GLOBAL ENERGY FUTURE: Solar hydrogen is one of several visions of the energy future of this EARTH. The future will be defined by efficiency, both technical and political. Does the future economy run on thousands of atomic, Uranium/Thorium power plants which produce electricity and hydrogen, or on thousands of sequestered CO2 COAL plants which produce electricity, coal oil and hydrogen, or on millions of distributed wind power and solar power plants? Localized solar hydrogen can only prevail completely when its costs are competitive, down to a few cents per kilowatt hour, delivered to the user. Perhaps a dark horse, like Focus Fusion, will in fact win out. Most likely, like today, all of the above choices will be utilized as we human beings do not seem to be satisfied until the EARTH glows as brightly as the full moon.
Greetings and Introductions: Chapter President, John Gotthold, greets all attendees and asks each attendee to state their name and a short synopsis of their background and what they hope to learn by attending the meeting. 10 minutes.
1. Government Support for Hydrogen: The US Department of Energy is now focused on completing the Standards for hydrogen station installation and distributed fuel cells. Only when Published Standards are available, that State legislatures can adopt, so that counties can adopt them , so the towns and cities can adopt them , so that local building inspectors can be given a hand book to inspect them by, will the transformation to hydrogen begin to happen. Swedish government announces phase out of oil by 2015!!
2. Business Deals: Mercedes demos F600 Hygenis fuel cell auto. (Neat, I want one!) Fairchild buys bio matter to hydrogen technology. General Hydrogen does deal with Bridgestone Tire for fuel cell lift trucks. Canon to develop fuel cells for cameras and printers. Booming hydrogen sales lift Air Liquide. When billion dollar companies start adopting hydrogen, the hydrogen age has started. SunLine Transit Agency takes delivery of first Commercial fuel cell bus. First large lawsuit against FuelCell Energy for $2,400,000 for fuel cells systems not working as planned.
3. Technology: How will you make your hydrogen and store your hydrogen to go? OSU- is harnessing microbes to piss hydrogen, NCSU- using defective carbon nano tubes for electrolysis, cuts the electricity requirement in half. UCLA- Solar cells from every day plastic, UN Reno-titanium dioxide nano tubes for splitting water with sunlight. Tokyo U- Gallium Nitride splits hydrogen from water. Nano tubes with intermetallics. The Danes have ammonia/hydrogen tablets. Hydrexia- hydrogen storage in hydride. Hitachi- 100 megapascal hydrogen compressor. DOE- robotic assembly of fuel cell stacks.
Video: Renewable Power: Earth's Clean Energy Destiny - 29 minutes
