January 16, 2024 • 36 mins
A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device; it turns chemical energy into electrical energy. Jonathan and Chris discuss fuel cells in detail from their origins to why they're not practical for general use yet in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and I love all
things tech. Tech Stuff is several years old now. It
launched in two thousand and eight, so we've been around
(00:26):
longer than some tech has. And one of the early
episodes we did was way back on June twenty first,
twenty ten. How fuel cells work. This is one of
those technologies that people often turn to and they look
at that as a possible move forward to get away
(00:47):
from carbon emissions with vehicles in particular, and fuel cells
could do that if we met some other very tough challenge,
and so I thought it would be fun to listen
to this classic episode. This is from the Crispalette era
(01:07):
of tech Stuff. How fuel cells work. Enjoy. Now let's
tackle our subject, which is how fuel cells work.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Fuel cells the mystery, uh energy problem, savor of the future,
or sort of.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
We would we would hope anyway. Uh yeah, fuel cells
are this Uh well, it's it's kind of like a battery.
You know. Let's let's go ahead and kind of define
what it does. It's an electro chemical energy conversion device.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yes, Actually, that's that's sort of what I meant about mystery,
because everybody talks about how cool they are, but nobody
really knows exactly what they do. But they convert chemicals
into electricity.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's like a battery.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, No, it is very much like a battery. Others.
There are some differences, which we'll get into, but in
general a fuel cell. What most people tend to know
about fuel cells is one they create electricity and to
their byproducts are heat and water. Yes, it tends to
be what most people know about apart from the people
who specifically work in the fuel cell industry. Clearly they
(02:11):
know a lot more than that.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, of course, we always see that mainstream media, you know,
reporter going out to the back of the fuel cell
vehicle and putting a cup underneath the tailpipe and drinking
the water, right, Yeah, and I think that sticks with us.
That's why we don't know that much more about it,
because we go, huh, that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, because you think about that, you're like, well, if
we have this energy source that can create electricity and
the only byproduct really is heat and water, and you know,
water's not toxic. It's not like water is going to
be throwing out greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or polluting
in some other way. Why don't we have more of these?
(02:50):
And really, the answer to that question is that the
technology is not sophisticated enough and reliable enough, and most importantly, really,
when you get down to it, cheap enough to do
on a widespread basis to allow us to switch to
a fuel cell economy. So let's let's kind of talk
about what how a fuel cell works, what it does,
where it came from. First of all, well, let's talk
(03:12):
about Sir William Grove. Okay, Now, Sir William Grove, he's
the fellow who kind of invented fuel cells, if you will.
All right, he knew this was back in eighteen thirty nine.
By the way, he knew that if you took some
water and you ran an electric current through the water,
it would produce hydrogen and oxygen.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Right, So splitting the molecules of water apart, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It's called electrolysis. And actually this tends to happen with
various molecules. If you add enough energy to the molecule,
it tends to break the molecular bonds and it will
eventually break apart into its individual elements. Most molecules will
do this if you pour in enough energy. That's going
to be another important point later on. So Grove he theorized, well,
(03:59):
if you if you add electricity to water and you
get hydrogen and oxygen, if you then combined hydrogen and oxygen,
you should get water and electricity, you know, because you
know it should be the same coming out as it
is going in, right, that makes sense, So if you're yeah,
so he's like, well, how he ran some experiments and
(04:20):
he created what he called a gas voltaic battery, okay,
and in this gas voltaic battery, he then combined hydrogen
and oxygen and he realized that he got water and
he got free electrons, which you know, if you direct
free electrons through a path, that's electricity.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So there was a sign, a little sign on the
side of the said electrons free.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. There was a protest held out of
the cell. Fifty years later, you get a Ludwig Mond
and Charles Langer, and they're the ones who coined the
term fuel cell. Those are the guys who actually found
a fairly practical way to do this. That was easy repeatable,
(05:00):
so you could you could repeat the experiment improve. Yes,
something is happening here, because, of course we know in science,
just because you get a result doesn't necessarily mean that
you have proven your hypothesis correct. You need to have
a repeatable experiment that can be done by anyone who
has the facility to do it at any rate to
prove that that something really is going on. Yes, So
(05:23):
that's where we get into the fuel cells. And unlike battery,
like a battery is a self contained chemical reaction, and
it can and yeah, it's a chemical reaction. It can
very good.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, well, I mean nothing's going in, nothing's going out
except electrons.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Right, yeah. Yeah, the battery has chemicals inside it that
react together. The reaction produces electrons, and that is where
we get, you know, our little electric power from a battery. Yes,
fuel cells are a little different. You can pour fuel
into a fuel cell, thus the name, and it will
(06:01):
convert that fuel into the water and the electricity. So
as long as you have a supply of hydrogen and
a supply of oxygen going into the fuel cell, and
as long as the membrane of the fuel cell and
the other components remain remain viable, and we'll get into
that in a little bit. Uh, it should continue to
produce electricity. It's not gonna it's not like it'll die
(06:23):
after all the hydrogen runs out. If you add more
hydrogen and more oxygen, it should continue.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
To work, right.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Okay, so we've covered the basics there. Let's let's talk.
I'm gonna shift my notes around. I actually have paper
notes today. Wow, I usually don't do this. Let's talk
about the various components within a fuel cell.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Okay, we can do that, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
We've got the anode. Yes, Uh, the anode. It that's
the that's the negative post, not meaning that.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I know.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I was trying to try to listeners. I apologize.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I was not to finish.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I mean, we all suffered for that. Besides Chris, No, no, no, no,
it's good. So that's what's conducting the electrons and that
get freed from the hydrogen. So the anodes on one end.
On the other end is the cathode. Yes, it's the
positive post. So that's where the hydrogen. This is what's
(07:20):
conducting the electrons back from the external circuit. So I'm sorry.
We've got the anode. That's where when the electrons come
out from the reaction, electrons go to the anode, go
into a circuit. So whatever electric motor or a light
bulb or whatever, Right, the electrons continue their path once
they go through that circuit to the cathode. Then we've
got the electrolyte in the center. This is a usually
(07:44):
approach a proton exchange membrane. Thing of the membrane is
kind of like a force field. Now this force field will, yeah,
the force field will allow positively charged ions to pass through,
but will pell negatively charged particles. So electrons have a
(08:04):
negative charge. Yes, they cannot pass through the membrane. If
they could pass through the membrane, fuel cells would not work.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
It is the bouncer of the fuel cell.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yes, you may not come in, but we're not cool
enough because you are negative.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Exactly, but the close enough. So the so the high
hydrogen are the the hydrogen ions are positively charged because
they have given up an electron. Right all right, So
now essentially what you have a hydrogen ion is essentially
a proton. So you've got a proton. Protons are positively charged.
You've got this positively charged element there. It can pass
(08:38):
through the membrane. Now, why would it pass through the membrane.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
To get to the other side.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
But what's on the other side oxygen. Oh, and oxygen
has a negative charge. It so attracted exactly, the proton
is attracted across the membrane to the negatively charged oxygen.
