Alternative sources for energy is for sure a hot topic today and as energy prices continue to increase, it’s only getting hotter. So go ahead and look online and you’ll find a pretty much ending supply of articles and information products on the subject. However; there’s just one glaring problem.

That’s that almost without exception, they all focus on just two aspects of alternative sources for energy. Those being solar, and wind energy generation systems. How to design and build them. Where to buy them. Along with general information on them. Wind turbines, and solar panels in all their shapes, and forms.

So is that all there is to alternative sources for energy and “living green” off the grid? Simply hooking yourself up with a nice set of solar panels on your roof or a wind turbine up on a tower, and away you go? The answer to that is that for some folks is.

Now what about thinking “out of the box” though? What about challenging yourself to come up with new systems that can be put to use in your home because after all, if you stop and think about it, we really are only at the dawning age of alternative sources for energy.

What About Hydrogen Gas for Cooking and Heating Your Home?

Take hydrogen gas for instance because it really is some pretty amazing stuff. You can use it for cooking, just as you would with standard gas that you buy off the grid, and you can save it up for heating your home, or a hot water tank. Also best of all, you make it yourself out of ordinary water, and the kicker is it causes “zero pollution” when it’s burned.

Don’t forget that you can also power a generator or fuel cell with this gas too, so it’s easily converted right back to electricity that way. Still more is that because it’s only steam that comes out of the exhaust pipe there aren’t any noxious exhaust issues, so you can run a generator right in your home.

Hydrogen gas is made by splitting water molecules into their separate atoms. Water is composed of 2 hydrogen atoms that are bonded with 1 oxygen atom. So when hydrogen burns, it’s (oxidized) and the only exhaust that’s emitted is steam. You read that right. It’s converted right back into to water.

Furthermore, as alternative sources for energy go, hydrogen gas is one of the easiest to make. Now because it is a flammable gas, there is definitely a number of associated safety issues that need to be addressed but none the less you can make, contain, and burn some today if you want to “see it in action” for yourself.

Simply full a glass with water, add about 4 teaspoons of ordinary table salt, and then plug two wires connected to a 9 volt battery into it. Presto! One wire will begin giving off bubbles of hydrogen gas, and the other wire will be bubbling off oxygen.

To contain them, simply fill a test tube with water, insert it into the glass of water “up-side down” over the wires and as the bubbles drift up into the tube they’ll displace the water until it’s filled with hydrogen, and oxygen gas. Bring it out, touch a match to it, and, “poof”, it burns, and returns back to water.

So hydrogen gas is one more solution to the problem of storing power created by sources of alternative energy. You see, while you may have an abundance of electricity when the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing, just as soon as night falls, and the weather changes, things change.

Put Biodiesel Fuel on Your List of Alternative Sources for Energy

It’s a fact that right now in the area where you live there is a free supply of biodiesel fuel in the form of used cooking oil sitting in a tank behind every restaurant, and fast food business. Now if you live, say in a larger city, this available supply could definitely be substantial.

The deal is though that a lot of folks are catching on to this free supply of oil that can be converted biosiesel fuel to heat homes and power vehicles, but there is a catch. That is that dealing with old used cooking oil is an incredibly grimy task, so a lot of folks try using it, and then quit.

It’s just not something that you would do on the side on a lark. Rather, it takes planning and preparation but once you’ve equipped yourself with the proper means for gathering, transporting and processing used cooking oil into usable biodiesel fuel, you’re set.

Just imagine fueling your car or truck up from your own 500 gallon private tank of carbon friendly biodiesel fuel that cost you a fraction of the price of standard filling station fuel. Also wouldn’t it be nice to heat your home without having to worry about high heating oil costs?

Step one is to start in researching what it takes to clean, purify and blend used restaurant cooking oil into usable biodiesel fuel, by doing some some small batch experiments. Once that’s done and you have thorough understanding of the process, it’s on to step two.

That’s figuring out how to get your hands on a truck or trailer that’s equipped with a large tank and pump, so you can use it to gather and haul your base used oil with. After that’s done, then you can start in processing your product in, say 30 to 50 gallon lots for storage.

Now granted, as far as alternative sources for energy go, this one is messy and by the time you’re fully equipped to process and store biodiesel fuel in large quantities, your going to be out some start up capital as well. Also don’t forget that your vehicle, and heating system also have to be converted to use it.

