 Cella Energy CEO Stephen Voller exhibits his breakthrough technology – right shows the fuel’s hydrogen microbeads under a microscope |
UK-based Cella Energy has developed a synthetic fuel that could lead to US$1.50 per gallon gasoline. Apart from promising a future transportation fuel with a stable price regardless of oil prices, the fuel is hydrogen based and produces no carbon emissions when burned. The technology is based on complex hydrides, and has been developed over a four year top secret program at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford. Early indications are that the fuel can be used in existing internal combustion engined vehicles without engine modification.
According to Stephen Voller CEO at Cella Energy, the technology was developed using advanced materials science, taking high energy materials and encapsulating them using a nanostructuring technique called coaxial electrospraying.
Another company working on a fuel alternative… the more the merrier.
It is important to watch “green” movement response to this type of cutting edge science and technology (ex. recent bacteria driven CO2->hydrocarbons process,…). They show the true face: despite being carbon neutral – there is NO support. It is not about “saving the planet”. It is about control and “green” movement simply wants no energy usage. I would love to see them squirm if (impossible) perpetuum-mobile could be devised. Oh, would their minds explode.
Sounds good. Now we wait for the plane crash/rash of heart attacks that kills everyone involved. I’d stay away from these targets… I mean people.
This sounds like it’s probably bogus.
Read there information and come to your own conclusions.
Gasoline will never (again) be $1.50 a gallon.
Even if gasoline could be made for free there would still be taxes added, profit for oil companies, etc.
Can someone explain how a hydrocarbon fuel can be burned in an internal combustion engine without producing carbon emissions as a by-product?
My big question (aside from the $1.50 a gallon, no carbon emissions, can be used in current engines, and will make you more attractive to the opposite sex, et al.) is how much energy has to be consumed to create the energy encapsulated in the gallon of the superfuel.
If it is around 1 for 1 then great, full steam ahead. If, on the other hand, it takes 4 or 5 times the energy to convert the hydrogen to this superfuel, then you are not solving the problem. Using a lot of coal-fired electrical plants to power the refinery only shifts the carbon emissions away from the highway and onto the smokestack.
Sorry to put a damper on this but….
Government, particularly the UK government is greedy for income. Worse still, it has spent its projected income for the next 35-40 years particularly on something called the Private finance Iniative. Originally costed at borrowing £11-15 millions over 35 years, it would pay back its loan to the extent of 35-40 million over a 35 year pay-back time. By Christmas, 2010 the pay-back debt was revealed as now being a horrific £250 million (revealed by the Treasury estimates), such was the incompetence of the original contracting by officials. So governments need tax money. If the cost of this fuel was 1 cent per 100 gallons, tax would jack that up to maintain government income. Current tax, for example is over 80p per 127p cost per litre (NOT gallon note, a gallon being roughly 4.25 litres). As Ronald Reagon famously said, Governemtns are Not the solution, they are the problem. Government profligacy (not necessity)is the prime cause of your/all financial problems – unquestionably! Deficit on the Civil Service pension fund was, a year ago, £850 million. That is just two of the debts. Whatever the answer is, is sure ain’t science and it sure ain’t some other political movement, or a revolution. We need someone to die and leave us the farm.
Their press release sounds like it was created by an buzz-word generator. I’m calling shenanigans on this and am not holding my breath (but would love to be wrong).
I bet he’ll make a billion dollars (suckering old ladies out their pension fund).
If you are an investor, you see announcements like this all the time.
“Our product is about to revolutionize XXX market!” They sucker the gullible that want to get on the “next big thing”, only to see the company listed in the pink sheets 3 years later.
No indications of independent testing, no data to back up the claims, no demo of any kind of engine. Fancy words like “coaxial electrospraying”.
“the fuel is hydrogen based”… the biggest problem with Hydrogen is producing Hydrogen inexpensively. Big problem.
As PT Barnum said….
I guess inception didn’t work.
They are still going to dominate the energy market.
Lots of words about hydrogen storage. Nothing about how the hydrogen is produced. There’s the rub.