If there were negative charge, that of the proton would
not necessarily migrate through the membrane. So when it migrates
(09:08):
to the membrane, it then combines with the oxygen and
you get the two hydrogens, the one oxygen together and
then the electron that had passed through the circuit. Remember
it passed from the node through the circuit into the cathode.
On that end, the two hydrogen atoms the oxygen atom
have combined into a molecule. The electron joins that molecule,
(09:31):
and that's when you get water, right, So you don't
have any free electrons at the end of this process.
It all recombines on the cathode end, and that's where
you get the water. There's one other element that's important
with this, and that's the catalyst.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yes, and this is catalysts.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
What they do is they help reactions.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Right. Then the thing that makes it possible to react.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, otherwise you would have to pour even more energy
in in order for this to react, and it wouldn't
be viable at all. So it's a special material and
it it helps this reaction of oxygen and hydrogen. And
in most fuel cells that people talk about, tends to
be made out of platinum nanoparticles. So a nanoparticle, of
(10:11):
course is insanely tiny, like tinier than the microscopic scopic scale.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Right, but it is on a thin sheet of materials
with as much area as exposed as possible to facilitate
more reaction.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Right, So it's almost like you've spray painted a sheet
with platinum. And because you can imagine, that's pretty expensive.
Platinum is a precious that all. It's pretty rare. It's
hard to get your hands on it. Even when you're
talking about nanoparticles, which are really tiny. You're talking about
billions of nanoparticles. Yes, Like a nanoparticles is not going
to do much for you. So yeah, you definitely want
(10:47):
to maximize that surface area in order to allow the
reactions between hydrogen and oxygen to happen, or else your
your fuel cell doesn't do anything all right, So you're
pouring hydrogen in. You're you're pumping oxygen in. When I
say pouring, I really mean pumping, because you're probably pumping
hydrogen gas. You're pumping both into this fuel cell. They combine.
(11:10):
You get the electrons, you get the water. So why
don't we have lots and lots of fuel cells already
running all all of our power, all of our electronics.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
You've already hit on it that what was that? The
biggest one being the cost?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
That would be a huge one. Yeah, the platinum, that kind.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Of that's simply not it's simply not practical, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
You get down to it, you're like, well, a, in
an ideal world, we cost would not be would not
even be a consideration, right, we would just be talking
about the fact that this is clean energy that we
have and uh, and we could run our cars or
other devices, our homes, even powered plants, we could run
them on hydrogen and uh and then we we'd not
(11:56):
pollute and we'd have a nice clean energy source. But
it comes down to the fact that is an element.
It's not the only one either, of course.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah. The whole process of splitting the water into two pieces. Yeah,
well you know that's actually I guess should be the
source of hydrogen more than anything else.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, source of hydrogen is a huge, huge problem. Hydrogen
does not It's plentiful, but not in its elemental form
on Earth. It's usually combined with something else like oxygen
to make water. It's not like there's a hydrogen mine
we can go to and mine hydrogen, pure hydrogen and
use that when we can get hydrogen from stuff like
(12:37):
hydrocarbon fuels or even water, as we pointed out by
breaking down compounds, right, which takes energy. Right, So in
order to get this fuel cell fuel, you already have
to expend energy to create the fuel. So now you're
looking at a fuel like an energy deficit situation. Does
it take more energy to create the fuel than the
(12:59):
energy you will get by using that fuel to power
a fuel cell? And as long as it takes more
energy for you to create the fuel than it does
to actually power whatever it is you're going to power,
it doesn't make sense. We already have a fuel that
does this, by the way, gasoline. Yes, gasoline. Actually it
actually takes more energy to create a gallon of gas
(13:20):
than a gallon of gas can create through putting it
through a motor or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, because gasoline is a pretty inefficient fuel. Yeah, it
turns out, especially compared to a fuel cell. And you
have to again look at the entire life cycle.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You're not just looking at oh, well, how much how
much energy did it take to ship the gasoline from
the refinery to the to the gas station. It's also
how much energy did the refinery have to expend in
order to produce that gasoline? How much energy had to
be expended to to get the oil out of the
ground to eventually become what would what would eventually become gasoline? Right,
(13:58):
It's really a big picture thing, and that's that's the
real problem with a lot of these energy issues, is
that once you start looking at the big picture, you
begin to realize, oh, this is this is a much
more difficult problem than I originally imagined. We'll be back
with more in just a moment to talk more about
fuel cells. Now, there are many different kinds of fuel cells.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, I thought I.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Thought we were getting ready to hit that because the
one that we've been talking about, I guess, probably without
actually saying its name, is the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel
cell right, also sometimes.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Called the polymer exchange membrane fuel cell.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
But same day. Why yeah, the membrane in the exchange. Okay,
I got it.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yep, that's it. They're used in cars a lot, right, Yeah,
that's kind of the stuff we're looking at cars. See, Now,
some of these fuel cells work really well at a
certain temperature range, and outside that temperature range they don't
work very well at all. Now, the polymer exchange has
a couple of different issues that make it not the
most ideal method of a power generation within a car.
(15:09):
And one of those is that, well, I mean it's
heat range is okay, because it's it works best somewhere
around or one hundred and forty to one hundred and
seventy six degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, so you could.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
You would first have to heat your fuel cell up
to this temperature for it to be able to work properly.
So there is a warm up period. It's not like
it's going to work immediately as you get in your car.
One of the things about the polymer exchange membrane fuel
cell is that it has to have a hydrated membrane.
The membrane must remain hydrated, which means essentially wet. All right,
(15:45):
So if you live in Minnesota. You know, the winters
in Minnesota get really cold. And when you get really
cold and you got water, you know what happens.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
It freezes.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, it doesn't happen much here in it Lanta, but
up in Minnesota it could though. It could, Yes, if
the temperature fell far enough the water used to hydrate
that membrane, and remember the membrane is key to this,
to this exchange. If the water could freeze, that would
make the membrane extremely brittle and it could break, and
(16:19):
then you've got a broken fuel cell.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Right, So that seems problematic.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, that's a bit of an issue. And there are
other types of fuel cells. There's the solid oxide fuel cell.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Okay, this is this is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
This would not work well in the car.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
No, no, not at all, simply.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Simply because it requires so much more in the way
of temperature for it to operate.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, it operates best between seven hundred and one thousand degrees.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Syntegrade. Yes, that's a that's pretty warm.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, no, it's pretty pretty steamy.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
But but steam, now that you mentioned that seed that
it generates, you know, steam as a result, and that
can be used to create electricity as well.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, you can use the steam to generate to push turbines,
or you could even use the steam, well not just
or and you could use the steam to help heat
the facility. So let's say it's in the dead of winter,
the steam coming from this reaction could go back into
the heating unit to try and keep the plant warm,
(17:22):
so that you don't have to generate, you don't have
to burn as much energy to keep the plant running.
