Check out Northwest Power System's web page.
The output from this process is water, heat, and electricity. A standard system rated 2.5 kilowatts can supply all the energy required in a 2,000 square foot home.
Quote:... development of fuel processors that generate pure hydrogen for use in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell power systems. We also manufacture and sell fully-integrated PEM fuel cell systems rated up to 10 kilowatts.
Our Fuel Processor “reforms” and “purifies” conventional fuels like methanol into pure hydrogen. The resulting hydrogen contains less than five parts-per-million of carbon monoxide, a contaminant that can poison PEM fuel cells.
We manufacture and sell three models of our fuel processor to strategic alliance partners worldwide. The three models convert methanol, propane and kerosene into 99.8% pure hydrogen using a novel steam-reforming technology. Fuel processor development is underway to add product models that can generate hydrogen from ethanol, gasoline, diesel and methane (natural gas).
Perhaps Joel can share his thoughts on this technology. It seems that within a few years this technology could rapidly advance and become very affordable.
I went through their site extensively. Clearly this is a working technology, but the absolute absence of cost data is a red flag. Right now, the costs are probably way above benefit ratios.
Presently there are several other problems. Their systems are limited by inverter currents. Trace presently only puts out 60 amps--so that is a big limitation. Second, they understate the costs and installation complexities of doing utility interties. Most utilities are making the intertie barrier steep by excessive requirements, costly engineering and just plain hellish red tape.
These people are very tentative about their confidence in running one of their units for long periods, unattended.
Bottom line: this technology has a long way to go in terms of cost reduction and endurance.
Joel Skousen
Remember too this process needs methanol, or wood alcohol, to run. Methanol is currently made using petroleum products, (natural gas) but is readily made at home. Research wood gas production and destructive distillation of wood, for the methods involved in methanol production. You could also electrolyticaly split water for almost pure hydrogen. Remember not to create too many steps in energy storage or creation. The more steps involved, the less efficient the whole process. Photovoltaic (PV) would probably be more cost effective at this point, but this may become much more viable in the future. I am more excited about their reformer than the fuel cell. Many companies make fuel cells, but getting a compact thermal catalytic cracker/reformer, into such a small package is revolutionary. If done properly, you could make this thing crack used motor oil or coal into gasoline. Of course it wouldn't be of the quality bought at the station, but it would work.
Rooftop Turbine A Breakthrough In Wind Power
A rooftop wind-turbine the size of a domestic satellite dish is being hailed a breakthrough in the acrimonious debate over the future of wind power.
Designed and built in Scotland, the miniature turbines have just been fitted to the first roofs in a pilot project which could provide a personal electricity supply for every home on which they are perched.
The inventors hope to begin full-scale production by the end of the year and hope to be making more than 3,000 a year by 2006. For the first time, electrical power from renewable sources could be directly installed to individual properties for £1,500 and produce enough energy to run most off-peak appliances in the home and up to a third of all power needs the rest of the time.
Each unit could pay for itself in three to four years, the inventors say. And with a 20-year guarantee from the manufacturers, each turbine could provide householders with up to 16 years of free electricity.
Rest of story at http://www.rense.com/general53/wind.htm
Britain Seeks Wave Power
Denmark catches the most wind for power. Japan absorbs the most sun. Now Britain wants to rule the waves. Wave and tidal stream machines are the latest exploratory technology in the rush to find alternative energy sources to replace fossil fuels with soaring price tags. "Britain has one of the best wind, wave and tidal resources in Europe," said Martin Wright, managing director of Marine Current Turbine (MCT), the company that built the world's first large-scale tidal stream machine.
Full article at
http://www.rense.com/general58/powser.htm
Wind Farms Heat Up Local Climate
"A price to pay for all kinds of consumption, including renewable energy"
Wind farms can change the weather, according to a model of how these forests of giant turbines interact with the local atmosphere. And the idea is backed up by observations from real wind farms.
Somnath Baidya Roy from Princeton University, and his colleagues modeled a hypothetical wind farm consisting of a 100 by 100 array of wind turbines, each 100 meters tall and set 1 kilometer apart.
They placed the virtual farm in the Great Plains region of the US, an area suitable for large wind farms, and modeled the climate using data from Oklahoma.
During the day, the model suggests that wind farms have very little effect on the climate because the warmth of the sun mixes the lower layers of the atmosphere. But at night, when the atmosphere is stiller, the wind turbines have a significant effect.
More at
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996608
Personal Nuclear Power: New Battery Lasts 12 Years
A new type of battery based on the radioactive decay of nuclear material is 10 times more powerful than similar prototypes and should last a decade or more without a charge, scientists announced this week.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/personalnuclearpowernewbatterylasts12years&printer=1
Kennedy Tries To Halt Windmills
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060302-124537-9804r.htm
Lighting Liberty Is A Breeze
The Statue of Liberty's torch will soon be lit by windmill power.-New York Post http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/60766.htm
Has anyone here checked out stirling engines? If you attach one to a solar dish, you can get a descent amount of power out. Nasa's been developing some of these. Stirling engines are also more efficient than traditional combustion engines.
When I get the time and money, I'm going to tinker around with them and hopefully provide some if not all of my power needs.