From: S.J. Van Sickle (sjvan@csd.uwm.edu)
Date: Fri May 11 2001 - 07:41:56 MDT
On Fri, 11 May 2001 GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> > And why does fuel cell technology have to be distributed to each
> household?
> > Wouldn't it make more sense to have large, super-efficient plants on the
> > existing grid? I don't really think I want to have/deal with hydrogen
> tanks
> > around my house--on the other hand, we could take out a lot of heavily
> > polluting plants with this technology, and move toward improving the
> overall
> > efficiency of the grid.
<snip some good reasons from Greg>
Also, the efficiencies of fuels cells do not change significantly with
scale, transmission lines are a significant drain on efficiency, and local
installation makes the use of cell waste heat (for water and space
heating) more practical.
On the down side, it is probably only possible to sequester CO2 at large
central power stations, should this prove necessary for global warming
reasons. The jury is still out on that one...
steve
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