Right right now, they're not as efficient or it's not
cost effective yet. The cost effectiveness of the solid oxide
fuel cell that the target is four hundred dollars per
(17:43):
kilo WAT. Right now, it's about ten times that it's
that four thousand dollars per kilo WAT to run one
of these things. That's a problem.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, I'd also like to point out that the solid
oxide fuel cells have been in the news recently in
a pretty big fashion. As a matter of fact, I
believe we've talked about one on this podcast not too
long ago. The bloom Box, Oh, the bloombox, bloom Box
bloom Energies, Bloombox fuel cells are solid oxide fuel cells,
(18:15):
and I don't know that they run exactly the same
way as the information in our article about that on
our side at imagine using a slightly different process.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
They probably do, because the ones that we're talking about
are mainly the solid oxide tends to often be used
come in the form of coal. Yeah, so you actually
have coal running a fuel cell, which you know, you
first sit there and think like, WHOA, that's weird. I
thought we were trying to get away from fossil fuels.
Not necessarily. In some cases, we may have to use
fossil fuels to create the hydrogen or whatever the compound
(18:46):
is that we're going to use in the fuel cell,
because hydrogen is not the only one, it's just the
most popular one. But we may have to use fossil
fuels in that process to generate the fuel we need
to run to make the fuel cells go. There are
other types as well. There's the alkaline fuel cell. That's
the kind that we're that they that the Space Race
used quite a bit back in the sixties. Yeah, not
(19:09):
really use that much anymore. It's not it's not as
it's really expensive, it's not as reliable as some of
the other technologies.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Plus it requires pure hydrogen and oxygen.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, pure hydrogen and oxygen is hard to get your
hands on, or at least the pure hydrogen is. There
are fuel cells that can use hydrogen that's not one
hundred percent pure, but that also tends to take its
toll on the membrane. So again, the membrane is a
is a fairly delicate part of a fuel cell, and
if you damage that that membrane, then the fuel cell
(19:42):
is not going to work anymore. Also, I guess we
should also point out that a fuel cell, when we're
talking about a fuel cell, an individual fuel cell does
not generate that much power. It's when you have a
bunch of fuel cells working together that you can generate
enough electricity.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Essentially in an array.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, a fuel cell stack is usually what we call it,
being those of us in the field cell industry and journalists. Yeah,
so an indidvidual fuel cell is like think of it,
like we talked about cell processors. A cell processor is
just one part of a group of processors that all
work together, same sort of thing. Fuel cell is just
(20:21):
one little electricity generation device that works with several others
to create enough electricity to actually do something. But you
also have the molten carbonate fuel cell, the phosphoric acid
fuel cell, the direct methanol fuel cell. These are all variations.
They all basically do the same thing, but they're doing
(20:42):
it through different ways, and some of them have different
operating temperatures, different parameters. Some of them are more reliable
than others, but they require such a high operating temperature
that you wouldn't want to use in a car, Like
you don't want to use a solid oxide fuel cell
in a car because you would die. You would have
to have such sheets, some sort of protective material to
(21:02):
shield you from the heat that your car would weighe
so much that it wouldn't matter how much of the
electrocity you're generting, because it wouldn't move anywhere.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
It's gonna say, you'd have to use most of the
power for your air conditioning.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, yeah, either the air conditioning or just getting the
wheels to have enough torque to actually push that incredibly
heavy vehicle forward torque. Yum.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
So then we have the phosphoric acid fuel cell, and
you know those those are those a little smaller.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Yeah yeah, those aren't. Those aren't as huge.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
But they have such a long went warm up time.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah. So again, if you tried to if you used
a phosphoric acid jill cell in your car, you'd have
to start warming up your car an hour before you
were leaving, So that's.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Not really sort of impractical.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, and the direct methanol fuel cell, again we're talking
about it's not as efficient. It can use methanol, but
since since the energy output isn't as great, it's not
really seen as a viable fuel cell.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah. I've seen I've seen some methanol fuel cells out
and about. In fact, it when I went to the
CEES in two thousand and eight, I believe it was Toshiba,
if I'm not mistaken, had a methanol fuel cell powered
MP three player on display, which was pretty cool. You know,
it's not it's one of those things where you're like, really, seriously,
(22:21):
I have to pour methanol in this thing. But yeah,
I mean it's it was so small, you know, the
size of an MP three player that, you know, I
couldn't imagine it powering a building.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Or a car. It's much more tiny.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
But that's what they talk about when they talk about
the possibility of using fuel cells to power say, laptop
computers and things like that.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, yeah, personal electronic devices that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
It's still it still seems odd to me that you would,
you know, flip your laptop over and pour in some methanol,
and I guess it would probably be an external supply
of some sort.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
My MP three player has a drinking problem. I was
going to talk very briefly about about the efficiency of
a fuel cell. This is kind of a complicated topic,
but let's h fuel cell efficiency depends on a lot
of different factors. Let's say that you have a fuel
cell that runs on pure hydrogen, and somehow you have
(23:11):
a reliable source of pure hydrogen, so you don't, you know,
there's no problem with actually getting fuel for it.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
So eliminating that is an issue.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, assuming that a pure hydrogen fuel cell has the
potential to be up to eighty percent efficient and generating electricity,
so you're getting eighty percent of the energy generated by
the reaction to actually become electricity. However, now then you
have to put it through an electric motor. So we're
(23:41):
talking about this for cars. So electric motors are not
one hundred percent efficient. They don't they don't convert one
hundred percent of electricity into one hundred percent mechanical power.
You lose some in heat. Yes, So let's let's say
you've got a really good electric motor, and the electric
motor is also eighty p efficient. You're getting down to
(24:02):
about sixty four percent of your of the power that's
generated by the reactions within the fuel cell to actually
do work. So you've got sixty four percent efficiency. Now
that's amazing compared to a gas powered automobile, yes, which
has got about twenty percent exactly, Like like Chris said,
(24:22):
gasoline's just not that efficient at generating power. Then you
think about, all right, well, what about electric vehicles, like
you don't know, a Prius, Well.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
That's a that's a hybrid.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
That's true, you know, compared if you're talking about a
pure electric vehicle. I'm sorry, I should have said a
pure electric vehicle. So it's just running on an electric battery.
Electric batteries on their own can be really efficient, like
ninety percent efficient. When you get to the electric electric
motor part, it eventually comes down to about seventy two
percent efficiency. We got a little bit more to talk
(24:56):
about with fuel cells, and we'll do that when we
come back. Now here's where you have to go into
the big picture again. Okay, how was that electricity generated
that went into charging the battery.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
In a lot of cases, at least here in the
United States, we're talking about fossil fuels again.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, coal power or something like that. Yes, So once
you factor into the coal power that was needed to
generate the electricity that initially charged that battery, you start
seeing the efficiencies drop. Now, if we assume that the
electricity was generated through some sort of renewable source, like
let's say a hydro electric facility, so no fossil fuels
(25:40):
went into producing this. Even then when you're looking at
the efficiencies, it goes to around it's in the mid
sixty percent, so sixty five percent, sixty six percent something
like that efficiency. So it's just a little bit more
efficient than a hydrogen car that's running on pure hydrogen.
