It’s not using solar energy to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen, it’s using electricity from any source, including solar.

It may be more efficient than other electroysis methods, but solar cells are notoriously expensive and inefficient. Furthermore, converting electricity into hydrogen and oxygen gases, then back into electricity via fuel cell results in a net loss of electrical power.

A more efficient method of producing hydrogen is a significant breakthrough, but in terms of solar power it still encounters the same problems of efficiency and storage.

TL;DR: All it does is take electricity, convert it into H2 and O2, then back into electricity, resulting in significantly less electricity than what you started with.

Hollowpoint on August 1, 2008 at 7:24 PM

The Bottom Line is this technology will require more electricity use to generate the hydrogen and oxygen. That means many, many times the surface area of solar cells in use today. (Or lots more wind turbines or wood burning plants, or nukes, or whatever…) Every surface of your buildings will need solar cells on them to generate the required electrical current to conduct the electrolysis. There will be raw materials costs associated with the catalysts, cost associated with procurement and installation of the solar cells, storage costs associated with the hydrogen and oxygen tanks (compressors, piping, alarms, safety equipment, etc..) and the output of the electrolysis system will require lots of tweaking and a significant size to be effective, especially if you are recharging your fuel cell powered automobile every two or three days from use. If you don’t have enough sunlight that week to generate enough H2 and O2, then do you stop driving that week or just go to the H2 station down the road?

Electrolysis requires very clean deionized water, where you add/mix in the catalyst, and then the electrodes get used up during your process. They can be replaced, but if you think solar cells are expensive right now, try finding the market for cobalt and whatever material they make the electrodes from. You are competing with the rest of US industry who is already complaining about the high cost of platinum, steel, concrete, copper, iron, and aluminum. There is still only so much of this stuff to go around and you want to add to demand? Cheaper to drill now!

In short, the size of these systems will have to be pretty durn large to run your house AND your vehicle, and they will be pretty inefficient because, as already pointed out, it takes more energy to split the water molecules than to combine them and run the car. The bang per pound of fuel is going to be greater from gasoline and diesel right now, than from any solar cell-electrolysis-fuel cell system, and it will be a lot simpler and cheaper to use and maintain.

Submarines use electrolysis to make oxygen (while dumping the hydrogen overboard…it is explosive you know?), and the generators are the most temperamental of machines onboard. What do you do when the system goes down? Wait for a plumber with a gold plated pipe wrench?

Using this low efficiency system will dramatically increase the amount of energy needed to make the same appliances and systems run currently, and will greatly add to the electrical power needed from the grid in downtime situations. A net loser of energy, I think.

You want energy efficiency? Use fluorescent lamps, low flow toilets and faucets, keep your thermostats set higher in summer and lower in winter. And then drill for oil and gas, build lots of nukes to provide the extra electricity needed….REALLY cheap, and burn coal to make electricity, also REALLY cheap. Build wind turbines and expect noe of these things will add to the energy pool for many years. Plan for the future NOW if you don’t want to live in the dark burning manure to heat your house.

Quit expecting technology to come up with miracles which are against the basic laws of physics, folks. Mother Nature sucks, and gravity ALWAYS wins.

Subsunk out.

Subsunk on August 1, 2008 at 7:53 PM