Fuel Cells

[Amicus]

Has anybody herein priced this type of kit/running cost?

 

http://www.max-power.com/fuelcell/index.html

Edited April 2, 2005 by John Orentas

[Hondaman]

Has anybody herein priced this type of kit/running cost?

 

http://www.max-power.com/fuelcell/index.html

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Interesting.

 

Apart from the price I see a few problems.

 

The company claim 12volt output at 100 A per day. This is meaningless, do they mean 100 Ah (amp hours) ? That would then give 1200 watt hours per day or a continuous load of 50 w. That is only about 3 lights.

 

Have you checked their power consumption budget? They are talking of 10 x 20w cabin lights for just 36 minutes per day when sailing or at berth, no TV, no microwave, limited time on radio (12 mins on VHF Transmit)

 

They are happy to extoll the virtues of being pollution free, with which I agree, but continue with using Hydrogen as the usual fuel. Hydrogen is quite difficult to store. Unless kept extreemely cold to liquify it, it has to be kept as a compressed gas in very heavy cylinders (like those for oxy acetylene welding) and so the mass of fuel is much lower in a given volume than a liquid fuel (propane, diesel etc).

 

The Hydrogen has to be extracted from the air by compression and refrigeration or more usually by electrolysis of water. This takes more electrical energy to get the Hydrogen than it will give in a fuel cell. Where does this electricity come from? If it comes from conventional power stations then they will be burning fossil fuels and creating pollution. So not a great gain on the ecological front. Nuclear power stations do not cause this type of pollution but we all know about their stockpiles of radioactive waste.

OK if we can guarantee that the Hydrogen was extracted by electricity generated by hydro electric, wind generators or solar power, we have an advantage. Otherwise we are just shifting the place where the pollution is created (how about Africa or Asia they are good cheap waste dumps and well away from our "civilised world").

 

Yes they are clean in use, quiet, about as reliable as a battery if properly maintained and the exhaust is water pure enough to drink. The unit is compact and quite light but what about the fuel containers?

 

There must be someone out there who can put up a really good argument in favour of fuel cells but I will take some convincing for boat power type of use.

Edited April 2, 2005 by Hondaman

[DHutch]

The company claim 12volt output at 100 A per day. This is meaningless

 

 

 

Yeah, i kept noticing that, it electrical gobbledly goop (not very promising!)

 

- Also, i notice they never mentioned the cost of the fuel, which only means on thing in my book!

 

- I would be interested to see what comes of it, but I?m not going to be the first to try it!

 

- Also, if you do the sums 1500hours (there minimum life expectancy) that?s only 60 odd days use before it might need a service.

 

I could see that i could have a place on a sailing yacht, but I don?t think it will catch on for narrow boating in the near future.

 

 

 

Daniel

[Amicus]

Fuel is methanol, comes in a 5 litre plastic container, (like milk)

Output is 50W

Price of the unit seem to be circa €K5

Price of the fuel is the critical bit, I've not seen it yet, this thing is,I think pretty new.

This thing is never (in my life-time)going to replace normal generator systems.

Think of it as an adjunct to the normal system, like solar or wind, helping to prevent deep cycling.

 

A link to a more informative page, Plastimo;

http://www.plastimo.com/catalogue/index.php?LangID=1&catid=8

[DHutch]

Fuel is methanol, comes in a 5 litre plastic container, (like milk)

 

Ah, so its not a hydrogen fuel cell. that would make more sence (and explan the release of CO2)

 

- If the fuel is just stright methanonl, you can get that reatively cheaply/

 

Daniel

[Amicus]

- Also, i notice they never mentioned the cost of the fuel, which only means on thing in my book!

 

The whole point of my original post

 

- Also, if you do the sums 1500hours (there minimum life expectancy) that?s only 60 odd days use before it might need a service.

 

Continous 24x7x60?? hardly realistic, surly

 

 

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[Amicus]

- If the fuel is just stright methanonl, you can get that reatively cheaply/

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Not if it comes in a green bottle with Gordons on the lable.........

Edited April 3, 2005 by Amicus

[dor]

Just read the FAQ's on their website. You have to admire their marketing script writer.

 

However, I get the feeling it is aimed at the American market.

 

And we all know what the collective intellectual capacity is of the inhabitants of that country.

 

 

 

So they will probably sell thousands!!!!!

[John Orentas]

Well, I waded through most of that, barely understood a word of it. I think it was written by someone with a very tenuous grasp of basic electrics.

[Amicus]

And we all know what the collective intellectual capacity is of the inhabitants of that country.

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I don’t get this widespread (in the UK) knocking of Merrikin intellect/culture.

Make a list of the greatest 20th century writers, composers, musicians, scientist, engineers, doctors, medical accomplishments, scientific accomplishments, engineering accomplishments, the most useful materials, the most useful artefacts, etc. etc.

List 100 under as many headings as you choose, then see how many are USA.

Don’t post your list here, make it a “self-knowledge” thang

 

Which is the most important thing here, the engineering or the marketing suits bull-shit.

We aint short of suits in this country.

[Hondaman]

Make a list of the greatest 20th century writers, composers, musicians, scientist, engineers, doctors, medical accomplishments, scientific accomplishments, engineering accomplishments, the most useful materials, the most useful artefacts, etc. etc.

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Do I have to do the 20th C ? Why not the 18th, 17th, 16th, etc.

[Hondaman]

Fuel is methanol, comes in a 5 litre plastic container, (like milk)

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That sounds quite good, much easier to store than Hydrogen. Their site did say the fuel was generally Hydrogen and I assumed that is what they used.

 

Incidentally I may have been a little harsh on the ecological bit of Hydrogen, since at present much of it is formed from natural gas along with Ammonia and Methanol. Once that runs out who knows?

 

Methanol is safer to store than some other liquid fuels as well because it has a higher flash point (around 450C against petrol 300 C and diesel 250 C). It also requires a greater proportion in the air to give a combustible mixture although the range of mix is wider.

[DHutch]

Methanol is safer to store than some other liquid fuels.

 

Yeah, its certainly safer then petrol.

- I have to gallons of methanol under our kitchen sink, not sure it would want 2gal of peterol there!

 

- Methanol is still quite flamable/volotile tho.

 

 

Daniel