Just a suggestion: if the water velocity in the stream is quite fast, why don't you use it to generate hydroelectricity? The amount of energy needed to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen in sufficient quantities to meet your needs would be so high you would need a giant of a wind turbine.

Right, and especially so if the wind is only 15mph - that's just a breeze!

Haven't worked it all out, but you forgot using solar for heat, for powering a generator to make electricity and how to store the electrical power. H is a pain to store or carry around in vehicles. Can you dam the river, a shallow dam, and use it to make electricity too? Then what is your budget for doing this?

A good way to store excess energy is to build a big water tower and pump it full during the day and use the water at night to generate electricity. For your IC engines compress the H to 10,000 psi in fuel tanks 5 times larger to get the same operating time as using oil-based fuels. Give up the whole rear area of your SUV to a fuel tank. The tanks might be a bit heavy for your airplane. You could refuel the tractor 5 times more often and use a tank the same size as the present tank. H is a crock, pie-in-the-sky to allow Big Oil to string us along.

You did not specify the size of the "ranch" but assuming you have a lot of acreage you could grow sorghum, corn or switchgrass and make your own ethanol fuel. Ooops! You would have to have a still and the government would shut you down, put you in jail, only established Big Business is allowed to make ethanol. So you would have to grow and process some other kind of biofuel to use in your vehicles and airplane. There are probably some kind of government regulations that would keep you from making your own airplane fuel. It is also against federal law to use any vehicle which is not fueled by oil-based fuels on the highways.

It seems that the government, which keeps saying they want alternative fuels and energy independence, is the main obstacle to it. Follow the money, political contributions and taxes.

"You did not specify the size of the "ranch" but assuming you have a lot of acreage you could grow sorghum, corn or switchgrass and make your own ethanol fuel. Ooops! You would have to have a still and the government would shut you down, put you in jail, only established Big Business is allowed to make ethanol."

Alternately, you could grow jatropha or other oil rich plants and use it to make biodiesel instead. Unlike ethanol, there's no licensing requirement for this.

Many readers ( ? or ex-readers ? ) of the magazine Mother Earth News share the same sort of dream-living that you propose... (see: http://www.motherearthnews.com/).

For an individual to "do-it-all-on-his-own" would entail laying-out a small fortune to get started, and then require a considerable sum for ongoing maintenance of all the peripheral necessities.

See: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question707.htm for starters (Re: post 3's ethanol comments), and you'll begin to realize that even using more 'logical' alternatives, the best you could hope for is to save a fraction (maybe 50%) in the long-haul, for the trade-off of a fairly hefty dedication of personal time and sweat into the effort.

Learning to utilize solar power for all-it's-worth, while AT THE SAME TIME learning to make-do with less (e.g., make sacrifices) will likely bring you closer to (your) Nirvana sooner than any current wind-power / hydrogen combo technologies could do.

Hi Steve, What a beautiful dream. Just one question, If you've got a river at about 15mph flowing across the property, why do you need any other form of power for hydrogen generation?

Thanks for the new year wishes. Hope that you find your answers here, and as an ex sailing bum, remember the dreams can come many times, but the chance of living them might only come once - go for it. TrevorL

hydrogen is a lot of trouble, use a horse and buggy instead of the SUV, you can't do two things at once, so plan your work, use your tools when power is available, store heat, live simply. If you get an aeroplane running on hydrogen you will have a world lead. Why not sell the salt (market it as natural and sell at an inflated price) buy a big tank fill it full of fuel oil and use that with conventional technology? The energy available per acre is less than you want to consume for the lifestyle you describe.

Check out this thread, and also the thread referenced in it that also talks about Zubrin's article on the feasibility of using hydrogen.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/5405/Hydrogen-bashing

The article below is by a guy without any ax to grind. He's a pretty knowledgeable owner of a scientific products company.

http://www.dotynmr.com/PDF/Doty_H2Price.pdf

You can store electricity in batteries with about 95% efficiency, and then run your electric car's motor at about 90% efficiency: about 85% overall. Alternatively, if you plan to burn hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, you get an overall efficiency of 10 % or less. So if you need one very large windmill to serve your needs electrically, you'd need 8 to serve your needs with hydrogen.

