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Sunshine + rainwater = power for your home + car
Understanding how plants produce power will soon help us to create homes that are their own power plants.
Recalling your high school natural science lessons, you'll remember that sunlight that hits your every day, garden-variety leaf is converted into an electric current that splits the water in the leaf into hydrogen and oxygen.
Pursuing biomimicry of photosynthesis, scientists envision solar-powered homes equipped with an electrolyzer and an energy storage appliance called a fuel cell in the basement or garage. Solar panels from the roof would supply energy for the electrolysis of a water source to produce hydrogen and oxygen to be stored in the fuel cell. This fuel cell would produce electricity to power the home at night when the sun isn't shining. Surplus juice could go to other things, like plug-in hybrid cars.
A quantum leap has recently been made in the development of cheap catalysts that allow the production of hydrogen from water zapped with electricity, even if it's dirty water. The beauty of this process is that the by-product of the fuel cell operation is the same water, but purified.
The final hurdle is to see a decrease in the cost of photovoltaics for solar power. This appears to be on the horizon with companies like Georgia-based Suniva delivering solutions that are driving down the cost of solar.
So we can outfit ecohomes of the near future with photovoltaics and rainwater harvesting systems working together to potentially produce enough electricity to sustain the home's power and transportation needs.
Kind of makes you want to go out and hug a tree, doesn't it?
Stop fighting it. You know you want to.
Update on Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 09:43AM by
Burke Sisco
Burke Sisco
As you can see, Honda is already moving in this direction with their hydrogen home pump. They are simply harvesting the hydrogen directly from tap water and pumping it in liquid form into the vehicle.
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