Panasonic moves closer to home energy self-sufficiency with fuel cells

He is way ahead in ingenuity, but behind in terms of technology.

He is using the best off the shelf technology today, which is in 2015 much more praticle and affordable. Today you would probably be able to buy a much better fuel cell, and perhaps have a plug-in to charge, but he bought batteries and tanks much earlier.

Good for him to show how to do this.

 

I used to have the same pair of Adidas sandals he was wearing!
My tech thought though .... he's using steel tanks for his relatively low pressure hydrogen. Even so - it'd be revealing to discover what kind of imbrittlement he's experiencing.
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And storing H2 is easy? I'm pretty sure we don't exactly know which will turn out to be the most efficient. I would want both PV generation/Battery Storage and H2 generation/storage/FuelCell conversion to be fully matured. There is nothing wrong with both technologies turning out to be winners. It is quite possible that there is a inflection point where the size of the system makes for an economic breakpoint, so there are likely different situations best serviced by different technologies.

 

I think he is using old propane tanks, and said they in total hold just about 40 kg when full in all those tanks. I think its outside, it goes boom, you use a hose to put out the fire, and recycle the metal. Its not like he is putting 5kg in a garage at high pressure in an enclosed garage in just one where it can burn the house. I bet if one goes, and there isn't a spark, he just loses the hydrogen no fire, and buys a new tank. I think the usefull length with propane is 12 years, hydrogen should be shorter. That guy probably will get a leak in less than 12 years of use, and learn when to replace.

The Panasonic idea of using metal hydroxide is safer and smaller, but much more expensive. Still metal hydride is a good place for R&D.

 

Here is a study which discusses how to switch California to 100% renewable energy across the board by 2050. This would provide for a 100% renewable electrical grid for existing electricity users, EVs, and converting all building heating to electric heat pumps from natural gas. It also envisions electrolytic hydrogen for fuel cells used in large commercial vehicles and ships as well as burning hydrogen for industrial manufacturing in place of natural gas.

100% (or 99.8%) renewable energy largely from wind, solar, plus existing hydroelectricity with essentially no fossil use.

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CaliforniaWWS.pdf

 

Interesting, lots of pieces to the puzzle. I myself switched to a variable speed heat pump earlier this year after adding PVs to the roof. Now I'm finding myself drowning in indebtedness to financial institutions. ;( H2 used in a commercial capacity seems to be the most attainable goal in the interim.

 

i take it you've never been to Israel, or heard of Jimmy Carter?

 

With proper placement, you could ditch the circulating pump for the solar hot water, and just let nature take care of it.
But small pumps don't use much, and it's use is taking @30% efficient PVs up to 80%. So it's a win even if you don't use the waste heat for anything else.

 

....snip..... if new natural gas furnaces are already running in excess of 97% efficient - what's the point of 1st converting the natural gas to electricity ....
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yes, the hot water circulating pump I recently installed, when it's running, uses only 60 watts. See post #12 here - i added some pic's of my handywork;
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I was pleasantly surprised how little energy is required to move water through a loop.
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Huh?

Under this plan there is no natural gas or any other fossil fuel used to power the 2050 CA grid -- it's 100% renewable with almost no carbon emissions.

Even with 97% efficiency, a natural gas heater would still be emitting lots of CO2. Burning a therm of natural gas emits about 13.5 pounds of CO2 and many people average at least a therm per day over the course of a year for water and home heating. That's like driving 25 miles a day in a Prius.

Many homes probably average 2 or more therms per day.

 

NG is 100% renewable is my guess.

I remember Daryll/evnut always promoting the Chili Pepper brand one he used here. My parents' home could use one.
Much easier to do with new construction, but won't need a pump, is to install a hot water loop powered by convection. Though it would not work with on demand heaters.

 

This provided a good "Duh" moment for me. Artificial photosynthesis is for energy and real photosynthesis is for.....synthesis. Certainly something second nature to the chemically trained. But took a good common sense 2x4 across the noggin for me.

