Hydrogen solar-powered

Honda has built a solar-powered hydrogen station to refuel its FCX fuel cell fleet. Honda has also been testing a Home Energy Station that extracts hydrogen from natural gas, while generating electricity and hot water for home use. But, natural gas jumped from about 5/thousand cubic feet in 1999 to almost 12 in 2006. 

Water sources could be another problem for hydrogen production, particularly in sunny regions that are well-suited for solar power. A study by the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. estimated that obtaining adequate hydrogen with electrolysis would require more than 4 trillion gallons of water yearly. This is equal to the flow over Niagara Falls every 90 days. Water consumption in the U.S. could increase by about 10%. 

A Princeton study of the Los Angeles area focused on the potential for solar photovoltaic plants in the desert areas east of the city. The study concluded that enough hydrogen could be produced with solar power in an area of 21 square miles to fuel one million fuel cell cars. 

In Norway and Romania, hydrogen production and export is in direct competition with electricity transmission via high-voltage direct-current lines (HVDC). This solution is particularly attractive because hydropower is a non-fluctuating renewable energy source and does not destabilise the grid, as, for example, wind or solar power do. 

The US military has a need for extreme long-duration unmanned air vehicles (UAV), and a hydrogen-powered, fuel cell-driven electric aircraft is a leading candidate. Without an internal combustion (1C) or jet engine, a fuel-cell UAV would be very quiet. Furthermore, there is the potential to electrolyze effluent water (or airborne water vapor) using solar power, giving the UAV an almost unlimited flight duration. 

The production of hydrogen electrolytically, using clean solar power or other forms of renewable energy is essentially pollution-free. The feedstock, water, is composed of hydrogen and oxygem Hydrogen production or distribution would produce no CO. ... 

Conibeer GJ, Richards BS (2007) A comparison of hydrogen storage technologies for solar-powered stand-alone power supplies A photovoltaic system sizing approach. Int J Hydrogen Energy (in press)... 

Danielson, D., The Prospects for Solar-powered Distributed Hydrogen Production, Term Paper Sustainable Energy, 2004. 

In evaluation of the potential objects which are to define respective options to be taken into a consideration there are 99 objects. In this exercise we will focus our attention on the following hydrogen energy systems Fossil-Reforming-Intemal Combustion Engine System, Natural Gas Steam Reforming-Fuel Cell System, Nuclear Power-Electrolysis-Fuel Cell System, Solar Power-Electrolysis-Fuel Cell System, Wind Power-Electrolysis-Fuel Cell System, Biomass-Reforming-Gas Turbine System. 

The Cu-CI thermochemical cycle has been under development for several years. The goal is to achieve a commercially viable method for producing hydrogen at a moderate temperature ( 550°C). This chemical process, if successfully developed, could be coupled with several types of heat sources, e.g. the supercritical water reactor, the Na-cooled fast reactor or a solar heat source such as the solar power tower with molten salt heat storage. The use of lower temperature processes is expected to place less demand on materials of constmction compared to higher ( 850°C) temperature processes. 

H2A analysis was used to predict hydrogen production costs as shown in Table 2. These results are based on the use of solar power tower as the heat source and also include assumptions that have yet to be validated. Work is ongoing in these areas. Nevertheless, the preliminary hydrogen production costs as well as the preliminary efficiency numbers indicate that the Cu-CI cycle has promise and that further R D is justifiable. 

Tamme, R., et al. (2003), Advanced Hydrogen Generation with Concentrated Solar Power Systems , Proceedings ofISEC 2003 International Solar Energy Conference, Hawaii, USA, 16-18 March. 

---