The Tidal Irrigation and Electrical System » Challenges http://www.seavac.org renewable energy, carbon dioxide sink, biodiesel, and food from the ocean Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:00:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Welcome http://www.seavac.org/2008/04/welcome/ http://www.seavac.org/2008/04/welcome/#comments Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:14:30 +0000 Martin http://www.seavac.org/?p=31 Sharp is claiming to have achieved a new record in direct methanol fuel cell power output of .3W/cc. This is very good. The power consumption needs of all sort of devices can be met by that. The general loss of energy by using electricity to recharge a lithium-ion battery relative to the amount of methanol needed to power, say, a mobile phone is huge. Around 80% of the potential energy is lost due to heat by a lithium-ion recharge if you calculate from original source material i.e. a coal power station. Whereas methanol could be shipped as easily as alcohol losing maybe 10% of the potential energy in the fuel it takes to get it distributed.

It says in the press release that it was achieved by “microfabricating” the stack structure. These processes are notoriously difficult to “scale up”. There is little detail as to the cost of manufacture so we shall see. The Fuel Cells site has lots to say about methanol in fuel cells.

Methanol is a potential product of the Tidal Irrigation and Electrical System’s biomass. (see Algae/Marine Plants)

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