And again, if we look at that with the electric battery,
we kind of had to look at it with the
(26:02):
hydrogen as well, like where did we get how did
we get that pure hydrogen? Once you factor that, and
this is why it gets so complicated, you're like, well,
in the big picture, does it make sense to move
to hydrogen? So we first have to answer that question,
does it make sense to move to a hydrogen based
fleet of automobiles. Will that, from an energy standpoint make
(26:25):
sense or will we just be switching one inefficient method
for ultimately another one. That's that's one question. There's another
one though, that's even bigger. All right, how do we
build the infrastructure to support hydrogen powered vehicles?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yes, this is a This is one of the problems
that organizations like Better Place, which is a car manufacturer,
or not car manufacturer. They are a systems manufacturer that's
trying to work out a way to make electric vehicles possible.
And they basically have been adapting vehicles to run on
(27:04):
as plug ins, which is all well and good, but
say what happens if you haven't had a chance to
get your car charged up, you know, and you are
running out of electricity. We're talking about the possibility of
stations where you could go and swap out your battery
for another you know, our battery array for another one.
(27:24):
And you know, that would be a convenient thing if
that already existed. But it's the same thing any kind
of alternative fuel to what we've got now, whether it's
you know, needing more hydrogen for your fuel cell powered
vehicle or requiring more batteries for an electric vehicle. There
just simply aren't, you know, power stations on every corner
(27:48):
like there are with gasoline vehicles. You're going to have
to either strike deals with those companies to do that
or start your own. That new one really expensive.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
We're talking billions and billions of dollars, or as Carl
Sagan would have you, billions and billions of dollars.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
You really need to jacket with the patches in the al.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Those for Yeah, it's a little too warm for that.
At any rate, Yeah, it costs. It's going to cost
a lot of money to build out that infrastructure, everything
from the actual facilities where they sell the hydrogen, to
all the vehicles that are going to be necessary to
transport the hydrogen, to the facilities that are there to
generate the hydrogen. It's not a small task. And the
(28:32):
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative just founded back in two thousand and three,
when was it lost it is it's working to try
and find a way of making fuel cell vehicles practical
and cost effective by twenty twenty. I think that's incredibly ambitious,
especially when you consider that their budget is pretty low
(28:54):
in the grand scheme of things, now, it would be
great if we could switch to a hydrogen based transportation system,
because then you're looking at you no longer dependent upon
on oil, and because so much of our oil comes
from foreign nations that may or may not have very
friendly relationships with us, it means that we're no longer
(29:15):
pouring money into governments or into countries that we may
think ultimately could use that money to do things that
are not within our country's best interests. Right, that's a
good way of putting it. I'm trying to like dance
lightly around the whole thing. But hydrogen we could produce
right here at home if we found an efficient way
(29:36):
of doing it, so it didn't, you know, so it
no longer costs more to create the fuel than the
fuel itself would would benefit us. Right, So that's how
fuel cells work. That's kind of the whole detail. Did
you have anything else to add before I go into No.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I mean, there's there's a lot more to it in
terms of the depth of the reaction and how all
of that works.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
But no, I think we did pretty good job of
hitting the high points of it.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah. Yeah, And it is a huge challenge, and we
may be one that we overcome. It's a little early
to say, but before we get there, I'm afraid we're
gonna have to answer a little listener mail. This listener
mail comes from Megan from Boston, Massachusetts, and Megan says,
(30:23):
I love the podcast, keep them coming. Could you please
dedicate one podcast to Internet Protocol Version six. I don't
fully understand why IPv four is running out of addresses
and how the switch to IPv six will be implemented.
I think that would make a great and informative podcast,
and I'm sure there are other listeners interested in this topic.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, it's not really a big enough topic to do
a full podcast on necessarily, but we can give you
a real quick rundown on what the issue is.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, the issue is basically your IP enabled cell phone,
and your laptop and your you know, and your tablet
and your three desktop computers, and your roommates gear, and
the people downstairs and everyone else in the building and
(31:10):
everyone else in the city and the county and the
state and the country and the world.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
There's a lot a lot of.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Devices that everyone has now that use their own individual
IP address, And as as robust as IPv four was,
it just is going to run out of addresses with
all these new devices coming onto the network and not
retiring enough of them to make room.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah. See, IPv four is a thirty two bit address system. Yes,
and that when you translate thirty two bit into actual
integers and most you would have four billion, two hundred
ninety four million, nine hundred and sixty seven two and
ninety six addresses. Once those addresses are gone, that's that's it.
If you're on an IP four system, you cannot add
(31:56):
any more devices to the Internet because each device has
to have its own unique IP address. That's the way
the Internet works. If you don't have your own unique address,
you cannot send and receive information because the information wouldn't
know where to go.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yep, so I was going to say too, sorry to interruption,
Go ahead. That one nice thing about the switch is
that it's they coexist.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah. Yeah. The IPv six uses one hundred and twenty
eight bit addresses as opposed to thirty two bit, which
gives you about three point four Okay, take a three,
put a four behind it, then behind the four, put
thirty eight zeros. Okay, that's how many addresses, So many
that we would not run out in the foreseeable future.
(32:41):
It would take everyone having everything they own be Internet connected,
and even then we still would have plenty of addresses
left over. So and yes, like you said, the two
systems can coincide. The issue about implementation is that that's
a an organization by organization process. It's not like there's
going to flip a switch and everything switches from IP
(33:03):
four to IP six.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And there's as far as I know, no official timetable
for migration, so people are sort of taking their time
to do that, although some people have already gone ahead
and upgraded their systems to run on IPv six. So
and I think pretty much all the mainstream operating systems,
you know, Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Will accept either.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, so's it's not really an issue of having the
infrastructure in place.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
It's just a matter of you know, doing it.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, getting off your button, switching over and what I'm saying,
getting off your butt. I mean that as the organizations
that are all running these servers that are the kind
of the backbone of the Internet, and so we're kind
of at their mercy whenever they get around to switching
it over. And some organizations don't prioritize it very highly,
(33:52):
so it may be a while before everyone's over to
IP six. Now, whether we get to the point where
we run out of addresses before we before that happened,
that remains to be seen. That wraps up that look
back at How Fuel Sales Work, which originally published June
twenty first, twenty ten. Fascinating topic. I've covered it a
(34:12):
few times, actually talked about it in a different podcast
as well as I think I've covered it a few
times on tech Stuff. I wrote about it for How
Stuff Works back when I was still a writer for
that website and talked about it on camera a few times.
I think it's a really cool technology, one that is
incredibly useful for certain applications. I am still a little
(34:37):
skeptical about it taking a prominent place in vehicles, simply
because building out the hydrogen fuel infrastructure would require an
awful big investment. And I mean, there are certain dangers
with hydrogen that we would need to address, Like hydrogen
is hydrogen gas is incredibly flammable, so you definitely want
(35:02):
to make certain that whatever strategy you use is safe
and reliable. So also there's the whole thing about getting
hydrogen in the first place. I mean Hydrogen is the
most plentiful element in the universe, but it's almost always
bonded to something else, So you got to spend energy
in order to get hold of it. And if, however
(35:23):
you're doing that is taking up more energy than what
you're getting out, then it's a losing proposition, but still
pretty fascinating. I think regular, old electric vehicles are probably
going to dominate. Fuel cells might still have a place
in the fleet, but I don't think it's going to
be the dominant way that we provide power to our vehicles.
(35:47):
I hope you enjoyed this classic episode of tech Stuff.