Depending upon how much you drive and fly, and how energy efficient your house is you could probably get on the hydrogen bandwagon for less than a $1,000,000 if you are willing to do some of the work yourself, and if you are willing to give up flying. If you want to fly on H2, you'd have to get an experimental certificate for your plane, and figure on never flying it with passengers because the tanks would be so heavy. A professional conversion might run about $1,000,000 for a small plane like a Cessna 172. If you keep the tanks in the wings (were they should be for structural reasons) then you might have almost enough range to fly to the nearest town.

If you're made of money, and have loads of time on your hands, and don't mind wasting resources, then it could be a challenging project.

Try here http://www.homepower.com/home/

as for storing hydrogen http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/15525/Renewable-Hydrogen-from-Ethanol-by-Autothermal-Reforming grow the crop, make 103 proof and have hydrogen on demand.

just make the hooch undrinkable because ATF has not sense of humor or honor. Oh ya don't do anything to attract them either. They will want to regulate you. Pay for the privilege to use your own product for power.(bit cynical right now)

Brad

All internal combustion engines burn hydrogen in one way or another. The trick is to find the cheapest, most convenient and most efficient method of doing it. Petrol (gasoline) and diesel powered engines are cheap and convenient but not necessarily efficient, however if it is possible to use them, even as an interim measure it will prevent the economic and financial disruption that would result from the wiping out of the petroleum industry.

Doty talks a great deal of sense and his figures are right- in terms of 2004, but does he take into account the pace of progress?

The process of manufacturing, storing and transporting H₂ is expensive and not too efficient at the moment, It makes a lot more sense to develop a system which can refine fuels at the point of use and extract the H₂ from them using a reformer with a palladium membrane. While this would be expensive it would probably not be as expensive as a H₂ production, storage and delivery system. Frank Markus's article was interesting and informative, I repeat the link below.

_{http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/112_0802_technologue}

Hope that this isn't too far off the original thread. TrevorL

Petrol (gasoline) and diesel powered engines are cheap and convenient but not necessarily efficient, however if it is possible to use them, even as an interim measure it will prevent the economic and financial disruption that would result from the wiping out of the petroleum industry.

I think the transition to efficient vehicles will be slow enough that much of the petroleum industry will die a slow painful death, with the leaders making a smoother transition to new energy sources (as BP is doing to some extent with solar power). Regardless of what we do, the petroleum industry will be largely wiped out simply by virtue of resource depletion, but the more nimble players will still be in business, supplying energy.

Doty talks a great deal of sense and his figures are right- in terms of 2004, but does he take into account the pace of progress?

I think that he does take into account the pace of progress. The brand new BMW hydrogen/petrol car (available for rent in Europe) is an example of today's best technology, produced by a highly-regarded company, and at extremely high cost per unit: it's anything but something thrown together in someone's back yard. But it leaks half its hideously expensive, environmentally unfriendly fuel in 9 days! Its range on H2 is dismal. The Tesla, thrown together by a couple garage mechanics (metaphorically) is a superb vehicle in comparison.

As the Hindenburg told us, H2 is not without its hazards. What the Hindenburg designers wanted was a light gas. They certainly could not find a lighter one. But there was a huge downside.

Now we like the fact that H2 burns. It burns fairly cleanly (albeit not as cleanly in an ICE as some suggest) but otherwise, everything else is a major downside: creating it, preparing it for storage or transportation, storage, transportation, distribution, fueling logistics, leakage once it is in the vehicle, fuel tank weight, etc, etc.

As an energy storage means, H2 is positively awful. Supercapacitors are stunningly efficient for short term storage, and batteries are light years ahead of H2 for longer term storage. The companies that are revolutionizing batteries have done so with a small number of millions of investment. Billions have been thrown at H2, but it still can't come close to battery efficiency, and there are few reasons to believe that it can ever come close.

