Laser moderated solid-state hydrogen storage?

Let me know what you think about this:

Storing hydrogen in materials isn't new, I read about doing this with organic polymers over 10 years ago and fuel cells have had issues such as needing reverse pulses to clear deposits that build up.....however if we could pull into a gas station in our electric cars and swap discs/cells in minutes that would be great and if politicians don't find a way to screw it up to protect hidden interests maybe once the bugs are worked out this might be a way forward, we can hope and time will tell.

It's some pretty interesting tech'. It sounds like the politico's are already screwing around with it. "Disruptive" indeed.
I hope they make good on the promotional claims they're making. And I hope that it absolutely positively demands the development of multi-watt single mode diodes. Preferably somewhere around 488nm

That's really neat.

I know people tend to get excited about hydrogen as a power source, but it's really just a storage medium for power generated elsewhere. Hydrogen is not naturally present anywhere on Earth, although it is the product of various natural reactions, it generally has to be manufactured, regardless of how it is ultimately stored.

I think that hydrogen is really behind the times when it comes to energy storage anyway. While grifters were touting hydrogen as the answer to the world's energy crisis 15 years ago, there was a lot of real engineering development happening with lithium polymer batteries, which are what gives us the best storage at the moment. I'm sure we will find something better (which may involve hydrogen in some form) eventually (probably in less than ten years), but I don't have a lot of hope for any sort of hydrogen vehicle economy like the video seems to be envisioning. You can build a fuel cell at home from simple parts and household chemicals, and you can see how inefficient they generally are at large scales. You can also buy a nice one from a lab instrument company and you can see how they are still not really anywhere near a point where they can provide enough energy to drive a car without several serious drawbacks.

So hydrogen storage is sadly only a small part of the problem with hydrogen.

WizardG said:

It's some pretty interesting tech'. It sounds like the politico's are already screwing around with it. "Disruptive" indeed.
I hope they make good on the promotional claims they're making. And I hope that it absolutely positively demands the development of multi-watt single mode diodes. Preferably somewhere around 488nm

Click to expand...

Mass produced multi watt single modes would certainly be welcome, I keep looking out for some new holographic projector system to hit the market or a better LEP flashlight/searchlight because the laser in LEP headlights is focused to a very small spot on the phosphor, I expect the smaller the point the better the focused beam of light possible so higher output single mode lasers in the 450nm range could be useful.

bostjan said:

That's really neat.

I know people tend to get excited about hydrogen as a power source, but it's really just a storage medium for power generated elsewhere. Hydrogen is not naturally present anywhere on Earth, although it is the product of various natural reactions, it generally has to be manufactured, regardless of how it is ultimately stored.

I think that hydrogen is really behind the times when it comes to energy storage anyway. While grifters were touting hydrogen as the answer to the world's energy crisis 15 years ago, there was a lot of real engineering development happening with lithium polymer batteries, which are what gives us the best storage at the moment. I'm sure we will find something better (which may involve hydrogen in some form) eventually (probably in less than ten years), but I don't have a lot of hope for any sort of hydrogen vehicle economy like the video seems to be envisioning. You can build a fuel cell at home from simple parts and household chemicals, and you can see how inefficient they generally are at large scales. You can also buy a nice one from a lab instrument company and you can see how they are still not really anywhere near a point where they can provide enough energy to drive a car without several serious drawbacks.

So hydrogen storage is sadly only a small part of the problem with hydrogen.

Click to expand...

For automotive use we need something that can be refueled/recharged quickly or swapped out quickly, I could see where people would pay a deposit to Exxon or their favorite major gas station for their use of battery packs that are swapped out at the gas station and the fuel company would recharge and maintain the battery packs, the lifespan of the pack is a big factor in the cost, the hydrogen discs they said only can be reloaded 150 times, so do they hold as much at refill #100 as refill #2 ?

Same thing with batteries, the actual useful service life is only while they can hold and output most of the rated amp hours, so the cost will be less as the battery technology improves, also you don't want to deep discharge todays cells and they need to be as crash safe as possible, not that gasoline is super safe.

Some new ultra cap with a long service life that can be refilled quickly buy won't discharge too fast in a crash would be good, so that the battery stays with the car/truck.

I could see the hydrogen disc storage used in a tow behind fuel cell for long trips until electric car batteries can be recharged quickly.

I think the trouble is that, with our current expectations, a cassette of this material would weigh 300-400 lbs. I don't see anyone changing those out themselves or changing those out at a "gas station" in just a few minutes. It'd be a major undertaking.

Also, if deuterium poisons the cassette, then the idea of a no-end-user-cost rental of the storage medium is probably an unrealistic dream. The material in the cassette needs to be replaced every so often, the laser needs to be replaced every so often, etc., and those all have a cost, so you'd have to pass that on to consumers unless the gubment pays for everything (which is the same as passing the cost on to consumers, just through taxes and bureaucracy rather than directly).

I guess the hydrogen could be enriched so that heavier isotopes aren't present, but it'd be a rather expensive process to do so until there is another tech breakthrough to make that feasible.

But... maybe this could become pretty handy for stuff like cordless power tools, where a small cassette actually makes practical sense. That is, if the cost is low enough...

WizardG said:

It's some pretty interesting tech'. It sounds like the politico's are already screwing around with it. "Disruptive" indeed.
I hope they make good on the promotional claims they're making. And I hope that it absolutely positively demands the development of multi-watt single mode diodes. Preferably somewhere around 488nm

Click to expand...

this is going to be cool! hope some diodes end up somewhere on ebay. we have already seen 2w 488 multimode diodes, imagine multi watt single mode 488s!