MIT Tech Review: Germany and Canada Are Building Water Splitters to Store Renewable Energy

[nationalize the fed]

Kevin Bullis MIT TechnologyReview.com August 27, 2014

Improving technology is making electrolysis a viable way to store excess renewable energy.

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Gas power: A Hydrogenics electrolysis system in Falkenhagen, Germany, can absorb two megawatts of excess renewable energy and store it in the form of hydrogen.[/center]

Germany, which has come to rely heavily on wind and solar power in recent years, is launching more than 20 demonstration projects that involve storing energy by splitting water into hydrogen gas and oxygen. The projects could help establish whether electrolysis, as the technology is known, could address one of the biggest looming challenges for renewable energy—its intermittency.

The electrolyzer projects under construction in Germany typically consist of a few buildings, each the size of a shipping container, that consume excess renewable energy on sunny and windy days by turning it into an electric current that powers the water-splitting reaction. The resulting hydrogen can then be pumped into the storage and distribution infrastructure already used for natural gas and eventually turned back into electricity via combustion or fuel cells. It can also be used for a variety of other purposes, such as powering natural-gas vehicles, heating homes, and making fertilizer.

[center]
Power down: This new mini-fridge-size electrolyzer from Hydrogenics can produce as much hydrogen as 12 conventional ones.[/center]

Germany isn’t the only country investing in hydrogen energy storage. Canada is getting in on the action, too, with a major demonstration facility planned for Ontario.

Electrolysis has advantages over some other energy storage options. It can be deployed almost anywhere, it can store vast amounts of energy, and the hydrogen can be used to replace fossil fuels not only in electricity production but also in industry and transportation, which account for far more carbon emissions...
Full Article: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/530331/germany-and-canada-are-building-water-splitters-to-store-renewable-energy/

Germany is concentrating on energy self sufficiency while the US is trying to figure out how to bomb Syria. GO 'Murika

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