Researchers at Virginia Tech have found a way to efficiently extract hydrogen from plant materials, overcoming one of the obstacles that led the Obama Administration to put hydrogen fuel-cell technology on the back burner.
FORBES: Could Hydrogen Breakthrough Revive The Fuel-Cell Car?
At Virginia Tech, Zhang has been researching ways to use enzymes to extract hydrogen from plant biomass.
FORBES: Could Hydrogen Breakthrough Revive The Fuel-Cell Car?
Heartening news rang forth from the renewable energy sector this week as a UN-backed study reported that the building of new renewable energy plants has officially overtaken fossil fuel plants in Europe and the US. We also took a look at two brand new types of power plants -- the world's first hydrogen-driven power plant in Italy and the first hybrid coal-solar power plant in Colorado.
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The hydrogen produced in a fully integrated, combined-cycle plant like FutureGen promises to be 25% cheaper than today's hydrogen.
FutureGen would be a near zero-emissions plant that converted coal into hydrogen, to power electric turbines, and carbon dioxide, to be pumped underground.
That was to prevent a repeat of the hydrogen explosions that blew radiation out of the plant soon after cooling systems failed in the wake of the tsunami.
Researchers discuss investigations into innovative ways to harvest energy from plant materials, including gasoline-like chemicals and hydrogen production.
The 275-megawatt demonstration plant is designed to prove the feasibility of producing electricity and hydrogen from coal, while simultaneously capturing the carbon dioxide and sequestering it in deep underground reservoirs.
The hydrogen for these fuel cells (and for the rest of Iceland's new hydrogen economy, should it come to pass) will be made initially in a fertiliser plant that has been turning the stuff out since the 1950s.
If the demonstration plant works as well as hoped, the plan will be to build combined electricity and hydrogen generating stations in locations where there are geological formations containing saline water overlain by a thick caprock serving as a seal.
In addition to harnessing hydroelectric power from an existing 60-megawatt plant to make silicon carbide, used in various industries, Taniguchi realized he could make plenty of cheap hydrogen fuel with current technology.
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