Extreme Unplugged Living – The Solar Hydrogen House
February 4, 2009 by Noel
Filed under Green Living
Let’s drool over this guy’s Solar Hydrogen House. I’ve always wanted to have a house fully run by renewable energy. This one below is the Ultimate, and Extreme Unplugged Living.
I really like the idea of storing energy in the form of hydrogen inside hydrogen tanks. Battery banks are the usual storage for solar panel systems. However, depending on the size, battery banks usually can supply a few hours to a few days worth of electricity. Michael Strizki’s said that these hydrogen tanks, in conjunction with the solar battery bank, and geothermal setup can store an equivalent of 3 months worth of electricity usage.
The technology is fairly simple to understand. Solar panels charge the battery banks and supplies the house with power. If there is excess, power is directed to an electrolizer which if you recall your high school chemistry class, splits water into Hydrogen + Oxygen thru a process called “electrolysis”.
Hydrogen gas is pumped and stored into the tanks while Oxygen is released to the atmosphere.
During the days or months where the sun cannot produce enough electricity to power the house, the hydrogen inside the tanks is fed to a Hydrogen fuel cell where it combines with oxygen and generates power. The “waste product” is actually pure water.
This is something I dreamed of doing ever since the age of 15 when I built a wind propeller, attached a bicycle light generator, and hung it in my parents’ oak tree. Why not convert the electricity to hydrogen and burn it when needed?
Storing the hydrogen is a big challenge (it’s highly explosive and tends to leak out of just about any type of container you put it in), and I hope this solar innovator has extremely strong tanks!
When ex-President Bush touted the Hydrogen economy it was all about powering cars with hydrogen, which makes barely more sense than powering cars by running them with extension cords as they roar down the highway. Hydrogen is not an energy dense fuel and is extremely hard to distribute. Your whole car trunk would be taken up by a huge, reinforced hydrogen tank. But creating it in your own home and using it to power the home makes perfect sense.