7300 hours ...
that is 20 hours a day for a year
10 hours a day for 2 years
5 hours a day for 4 years
2 hours a day for 10 years ...

So, these work,

But the production transfer and carrying of hydrogen all involve serious energy losses. Chances of hydrogen being competitive with batteries in personal cars is unlikely.
We might eventually see some use of transport hydrogen in large intercity trucking where battery recharge is problematic.

The use of hydrogen presupposes the use of ‘generation IV nukes’, since they are the only way that large amounts of cost effective hydrogen can be produced. That is many years off if at all. Cheap and efficient hydrogen generation is step one in this technology.

Nukes cost effective? Not.
T Boon Pickens is investing in wind farms because they produce 4x as much energy per dollar invested, and the fuel supply is cheaper.

My suggestion, along with others, is to use night time wind power to make Hydrogen and then burn it during the day.

Fool cells!

I posed that same question to an engineering friend of mine and he gave me the usual response from all the anti-hydrogen folks on this forum, that it is way too ineffecient.

I windsurf out in the California Delta and in the summertime, those windmills are spinning like crazy all night long exactly when demand on the grid is at its lowest. I have to imagine that generating hydrogen at night on site and then burning it on site and then dumping the electricity back onto the grid during the day has some viability? Couldn't you keep the hydrogen in its gas form by storing it in large tanks? Seems intuitive to me. Could somebody tell me in plain english why that thinking is flawed?

Well, on an integrated international grid such as North America, if demand is low here, it probably is not low "THERE", so to speak. Lots of steel recyclers operate at night so that their electric arc smelters do not cost as much. It may simply be more economical to keep the energy as electricity and transport it hundreds, maybe thousands of miles from its production point, transmission loss be damned.

J T: "T Boon Pickens is investing in wind farms because they produce 4x as much energy per dollar invested, and the fuel supply is cheaper."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000

"In the spring of 2007 China National Nuclear Corp. selected the Westinghouse/Shaw consortium to build four nuclear reactors for an estimated US$8 billion, the largest International nuclear contract in history."

In order to accept T Boon Pickens, we need to find ourselves a wind installation that came it at about $500/kilowatt.

Are there any? Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power#Economics_and_feasibility) cites sources that say currently the cost is about 1300 euro, or $2000 ... the same as the AP1000 cost.

Somehow the Nuke numbers don't add up ...
China gets 4 finished Nuke plants for 8 billion presuming there are no "cost overruns" ...

The USA has a Bush subsidy of 24 billion plus assorted hidden perks, and only 4 nuclear plants ordered.

Private money invested in Nuclear = $0.00

I tend to believe T Boon Pickens because he is playing with his own money, so expenditures are calculated to have a payoff, not be a scam & grab at handouts. He says Wind costs 1/4 of Nuclear to build the capacity and is available now not after 5 years in construction.

apparently the nukes in china can be built cheaper, no chance of suing the government or slowing construction..

For the record, T. Boone Pickens is a major supporter of nuclear energy. I suggest you read some of his speeches, he gets that the future is not wind vs. nuclear it's wind and nuclear.

150k miles not bad!!!!

now we just need the ravEV to go 150k miles before the fuel cell haters start rising again!

oh how much is the stack?

Very impressive work. MEA stability has improved markedly over the last 4 yrs. finally some traction. PEMFC for cars is still the most ridiculous application for them due to the extreme price considerations. This loading, 0.2 mg Pt/cm2 in each electrode at 1 W/cm2 translates to $28/kW at today's $2k/oz Pt price. So a 200 hp equivalent stack (149 kW) has $4k in Pt alone while something like the iMEV with a 47 kW motor would have $1.3k of Pt. Then there is the membrane.

Regarding the nukes vs wind discussion. I think that the water intensity that goes along with any thermal power generating process...especially nukes is going to be a real issue in the years ahead. Wind & solar's main consumption of water is during manufacturing. Also, have you checked out the FY2009 DOE budget requests? in terms of R&D funds, > $1B requested for "mature" nuke but only $150M combined for solar & wind.

We need sane energy policy.

A G4 nuke for H2 production only consumes the water it it is splitting to O2 and H2.

Since any fuel cell-car will surely be a PHEV, most of the miles will be electric, and the fuel cell will be the range extender. This car will travel much further than 150k miles.

Anon,

I believe your cost estimates for nuclear are a little out of date. The new reactors to be built at Turkey Point were estimated at about $3500/kilowatt. The US is in a period of inflation in construction materials, particularly steel and concrete. Nuclear plants have an abundance of both.

