Inside the Solar-Hydrogen House: No More Power Bills--Ever

[enki09]

EAST AMWELL, N.J.?Mike Strizki has not paid an electric, oil or gas bill?nor has he spent a nickel to fill up his Mercury Sable?in nearly two years. Instead, the 51-year-old civil engineer makes all the fuel he needs using a system he built in the capacious garage of his home, which employs photovoltaic (PV) panels to turn sunlight into electricity that is harnessed in turn to extract hydrogen from tap water.



http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-house&sc=DD_20080619

From Scientific American

[hunter]

I saw a short of video from his setup. yeah it is nice, but so expensive to build one. Some companies donated parts equipment to him to finish his project.

[enki09]

Sure it is expensive to do something like that but the point for me is that it is possible. People like this guy show the world what is really possible and maybe someone will start to pay attention.

[utilitarian]

Sure it is expensive to do something like that but the point for me is that it is possible. People like this guy show the world what is really possible and maybe someone will start to pay attention.

I do not think it is news that this sort of thing is possible - everyone knows that given enough money, one can live entirely off the sun, as this man does.  He makes hydrogen using electricity from his solar panels, and of course he also uses the solar panels to power the house.  The problem is that it cost half a million $US to do this, and people sort of know that solar is expensive.

One thing he does which he does not need to do is store energy in batteries.  He could simply sell back his surplus to the electric company by day, and use the grid by night, coming out in a wash or still ahead, but he insists on being off the grid entirely, which is inefficient.

He could also use electricity directly for his lawnmower and similar devices, and not deal with the added losses of hydrogen production and the combustion engine.

But overall, it is great to have a few people do this just to show one way it can be done, but overall this can be done much more efficiently.

[hartiberlin]

I saw a short of video from his setup. yeah it is nice, but so expensive to build one. Some companies donated parts equipment to him to finish his project.

The prices will soon come down.
There are now cheap electrolysis cells, that have seperate H2 and O2 and are very efficient.

Also I am looking for pumps to compress H2 easily and cheaply to store in old
propan gas tanks.

Also hydrogen fuel cells, that are generating electricity from Hydrogen and air ( or Oxygen)  are coming out now and will get cheaper day by day.

Stay tuned for the new updates.

Regards, Stefan.