Direct Hydrogen from water, sunlight?

[pinkpops]

SOLAR-H



Funded under the New and Emerging Science and Technology (NEST) priority of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), SOLAR-H brings together world-leading laboratories to carry out integrated, basic research on the common goal of hydrogen production from renewable resources.



http://www.fotomol.uu.se/Forskning/Biomimetics/solarh/

[havocmom]

1. an eoisode of This Old House showed a closed solar to hydrogen system

installed into a home. Sure seemed like a fine idea.

[Zachstar]

2. A whole system?

Some solar systems on the roof, control equipment, and a stack of batteries is all that is needed.

I laughed when one of these shows showed a home fuel cell system (About the size of a room) powered by solar.

[havocmom]

3. Had batteries to hold the juice

Solar to produce in day, tank with water (powered by some of the energy collected via solar) with whatever the instrument used to separate out the hydrogen. I think they have a web site. Will try to see if they might have that info indexed there. It was really fascinating. Took up about a quarter of the garage plus the solar panels on the roof.

Havocdad is interested.

He also knows of a monastery on a good size hill. Well pumps into big tank on top, then the water courses down, turning generators. Water reaches tank at the bottom of the drop then some of the energy is used to pump it back to the top tank. He's looking for a piece of property with a 100 drop somewhere on it ;)

I want one of those bike stands with the little generator.

[pinkpops]

4. Wait a minute - that won't work

Using falling water to power a pump to make falling water is perpetual motion.

[havocmom]

5. Makes more energy than it takes to run the water back up

it works. Havocdad's brother is a brother at the monastery. Falling water = plenty of power. Pump doesn't take much power. The monks took a vow of silence, but not one of darkness. Lights go on OK.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. No, you can't have described it correctly

Pumping water uphill takes more energy than you can get from it coming down again.

Perhaps the water that's pumped uphill comes from another source, that's higher than bottom of the hill? There might conceivably be some reason for doing it that way - you need a minimum head of water to run the generator they have, for instance. It would still be inefficient, overall, but it might be a question of the size of the equipment they have already available.