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Old 05-14-2012, 07:35 AM   #47 (permalink)
IamIan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mechman600 View Post
According to a recent episode of Fully Charged, biohydrogen reactors are still in the infant stages of development - in university labs and such. It's a pretty cool idea, but it can probably be put in the same category as "the super capacitor that will soon save the day for the EV world."
Agreed.

Unlike the Super Capacitor to save the EV ... it isn't that they can't do it today ... it just isn't cost effective today.

I expect it will be many decades away ~30 or more.

The point I was making was that the 6:1 ratio of today you were looking at might becoming a narrower margin in the future ... and although the margin will be narrower ... Hydrogen will still be less energy efficient from source to load ... however the algae approach does have a large production benefit over the alternative due to the use of self replication ... which might in the future make it more attractive , even if it is less energy efficient from source to load... even if that will not be for a long time.

Last I read ... today producing Hydrogen costs at best about ~$14 / kg ... and the DOE says they have to get under ~$2.60 / kg to be viable for transportation ... that's a rather large gap ... just to reach viable compared to gasoline.
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