Substantial utility money has been expended in licensing for new nuclear plants. This generally runs in excess of $100 million or so for a COL. Several utilities have also ordered long lead material for new build reactors.

If you want to look at purely private spending on nuclear, looking into Amarillo Power. This is a private individual with very deep pockets who is looking to build a nuclear power plant to serve the Texas merchant power market (the same market that Picken's wind farm will serve).

Bill Young: "I believe your cost estimates for nuclear are a little out of date."

$8 billion for 4 1GW reactors last year. Whether or not that target will be hit is a question, but is this "out of date"? It certainly is "out of country", which might explain a few things..

But if we accept the $3500 figure as fact, then according to Pickens, there must be a wind installation that has or will clock in at about $900/kilowatt.

Where is it?

NanoEC: "I think that the water intensity that goes along with any thermal power generating process...especially nukes is going to be a real issue in the years ahead."

Why?

thermal power plants use a lot of cooling water to condense the steam.. but it could be sea water or even brown sewage water such as the nuke plant near Phoenix, Arizona uses..

"...brown sewage water..."

Ewwwwww.... very bad visual there... also the hairs in my nose are curling.

2 billion per nuke plant in China probably is using local labor, but Westinghouse/Shaw contracting and oversight.

The funky thing with power is if WE pay for the plant via outright no interest loan it costs us about 1 penny per kwh for every 3 BILLION we spent... But if we dont it costs us ALOT MORE.

We basically save money when we buy the dang plant ourselves. And tes that can work for wind if its true operating costs are low enough.

So why arnt we buying nukes and wind and geo and anything else we see as... profitable to buy in BULK? Same reason people buy tp 1 roll at a time to try and save money... same reason as soo much else in this world.. humans are giant mutant big arsed monkays with a perm bad hair day...

YES LETS ALL INVEST IN NUCLEAR ENERGY, IF THERE'S ENOUGH NUCLEAR PLANTS AROUND PUTTING OUT ALL THAT FREE ENERGY, OH WAIT, IF IT'S FREE WHY DOES IT COST CONSUMERS SO MUCH AND WITH MANY NUCLEAR PLANTS IT WOULD ONLY TAKE TERRORISTS A FEW WELL PLACED BOMBS TO TAKE OUT A LARGE PORTION OF ANY COUNTRY, GOOD IDEA, MUCH LESS CHANCE OF A TERRORIST BLOWING UP A WINDMILL AND MAKING THE ENTIRE COUNTRY GLOW!!

Please allow meet to address some logic flaws in your post. The containment dome of a nuke is rated to withstand a crash of the largest aircraft currently in service. A terrorist cannot carry a bomb heavy enough to do major damage. The vulnerable area of the plant is the spent fuel pool. Thus the need for centralize and guarded spent fuel storage. The plant is protected by armed guards (if they are not sleeping on duty!!!).

The major cost factor is construction costs that are amortized over the lifetime of the plant. This cost is paid by the rate payer over time.

I hope this eases your fears about this subject.

Your shouting did wake me up and got my attention but it is uncomfortable. Please remember that for the future.

Instead of seeking a single solution, a portfolio of energy choices will emerge in different ways all over the world. In some areas solar might make more sense, in others, wind or hydropower, and nuclear might be used elsewhere – and all of these sources can be used to create hydrogen. Hydrogen’s versatility makes it possible to work with alternative solutions being explored. As a representative of the Hydrogen Education Foundation, I am helping people understand that incorporating hydrogen within the country’s energy portfolio will simultaneously reduce dependence on energy imports, while improving the country’s carbon footprint by reducing greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

The hydrogen industry is hard at work making improvements on existing hydrogen technologies and developing new ones. In addition to the progress made by the 3M team, Toyota recently provided information about their new FCHC-adv, which improved fuel efficiency by 25% and can operate in a wider variety of conditions and climates.
Details are available at:http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp . If we think about how research has improved other technologies, such as portable electronics, computers, and video equipment, the same will apply to hydrogen applications.

To learn more about the benefits of hydrogen, we invite everyone to please visit www.h2andyou.org.

Keep the progress coming, whatever front.

I personally prefer space-based solar collection. It
makes more sense than going to Mars to collect rocks.
You can put Mars on the back burner. If not in-orbit
collectors, then lunar collectors. Cost intensive? yes,
but most of that is front-end. You can get that back
from consumers. The main point is that you can power
the whole planet with plenty of left-over zap!