Fuel Cells Corrections

I recently wrote about our son's work on fuel cells.  http://www.shenandoahgatewayfarm.blogspot.com/2014/07/fuel-cells.html   I am not an expert and made a few errors that I will attempt to correct.
    
It seems you CAN buy fuel cell generators for your home....in Japan.  They have a system of delivering hydrogen that you can use for "feeding" the fuel cells.  Hydrogen is a by-product of petroleum.  You can have something that removes hydrogen from the water, etc. for your home.  But that takes energy and then you are using energy to make energy and there we are.

Travis is working on improving the energy efficiency of fuel cells for his PhD.  Every time I write about his work I can count on making some errors.  This is due to my lack of complete knowledge of fuel cells.  A lack I have no intention of correcting.  I don't want a PhD in, well, ANYTHING.

So this time I won't forward a link to Travis to correct my errors in this correction.  Chances are he won't ever see this post and we can move on to something else.   I have three recipes I am waiting to post.

On the other hand, Travis is a great chef and he may find cooking errors.  So I won't be forwarding ANY thing I write.  He is too smart and he lets me know when I am in error.  In fact, when he was working for Lockheed Martin on NASA things (Space Shuttle fuel tank, Mars lander) he had the nerve to point out that he IS a rocket scientist.
 

Travis and his wife Vanessa, also brilliant.

But where does he think he gets his mighty brain.  ME!  That's where.  Yeah, yeah, Lee helped.  But STILL.

Fuel Cells

I'm now an expert in Fuel Cells.  No, seriously.

I just returned from visiting my mother in southern California.  While there, I decided to take a quick trip to northern California and visit my son, daughter-in-law and my sister. 

 

Travis is getting his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at U C Davis.  His emphasis is fuel cells.

 

When you get a PhD, you don't go out and invent the wheel.  You take a tiny portion of the wheel and make THAT better, or explore that tiny portion of history, etc.  So, Travis is taking existing fuel cells and making them a bit more efficient.  If lots of people do that, we soon will have dilithium crystals to power the warp drive to other solar systems.  Until we are in the Roddenberry/Star Trek world of the future, we have TRAVIS to solve the power needs of the world.

 

He took me to his lab. 

 

There are huge, pricey machines used to cut and design parts for things we don't know anything about. 

 

Your tax dollars, and corporate funding, at work. 

 
They buy blocks of steel and turn them into useful bits. 




 


Travis is taking existing fuel cells and making the grooves in them a different shape and depth to increase surface area and make them more efficient. 

 

The goal being to have a energy module in each house that is chock-o-block with many fuel cells.

 

  Eventually the unit will be the size of your water heater.  Hydrogen and oxygen is pumped in and it converts to electricity from the carbon(?) strip on the fuel cell. 

 


Any emissions are water, or maybe air.  I think.  You run all the appliances, lights and other energy users from this unit.

Do not run out to your local hardware store.  Not currently available.

Do not hold me to this explanation.  I think it is like going to a tribe in the deepest jungles of South America and telling them how to use a computer and how they work.  I am the Korowai in this explanation. ( "Yeah, that makes sense.  Sure, I understand.  Wha???")

Regardless of my lack of complete understanding of his research, I am very proud of him and the work he is doing.   Who knew my smart, little boy would grow up to be a smart, tall man who will help with energy consumption and reduce the emissions from energy plants?

Of course, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, she said modestly.

Oh, and in his spare time he has volunteered with  a high school in New Orleans for their robotics program. 

 

Built a wooden boat. 

 

And recently he has worked with the National Science Foundation to assist with teaching math and science to local sixth graders and is now working with the administration of that program.