Frank Markus's article was interesting and informative,

I agree, although it's a bit superficial. He doesn't quote an efficiency for the separation side of the equation, but 50% would not be an unreasonable guess. He quotes 46% on the recombining side, yielding 23% system efficiency prior to charging the hybrid batteries that are required to get realistic drivability. If we figure 95% charging efficiency and 90% motor efficiency, then we are down to 85.5% of 23%, or 19.7%, somewhat lower than today's well proven, far simpler and infinitely cheaper Prius technology. He talks about halving CO2 emissions -- but a Prius already does slightly better than that in comparison to the fleet average. Using more, rather than less, petroleum seems to be going in the wrong direction.

As far as being off the original thread, I don't think you are. As engineers, we'd be remiss to simply say to the original poster: "Sounds great... just stick a couple electrodes in water, store the stuff in a some steel tanks, and you're good to go." Using H2 as an energy storage medium is a dream into which billions have been poured, and we are still not close to commercial viability. Batteries are so efficient and easy by comparison, that, if we were now living the H2 "economy" they'd seem like the wildest science fiction.

I'd recommend Sherry Boschert's book, "Plug-in Hybrids, the Cars that will Recharge America"

Hi Blink,

I agree that the petroleum industry will depart, and probably a great deal of the motor manufacturing industry as well. But it's to everyone's advantage if the manner of their departure is as painless as possible.

The only point of using a reformer to extract H₂ at the point of use is to utilise the existing technology and industry as a sort of 'half way house' that will ease the transition of industry into a more efficient use of resources.

Doty's article was well researched and well written, but I'm always wary of forecasts that are made on the basis of conditions at the time. Conditions change, and nowadays the changes come far faster than they used to. No forecaster can take into account the impact of technologies that don't exist at the time.

Some years ago I came across a 1906 Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the article on heavier than air flying machines was most interesting, mainly for its conclusion.

Something like (from memory)

"While the machine is interesting and does actually fly, I do not think that it will ever be popular because of its frail construction, which will only permit its use in the calmest of weathers"

Quite a rational conclusion at the time, not quite on the money though.

I often wonder about the lessons that the Hindenburg taught us. Without going too far off the subject, do they really stand up to examination? If you examine the reports of the pilots who shot down Zeppelins over London in WW1, and also those who attacked H₂ filled observation balloons, they all agree that they could take a great deal of punishment before they exploded, makes one wonder if a hydrogen leak is as easy as that to detonate.

Markus's article was not a paper written for a peer reviewed scientific journal but for a motoring blog, and he gave the appropriate amount of information for the medium. It was well written and informative as far as it goes, your figures are a welcome addition to it, I don't know if there is a paper on palladium reformers.

Thanks for the recommendation, I've ordered Sherry Boschert's book and I'll let you know when I've read it.

TrevorL.

Quite a rational conclusion at the time, not quite on the money though.

Perhaps rational, but uneducated. Many engineers of the day were working at a very fast pace to commercialize aircraft. By 1912, Sopwith was selling aircraft commercially, and by 1914, they were essential in WWI.

Contrast that with the fuel cell, which was demonstrated in 1843, but which still has not found wide spread commercial application. The only place a fuel cell "makes sense" today is in space. They have the potential for light weight, but that potential has not been realized to the extent that they are commercially viable in areas where weight is critical, such as in commercial aircraft. NASA's best efforts to date give a 50% round trip efficiency, and that at astronomically (pun intended) high cost. That efficiency would have to almost double to equal the efficiency of a simple battery. Therefore, in a ground-based installation (like the original poster's) far better to use a high-efficiency low cost system, than a low-efficiency, ultra-high cost one.

The fact that H2 is not found free in nature should tell us something. The chemistry dictates that you cannot get as much energy out of recombining H2 and O2 as it takes to separate them.

Hi Blink,

Thanks' for your reply.

"Perhaps rational, but uneducated."

I've heard Encyclopaedia Britannica called many things in the past, but never uneducated.

The problem here surely is that we're talking about two similar but different systems. The battery changes the molecular make up of its electrolyte as it discharges, and then uses electricity to regenerate its electrolyte. But something always has to generate the electricity to charge the battery.