Here is how you get the hydrogen: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/04/30/inexpensive-catalyst-for-generating-hydrogen-from-water/
coaxial electrospinning or electrospraying
isn’t that just another way of saying centrifuge?
Sounds very exciting and encouraging that renewable energy research appears in full swing. In 15 years we will soon stop sucking on the saudi-bush cartel oil tit.
This article appears to be BS at its worst. The person that wrote the article appears to be totally clueless.
These people are selling a system for _storing Hydrogen_ in micro-spheres! Their product is a fuel source in the same way a _gas tank_ is a fuel source!
The problem with Hydrogen is no matter how you extract it, you will use way more energy to extract the hydrogen than you can get back out of the process by oxidizing it.
When I see a car going down the road running its engine on it. Then it will be a story. So far their is only a story.
#15–do-ill==define: clueless – without looking in the mirror. You do understand the whole field of alternative energy is using non-sequestered carbon as the “energy source” usually sunlight but variants thereof?
Hydrogen based on harvesting sunlight is “free energy” for analytic purposes in your equation. Storage/transport is a key issue in using hydrogen as an energy carrier.
You’ve got your “basic info” incorrect. Thats about as clueless as you can get and still post to mock others.
What a dolt.
The Issue:
Pure Hydrogen is made from water or whatever by electrolysis from some other external power source. This power source in turn requires the input of energy from somewhere else, whether it be solar energy, nuclear power, or green cheese. Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch in the energy business.
The catalyst may make electrolysis a bit less power hungry, but power will still be needed.
Roger Billings, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_E._Billings, built a hydrogen powered Cadillac Seville that was in President Carter’s inaugural parade in January 1977. He had built a hydrogen powered Beetle in 1971 and a hydrogen powered bus. He also broke down water via electrolysis and used this hydrogen as a heat source for a home.
Does anyone remember the conversion of a postal jeep to run on ammonia, NH₄ – no carbon, in the 1970s? I remember the public service announcement on weekday afterschool television. I heard that a Chinese concern was going to mass produce these.
Whats that smell?? Oh look the back end of a bull.
Using fossil fuels and releasing carbon stored over millions of years? Probably not a good thing.
Manufacturing and consuming hydrocarbon fuel without disturbing the carbon store? No F’ing worries.
The four word headline says it all “Safe Low-cost Hydrogen STORAGE” emphasis on the word STORAGE.
There is no source of hydrogen where the return energy is higher than the source. Therefore, the fuel they are producing will always cost more energy to produce than the energy it will create.
This is all about creating fuel from electricity, but since an electric motor is significantly more efficient than a gas powered motor, why would you want to do this?
The only good answer is AIRPLANES. There is no good design for electric airplanes. Batteries weigh too much, so carrying a lot of passengers in an electric powered airplane is out of the question. When liquid fuel gets scarce or very expensive, it will spell the end of the airplane industry. Creating hydrogen powered airplanes MAY make economic sense as a result, though solar powered blimps could make even more economic sense.
Call me when it goes to market.
‘Til then I’ll just keep filling up my tank with the garden hose and tossing a couple of magic tablets in.
Regular gas is also 1.50 a gallon in taxes.
Since no one has proven that the CO2 level in our atmosphere is the impetus to any climate change but it is a FACT that H20 in the atmosphere is at least a 1000 times more influential than CO2 in retaining heat, this would seem like a bad thing if it were true.
Luckily it is just a scam.
Drill baby drill!
Oh hum… Another scam promising free energy.
Another short-sighted researcher providing a solution to the wrong problem.
Proving that the average IQ is only 100 even when you’ve got a masters or two or even a doctorate. Half of thee guys are below the curve and so are their fuckin’ ideas.
Go to their site, click on “Technology”… about halfway down the page:
“Although ideal for our proof-of-concept work and potentially useful for the initial demonstrator projects it is not currently a viable commercial material: it is expensive to make and cannot be easily re-hydrided or chemically recycled.”
It would be so easy for me to give you the brains to figure this out.
… Nah.
Why is there a picture of Glenn Beck holding up a bottle valium?