this kind of "new"s really suck. There are already in the market since 2years ago several hydrogen mobile phone chargers.

While I applaude their efforts, hydrogen production presently requires the use of traditional sources of energy. Every time you change one form of energy to another, you lose something. For example, a gasoline engine changes chemical energy into mechanical. An electric car that had to be plugged in and recharged, then, requires four energy conversions: chemical to mechanical to electrical to mechanical, and hence, is even less efficient. The hydrogen charger has the same problem. A regular charger would be chemical to mechanical to electrical. A hydrogen charger would be chemical to mechanical to electrical to chemical to electrical.

The real breakthrough would be if we could produce hydrogen in a self-sustaining reaction (such as in the movie "Chain Reaction" with Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman). Now THAT would be a revolutionary achievement!

true jellico, however, in the case with the electric cars it is pretty efficient anyway since you can produce energy in a plant in a lot of ways impossible in a car.

the phone charger will cost more than the phone. haha

It's actually a ball of chemicals which you are supposed to throw into a cup of water to produce hydrogen. Then you still need a fuel cell charger to complete the cycle. Could be useful in certain situation, but not very practical for the mass.

anyone realize it says Taiwan is a company "Taiwan is under pressure to develop new energy sources. Currently the company imports around 98-percent of its energy from other countries"

lol... love how the automated picture selector works... it searched a picture with green... almost...

no offence kermit

While you are correct about electric cars require more conversions. I need to impress upon you that electric cars are still more energy efficient than internal combustion.

An internal combustion engine is typically 20-35% efficient. Extremely large diesel engines used in ships have reached 50% efficiency!

A coal powerplant is at worst 40% and when everything is working right 65% efficient. Some powerplants boast 75%! Power transmission loss is 7.5%. Battery charging and discharging is 85% efficient. Electric motors and circuitry are highly efficient, and we'll assume 90%. 0.650*0.925*0.850*0.850*0.900 = 39.1%

With better technology, that could be increased; i.e. smartgrids, newer nuclear PPs. Fact remains, even as an emerging technology, electric cars have better efficiency than internal combustion.

Lastly, hydrogen currently is a dead end. Hydrogen today is produced from hydrocarbons which still releases the same amount of CO2. Also, the process is highly inefficient(33%). Fuel cells have come a long way and perform quite well but at a high cost. Problem is the fuel.

Why hasn't anyone invented human powered power plants. Rig up generators to exercise equipment and let people work out for free.

because these lazy fat people will only product enough electricity to illuminate the LCD screen to show how many calories they burned.

Well, if you take the red pill...

While my testicles would require extreme deviation from it's primary target, I think the lateral G's I am receiving should suffice.

Cool. Now we just need them to replace our laptop batteries and power our cars

read on arstechnica a week or so ago that it was easier to extract hydrogen from urine than water. just has to be fresh.

Well, at least it sounded cool.

I'm appalled of all the comments on TH these days...
Hydrogen will be a key energy source in the future, but like
all technologies it has to be improved.

Hyrodgen fuel cell = battery. Its NOT a fuel its an energy storage medium. You use energy to break up either water into hydrogen and oxygen, or you use it to decompose hydrocarbons(oil/gas) into hydrogen/co2, and then you recombine it with oxygen to make energy.

The hydrogen part is more or less a battery. A very inefficient battery, because we have NO efficient way to produce hydrogen.

The only way this iwll change is if we find a way to make hydrogen at 99% efficiency or somewhere around there. Then it can replace a battery.

You still have the problem however that hydrogen is dangerous to store/transport, and we have no infulstructure to speak of.

I thought the hydrogen they use was produced by electrolysis???

I found several sources that show Russia as being the pioneer in this area of technology.

If you search for "Russian Hydrogen Powered Charger" you will find sources that date back at least a month and I even found an article that goes back to 2006. It makes me wonder who is stealing what here or is there a collaboration going on.

I just wish random people on the internet would stop pretending they were experts and just shut the hell up. It is becoming such a huge problem these days. People can have difference of opinion on what we should do, but discussion is pointless if we can't even agree on the facts.
Electric cars are more gentle on the environment by pretty much any reasonable measure(CO2 emission fx.) than using a gasoline engine.
If you need to clean your conciseness by making stuff up, do it with your family like normal people.

Ideal source of hydrogen. However, this is the most energy intensive source of hydrogen and is not a reasonable option.




In a perfect world, he would be correct. However, the second law of thermo is a pain, and imperfect technology does not help.

Electric cars have a long way to go still. They cost as much as a house and that is not acceptable. They are the future though, that is for sure. The problem is the battery. Lithium Ion suck. Heavy, expensive, toxic, and flammable. The march of technology will move on though.

First of all, I agree that large generating plants, even those using coal, are FAR more efficient than the internal combustion engine which is one of the least efficient machines that we use.

That being said, our production of hydrogen is presently very inefficient. Electrolysis is very inefficient. Hydrogen is far easier to obtain from petroleum, but then it requires petroleum which we are trying to reduce.

Electric cars would be great, but as has been pointed out, they are phenomenally expensive, have a limited range, and electricity isn't exactly dirt cheap.

Everyone is holding their breath waiting for a major breakthrough in energy production technology (like fusion, or highly efficient extraction of hydrogen from sea water). But until that time comes, our best bet is to make greater use of nuclear power. Most of the countries in Europe are WAY ahead of us on nuclear power production. We have been hamstrung since the 1970s because of the 3 Mile Island incident and the movie "China Syndrome" which had a lot of people fearing the nuclear boogeyman. Fortunately, these memories are fading fast and nuclear power production is starting to be discussed seriously once again.

Oh and, Lejay, just because you don't like or don't understand something doesn't make it false. As bayouboy pointed out, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is in play everytime you convert energy from one form to another. And actually, the First Law of Thermodynamics is also a factor as you will no doubt observe that any device which changes energy from one form to another gives off heat. Hell, even the transmission lines that transporting electricity give off a fair amount of heat, meaning that you lose energy (and hence, efficiency) just moving the energy from one place to another.

Oh, and CO2 is NOT a pollutant in spite of the efforts of environmental zealots to classify it as such. Carbon is the primary building block of life. It is also a key components in most forms of energy. Plants consume is it large quantities. Increasing CO2 levels will eventually result in increased plant growth, primarily aerobic sea algea. Just something to think about.

Hmmm, you might not want to be in the same room as your iGrenade if Apple decides to adopt this technology for their chargers

so what's going to recharge the hydrogen? Why not just make a gas powered phone charger? That too wouldn't need to be plugged into an outlet