Sure, it would be great for lots of people to move in that direction. But there's a huge difference between using a little electricity for a few things, and using no electricity at all. There's also a huge difference between having that type of lifestyle in a sparsely settled area, and in a large city. Making everyone's homes as you describe basically means tearing down everyone's homes and rebuilding them, and dismantling most of our cities. That won't happen in a decade. You also are not going to see an abandonment of electricity any time soon, unless accompanied by the total and violent collapse of civilization.
The system described means you use a PV system to generate electricity (when the sun is shining), and use some of that electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen (electrolysis) to store for when you need electricity and the sun is not shining. An alternative to this step is to use a battery for storage. Then, when you need electricity, you combine the hydrogen and oxygen (or oxygen from the air) back into water in a fuel cell, which gives you electricity. This step is a lot like burning the hydrogen, but more efficient if you want electricity rather than heat. Yes, you could probably fix your own electrolysis system. You'd probably need to know what you were doing to fix a fuel cell, and still only if you can get parts (like fixing a car or computer). Most people would probably also have a hard time fixing their own solar hot water system too, depending on the type. There are way too many people around these days for everyone to use wood as their main source of energy, even if those people conserve. The article was a little weird and certainly made some claims that don't make a lot of sense. But figuring out how to provide people with at least some significant amount of energy, without relying completely on fossil-fuel-burning power plants, is a serious problem that needs to be solved, even if everyone drastically reduces their usage. Distributed storage (i.e. in your house) is one way to consider doing this, though maybe not the best. There's lots of room for improvement there, hence the stuff discussed in the article. -- Rich ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Frantz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Sustainable Tompkins County listserv" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 10:23 PM Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] Major discovery from MIT On Sat, 8/2/08, Andy Goodell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Rich, I think I am actually quite optimistic about those sorts of things. I try to think about the solutions, and forget what is conventional. Andy, I've been in a lot of homes in the Cumberland Plateau of Kentucky, generally owned by older generations, where the consumption of electricity is limited to light bulbs, radio and TV,and maybe a fan in the summer. It's not total indenpendence, but definitely far lower than the typical middle class American household, and far easier to sustain on solar cells. I don't think you're asking too much. George Frantz --- On Sat, 8/2/08, Andy Goodell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Andy Goodell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] Major discovery from MIT primed tounleash solar revolution To: "Sustainable Tompkins County listserv" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, August 2, 2008, 1:14 AM Rich, I think I am actually quite optimistic about those sorts of things. I try to think about the solutions, and forget what is conventional. So many inventions are out there to make our lives easier, yet all they really do is use energy and free up our time to use more energy elsewhere. Instead of washing dishes by hand, we can now put them in a dishwasher while we watch TV. My dream home would not have electricity or use any concentrated energy sources, but would also not need it. People lived a few hundred years ago without any concentrated energy except lumber, and while they may not have seen that as luxury, we now have the knowledge for so many things that improve upon those ways. Passive solar housing designs, natural insulation homes, solar thermal water heating, greenhouses for extending the growing season, water catchment, root cellars and food preservation techniques such as drying, anything in permaculture, etc. If we just passed around knowledge of these solutions and helped each other design them and make them work, we wouldn't need complicated hydrogen electrolysis systems with fuel cell storage. What the heck does that really mean anyway? Would you ever be able to fix that? We are rotting away our brains on new technology when the real solutions are really just innovative techniques with do-it-yourself technology. Put in that perspective, and a house without electricity sounds just dandy to me. -Andy On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 5:15 PM, Rich Bernstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is a new method of electrolysis, meaning you use the electricity from > whatever to split water to get hydrogen. You can then use the hydrogen in > a > fuel cell. They are describing it as storage for solar power systems, but > that connection seems to just be marketing. > > Prof. Nocera was quoted as saying the electrolysis is "almost" 100% > efficient > (http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209900956&cid=NL_eet). > If true, that means if you burn the hydrogen you should get "almost" all of > your energy back as heat. It also means when you run it through a fuel > cell, you only get about half of it back as electricity. They seem to have > left the cost and efficiency of the fuel cell component of the system out > of > their claims. > > So it looks like this would be something less efficient than the lead-acid > batteries people use now to store electricity in off-grid systems, but > presumably cleaner. The up-front costs depend on how cheap you can make a > fuel cell. I don't doubt the claim that it's better than existing methods > of electrolysis, which don't seem to be considered an economical way to > produce hydrogen when alternatives are available. Maybe it's even more > efficient than steam methane reforming, though if this is the case, I don't > know why they aren't advertising it as such (maybe because hydrogen isn't > popular this week). > > I'm curious what you mean about not powering our houses in 10 years, Andy. > A 10-year transition away from electricity doesn't seem like a particularly > optimistic vision to me. > > -- > Rich > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Andy Goodell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Sustainable Tompkins County listserv" > <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 11:06 AM > Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] Major discovery from MIT primed > tounleash > solar revolution > > > > It's certainly another feel-good article talking about another form of > > alternative energy. Without any numbers or hard data though, it has no > > value > > other than to make MIT sound green, and raise our hopes that technology > > will > > save us. > > > > The article says they hope within 10 years this could power our houses. > In > > 10 years we may be wishing we could power our houses on anything really. > I > > hope in 10 years we won't need to power our houses. > > > > -Andy > > > > On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Eric Banford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > >> 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. > >> > >> Full article and video: > >> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
