After spending so much of my personal energy pushing the idea of hydrogen as a storage medium for solar or wind energy, i’ve found some new facts that “Explode the Myth”, bad pun intended.  Simply stated, the idea was that any excess electricity generated by the sun, winds, tides, could be used to make hydrogen from water, as way of storing energy.  At night or in periods when the solar panel isn’t generating electricity, the hydrogen can be used to power a traditional styled, gas fired generator, but without creating carbon dioxide.

First it’s important to point out that the technology of what i have described is available. We can make hydrogen from water, using electrolysis to split the H2 and O2 from the water.  The hydrogen gas can be burnt, without producing CO2, but hydrogen gas will only return 50% of the energy used to split the water that supplied the hydrogen. In other words, it would take 2 tons of hydrogen powering a generator, to produce 1 ton of hydrogen from water.  So if 50% is too low, what is enough?

The 50% energy return on hydrogen may not be too low, rather there are better technologies currently envisioned which have an energy return at or above 70%.  These storage methods include “pumped storage”, compressed air pressure CAES and hydraulic/mechanical systems. In fact a CAES plant in germany has been online since 1978.  So don’t fret over the “loss” of hydrogen, it’s just that there are better ways to naturally generated electricity.

To learn more, check out this article:

http://www.ilea.org/downloads/MazzaHammerschlag.pdf

This week i was lucky enough to notice that WTVS, my local PBS station had scheduled a Nova, local programming and a Scientific Amerian Frontiers episode, all focused on solar energy.  There is a website on the PBS site devoted to: Nova: “Saved by the Sun”.  This special walks you thru the solar industry from it’s start in the oil crisis of the 1970’s thru today where it’s being debated as to whether it is a partial or complete solution to our global warming problems.  You see the US’s first and only powerplant using solar thermal heat (located in Kramer Junction, CA) to run electric turbines and the latest in solar technology today.

A number of experts try to rain on my solar parade by claiming that solar is a partial solution, a solution that only works during “sunny days” or a “solution for rich people”.  Most of this rhetoric is a bunch of….. compost. Sure the sun doesn’t shine at night, so we use the solar electricity during the daylight to make hydrogen gas to fuel traditional style generators at night.  Water can be pump up hill into reseviors using solar electricity and run back downhill to create hydroelectric power during dark parts of the day.  My local station went onto to discuss expansion with United Solar Ovonics, part of ECD the home of Detroit’s favorite Sun: Stan Ovshinsky, with it’s CEO.  The plan is to quintuple, production of their flexible solar electric modules to 300 megawatts by 2009.  This is good news for solar power and good news for the world.

The final program of the evening, featured Alan Alda spending time with Stan Ovshinsky and learning about Ovonics panels and it’s Solid Hydrogen storage system.  It seems that while United Solar’s panels are not the most effective cells in high sunlight conditions, they do produce electricity from the sun, even in rain and cloudy weather.  Best of all, they’re smaller, thinner, lighter and more flexible than stand panels and as Ovshinsky demoed, they can produce electricity with a dozen holes drilled through a 2 sq ft panel of the material.  With Germany being the leading solar market in the world, it’s certainly possible that places like metro Detroit, with ECD inc. leading the way, can lead solar adoption in the US.  Solar Cells that work in gray days, what a perfect solution from a company that’s headquartered in the midwest.