The fuel cell uses the molecular separation of its electrolyte to generate electricity (please correct me if I've got that wrong). My argument is that fuel cells are still a long way from acceptance for popular use, and as you say H₂ has to be refined whenever it's used and its storage and transport present a large number of problems.

All IC engines run on H₂ in one form or another, the problem is to find the most convenient method of getting the H₂ into the engine without discharging too many pollutants from the exhaust, currently we use hydrocarbon fuels directly into the engine, which is unacceptably altering our atmosphere.

One alternative seems to be the use of a palladium mesh in the regenerator to 'crack' the H₂ from methane, or whatever fuel is being used, and use this for power generation and a good deal of spare heat. This is not an ideal solution but looks like the best one on offer at the moment. Combined with modern batteries it might be the way to go until the membranes for PEM fuel cells have been improved.

TrevorL

I've heard Encyclopaedia Britannica called many things in the past, but never uneducated.

The engineers of the day who were truly educated in the subject matter, and who were building prototypes and trying to make them fly weren't thinking of airplanes as novelties that could only fly in calm air. Generally, although light alloys were not widely available, they could see that they would be soon, and that oils would improve, and fuels would improve, and engines would become lighter and more powerful, etc. To go from proof-of-concept to a fully functioning 115 mph warplanes in 6 or 8 years is astonishing, and would only have been possible with lots of people already "on board", saying something other than "they're too frail". Even today, it takes a car company three years just to bring out a new model, given thousands of employees, sophisticated systems and computers, etc... and typically there is nothing fundamentally "new" about the new model.

My teachers in grade school and high school would break my arms if I used encyclopedias as anything other than an introduction to a subject: we were expected to do real library research. It's not possible to condense a library's worth of information into a short shelf of books.

The fuel cell uses the molecular separation of its electrolyte to generate electricity (please correct me if I've got that wrong).

Typically (and in the use proposed by the original poster) a fuel cell does the opposite: It combines rather than separates: H2 + O2 = H2O. Traditionally, the separation that provides the H2 is done elsewhere -- this is also as proposed by the OP. You electrolyse water, store the H2 (and O2, if you want) and then you recombine the H2 and O2 in a fuel cell (at the time of power consumption). Getting H2 from methane is a more common commercial process, and results in cheaper H2, generally. Unfortunately, getting H2 from methane liberates CO2, so it is not environmentally sound. Whether you simply burn the methane (e.g., in an engine) or separate it and use the H2 in a fuel cell... either way you have the CO2 to deal with -- and its the same quantity either way.

The OP's plan of creating H2 through electrolysis is environmentally more sound, on the face of it. However, if you've got the electricity available to do the electrolysis, then you'd be further ahead (environmentally and economically -- because building windmills have both costs) to store the electricity efficiently in batteries, rather than inefficiently as H2. Even if you have NASA's millions, 50% round trip efficiency is as good as it gets today. You can get 90% round trip efficiency from batteries that you can buy at Walmart. In dollars, batteries are hundreds of times more efficient; in environmental cost, they are twice as efficient as the absolute best you can do, and many times more efficient than the commercial norms in generating H2 and recombining it in a fuel cell.

All IC engines run on H₂ in one form or another,

Sort of. When any hydrocarbon burns, part of the heat comes from combining H2 with O2, and part comes from combining C with O2 (with CO being an intermediate). Coal fired power plants run on just C (plus loads of miscellaneous crud).

If H2 occurred alone in nature, then fuel cells would have been commercially adopted many years ago. (Although H2 occurring alone in nature would mean a different sort of hydrogen, which would mean a different sort of water, and a different sort of life... it would be unlikely we'd be around to have this conversation.) Hydrogen is only found attached to other molecules, and it takes energy to pry it apart from those molecules. In many cases, that's energy we cannot afford to waste.

The fact that airplanes went from proof of concept to war machines in less than a decade, but fuel cells have gone from lab experiment to (essentially) lab experiment in 160 years suggests that for this world, in which energy is not yet free, they may not be the solution that politicians, car companies, and oil companies have claimed.

