That’s Elon Musk’s opinion so that must be true. Tesla’s genius founder put yet another nail in the hydrogen coffin and stated what we knew all along : hydrogen is a technology that may well be too complex to ever be significant.
Hydrogen
Turning urine into electricity
I recently wrote a post on how we could turn urine and feces into energy thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I also wrote about some similar efforts that are being done in Singapore.
Now, according to Grist and Ecogeek, four African teenage girls created a generator that runs on pee, turning one liter of the liquid into no less than six hours of electricity.
Albeit we don’t know exactly how much electricity was created – and how much it required to be created – this is still something noteworthy.
Splitting water with solar power
This is a guest post from Mathias Aarre Maehlum, an environmentalist who studies energy engineering. In his spare time he works as a freelance writer. Read more of his stuff at Energy Informative.
Researchers at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have figured out a way to split water molecules (H2O) into hydrogen by using the sun.Hydrogen has long been touted as the energy carrier of the future.
Only time will tell whether or not this actually turns out to be true, meanwhile hydrogen does bring several promising benefits to the table.
The Third Industrial Revolution
Here is my review of The Third Industrial Revolution, by Jeremy Rifkin. After reading the 300 pages I daresay this book provides us a vision and a narrative to achieve it. Here are the five pillars of this revolution :
1. Shifting to renewable energy ; 2. Converting buildings into power plants 3. Hydrogen and other energy storage technology ; 4. Smart grid technology ; 5. Plug in, electric, hybrid, and fuel cell based transportation.
I quite enjoyed the two first parts where the author describe the world we are currently living in and how the second industrial revolution is coming to an end as our whole system is burning up.
Hydrogen: A dream or delusion?
This is the title of an interesting article at GreenTech Media. Here are some essential quotes of it : ” Hydrogen. In green technology circles, just mentioning the word is enough to start an argument. “
” Hydrogen could become a ubiquitous source of electricity and heat, say advocates. Plus, it’s somewhat prevalent. Hydrogen remains the most abundant element in the universe (…) “
” Hydrogen advocates (…) readily admit the technology has not lived up to its promise. Virtually all of the experience to date seems to bolster the case of the critics.“
A new MIT technology to produce hydrogen
I never have been a fan of hydrogen-based energy solutions. Indeed, using energy to produce hydrogen that will produce electricity seems a tad too complex.
This may change with Professor Daniel Nocera from the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who found a fantastic solution to produce Hydrogen in a much more efficient way.
This would make intermittent energy sources like solar and wind power much more interesting as one of their main drawbacks would be solved.