Mirror, mirror on the stand, who's got the fairest plan in
techno-land....
Mentioned was made of the *Beck Patent* recently - The owner of
the patent, SHEC, Solar Hydrogen Energy Corporation, wants to be
the leader in the clean, renewable hydrogen economy.
http://www.shec-labs.com/index.htm
Remember them - this could be a big name soon in renewable energy.
On Vortex, many have lamented the ongoing disappointment through
the years in solar energy conversion, especially in silicon solar
cells - which now look almost as UNeconomical as ever - without,
that is, the *huge* tax breaks that have given them some
additional gasps of life. Ironically, it is northern climes - as
the recent thread about German-solar indicates, that they are most
useful. But a closer look at the numbers is disturbing. The
problem remains that refining silicon from sand requires a larger
CO2 burden than the cells can ever ameliorate in their lifetime,
which is surprisingly short without ongoing maintenance.
... that may change soon - thanks to another US/Canadian
consortium.
Isn't it ironic that Canada, which has so much potential oil (tar
sands) and so little sun - has become a dynamic leader in this
pursuit? Jed mentioned some of the socio-historical rationale for
this "second tier" effect - and we can only be thankful for it.
One may suspect that those long, cold winters and tundra winds are
an unappreciated source of "inspiration" (as in Finland, which is
now the world's #1 economy in terms of overall competitiveness).
If the Finn's get-in on this Beck-SHEC solar-thing, then the
hydrogen economy may be closer than anyone realizes.
The process is solar-thermochemical. The product is cheap H2 -
cheaper than gasoline for transportation (as soon as the storage
problem is solved). As many have noted, using mirror, rather than
solar cells can reduce the cost per square meter of solar energy
input by a factor of 1000-to-1 - and from there on, the problem of
utilizing solar seems to be in getting very high volumes of H2 at
lower temperature (the SHEC can operated at less than 1000 degrees
C) and the more pressing problem of *separation* of H2 before
recombination can occur. That is the job of the vortex tube.
Mr. J. Thomas Beck, the head man, had been actively involved in
hydrogen research for two decades. In 1996, with a theoretical
breakthrough and some seed money, SHEC labs was formed to prove
that solar energy could be used to extract hydrogen from water. In
1999, work continued on a high temperature 250KW solar simulator
to test designs for the high temperature water splitting process.
By September of 1999, the company made significant advances which
lowered the temperature requirements for the water splitting
process in an Advanced Cycle Energy Reduction Process (ACERP). The
main patent was issued in 2003 and there have been many more in
the works.
http://www.shec-labs.com/process.php
Recently, they have formed strategic alliances with several other
players including: Giffels Associates Limited, notably a
'cutting-edge' employee-owned company;
http://www.giffels.com/
... and Hydrogenics, a publicly traded fuel cell manufacturing
company; and the Clean 16 Environmental Technologies Corp and the
University of Toronto. Just weeks ago, SHEC announced plans for a
Renewable Solar Hydrogen Pilot Plant.
We can only hope that they have the answer and the resources to
pull it off.
Jones