Right now, the methane > H2 > fuel cell > electricity > motor > wheels process is less efficient than the methane > diesel > wheels one. There is the potential for slightly higher efficiency with the fuel cell approach, but there is a similar potential for improving diesel engine efficiency. Solar or wind or hydro to electricity > batteries > motor beats the others by a huge margin.

HI Blink,

"The engineers of the day who were truly educated in the subject matter"

Surely no-one was truly educated in the subject matter, practical examples of the subject didn't exist before the Wright brothers flew, and they were bicycle engineers. There are few who possess the vision and persistence to bring an inspiration to fruition. However nature had given the lead and provided an example of the general shape, balance and design of a flying machine – i.e. a bird (Leonardo produced a design for a glider, the BBC featured it in a program a year or two ago, they built it and flew it, it worked quite well after a fin and rudder was added). There were some unfortunate experiments at first (Icarus had a hard time of it), but given the magnitude of the step taken, the design of a practical flying machine proceeded at a breathtaking pace.

In contrast, the only pattern available for the fuel cell, the mitochondrion, was not discovered until about one hundred years after the fuel cell was invented. Even though the chemistry was known

"My teachers in grade school and high school would break my arms if I used encyclopedias as anything other than an introduction to a subject"

Encyclopaedia quotations are not suitable for a scientific paper or assignment, if I'd used that quotation in that context, my arms would have probably survived but my ego would have been badly damaged by excessive use of the red pen, not to mention a disastrous mark. However this is not a scientific paper, and while total accuracy is a requirement, the rules are a little different.

I'm on shaky ground in a deep discussion on fuel cells, having had no practical experience of them, however I was taught that the fuel cell works by catalysis of the electrolyte, separating the electrons and protons, moving the electrons through a membrane to a circuit and combining the protons with O₂ to form water, the H₂ is reformed from the fuel in use before this.

As you say, batteries are way ahead of fuel cells, but I would add "at the moment" as a qualifier, but there is a lot of research going on and new membranes are continually being developed. How successful any of them are remains to be seen.

The advent of the common rail diesel engine raised diesel engine efficiency to a higher point than it has ever been, and there is still scope for improvement, at the moment it looks as though the combination of a high efficiency diesel engine and an electrical/battery drive is the way to go, we'll see what the future brings.

It's a pleasure to have this discussion with you but I'll be out of touch for a week, look forward to seeing your contributions when I return.

TrevorL

Surely no-one was truly educated in the subject matter, practical examples of the subject didn't exist before the Wright brothers flew, and they were bicycle engineers.

Sad to say, your misunderstanding of the history of flight is widely held (especially in the US), but is utterly, totally, and dramatically wrong. Hundreds before the Wright brothers worked in earnest on flight, and texts on aerodynamics had been written before their flight. Universities were not cranking out aeronautical engineers, but many people were very well self-educated in the field (in the same sense that Bill Gates is fairly computer-literate, but has never studied computer science in a college class). Many before them had achieved flight -- Lillenthal had 2500 flights long before the Wright brothers. It was well-understood by those interested in the early and mid 1800's that some form of power would be required for level flight. But gliding flight and powered flight are exactly the same: power simply changes the trajectory from somewhat downhill to flat or better. That was well-understood by thousands at the time of the Wright brother's flight. Langley's machine in 1896 flew for 3300 feet -- and this without a pilot -- a much more difficult challenge than flying with a pilot. The Wright Flyer, seven years later, was incapable of flying without a pilot, because it had nowhere enough inherent stability.

Not too long ago, a modern replica of the Wright Flyer was made, and even knowing what we now know, and with a highly trained pilot at the controls, it still crashed. Langley's was a better plane -- he was simply not foolish enough to risk his life, and correctly understood that stability and control were the critical factors in flight: people had long known the basic "hows" of lift in 1896. Chanute had written the textbook "Progress in Flying Machines" in 1894, and the Wrights used it as a reference.

