Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Hydrogen Fuel Cells powering cars and homes in Japan

Nuclear fusion was supposed to provide clean energy but it is perhaps decades away. It is a tough cookie. Now Japan's R&D has produced viable Hydrogen Fuel cells that can power homes and cars.Toyota motor has a model 'Mirai' on the market that is powered by Hydrogen and coming to US in the not so distant future. Now hydrogen fuel cells to provide energy for homes are being developed.

Hydrogen fuel cells for homes is something that is not on a drawing board, but already installed in many Japanese homes. I am sure this will get Japan back in the saddle and we will be having a better environment; less dependence on fossil fuels; less pollution; improved quality of life; fewer transmission, distribution losses as energy gets used where it is produced; and less of Fukushima scenarios.

Tokyo Gas and Panasonic Corporation have jointly developed the Fuel Cell which they call 'ENE-Farm' probably a diminutive for energy farm. In fact so far there have been couple of models starting Jan 2013 after debuting first time in May 2009. The price of the new model which came out in April 2013 was 1,995,000 Yen (April 2013 price) including tax but not installation. Right now it may seem prohibitive but the price is sure to go down.

Read more here:
http://news.panasonic.com/press/news/official.data/data.dir/2013/01/en130117-5/en130117-5.html
The following images are from the above site:



Summary of features copied from the above mentioned site:

"The "Ene-Farm" fuel cell co-generation systems generate electricity through a chemical reaction between oxygen in the atmosphere and hydrogen extracted from city gas. The heat generated as a byproduct of this process is also used for hot water supply*7. This system is extremely eco-friendly. Since the electricity is generated and used at the same place, there are no losses in transmission. Also, all heat produced during electricity generation can be used without waste. Compared to conventional method of using electricity from thermal power plant and hot water supply using city gas*8, the fuel cell system allows primary energy consumption to be reduced by approximately 37%*9 and CO2 emissions by approximately 49%. Users can cut around 60,000 yen from annual utility bills, and CO2 emissions by approximately 1.3 tons a year*10."

A number of companies in US are engaged in Hydrogen fuel cells and some are already providing viable products and if the adoption picks up this industry can do a lot of good to our environment and generate lot more jobs as well.

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