Earth Day (Today!) organizer Denis Hayes touts hydrogen fuel cells. [View all]
Denis Hayes April 21, 2015
Happy Earth Day- today April 22!
In the run-up to a solar eclipse on March 20 of this year, European tabloids had a Y2K-style field day. In the middle of a bright, sunny day, European solar panels together produce about as much electricity as 90 large nuclear power plants. Germany, with the largest solar commitment, obtains as much as 50 percent of its electricity from the sun during the sunniest hours. The eclipse was scheduled to arrive in the middle of the day and panic was setting in...snip
...Sunlight is, by far, the most abundant energy source on earth. But how do you store surplus electricity to use when you need it? Possibilities include batteries, ultracapacitors, and flywheels, all of which have important uses. One of the most attractive options is to use the sun’s energy to make hydrogen; store the hydrogen until it’s needed; then put it into a fuel cell to make electricity.
At the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, these technologies faced formidable challenges. Solar modules were ultra-expensive devices produced by a cottage industry whose only significant customer was NASA. Hydrogen was tricky to store and expensive to transport. Fuel cells required expensive catalysts like platinum...
...Elon Musk, a very bright guy and the CEO of Tesla, disagrees, calling hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles “mind-bogglingly stupid.” But the arguments he uses against them mostly echo the same arguments that had been used against battery electric vehicles until Musk himself upended the paradigm. Of course, he might well be right—the multiple energy conversions, high cost of infrastructure, etc.—might prove to be the kiss of death. But this depends upon a long string of assumptions about the future. It is not self-evident to people who don’t own Tesla stock that electric cars should receive rich subsidies while fuel cell vehicles receive none...SNIP
...hydrogen—for fundamental reasons—has to be considered among the most attractive contenders.
MORE: http://njtoday.net/2015/04/21/earth-day-organizer-touts-hydrogen-fuel-cells/
Denis Hayes, taken while director of the Solar Energy Research Institute (1979-1981)
Denis Hayes, organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970 and director of solar energy research under President Jimmy Carter, is president of the Bullitt Foundation and board chair of Earth Day Network.
Hayes has received the national Jefferson Awards Medal for Outstanding Public Service as well as the highest awards bestowed by the Sierra Club, The Humane Society of the United States, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Council of America, the Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and the American Solar Energy Society. He was featured in the documentary film, Earth Days. Time Magazine has named him as “Hero of the Planet.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Hayes
Solar Hydrogen- the fuel of the future. Earth Day Founder Hayes agrees.
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