I hope you are all well, and I will talk
to you again really soon. Tex Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(36:07):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and I love all
things tech. Tech Stuff is several years old now. It
launched in two thousand and eight, so we've been around
(00:26):
longer than some tech has. And one of the early
episodes we did was way back on June twenty first,
twenty ten. How fuel cells work. This is one of
those technologies that people often turn to and they look
at that as a possible move forward to get away
(00:47):
from carbon emissions with vehicles in particular, and fuel cells
could do that if we met some other very tough challenge,
and so I thought it would be fun to listen
to this classic episode. This is from the Crispalette era
(01:07):
of tech Stuff. How fuel cells work. Enjoy. Now let's
tackle our subject, which is how fuel cells work.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Fuel cells the mystery, uh energy problem, savor of the future,
or sort of.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
We would we would hope anyway. Uh yeah, fuel cells
are this Uh well, it's it's kind of like a battery.
You know. Let's let's go ahead and kind of define
what it does. It's an electro chemical energy conversion device.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yes, Actually, that's that's sort of what I meant about mystery,
because everybody talks about how cool they are, but nobody
really knows exactly what they do. But they convert chemicals
into electricity.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's like a battery.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, No, it is very much like a battery. Others.
There are some differences, which we'll get into, but in
general a fuel cell. What most people tend to know
about fuel cells is one they create electricity and to
their byproducts are heat and water. Yes, it tends to
be what most people know about apart from the people
who specifically work in the fuel cell industry. Clearly they
(02:11):
know a lot more than that.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, of course, we always see that mainstream media, you know,
reporter going out to the back of the fuel cell
vehicle and putting a cup underneath the tailpipe and drinking
the water, right, Yeah, and I think that sticks with us.
That's why we don't know that much more about it,
because we go, huh, that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, because you think about that, you're like, well, if
we have this energy source that can create electricity and
the only byproduct really is heat and water, and you know,
water's not toxic. It's not like water is going to
be throwing out greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or polluting
in some other way. Why don't we have more of these?
(02:50):
And really, the answer to that question is that the
technology is not sophisticated enough and reliable enough, and most importantly, really,
when you get down to it, cheap enough to do
on a widespread basis to allow us to switch to
a fuel cell economy. So let's let's kind of talk
about what how a fuel cell works, what it does,
where it came from. First of all, well, let's talk
(03:12):
about Sir William Grove. Okay, Now, Sir William Grove, he's
the fellow who kind of invented fuel cells, if you will.
All right, he knew this was back in eighteen thirty nine.
By the way, he knew that if you took some
water and you ran an electric current through the water,
it would produce hydrogen and oxygen.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Right, So splitting the molecules of water apart, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
It's called electrolysis. And actually this tends to happen with
various molecules. If you add enough energy to the molecule,
it tends to break the molecular bonds and it will
eventually break apart into its individual elements. Most molecules will
do this if you pour in enough energy. That's going
to be another important point later on. So Grove he theorized, well,
(03:59):
if you if you add electricity to water and you
get hydrogen and oxygen, if you then combined hydrogen and oxygen,
you should get water and electricity, you know, because you
know it should be the same coming out as it
is going in, right, that makes sense, So if you're yeah,
so he's like, well, how he ran some experiments and
(04:20):
he created what he called a gas voltaic battery, okay,
and in this gas voltaic battery, he then combined hydrogen
and oxygen and he realized that he got water and
he got free electrons, which you know, if you direct
free electrons through a path, that's electricity.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So there was a sign, a little sign on the
side of the said electrons free.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. There was a protest held out of
the cell. Fifty years later, you get a Ludwig Mond
and Charles Langer, and they're the ones who coined the
term fuel cell. Those are the guys who actually found
a fairly practical way to do this. That was easy repeatable,
(05:00):
so you could you could repeat the experiment improve. Yes,
something is happening here, because, of course we know in science,
just because you get a result doesn't necessarily mean that
you have proven your hypothesis correct. You need to have
a repeatable experiment that can be done by anyone who
has the facility to do it at any rate to
prove that that something really is going on. Yes, So
(05:23):
that's where we get into the fuel cells. And unlike battery,
like a battery is a self contained chemical reaction, and
it can and yeah, it's a chemical reaction. It can
very good.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, well, I mean nothing's going in, nothing's going out
except electrons.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Right, yeah. Yeah, the battery has chemicals inside it that
react together. The reaction produces electrons, and that is where
we get, you know, our little electric power from a battery. Yes,
fuel cells are a little different. You can pour fuel
into a fuel cell, thus the name, and it will
(06:01):
convert that fuel into the water and the electricity. So
as long as you have a supply of hydrogen and
a supply of oxygen going into the fuel cell, and
as long as the membrane of the fuel cell and
the other components remain remain viable, and we'll get into
that in a little bit. Uh, it should continue to
produce electricity. It's not gonna it's not like it'll die
(06:23):
after all the hydrogen runs out. If you add more
hydrogen and more oxygen, it should continue.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
To work, right.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Okay, so we've covered the basics there. Let's let's talk.
I'm gonna shift my notes around. I actually have paper
notes today. Wow, I usually don't do this. Let's talk
about the various components within a fuel cell.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Okay, we can do that, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
We've got the anode. Yes, Uh, the anode. It that's
the that's the negative post, not meaning that.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I know.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I was trying to try to listeners. I apologize.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I was not to finish.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I mean, we all suffered for that. Besides Chris, No, no, no, no,
it's good. So that's what's conducting the electrons and that
get freed from the hydrogen. So the anodes on one end.
On the other end is the cathode. Yes, it's the
positive post. So that's where the hydrogen. This is what's
(07:20):
conducting the electrons back from the external circuit. So I'm sorry.
We've got the anode. That's where when the electrons come
out from the reaction, electrons go to the anode, go
into a circuit. So whatever electric motor or a light
bulb or whatever, Right, the electrons continue their path once
they go through that circuit to the cathode. Then we've
got the electrolyte in the center. This is a usually
(07:44):
approach a proton exchange membrane. Thing of the membrane is
kind of like a force field. Now this force field will, yeah,
the force field will allow positively charged ions to pass through,
but will pell negatively charged particles. So electrons have a
(08:04):
negative charge. Yes, they cannot pass through the membrane. If
they could pass through the membrane, fuel cells would not work.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
It is the bouncer of the fuel cell.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yes, you may not come in, but we're not cool
enough because you are negative.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Exactly, but the close enough. So the so the high
hydrogen are the the hydrogen ions are positively charged because
they have given up an electron. Right all right, So
now essentially what you have a hydrogen ion is essentially
a proton. So you've got a proton. Protons are positively charged.
You've got this positively charged element there. It can pass
(08:38):
through the membrane. Now, why would it pass through the membrane.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
To get to the other side.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
But what's on the other side oxygen. Oh, and oxygen
has a negative charge. It so attracted exactly, the proton
is attracted across the membrane to the negatively charged oxygen.
If there were negative charge, that of the proton would
not necessarily migrate through the membrane. So when it migrates
(09:08):
to the membrane, it then combines with the oxygen and
you get the two hydrogens, the one oxygen together and
then the electron that had passed through the circuit. Remember
it passed from the node through the circuit into the cathode.