 

There was a little animation in the video showing the oxygen and hydrogen breaking free from water in the photolysis cell, and then the hydrogen moving over to the other cell to make formic acid. Fine tuning the catalyst in that synthesis cell could allow control over what organic compound is produced. Perhaps something that would be an easier to transport hydrogen carrier for FCEVs, or some compound that is a useful feedstock for making other stuff. Even formic acid has uses.

 

hang on there cowboy - don't get too perplexed

I was merely questioning directly from your quote in post #47;

so the inquiry still stands ... natural gas? or no ...
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Sorry for any confusion but the plan proposes converting natural gas building furnaces to use electricity-powered heat pumps in order to eliminate the fossil fuel use.

 

Pool pumps are monsters that need to turn over an open body of water multiple times during a day while pushing it all through a filter. Circulatory pumps on a closed pipe loop require a fraction of the power to move the water.

Solar hot water, as discussed here, would be an add on to liquid cooled PVs, making it a cogen unit.

 

Lots of solar water heaters in isreal, very different and much less expensive than the ones carter proposed. They were on a lot more homes before Carter became president, and now its close to 90% of roofs have solar hot water heaters.
Here Comes the Sun: Israel and Solar Energy « Breaking Energy - Energy industry news, analysis, and commentary

Today the solar has moved beyond these cheap water heaters to pv, and they were never a good fit for the us with a lot of cheap natural gas and electricity.

Yep that is where the bulk of the solar hot water heater subsidies in the US went. Now it is probably cheaper over a 30 year period to install extra pv on the roof and an electric water heater, than solar hot water heating in the US, but with the glut of natural gas here not much advantage for solar unless it is heating pool water or there isn't natural gas infrastructure.

Yep, and you did a solar pv roof correct? You really could simply add more and an electric water heater and it would be more economic in most of the US (new mexico, Arizona, etc hot sunny places might be more like Israel and economic).

Germany I believe has the most percentage solar at 6.3%, they have cheap french nukes and lots of off shore wind, so not much incentive to put in a Panasonic system.

Israel though with its lack of resources might be a good place to test the Panasonic solar hydrogen. It is a lot sunnier and less restrictive building code than Japan. They probably would store the hydrogen in cheap steel tanks that have to get recycled like the guy in the video instead of doing metal hydride. With all the possible bombing of the grid, having things that can work off grid is more of priortity there as well. The other place I can see the experiment is saudi arabia, with lots of money for solar R&D.

 

no - it doesn't say, "use fuel cells instead of battery" .... read it. Don't twist it.
The study is about storing excess WWS (wind, water sun) energy. Collaterally, it discusses different storage methods, such as FC's AND batteries. More truthfulluy, it says (among other storage tech) if all Calif vehicles were plugins, it would only be necessary to utilize ~ 3% of them for supplemental grid power - using V2G (vehicle to grid) technology already in existence, and is already being tested in parts of the world.

These "corrections" aren't rehashed to shake your faith in hydrogen ... if anything, you'll look more credible by NOT over hyping hydrogen. That's what's making Toyota look so horribly dishonest - twisting & half truths.
Another rehash example from above; Even after you were called out for the misstatement re, "Tesla packs loose 1% per day".
No - they only do that for the 1st couple days - after which the parasitic losses significantly diminish .... just like all batteries ... just like ALL stored energy. Hydrogen leaks - just like compressed air in your tires. Electric transmission lines have equally small % loss.
I do appreciate your zeal, but when folks say junk like, " batteries are big, and expensive, and have too much loss", all the while knowing how battery weight/power is increasing - prices are falling & that how ALL stored energy has loss ... and then gloss over hydrogen hurdles . . . surprise surprise . . . knowledgeable peep's will pushback - & call out the dishonesty - especially when it's a repeat, because a repeat means that it's not misstatements out of ignorance.
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