Comments on: While DOE Drops Hydrogen Budget DoD Gives $1.5 Million Contract

By: Kevin B

Kevin B — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:05:29 +0000

No inside information – the quote I gave you is from the Plug Power press release on the Fort Lewis DOE project – this is public information directly related to the article you linked to. Plug will provide fuel cells, GTI will provide the SMR, Air Products will compress and store the hydrogen.

I am aware of the canadian project you referenced, though I’m not aware of it being reproduced anywhere else. The SMR/biogas process is a mature commercial process.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:56:20 +0000

Thanks for the info, but I was asking for specific info about the article I had linked to thinking that perhaps you had some inside information. If you had followed the bottom link on my blog you’d know there is more than one way to generate hydrogen from waste treatment plants.

By: Kevin B

Kevin B — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:13:15 +0000

From the press release: “Gas Technology Institute (GTI): supply a hydrogen generation reformer and gas clean up system for digester gas ”

That, or you can just google Ft. Lewis and hydrogen from biogas. There’s tons of DOE stuff on it, project has been around for a while.

Anaerobic digesters build up “biogas”. Landfills too. They are all required to flare or capture the the gas, as it’s a pretty nasty GHG. This gas is pretty dirty stuff though – tons of toxins (for obvious reasons), and roughly 60% methane, 40% CO2. Lots of places are using the gas to power turbines. It’s classified as “renewable” energy, so counts against RPS requirements. Alternatively, you could clean it up (separate the toxins and CO2), and send the methane either to a pipeline (for whatever use) or to a reformer, to crack it into hydrogen and water.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:09:29 +0000

Will you provide a link to some supporting documentation that states exactly how the hydrogen will be produced at this particular facility?

By: Kevin B

Kevin B — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:38:01 +0000

My previous post seems to have not made it through, so I’ll resubmit:

A point of engineering:

This process is still steam reforming natural gas – it is not magic hydrogen. In this case the methane (natural gas) is cleaned (of toxins and CO2, which must be dealt with) and sent to a fuel cell to generate electricity. The alternative would be flaring, or sending the methane to be combusted to run a turbine to generate electricity.

The only difference is the source of the methane is from an anearobic digester and not a hole in the ground.