On that end, the two hydrogen atoms the oxygen atom
have combined into a molecule. The electron joins that molecule,
(09:31):
and that's when you get water, right, So you don't
have any free electrons at the end of this process.
It all recombines on the cathode end, and that's where
you get the water. There's one other element that's important
with this, and that's the catalyst.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yes, and this is catalysts.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
What they do is they help reactions.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Right. Then the thing that makes it possible to react.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, otherwise you would have to pour even more energy
in in order for this to react, and it wouldn't
be viable at all. So it's a special material and
it it helps this reaction of oxygen and hydrogen. And
in most fuel cells that people talk about, tends to
be made out of platinum nanoparticles. So a nanoparticle, of
(10:11):
course is insanely tiny, like tinier than the microscopic scopic scale.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Right, but it is on a thin sheet of materials
with as much area as exposed as possible to facilitate
more reaction.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Right, So it's almost like you've spray painted a sheet
with platinum. And because you can imagine, that's pretty expensive.
Platinum is a precious that all. It's pretty rare. It's
hard to get your hands on it. Even when you're
talking about nanoparticles, which are really tiny. You're talking about
billions of nanoparticles. Yes, Like a nanoparticles is not going
to do much for you. So yeah, you definitely want
(10:47):
to maximize that surface area in order to allow the
reactions between hydrogen and oxygen to happen, or else your
your fuel cell doesn't do anything all right, So you're
pouring hydrogen in. You're you're pumping oxygen in. When I
say pouring, I really mean pumping, because you're probably pumping
hydrogen gas. You're pumping both into this fuel cell. They combine.
(11:10):
You get the electrons, you get the water. So why
don't we have lots and lots of fuel cells already
running all all of our power, all of our electronics.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
You've already hit on it that what was that? The
biggest one being the cost?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
That would be a huge one. Yeah, the platinum, that kind.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Of that's simply not it's simply not practical, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
You get down to it, you're like, well, a, in
an ideal world, we cost would not be would not
even be a consideration, right, we would just be talking
about the fact that this is clean energy that we
have and uh, and we could run our cars or
other devices, our homes, even powered plants, we could run
them on hydrogen and uh and then we we'd not
(11:56):
pollute and we'd have a nice clean energy source. But
it comes down to the fact that is an element.
It's not the only one either, of course.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah. The whole process of splitting the water into two pieces. Yeah,
well you know that's actually I guess should be the
source of hydrogen more than anything else.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, source of hydrogen is a huge, huge problem. Hydrogen
does not It's plentiful, but not in its elemental form
on Earth. It's usually combined with something else like oxygen
to make water. It's not like there's a hydrogen mine
we can go to and mine hydrogen, pure hydrogen and
use that when we can get hydrogen from stuff like
(12:37):
hydrocarbon fuels or even water, as we pointed out by
breaking down compounds, right, which takes energy. Right, So in
order to get this fuel cell fuel, you already have
to expend energy to create the fuel. So now you're
looking at a fuel like an energy deficit situation. Does
it take more energy to create the fuel than the
(12:59):
energy you will get by using that fuel to power
a fuel cell? And as long as it takes more
energy for you to create the fuel than it does
to actually power whatever it is you're going to power,
it doesn't make sense. We already have a fuel that
does this, by the way, gasoline. Yes, gasoline. Actually it
actually takes more energy to create a gallon of gas
(13:20):
than a gallon of gas can create through putting it
through a motor or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, because gasoline is a pretty inefficient fuel. Yeah, it
turns out, especially compared to a fuel cell. And you
have to again look at the entire life cycle.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You're not just looking at oh, well, how much how
much energy did it take to ship the gasoline from
the refinery to the to the gas station. It's also
how much energy did the refinery have to expend in
order to produce that gasoline? How much energy had to
be expended to to get the oil out of the
ground to eventually become what would what would eventually become gasoline? Right,
(13:58):
It's really a big picture thing, and that's that's the
real problem with a lot of these energy issues, is
that once you start looking at the big picture, you
begin to realize, oh, this is this is a much
more difficult problem than I originally imagined. We'll be back
with more in just a moment to talk more about
fuel cells. Now, there are many different kinds of fuel cells.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, I thought I.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Thought we were getting ready to hit that because the
one that we've been talking about, I guess, probably without
actually saying its name, is the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel
cell right, also sometimes.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Called the polymer exchange membrane fuel cell.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
But same day. Why yeah, the membrane in the exchange. Okay,
I got it.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yep, that's it. They're used in cars a lot, right, Yeah,
that's kind of the stuff we're looking at cars. See, Now,
some of these fuel cells work really well at a
certain temperature range, and outside that temperature range they don't
work very well at all. Now, the polymer exchange has
a couple of different issues that make it not the
most ideal method of a power generation within a car.
(15:09):
And one of those is that, well, I mean it's
heat range is okay, because it's it works best somewhere
around or one hundred and forty to one hundred and
seventy six degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, so you could.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
You would first have to heat your fuel cell up
to this temperature for it to be able to work properly.
So there is a warm up period. It's not like
it's going to work immediately as you get in your car.
One of the things about the polymer exchange membrane fuel
cell is that it has to have a hydrated membrane.
The membrane must remain hydrated, which means essentially wet. All right,
(15:45):
So if you live in Minnesota. You know, the winters
in Minnesota get really cold. And when you get really
cold and you got water, you know what happens.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
It freezes.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, it doesn't happen much here in it Lanta, but
up in Minnesota it could though. It could, Yes, if
the temperature fell far enough the water used to hydrate
that membrane, and remember the membrane is key to this,
to this exchange. If the water could freeze, that would
make the membrane extremely brittle and it could break, and
(16:19):
then you've got a broken fuel cell.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Right, So that seems problematic.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, that's a bit of an issue. And there are
other types of fuel cells. There's the solid oxide fuel cell.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Okay, this is this is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
This would not work well in the car.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
No, no, not at all, simply.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Simply because it requires so much more in the way
of temperature for it to operate.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, it operates best between seven hundred and one thousand degrees.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Syntegrade. Yes, that's a that's pretty warm.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, no, it's pretty pretty steamy.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
But but steam, now that you mentioned that seed that
it generates, you know, steam as a result, and that
can be used to create electricity as well.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, you can use the steam to generate to push turbines,
or you could even use the steam, well not just
or and you could use the steam to help heat
the facility. So let's say it's in the dead of winter,
the steam coming from this reaction could go back into
the heating unit to try and keep the plant warm,
(17:22):
so that you don't have to generate, you don't have
to burn as much energy to keep the plant running.
Right right now, they're not as efficient or it's not
cost effective yet. The cost effectiveness of the solid oxide
fuel cell that the target is four hundred dollars per
(17:43):
kilo WAT. Right now, it's about ten times that it's
that four thousand dollars per kilo WAT to run one
of these things. That's a problem.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, I'd also like to point out that the solid
oxide fuel cells have been in the news recently in
a pretty big fashion. As a matter of fact, I
believe we've talked about one on this podcast not too
long ago. The bloom Box, Oh, the bloombox, bloom Box
bloom Energies, Bloombox fuel cells are solid oxide fuel cells,
(18:15):
and I don't know that they run exactly the same
way as the information in our article about that on
our side at imagine using a slightly different process.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
They probably do, because the ones that we're talking about
are mainly the solid oxide tends to often be used
come in the form of coal. Yeah, so you actually
have coal running a fuel cell, which you know, you
first sit there and think like, WHOA, that's weird. I
thought we were trying to get away from fossil fuels.
