SCI/TECH: Hydrogen fuel cells power TV news crews

Folsom, California based company, Jadoo Power Systems, has targeted the evening news services as a commercially viable outlet for hydrogen fuel cells. The company is manufacturing hydrogen fuel cells for cameras and other portable equipment used by the new services, claiming that they last longer and are cheaper than traditional batteries. These new fuel cells also allow the camera operator to swap batteries without need for powering down the camera. This is important to the evening news services because a lost shot due to dead batteries can cost a service thousands of dollars.



Success in this niche market may bring this technology more into the mainstream. If hydrogen fuel cells are widely accepted by one market, then other markets will want to make use of the technology, more research will be done to expand the usefulness of the technology, and ultimately, we could viably replace all standard batteries with hydrogen fuel cells.

In addition to the potential benefits for smaller scale applications, further research on this technology may also find more cost-effective solutions for larger scale applications such as automotive and home power generation uses.

I'm glad to see that this exciting technology is finally starting to get its due.

Related News Links:
www.fuelcells.org

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Alternative Energy Research Project

This is good news! Fuel cells are very efficient, we really need to increase their use and extend the technology.

Very much agreed. In fact, hydrogen fuel cells have been one of the most often discussed forms of alternative energy in the research forum post listed in the article.

Its great to hear that they are doing this. I hope it will pan out, but it still will not solve the problems unless they are breaking the bonds of h2o with solar power.

Unfortunately, as much as I would like to hope, the hydrogen fuel cell business will never fly. Why you may ask? Well, because hydrogen fuel cells use Hydrogen as their main source of fuel, yet, there is very little Hydrogen found on earth in it's stable H2 state. So, to attain hydrogen, we could simply split water down to it's basic components. BUT WAIT. There's a catch! Splitting this water requires energy, thus it creates a need for energy to create fuel for energy.

Yet, there is an alternate solution. We could simply use solar cells to do the electrolysis, but, as we all know, politics will never let this happen, as oil will never fail us! (As they want you to beleive). The one day we run out of oil, is the day we'll go on a maddash for solar/hydrogen power.

Originally posted by WaStEdDeAtH777
Unfortunately, as much as I would like to hope, the hydrogen fuel cell business will never fly. Why you may ask? Well, because hydrogen fuel cells use Hydrogen as their main source of fuel, yet, there is very little Hydrogen found on earth in it's stable H2 state. So, to attain hydrogen, we could simply split water down to it's basic components. BUT WAIT. There's a catch! Splitting this water requires energy, thus it creates a need for energy to create fuel for energy.

Yet, there is an alternate solution. We could simply use solar cells to do the electrolysis, but, as we all know, politics will never let this happen, as oil will never fail us! (As they want you to beleive). The one day we run out of oil, is the day we'll go on a maddash for solar/hydrogen power.

Honestly, I feel that this is all part of the plan. I was talking about alternative energy with my father a few weeks ago, and we both agreed that there's already been a great deal of research on it. However, with the vested oil interests of American politicians, we won't see it until they've price gouged us for oil products practically to the point of personal bankruptcy. We'll most likely see pump prices at almost $10/gallon just before oil runs out, and then, suddenly, there will be a "savior" technology that has "just been developed" (most likely hydrogen fuel cells and solar) within a few weeks of the world's oil supply being completely depleted.

The barrage of articles lately regarding hydrogen and other energy sources recently is most likely just a precursor to the actual unveiling. It will be called unreliable and "not viable" until then, to convince the public that these aren't practical energy sources, and then will suddenly be quite practical when the need arises. Give it ten years - see what happens.

10/gallon just before oil runs out

Oil will never run out, infact once we reach a certain point in depletion(i think it's around 50%) then it becomes uneconomical to extract said oil, takes more energy then they get back.

the interesting thing about energy, is it takes more energy to convert from one form to another than you put in. With electrolysis, you're actually "storing" energy by breaking water apart, and getting some back when you put it back together-whether burned or in a fuel cell.


To electrolysize water on a massive scale would require solar farms covering thousands of acres to provide equivalent energy anywhere close to gasoline usage today. That's a lot of land that will need to be covered over, dug up, power-line crossed, etcetera. Or we can tear up shorelines for tidal generators, or dam rivers for hydroelectric...all sortsof projects the environmentalist movement have been fighting, opposing, and shutting down for decades. And since everyone's afraid of the nuclear boogeyman, a hydrogen infrastructure is doomed to fail unless we get a decent power source. No good having superior fuel cells if we can't get the gas to feed them.

Not to mention, that little problem of storing a highly flammable gas. Under extreme pressure? In this litigious society full of people who need warning labels on curling irons and fast food wrappers? We can't even use a large-scale *propane* infrastructure for cars, even when it's benefits have bee proven in fleet vehicles for years.

The various technologies of locking hydrogen into metallic lattices are too large to be useful for smaller devices, and may prove to be inefficient when all is said and done.

I wonder, what the environmental impact of that much water vapor being released at varying temperatures will be, in the volumes equivalent to the emissions of motor vehicles today?

Great article as usual obsidian... While I agree with some of the points people have brought up, I do have to say people have overlooked one other major advantage of switching to fuel cells. That being that batteries are little tiny containers of very hazardous materials (primarilly lead and acid) that we carry around with us at all times and at some point have to be disposed of because they are used up. So in that respect hydrogen to me seems like a much better option.

Originally posted by WaStEdDeAtH777
Unfortunately, as much as I would like to hope, the hydrogen fuel cell business will never fly. Why you may ask? Well, because hydrogen fuel cells use Hydrogen as their main source of fuel, yet, there is very little Hydrogen found on earth in it's stable H2 state. So, to attain hydrogen, we could simply split water down to it's basic components. BUT WAIT. There's a catch! Splitting this water requires energy, thus it creates a need for energy to create fuel for energy.

Look, same is trues for ANY battery. Lithium, zinc, etc.

You have to separate materials which then react.

Cars don't run on batteries though (except hybrid). That's what my main focus was. And you do know how a battery in a hybrid car works, right? The motor turns on to charge the battery when power is low. This motor runs on gasoline.

So... in essence, there is no escape from this vicious cycle, less we use SOLAR POWER. This seems to me the only viable source of free energy. Hydroelectric is far too limited, Nuclear is very hazardous, geothermal is even more limited than hydroelectric (but works well in certain places, much like Iceland, where a hydrogen powered car economy was established a while back thanks to their geothermal plants). And the list goes on.

We'll just have to hope that eventually solar panels are either upgraded to a higher efficiency, or we can come up with organic solar panels (organic tissue used to capture energy.... ever seen a plant?). That's the day we will have cheap efficient energy.

you sshould look into the advances in solar cells. efficiency is increasing and production costs are falling. one company recently patented a procedure that is capable of "printing" out cells just like text on a sheet of paper. fantastic stuff, and like any technology the more money that is being dumped into this is making everything smaller and cheaper. solar hydrogen may not be as far off as some nay sayers suggest.

Do you have any links that could lead me to these new advances in solar technology? I'm still only acquainted with the typical solar cells, Polycrystalline, monocrystalline, and amorphous. As of now, the most efficient is a monocrystalline solar cell, which maximum I beleive is 25% efficiency.