The Hydrogen Economy and Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

摘要

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy's (FE) National EnergyTechnology Laboratory (NETL), in partnership with private industries, is leading thedevelopment and demonstration of high efficiency solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and fuelcell/turbine hybrid power generation systems for near-term distributed generation (DG)markets with emphasis on premium power and high reliability. The President of the U.S. haslaunched us into exploring a new hydrogen economy. The logic of a hydrogen economy iscompelling. The movement to a hydrogen economy would accomplish several strategic goals.The U.S. can use its own domestic resources – solar, wind, hydro, and coal. The U.S. uses 20percent of world's oil but has only 3 percent of resources. Also, the U.S. can reducegreenhouse gas emissions. Clear Skies and Climate Change programs aim to reduce carbondioxide (CO2), nitrous oxides (Nox), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. SOFCs have noemissions and hence figure significantly in these DOE strategies. In addition, DG systemswith SOFCs, reforming, and energy storage have significant benefit for enhanced securityand reliability. The use of fuel cells is expected to bring about the hydrogen economy.However, commercialization of fuel cells is expected to proceed first through portable andstationary applications. This logic says to develop SOFCs for a wide range of stationary andAPU applications, initially for conventional fuels, then switch to hydrogen. Like all fuel cells,the SOFC will operate even better on hydrogen than conventional fuels. The SOFC hybrid isa key part of the FutureGen plants. FutureGen is a major new Presidential initiative toproduce hydrogen from coal. The highly efficient SOFC hybrid plant will produce electricpower and other parts of the plant could produce hydrogen and sequester CO2. Thehydrogen produced can be used in fuel cell cars and for SOFC DG applications.