Alaska resort using hydrogen to fuel appliances and vehicles
The Chena Hot Springs Resort near Fairbanks Alaska is a prime example of how energy supplies in the future will be vastly more decentralized than they are in the current petroleum monoculture. The resort will be taking advantage of the geothermal energy that they have available from the power plants that they installed last year to power an electrolizer they got from the University of Alaska.
The hydrogen they produce will be used initially to supplant propane that is used for appliances like stoves, dryers and fireplaces starting in August of this year. In addition they will use the hydrogen to fuel the vehicles they use to move guests and supplies over the sixty-mile distance from Fairbanks. This project demonstrates how energy production can be localized in many places based on the resources that are available. The cold environment of Alaska is not well-suited to using batteries, but in other places geothermal or other sources could be used with batteries.
[Source: Fairbanks Daily News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TX CHL Instructor 11:20PM (7/09/2007)
Ah yes... Hydrogen, the perfect fuel for people with more money than sense -- or who can freely spend other people's money.
Those of us who have to spend our own money (or who have a better understanding of basic chemistry and physics) tend to choose fuels that are more efficient and less polluting. Which includes nearly any other fuel.
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IEEcon 11:28PM (7/09/2007)
This seems to be a great use of hydrogen technology. As mentioned, batteries are less efficient in the cold environment of Alaska. The hydrogen is electrolyzed with geothermal energy, so there is (almost) no pollution. Sounds like an optimal idea for the venue.
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OhmExcited 11:52PM (7/09/2007)
Some of you guys are so militantly against the use of hydrogen, you come across as defenders of Scientology or the Atkins diet. Hydrogen makes perfect sense for some applications. The vast majority of wind resources are located far away from population centers. Same goes for sun with vast amounts of cheap real at disposal. Hydrogen as an energy carrier could be used to augment battery storage in vehicles, or in the case of larger vehicles and trucks, could be a completely necessary alternative to petroleum based fuel. We don't have to wait for the "hydrogen highway" to make progress on a lot of things, but don't immediately discount it with a cultish sneer
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Owen 12:17PM (7/10/2007)
To flatly discount hydrogen is simply ignorant. I know you say "other fuels, but what dare I ask are you speaking?" Every I dare you to show me a less polluting solution than this setup, this is a great idea no matter how you look at it. They're generating their electricity via geothermal energy to power electrical devices. They purposefully oversized their system to produce an excess of electricity and and instead of adding to the ecological problems by adding batteries to store the energy (which no-one with a basic knowledge of chemistry or physics will claim are efficient or non-polluting ;) ) they convert readily available water into H2 and O2. It doesn't mention that they're using fuel cells, so I assume they're simply using hydrogen for internal combustion, which when burning H2, returns to water. I don't know about you, but I would love to have a solar cell on the roof of my house, powering an electrolyzer during the day, the H2 I created I can use in my hot water heater, my dryer, my car, my furnace, etc.... Otherwise, I have to have batteries to store all of the energy I've created during the day, and batteries in everything else. It'll be even better when I have the ability to use fuel cells then to power appliances as well during the night. Down the street from where I work there are 2 old battery factories, the buildings lay dormant, abandoned, and totally useless from the pollution they created over the last 20 years, they will never be re-opened and the land will never be purchased as the cleanup costs are roughly 10x the value that the land could hold. You think that is a thing of the past, NO, each of those companies simply picked up and moved to china where they wouldn't have the EPA on their back.
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Chris M 10:56PM (7/10/2007)
They got the electrolyzer from a defunct University of Alaska fuel cell project. In other words, really cheap. Otherwise, they might not have considered it. Hmm, why did the UofA fuel cell project go defunct?
It is a low pressure system, avoiding the expense and inefficiency of H2 compressors, but that means extremely limited storage. Basically, they are mixing it with their propane supply to extend it. Hope they don't suffer a catastrophic shattering of propane tanks, piping or components, as the H2 dissolves into the steel parts and makes them brittle.
Still a horribly inefficient energy storage method. It would be much more efficient to use electricity directly for cooking, and use the geothermal heat directly for clothes drying and space heating. Better, use the waste heat from the geothermal electric generating plant!
Yes, batteries don't work well in the cold, but neither do electrolyzers or fuel cells! Keeping them in a well insulated warm enclosures helps, provided you can avoid problems with H2 leaks.
I was rather amused by the OhmExcited effort to compare H2 skeptics to cults, considering the fanatical devotion of the H2 true believers to the wonderous worldsaving H2 miracle fuel, their disregard for the facts, and their disdain for anything that might threaten the eventual worldwide triumph of their holy fuel.
Owen: They are indeed burning the H2, mixed with propane, for cooking, clothes drying, and gas fireplaces. This produces NOx, so the end result will be more pollution (acid rain, anyone?) than using batteries for energy storage, and far more pollution than using the electricity and geothermal heat directly.
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Vietnam Vet Richard 10:56PM (7/11/2007)
Hydrogen combines with oxygen during combustion and produces heat and water vapor. Burning lubricants produce a minuscle amount of hydrocarbon pollution, but no where near as much as fossil fuels.
Radio Frequency waves directed at salt water relase hydrogen and oxygen and they burn at 1500 Degrees C.
Hydrogen conversion for an internal combustion engine is cheap and adding hydrogen to the intake manifold reduces fuel consumtion 30% (think my BIG BLOCK Suburban, 13mpg empty/8mpg towing my boat)
Hydrogen and oxygen are easily and cheaply produced in winds to slow to produce useable electrical voltage.
Harvesting wind power and solar energy does not spill our children's blood on foriegn soil, does not pollute our air and does not fund Islamic terrorism.
Harness Bush to a wind turbine!
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TX CHL Instructor 4:43PM (7/12/2007)
"Some of you guys are so militantly against the use of hydrogen, you come across as defenders of Scientology or the Atkins diet. Hydrogen makes perfect sense for some applications."
Ad Hominem + non sequitur. Just as an aside, the Atkins diet works quite well. I've been on low-carb for 8 years now, and the ONLY trouble I've had with it is well-meaning fools telling me how 'unhealthy' it is.
Scientology is among the most ridiculous superstitions on the planet, and has no relation to any type of science.
Yes, hydrogen does make sense for some applications. It makes great rocket fuel, and it is good for making edible oils pretty but deadly. There is some (very) weak evidence that it might promote more complete combustion when mixed in small amounts with fossil fuels. There are a few industrial uses, mostly for chemical synthesis. And that's the whole list.
It's about the least efficient way to store and retrieve energy imaginable. It's also the most potent ozone-destroying agent ever produced by man. It also leaks right through and embrittles most metals. Using hydrogen for fuel (other than rocket fuel, where it has a big weight advantage) is just plain stupid.
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