Long before the Wright brothers, there were successful flights on steam power of all things!

Some links on the history of flight.

http://www.ueet.nasa.gov/StudentSite/historyofflight.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_history

You might wonder why I am interested is such things. Here's a picture of an "airplane on its side" I designed and built.

Thanks, Ken

Much of that was news to me...

Interesting boat!!! How fast does it 'fly'?

Dick

Here's a picture of an "airplane on its side" I designed and built.

Sounds like a great thread for a CR4 discussion.

How about it Ken?

Brad

Hello Ken,

In haste, have to catch a train. Always a pleasure to read your replies, your wing sail looks to be a fascinating project. write more when I return. TrevorL.

Consider that steel tanks do store hydrogen quite well (assuming you pump it to near 100psi) and that old Propane tanks are quite suitable, given proper maintenance... Now consider the inefficiency of charging batteries (as they charge, current to them drops) and is wasted either as heat or dead time in the charge controller. Now consider a charge controller who's dead time is used to create and store hydrogen. Battery storage plus hydrogen storage seems less of a loss when used together. I live with an engineer who has such a unit, and can tell you from experience "Every time I hear the insta-hot burning hydrogen from normally wasted electrons, I say 'no waste here.'" The cost of batteries considered, how can one claim batteries as better storage of energy? Deep cycle batteries only last between 3 and 15 years, some as long as 20 (and those are extremely expensive) NiCd and NiFE self discharge quite fast by comparison. I have yet to experience Hydrogen leaking from a properly made tank and fittings. Also, Hindenburg? Please don't be a scare monger... oh, and read into the exact cause of that horrible accident... Hydrogen is lighter than air... assuming a proper hood over the tanks, vented straight up to a few feet over the roof-line.... Even in zero wind it will not settle downwards... and a slight breeze will dissipate it to safe levels (non-flammable) For that matter, no wind movement is needed... lighter than air = it will move upward and out into outer space... safely. And speaking of refueling (for use in an auto) it's as safe as propane, or more safe because it is lighter than air. Properly prepared tanks require an inert epoxy coat to avoid iron oxides absorbing hydrogen and becoming Water and Iron (Fe2O3 plus 3H2 equals 2Fe plus 3H2) And we already know water in the bottom of a tank is a bad thing (but something we can manage) At this point I will point to some of the older systems that have been documented... and US DOE approved usage here: A simple google search for hydrogen storage yields many more examples of safe production, storage, refilling, and use of hydrogen. Considering the 25-50 year or longer life of solar panels (still undetermined) Considering the safe long term storage of hydrogen It seems you were quite close on the 51% efficiency in converting electricity to hydrogen... Is it practical for everything and everyone? I say no, but given time it may be more suitable than other possibilities. Now, Given we can use the off time of a charge controller (The ones we manufacture here) to more effectively use the power supplied by solar panels, and we can store hydrogen for very long times with <1% or even no loss, and given batteries all self discharge over time >1% per month (except VERY expensive batteries) - Which is better at storing energy long term? More details: Typical self discharge rates for common rechargeable cells are as follows: * Lead Acid 4% to 6% per month * Nickel Cadmium 15% to 20% per month * Nickel Metal Hydride 30% per month * Lithium 2% to 3% per month You can look this up yourself, if you don't believe me. All batteries self discharge. Not all tanks leak. ((The main reason I have posted this is to combat the most offensive part of your posting)) >>As an energy storage means, H2 is positively awful. Supercapacitors are >> stunningly efficient for short term storage, and batteries are light years >> ahead of H2 for longer term storage. The companies that are >> revolutionizing batteries have done so with a small number of millions >> of investment. Billions have been thrown at H2, but it still can't come >> close to battery efficiency, and there are few reasons to believe that >> it can ever come close. Now on to reverse of the process: Creating electricity from Hydrogen. scroll down to the bold "In Practice".... 35-45% or more depending on many factors, mostly load. And most interestingly, Diesel is listed as only 22%, which is higher than gasoline's efficiency. And in the 4th paragraph you can read a comparison of LAB to Hydrogen fuel cells in stand-alone power plants... It looks like when lifetimes and lifetime power produced are taken into account, hydrogen looks better every day. Google is a wonderful tool, right up there with the hammer and screwdriver... Thanks for reading, I hope this posting helps others to understand that hydrogen is a good storage medium for power in long term situations. Also, one day, hopefully soon, it's use will be much more widespread in autos as well. Did I miss something somewhere? Google and some reading can answer just about any questions one has about almost any subject... AJM

