 | Rachel Nolan - Peak Oil Speech in Qld Parliament | TOD: Australia/New Zealand | The Bullroarer - Monday 31 March 2008 |  |
54 comments on Cogeneration At Home: Ceramic Fuel Cells And Bloom Energy
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Natural gas is nice, but hardly required. SOFCs can run on gasified biomass or waste; the Gas Technology Institute ran one on gasified chicken litter.
There are many possibilities for renewable inputs for fuel cells, and the higher the efficiency the less we need and the more we can afford to pay for it.
Thanks for pointing that out EP - I was going to mention this in one post or another, but forgot in the end - you can use biogas to fuel these things - so they then become a more efficient way of using a renewable resource.
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3633
But in any case - more efficient use of reular natural gas shouldn't be sneezed at - its not a panacea, but it does help us transition to energy efficient buildings.
On a semi-realted note, check out this new glass for helping buildings to become energy neutral :
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/24/guardian-develops-hyper-insulating-v...
in theory, yes. in practice, not quite. lots of coking and fouling of the system results. for example, a huge supply of waste glycerin from biodiesel production exists. lots of potential energy, but very messy when combusted. same for black liquor from paper production, etc ...
sort of like the reports that someone falls out of an airplane and lives. perhaps, but only for a millisecond after impact.