Over on treehugger there is a story about producing Hydrogen directly from water driven by photons or sunshine from the University of East Anglia. The interesting thing about this story is that it claims 60% efficiency which if true is really rather incredible.

If you were to use conventional PVs to convert sunshine into electricity and then use that to split water, the PVs would have to be 100% efficient just to be as efficient as this much simpler system so it turns things upside down if this pans out.

Even when the hydrogen is consumed by a fuel cell, the overall losses there would now be lower than than a PV + battery system. So 0.6*0.5 is now way better than 0.15*0.9. No known conventional PV could match this other than the most expensive cells used in concentrating systems.

Of course the hydrogen farming would now require quite a bit a land but far less than the solar industry. If the hydrogen energy is just put into the grid as electricity from a fuel cell, the farm would still have more than double the efficiency of the 10% to 15% PV industry. But yet the fuel form is more useful to vehicles and would also be useful for other fuel products that are more convenient than hydrogen.

This story if true would be on par with EESTOR actually releasing something.

The only issue I see right now is they use gold, platinum and indium, they need to get onto much cheaper materials to be useful ASAP.

Over on treehugger there is a story about producing Hydrogen directly from water driven by photons or sunshine from the University of East Anglia. The interesting thing about this story is that it claims 60% efficiency which if true is really rather incredible.

If you were to use conventional PVs to convert sunshine into electricity and then use that to split water, the PVs would have to be 100% efficient just to be as efficient as this much simpler system so it turns things upside down if this pans out.

Even when the hydrogen is consumed by a fuel cell, the overall losses there would now be lower than than a PV + battery system. So 0.6*0.5 is now way better than 0.15*0.9. No known conventional PV could match this other than the most expensive cells used in concentrating systems.

Of course the hydrogen farming would now require quite a bit a land but far less than the solar industry. If the hydrogen energy is just put into the grid as electricity from a fuel cell, the farm would still have more than double the efficiency of the 10% to 15% PV industry. But yet the fuel form is more useful to vehicles and would also be useful for other fuel products that are more convenient than hydrogen.

This story if true would be on par with EESTOR actually releasing something.

The only issue I see right now is they use gold, platinum and indium, they need to get onto much cheaper materials to be useful ASAP.

THE ELECTRIC POWER is 100% FREE with some SOLAR POWER from solar panels and you are FREE there is nor BIG OIL or BIG HYDROGEN from wich you have to by your miles !!!

THE ELECTRIC POWER is 100% FREE with some SOLAR POWER from solar panels and you are FREE there is nor BIG OIL or BIG HYDROGEN from wich you have to by your miles !!!

Couple this storage system with the photosynthetic hydrogren production coming out of MIT and we might all be “off grid”.

The real key will be to use less power, I use a TED to monitor my electric use in real time, really helps to see how much power you’re using.

Couple this storage system with the photosynthetic hydrogren production coming out of MIT and we might all be “off grid”.

The real key will be to use less power, I use a TED to monitor my electric use in real time, really helps to see how much power you’re using.

But as the article alludes to, just how do you liberated it to do useful things? If it takes a lot

of energy to do that then is this approach even viable?

I think there is much more to this story that has not

been written yet.

But as the article alludes to, just how do you liberated it to do useful things? If it takes a lot

of energy to do that then is this approach even viable?

I think there is much more to this story that has not

been written yet.

Folks, you have to realize that there are some real limitations to your beloved battery vehicles. They will NEVER: read N E V E R be able to replace fossil fuels entirely. Why?

Heavy transport and machinery. That’s why.

I don’t care how energy dense a battery gets, it won’t be able to provide 800+ miles of power to a big rig capable of carrying 44,000 pounds of freight at highway speeds.

With some other kind of fuel? Yep. Hydrogen will probably be it, assuming commercial freight hauling goes with electrics at all. Which it may not.

Now before the rest of you idiots who know nothing about commercial transportation start spouting about trains, let me bash that hope too.

Trains are NOT just-in-time delivery capable and never will be. Trains do NOT haul produce, for instance. Why? It will rot before it arrives. Sure, they carry longer-lived items and frozen foods all the time, but not lettuce and tomatoes and strawberries and so forth.

So get off your hydrogen-hated high horses and try to open your eyes a little. The future is not going to be a “hydrogen economy” or a “battery economy.” It’s going to be a “multi-fueled” economy.

The sooner you realize that you are thinking in terms of petroleum (one fuel) and start thinking in terms of future fuels (many fuels), the better.