Not necessarily. In some cases, we may have to use
fossil fuels to create the hydrogen or whatever the compound
(18:46):
is that we're going to use in the fuel cell,
because hydrogen is not the only one, it's just the
most popular one. But we may have to use fossil
fuels in that process to generate the fuel we need
to run to make the fuel cells go. There are
other types as well. There's the alkaline fuel cell. That's
the kind that we're that they that the Space Race
used quite a bit back in the sixties. Yeah, not
(19:09):
really use that much anymore. It's not it's not as
it's really expensive, it's not as reliable as some of
the other technologies.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Plus it requires pure hydrogen and oxygen.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, pure hydrogen and oxygen is hard to get your
hands on, or at least the pure hydrogen is. There
are fuel cells that can use hydrogen that's not one
hundred percent pure, but that also tends to take its
toll on the membrane. So again, the membrane is a
is a fairly delicate part of a fuel cell, and
if you damage that that membrane, then the fuel cell
(19:42):
is not going to work anymore. Also, I guess we
should also point out that a fuel cell, when we're
talking about a fuel cell, an individual fuel cell does
not generate that much power. It's when you have a
bunch of fuel cells working together that you can generate
enough electricity.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Essentially in an array.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, a fuel cell stack is usually what we call it,
being those of us in the field cell industry and journalists. Yeah,
so an indidvidual fuel cell is like think of it,
like we talked about cell processors. A cell processor is
just one part of a group of processors that all
work together, same sort of thing. Fuel cell is just
(20:21):
one little electricity generation device that works with several others
to create enough electricity to actually do something. But you
also have the molten carbonate fuel cell, the phosphoric acid
fuel cell, the direct methanol fuel cell. These are all variations.
They all basically do the same thing, but they're doing
(20:42):
it through different ways, and some of them have different
operating temperatures, different parameters. Some of them are more reliable
than others, but they require such a high operating temperature
that you wouldn't want to use in a car, Like
you don't want to use a solid oxide fuel cell
in a car because you would die. You would have
to have such sheets, some sort of protective material to
(21:02):
shield you from the heat that your car would weighe
so much that it wouldn't matter how much of the
electrocity you're generting, because it wouldn't move anywhere.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
It's gonna say, you'd have to use most of the
power for your air conditioning.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, yeah, either the air conditioning or just getting the
wheels to have enough torque to actually push that incredibly
heavy vehicle forward torque. Yum.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
So then we have the phosphoric acid fuel cell, and
you know those those are those a little smaller.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Yeah yeah, those aren't. Those aren't as huge.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
But they have such a long went warm up time.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah. So again, if you tried to if you used
a phosphoric acid jill cell in your car, you'd have
to start warming up your car an hour before you
were leaving, So that's.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Not really sort of impractical.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, and the direct methanol fuel cell, again we're talking
about it's not as efficient. It can use methanol, but
since since the energy output isn't as great, it's not
really seen as a viable fuel cell.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah. I've seen I've seen some methanol fuel cells out
and about. In fact, it when I went to the
CEES in two thousand and eight, I believe it was Toshiba,
if I'm not mistaken, had a methanol fuel cell powered
MP three player on display, which was pretty cool. You know,
it's not it's one of those things where you're like, really, seriously,
(22:21):
I have to pour methanol in this thing. But yeah,
I mean it's it was so small, you know, the
size of an MP three player that, you know, I
couldn't imagine it powering a building.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Or a car. It's much more tiny.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
But that's what they talk about when they talk about
the possibility of using fuel cells to power say, laptop
computers and things like that.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, yeah, personal electronic devices that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
It's still it still seems odd to me that you would,
you know, flip your laptop over and pour in some methanol,
and I guess it would probably be an external supply
of some sort.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
My MP three player has a drinking problem. I was
going to talk very briefly about about the efficiency of
a fuel cell. This is kind of a complicated topic,
but let's h fuel cell efficiency depends on a lot
of different factors. Let's say that you have a fuel
cell that runs on pure hydrogen, and somehow you have
(23:11):
a reliable source of pure hydrogen, so you don't, you know,
there's no problem with actually getting fuel for it.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
So eliminating that is an issue.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, assuming that a pure hydrogen fuel cell has the
potential to be up to eighty percent efficient and generating electricity,
so you're getting eighty percent of the energy generated by
the reaction to actually become electricity. However, now then you
have to put it through an electric motor. So we're
(23:41):
talking about this for cars. So electric motors are not
one hundred percent efficient. They don't they don't convert one
hundred percent of electricity into one hundred percent mechanical power.
You lose some in heat. Yes, So let's let's say
you've got a really good electric motor, and the electric
motor is also eighty p efficient. You're getting down to
(24:02):
about sixty four percent of your of the power that's
generated by the reactions within the fuel cell to actually
do work. So you've got sixty four percent efficiency. Now
that's amazing compared to a gas powered automobile, yes, which
has got about twenty percent exactly, Like like Chris said,
(24:22):
gasoline's just not that efficient at generating power. Then you
think about, all right, well, what about electric vehicles, like
you don't know, a Prius, Well.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
That's a that's a hybrid.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
That's true, you know, compared if you're talking about a
pure electric vehicle. I'm sorry, I should have said a
pure electric vehicle. So it's just running on an electric battery.
Electric batteries on their own can be really efficient, like
ninety percent efficient. When you get to the electric electric
motor part, it eventually comes down to about seventy two
percent efficiency. We got a little bit more to talk
(24:56):
about with fuel cells, and we'll do that when we
come back. Now here's where you have to go into
the big picture again. Okay, how was that electricity generated
that went into charging the battery.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
In a lot of cases, at least here in the
United States, we're talking about fossil fuels again.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, coal power or something like that. Yes, So once
you factor into the coal power that was needed to
generate the electricity that initially charged that battery, you start
seeing the efficiencies drop. Now, if we assume that the
electricity was generated through some sort of renewable source, like
let's say a hydro electric facility, so no fossil fuels
(25:40):
went into producing this. Even then when you're looking at
the efficiencies, it goes to around it's in the mid
sixty percent, so sixty five percent, sixty six percent something
like that efficiency. So it's just a little bit more
efficient than a hydrogen car that's running on pure hydrogen.
And again, if we look at that with the electric battery,
we kind of had to look at it with the
(26:02):
hydrogen as well, like where did we get how did
we get that pure hydrogen? Once you factor that, and
this is why it gets so complicated, you're like, well,
in the big picture, does it make sense to move
to hydrogen? So we first have to answer that question,
does it make sense to move to a hydrogen based
fleet of automobiles. Will that, from an energy standpoint make
(26:25):
sense or will we just be switching one inefficient method
for ultimately another one. That's that's one question. There's another
one though, that's even bigger. All right, how do we
build the infrastructure to support hydrogen powered vehicles?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yes, this is a This is one of the problems
that organizations like Better Place, which is a car manufacturer,
or not car manufacturer. They are a systems manufacturer that's
trying to work out a way to make electric vehicles possible.