Consider that steel tanks do store hydrogen quite well (assuming you pump it to near 100psi) and that old Propane tanks are quite suitable, given proper maintenance...

Given that hydrogen embrittles and leaks through steel, it is a huge stretch to say that old propane tanks work well. More importantly, hydrogen at 100 psi is useless for powering a car unless said car tows around a trailer the size of a house, to hold the hydrogen tanks. Even at thousands of psi, hydrogen provides low range because the tanks are so huge -- thus the need for liquefying it for reasonable (but still not competitive with ordinary liquid fuels) range.

Now consider a charge controller who's dead time is used to create and store hydrogen. Battery storage plus hydrogen storage seems less of a loss when used together.

There is no dead time in a charge controller. When a charger has tapered to a low charge its input current has also tapered. There are no "normally wasted electrons" floating around just waiting to do useful work. Adding load to the charger at that point will increase its amperage draw. It may seem like less of a loss to you but it is not.

Lithium 2% to 3% per month

That is, of course, a tiny fraction of the leakage incurred in the BMW hydrogen car, which amounts to about 150% per month.

It is too hard to read the rest of your comments to respond. Paragraphs would help, as would some continuity of thought. It's a little hard to know what you mean by, for example, "scroll down to the bold 'In Practice'.... 35-45% more'"

Perhaps you'll enjoy this Robert Zubrin article, "The Hydrogen Hoax"

"Yeah" ... regarding your comment: "It is too hard to read the rest of your comments to respond."

I never could get beyond his lines:

"Hindenburg? Please don't be a scare monger... Hydrogen is lighter than air... lighter than air = it will move upward and out into outer space..." ... I was wondering why outer space was so full of hydrogen. It radiates out there from earth!!!

Reminds me of a poster who was convinced that the whole atmosphere was stratified according to the density of the constituent gases. That would make life rather difficult for animals, although plants might like it. I suppose this earlier poster always shook his whiskey bottle before opening it to mix the lighter alcohol with the heavier water.

some pretty clever, well-backed institutions have failed to overcome the difficulties of hydrogen storage and transportation. H2 is the smallest molecule possible, it leaks out of most stuff, it interacts with its storage material in bad ways. What about digesters? Raise cattle, collect poo, digest it, generate methane store that and run ic driven generators on demand using existing technology. Kill the cows and produce salt beef.

Fascinating!

My approach would be to capitalize on the small river. A 20 to 25 kW water wheel generator on a large piping system tapped into the river. A small lake whereby, the unused electricity would be used to pump water back up into this lake (low flow, drought). On peak demand the lake water is channeled back through the generator.

Construction approach (on this remote property) would be to furrow your piping system along side the original river. Last step being the tap into the river on the high end or forebay Thus construction can be done at your leisure (relatively low budget spread over time).

T

As for the salt mine, mine it and sell it for income to pay for the dam.

15mph is good speed and will give good power. Hydrogen will be produced by lectrolysis and then be compressed by high pressure compressor. Ok there may be other cheaper options.

Have a Hybrid system with Wind and Solar panels. This will cut back the battery size substantially to about 2/3 days of storage ( depending on where you are located. )Generally wind and solar compliments each other most of the time. Also use Solar panels to heat up water and store in Insulated tanks overhead.This is much cheaper than solar electricity. So when none of the renewables are available then atleast hot water can be used for space heating and wash. Atleast for this portion you dont need stored power to heat up water. So battery storage becomes smaller.

If you dont like to see the battery then have a small gas/fuel generator to suppliment wind and Solar elctricity and heating. Good luck.