Just the same though, this stuff can get you off the power grid by powering a diesel generator, it can heat your home, and it can also run your vehicle. So do the math and it’s not hard to see why so many people all over the planet are rolling up their sleeves, gathering this stuff up, and processing it.

When most people think of ways to store unused electricity that’s produced by solar panels, almost without exception the first thing that pops into their mind is batteries and the last thing they think of is hydrogen storage. The big downside with batteries though, is they tend to render the energy stored in them less cost effective.

Their problem is that batteries are expensive, and good batteries are even more costly. They also eventually wear out, and in the end they really do store a limited amount of power when it comes down to it. It just takes a heck of a lot of money to install a battery bank that will sustain a home.

Converting Electricity From Solar Panels to Hydrogen Storage


So then what about storing electricity in the form of hydrogen to power a hydrogen fuel cell? You see, making hydrogen gas from water using electricity is simple. In fact you can see the process in action yourself by simply inserting two wires into a glass of salt water then connecting the other ends of the wires to a 9 volt battery

Hydrogen gas can be burnt or ran though a fuel cell and it creates no pollution because it simply oxidizes right back to H2O. (Water)
Now if you think that hydrogen can only be stored as a gas, you are wrong. Hydrogen storage in gas form just presents too many problems, with the biggest one being that it’s highly explosive.

The second problem with hydrogen storage is that converting it to a liquid form is infeasible due to the extremely low temperature it must be chilled to. Also to store non liquified hydrogen gas it must be compressed upwards to 5,000 psi, and stored in heavily fortified containment vessels. 5,000 psi is a heck of a lot of pressure.

So now perhaps you already know the very latest developments in hydrogen fuel cell technology has the compressed gas contained in cylinders in vehicles. Small tanks that are about the size of a scuba diving tank, and even then a lot has gone into developing ways to protect them in the event of an accident.

So as simple, and easy as it is to convert electricity from solar panels to hydrogen gas, it really is only the problems of containing it in sufficient quantities that are holding people back from making use of this amazing crystal clean power source. However; there is a solution.

Storing Hydrogen in Chemical Form?

This solutions revolve around chemical storage technologies. That is reacting hydrogen to bond with other atoms to from solid, or liquid substances. Substances that can safely stored, and later be reversed reacted to release the hydrogen in gas form.

These options completely eliminate the need for high pressure storage vessels, and along with it so much of the risk that’s connected to converting and storing electricity from solar panels to hydrogen. Even so, producing, storing, and then reconverting virtually all of these substances does present yet another list of technological problems.

Metal hydrides are considered to be among the most sensible of these hydrogen storage solutions. Not only are they the most stable, but they contain a high amount of hydrogen by weight. However; along with high stability comes issues that revolve around getting metal hydrides to release the gas contained in them.

In short, they’re highly endothermic, and have to be cooked at temperatures up to 390º F in order for them break down into their separate components. A process that consumes some 3% of the stored energy in basically what amounts to high temperature pellet stoves.

Then there is are the problems that revolve around producing the actual pellets in a home electricity to hydrogen conversion system. You see, the only real option for the incremental introduction of metal hydrides into a sealed, high temperature furnace system is pellets.

So then there is the option of liquids such as ammonia. Ammonia is one nitrogen atom bonded with three hydrogen atoms, and is in fact relatively simple to produce. Another positive aspect of this liquid is that the only byproduct after a reversal reaction to release hydrogen, is nitrogen that can be 100% converted back to ammonia.

The process for making ammonia using hydrogen is quite simple. In short, they are both introduced into a pressurized heated reaction vessel in the presence of an iron catalyst. There’s no byproducts either, so basically hydrogen and nitrogen are introduced at one end of the system, and pure ammonia comes out at the other.

The bottom line is that batteries really are the heavy lead “ball and chain” around the neck of alternative energy systems for the home. The good news however; is that more advanced chemically based hydrogen storage systems are being developed, but practical application of them really is decades down the road.

Storing Energy From Solar Panels in the Future Future

In the not too distant future people who have solar panels on their homes will look back on battery energy storage systems as a dated, and inefficient technology of the past. Their homes will most likely have conversion systems that react, store then reverse react chemicals, using hydrogen to power fuel cells.