And they basically have been adapting vehicles to run on
(27:04):
as plug ins, which is all well and good, but
say what happens if you haven't had a chance to
get your car charged up, you know, and you are
running out of electricity. We're talking about the possibility of
stations where you could go and swap out your battery
for another you know, our battery array for another one.
(27:24):
And you know, that would be a convenient thing if
that already existed. But it's the same thing any kind
of alternative fuel to what we've got now, whether it's
you know, needing more hydrogen for your fuel cell powered
vehicle or requiring more batteries for an electric vehicle. There
just simply aren't, you know, power stations on every corner
(27:48):
like there are with gasoline vehicles. You're going to have
to either strike deals with those companies to do that
or start your own. That new one really expensive.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
We're talking billions and billions of dollars, or as Carl
Sagan would have you, billions and billions of dollars.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
You really need to jacket with the patches in the al.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Those for Yeah, it's a little too warm for that.
At any rate, Yeah, it costs. It's going to cost
a lot of money to build out that infrastructure, everything
from the actual facilities where they sell the hydrogen, to
all the vehicles that are going to be necessary to
transport the hydrogen, to the facilities that are there to
generate the hydrogen. It's not a small task. And the
(28:32):
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative just founded back in two thousand and three,
when was it lost it is it's working to try
and find a way of making fuel cell vehicles practical
and cost effective by twenty twenty. I think that's incredibly ambitious,
especially when you consider that their budget is pretty low
(28:54):
in the grand scheme of things, now, it would be
great if we could switch to a hydrogen based transportation system,
because then you're looking at you no longer dependent upon
on oil, and because so much of our oil comes
from foreign nations that may or may not have very
friendly relationships with us, it means that we're no longer
(29:15):
pouring money into governments or into countries that we may
think ultimately could use that money to do things that
are not within our country's best interests. Right, that's a
good way of putting it. I'm trying to like dance
lightly around the whole thing. But hydrogen we could produce
right here at home if we found an efficient way
(29:36):
of doing it, so it didn't, you know, so it
no longer costs more to create the fuel than the
fuel itself would would benefit us. Right, So that's how
fuel cells work. That's kind of the whole detail. Did
you have anything else to add before I go into No.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I mean, there's there's a lot more to it in
terms of the depth of the reaction and how all
of that works.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
But no, I think we did pretty good job of
hitting the high points of it.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah. Yeah, And it is a huge challenge, and we
may be one that we overcome. It's a little early
to say, but before we get there, I'm afraid we're
gonna have to answer a little listener mail. This listener
mail comes from Megan from Boston, Massachusetts, and Megan says,
(30:23):
I love the podcast, keep them coming. Could you please
dedicate one podcast to Internet Protocol Version six. I don't
fully understand why IPv four is running out of addresses
and how the switch to IPv six will be implemented.
I think that would make a great and informative podcast,
and I'm sure there are other listeners interested in this topic.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Well, it's not really a big enough topic to do
a full podcast on necessarily, but we can give you
a real quick rundown on what the issue is.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, the issue is basically your IP enabled cell phone,
and your laptop and your you know, and your tablet
and your three desktop computers, and your roommates gear, and
the people downstairs and everyone else in the building and
(31:10):
everyone else in the city and the county and the
state and the country and the world.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
There's a lot a lot of.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Devices that everyone has now that use their own individual
IP address, And as as robust as IPv four was,
it just is going to run out of addresses with
all these new devices coming onto the network and not
retiring enough of them to make room.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah. See, IPv four is a thirty two bit address system. Yes,
and that when you translate thirty two bit into actual
integers and most you would have four billion, two hundred
ninety four million, nine hundred and sixty seven two and
ninety six addresses. Once those addresses are gone, that's that's it.
If you're on an IP four system, you cannot add
(31:56):
any more devices to the Internet because each device has
to have its own unique IP address. That's the way
the Internet works. If you don't have your own unique address,
you cannot send and receive information because the information wouldn't
know where to go.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yep, so I was going to say too, sorry to interruption,
Go ahead. That one nice thing about the switch is
that it's they coexist.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah. Yeah. The IPv six uses one hundred and twenty
eight bit addresses as opposed to thirty two bit, which
gives you about three point four Okay, take a three,
put a four behind it, then behind the four, put
thirty eight zeros. Okay, that's how many addresses, So many
that we would not run out in the foreseeable future.
(32:41):
It would take everyone having everything they own be Internet connected,
and even then we still would have plenty of addresses
left over. So and yes, like you said, the two
systems can coincide. The issue about implementation is that that's
a an organization by organization process. It's not like there's
going to flip a switch and everything switches from IP
(33:03):
four to IP six.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And there's as far as I know, no official timetable
for migration, so people are sort of taking their time
to do that, although some people have already gone ahead
and upgraded their systems to run on IPv six. So
and I think pretty much all the mainstream operating systems,
you know, Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Will accept either.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, so's it's not really an issue of having the
infrastructure in place.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
It's just a matter of you know, doing it.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, getting off your button, switching over and what I'm saying,
getting off your butt. I mean that as the organizations
that are all running these servers that are the kind
of the backbone of the Internet, and so we're kind
of at their mercy whenever they get around to switching
it over. And some organizations don't prioritize it very highly,
(33:52):
so it may be a while before everyone's over to
IP six. Now, whether we get to the point where
we run out of addresses before we before that happened,
that remains to be seen. That wraps up that look
back at How Fuel Sales Work, which originally published June
twenty first, twenty ten. Fascinating topic. I've covered it a
(34:12):
few times, actually talked about it in a different podcast
as well as I think I've covered it a few
times on tech Stuff. I wrote about it for How
Stuff Works back when I was still a writer for
that website and talked about it on camera a few times.
I think it's a really cool technology, one that is
incredibly useful for certain applications. I am still a little
(34:37):
skeptical about it taking a prominent place in vehicles, simply
because building out the hydrogen fuel infrastructure would require an
awful big investment. And I mean, there are certain dangers
with hydrogen that we would need to address, Like hydrogen
is hydrogen gas is incredibly flammable, so you definitely want
(35:02):
to make certain that whatever strategy you use is safe
and reliable. So also there's the whole thing about getting
hydrogen in the first place. I mean Hydrogen is the
most plentiful element in the universe, but it's almost always
bonded to something else, So you got to spend energy
in order to get hold of it. And if, however
(35:23):
you're doing that is taking up more energy than what
you're getting out, then it's a losing proposition, but still
pretty fascinating. I think regular, old electric vehicles are probably
going to dominate. Fuel cells might still have a place
in the fleet, but I don't think it's going to
be the dominant way that we provide power to our vehicles.
(35:47):
I hope you enjoyed this classic episode of tech Stuff.
I hope you are all well, and I will talk
to you again really soon. Tex Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(36:07):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
TechStuff News
Host
Jonathan Strickland
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