Ethanol for $1 a gallon

[dz20854]

Genepax demonstrates its Water Energy System (WES)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CpSbadhnD1I
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NE ... 13/153276/
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NE ... 16/153301/

Here is the general mechanism, from the Genepax web site: http://genepax.co.jp/en/mechanism/system.html

It shows only water and oxygen going in, and only water and oxygen going out. In addition there is a closed loop of direct electrical current produced by the WES that goes into a separate rechargeable battery which runs the car. The DC current recharges that battery, and then returns to the WES. No hydrogen is burned in or escapes from the WES. Hydrogen within water is separated from oxygen, releasing electrons. The oxygen is allowed to escape from the WES. The returning electrons combine with the hydrogen and new oxygen, giving off water.

Genepax is working hard to achieve credibility. There is no financial incentive for them to mislead, as they have no plans to go public or to sell shares. They are in and/or seeking negotiations with car manufacturers and with home/ building energy design companies.

How can only one kilowatt of power generate enough electricity to run a car, much less a house? What is even more astounding is that the fuel cell used for their road test demonstration was only 300 watt, which is less that a third of the one kilowatt they plan for production models.

The electricity generated will not be used to directly operate the motor-- it is used to continuously recharge the rechargeable battery. Let's say that the rechargeable battery is good for forty miles before needing a recharge. By supplying one kilowatt of direct current to the battery during the entire forty mile trip, will this allow for continuous recharging as you drive so that after forty miles the battery is still mostly full?

Here are other questions:

For the prototype car, they added the WES system to an existing plug in electric car. When they demonstrated the car, was the battery first charged up by plug in electricity, or did it start off empty?

Will the plug in feature be needed on a periodic basis; for example, for charging every evening?

Will a plug in feature be needed only to boost performance, such as for achieving freeway speeds, and never for non-freeway driving, except for the minimal amount of electricity needed to pump water into the fuel cell?

They stated that the required amount of rare metals such as platinum that is needed is almost the same as that of existing systems. Is there enough supply of those rare metals to allow widespread use of the WES cell?

They may be unwilling to answer technical questions directly, but perhaps can use my questions to help clarify their website.

Here are two separate issues:

First, regardless of cost, are their claims about powering cars and homes using their Water Energy System scientifically possible?

Second, as for cost, in mass production what they claim works out to about five dollars per watt, “or less”. Then, figure how much expense and time is saved by never having to drive to a gas station again, and by the much lower maintenance costs.

And you have to figure that oil costs are rising rapidly; a trend that is likely to continue.

In comparison to solar systems costing between one and four dollars per watt, the WES can run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The dollars per watt refers to the one-time upfront fixed cost and does not take into account how many hours per day the device is generating electricity. So a one kilowatt WES can generate 3 or 4 times more electricity than a one kilowatt solar cell.

Add in the political climate, and you would see people break down doors to get to this product if their claims prove out.

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It shows only water and oxygen going in, and only water and oxygen going out. In addition there is a closed loop of direct electrical current produced by the WES that goes into a separate rechargeable battery which runs the car.

dz,

Note I didn't follow any of the links. My guess is the device contains within it pure sodium, potassium or calcium metal. These metals are so reactive that when they come in contact with liquid water, they displace the hydrogen. So you get hydrogen coming out of the water, and the sodium/potassium/calcium oxidizes and is used up on the process.

There are lots of youtube videos of mixing reactive metals with water. I remember one where they toss a small piece into a metal bathtub filled with water and it blows the tub apart.

My take is what we're seeing isn't a great new energy source, it's a potential energy distribution device. You still need to harness energy in order to recover the oxidized metal into its pure form.

Note the above is just my guess, I suppose reading the sites might expose what the actual mechanism is.

-Dave

[dz20854]

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system
Anne Trafton, News Office July 31, 2008

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

'Giant leap' for clean energy
Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

'Just the beginning'
Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The project is part of the MIT Energy Initiative, a program designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. MITEI Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery in the Nocera lab demonstrates that moving up the transformation of our energy supply system to one based on renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic science."

The success of the Nocera lab shows the impact of a mixture of funding sources - governments, philanthropy, and industry. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

[dz20854]

More on the MIT breakthrough-- in the New York Times:

2 Reports Raise Hopes on Energy
By MATTHEW L. WALD August 1, 2008

Storing energy is a crucial but expensive component of plans to turn intermittent sources of energy, like wind and sun, into reliable replacements for coal and natural gas. But two new scientific papers show progress in materials science and chemistry that could cut the cost.

The advances apply to the process of converting electricity into hydrogen for storage and then converting the hydrogen back to electricity when needed. The first half is done in an electrolyzer, which splits a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen, and the second half in a fuel cell, which puts them back together.

Such a process would make a power system based on sources like sun and wind more reliable because it could be counted on regardless of weather or hour.

Splitting a water molecule is an experiment familiar to generations of high school chemistry students. In common industrial practice, it involves a container with water at a very high pH and a base like lye. The container is sealed to keep out contaminants like carbon dioxide, which is present in the atmosphere. But in one paper scheduled for publication in the journal Science on Friday, two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology describe a technique that works at ambient temperatures and pressures in ordinary water.

“Trees don’t grow in base; they grow in regular water,” said one of the researchers, Daniel G. Nocera, a professor of energy at the institute, who compared the process to photosynthesis, nature’s way of storing energy by separating hydrogen and oxygen.

Because the conditions are benign and the chemistry works at a small scale, Dr. Nocera said, this electrolyzer could be incorporated into a solar cell, which would turn out hydrogen rather than electricity.

Dr. Nocera worked with a postdoctoral fellow, Matthew W. Kanan.

The system could use saltwater. When the hydrogen and oxygen recombine in the fuel cell, the result is pure water, raising the possibility that the technology could be used for desalination.

The second article in Science describes building a fuel cell without a platinum catalyst. Fuel cells are declining in price, but the price of the platinum alone exceeds the price of an internal combustion engine of the same power, according to a paper by a group from the Australian Center for Electromaterials Science at Monash University.

The group developed porous polymer material for use as an electrode that gives the same performance as platinum.

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More on the MIT breakthrough-- in the New York Times:

Interesting...

-Dave