The above fact comes courtesy of a new announcement that HydroGen Corporation has started up a 400 kw hydrogen-powered phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) at ASHTA Chemicals in Ashtabula, Ohio. Essentially, this is a demonstration “small power plant” that uses by-product hydrogen from the ASHTA plant that is created in the production of chlor-alkali. The 400 kw plant is the first in a series of “Power Islands” that will output 6 MW-30MW from fuel cells. From the release,
“John Freeh, HydroGen’s CEO, stated: ‘The successful start up of the ASHTA demonstration plant is another significant operational milestone for HydroGen. With this start up, we have validated our capability to design, engineer, manufacture, and successfully commission a full scale fuel cell power plant at a representative potential customer site, in a key “hydrogen-available” market segment - the chlor-alkali industry. We believe that plant startup positions us for near term commercial uptake of our multi-megawatt PAFC plants for the chemical industry, while giving us an operating platform from which to improve further the design of our systems. We anticipate bringing prospective customers to the site as early as this week to observe fuel cell operations.’”
As a result of this technology, waste hydrogen is fed through the fuel cell and used to help power the chemical plant. Sounds like a great way to take advantage of a usually wasted resource to benefit an area of production.
via hydrogen cars and vehicles
One Comment
Wonderful news, considering renewable power generation (or at least use of otherwise wasted byproduct - hydrogen).
I still think, there is a very strong resistance out there, considering wider use of hydrogen. More than 10 years ago BMW has already had a perfectly working version of ‘class 7′, but obviously the time is still not right, yet. Maybe, because the profit margin made from oil at $120 is far too tempting and the influence of Oil Lobby far too strong.