Hydrogen as a fuel source is the equivalent of batteries (though arguably
> slightly less efficient);
On the contrary! H2 as a power release medium is faster and more
efficient than most batteries.
[The release might be faster but are you sure that by the time you take the
electricity, turn it into hydrogen, carry it around in a high pressure tank
and then power a car with it, your losses are not greater than if you'd
adopted an all-electric (ie battery) solution? For instance the fuel tank to
hold 320kWh of petrol is plastic and weighs about 4kg: the pressurised tank
necessary to hold an energy-equivalent amount of hydrogen weighs 120Kg.
Don't know; just askin'. And I'm not promoting electric cars, either.
Personal transport is not an option in a equitable world of 7bn people.]
> a means of storing energy until it's needed. The
> car manufacturers are really keen on hydrogen, not because it produces
> less
> CO2 for the big picture but because it pushes the GHG problem back up the
> supply chain to the power stations.
Not in the least, John... I believe you've been sold a bill of goods
the oil industry wants people to buy. Wind and solar production is
one medium, but some promising research in Germany illustrated the
benefits of stripping biogas from sewage, reforming it to store as
hydrogen, as the conversion is only relatively more complex than
removing H2S (Hydrogen sulphide, the 'rotten eggs' gas associated with
CH4 in the putrefaction process and that gives methane (which is
actually odourless) its distinctive smell and is highly neurotoxic at
concentrations > 300ppm.
[You know more about chemistry than me, Toni. But I have done a lot of work
with car manufacturers and I'm very confident I'm right that they like the
idea of hydrogen -- and electric for that matter -- because it means
emissions are no longer their problem.]
>
> What would be good for me is a wood-burning domestic CHP system, which has
> always been my dream.
Wood is not entirely carbon neutral, it acts as a C sink, as the plant
grows, but is released as it is combusted; what's more, bark actually
contains aromatics, which are not entirely harmless, and the
disruption to the ecosystem from vast scale use of wood as a solid
fuel is immense.
[Depends on the temperature it's burnt. And you need to explain in more
detail how it's not carbon neutral: what it locks up is subseqntly released
but in the meantime it's out of circulation. But, I agree, wood can never be
a large-scale solution. Wood burning, though, is a process that has always
occurred naturally, so it can't be that harmful to the biosphere (all life
has evolved to cope with it -- indeed some life depends on burning wood).
Unlike fossil coal or oil, we can't burn it any faster than it forms.
Short-rotation coppice means a five-year turn round from growth to being
burnt. That's very efficient -- and how is it not carbon neutral?]
When compared, the Wind/solar production of H2 is rather benign, while
its use in Fuel Cells is very much so, because of the aforementioned
production of water byproduct.
> At the moment the only way I could achieve this would
> be by using a small wood-fired steam engine powering an alternator. This
> is
> a little project I've got lined up for my retirement.
Nice one! Me, I am hoping that he stationary stacks come online in
the next 10 years or so, making a wind generator a sensible
investment.
> And the ultimate would be a domestic biogas CHP unit, into which you'd
> chuck
> all biodegradable household and garden waste (including human and animals
> faeces) and which would produce electricity and heat, plus compost to
> chuck
> on your veg patch. Now that would really be something, and would be
> completely carbon neutral!
If it's pretty leakproof and doesn't release any CH4, yes,
absolutely! Perhaps you'd like to check out my first post on the
Great Green Rip-off, it has the link to the first Biogas plant in
Denmark, a place we visited, near Odense. They may be able to help
with advice for H2S removal, they seemed to use nothing more complex
than a lot of plastic discs with a cross in the middle... I believe
at the time of our visit (1998) they had already built another 27.
[Yes, I've filmed a biogas plant in Austria (1.5mW), so I'm very familiar
with how good it can be. In the UK, Severn Trent Water generates all its
electricity using gas from its sewage works.]
Must go to bed now... OOOPS! I can hear grumbling upstairs! "Turn
off t' AirPort when you come up!" :oD which which in Lancashire
parlance translate to "you've been tapping away for aaaages! bloody
come to bed, lass, I want to go to sleep, I am fair knackered!!" LOL!
> Best wishes,
And to you, John.
Good night!
ditto.
PS: Sorry I've skipped a bit through your points. If I get a bit of time
I'll gather my thoughts together more and come back to you.
TIMC...@aol.com
At the moment the only way I could achieve this would
be by using a small wood-fired steam engine powering an alternator. This is
a little project I've got lined up for my retirement
Hi John,have you looked at Stirling engines for this?i tried to find something useable last time i had to change the boiler but it was just not sufficiently developed.Very efficient and happy with low grade heat.CheersTim
TIMC...@aol.com
which we only use for bbqs and then import most of that!
Use wood and light it ten minutes earlier!Tim
John Russell
http://www.prestonservices.co.uk/. I fancy walking around in dungarees,
cloth cap with an oily rag in my pocket and an oil can in my hand, wiping
the sweat from my brow. In another age I'd have been Fred Dibner. In fact
several people call me Fred for that reason when they see me wearing my cap
sitting on my little tractor.
Best wishes,
JR
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davidjtaylor
And the ultimate would be a domestic biogas CHP unit, into which you'd chuck all biodegradable household and garden waste (including human and animals faeces) and which would produce electricity and heat, plus compost to chuck on your veg patch. Now that would really be something, and would be completely carbon neutral!
Lila Smith
Lila Smith
www.windwand.co.nz
Taranaki Tourism Website
www.windwand.co.nz/organickitchengarden.htm
Organic Kitchen Gardening
Mob 021230 7962
06 7512942
122 Ngamotu Road
New Plymouth
New Zealand
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Russell" <jo...@winsford.info>
To: <monbiot...@googlegroups.com>
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No virus found in this incoming message.
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07:33:00
John Russell
Best wishes,
JR
----- Original Message -----
From: "davidjtaylor" <grap...@tmprinting.ie>
To: <monbiot...@googlegroups.com>
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19:33:00
davidjtaylor
'Twas a bit of a fantasy, David.
Best wishes,
JR