Comments on: Jetstream announces more utility-scale, zero-emissions hydrogen power plants

By: Max

Max — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:09:59 +0000

@Reid:

There is some sense to it, but it is weird in a way. They want to (probably) store the hydrogen to burn it when electricity is most expensive, plus they can react faster than nuclear or coal power plants. However, I don’t know how many solar/wind cells you need to make this effective (not to say cost-effective). You need to have made enough hydrogen over the day to power the plant either through the night or to power it all time. So, I doubt this is really viable.

Also, no company in the right sense of mind starts a construction project for a power plant without a contract to sell! I mean the length of the contract to sell defines the costs of the power plant usually. (If you want to amortise your project in 15 years, you need a contract of at least 15 years or more). As Giberson sais, this is highly dubious and probably a PR-project.

By: Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:25:17 +0000

Mikey, was there local news coverage of the groundbreaking? I’ve looked online and didn’t see anything, but maybe something is out there beyond the reaches of Google news. The more I read about the company, the more is seems like a scam. No doubt the technology could work, but it would just be so expensive as to be a waste of resources.

By: Mikey Sklar

Mikey Sklar — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:00:52 +0000

Glad to see this commentary about Jetstream. I live off-grid about 30 miles from the spaceport. Last week as all the press releases were flying about I took a look and thought “Hydrogen…no market for it, hard to store, extremely inefficient to separate, and our green energy in NM is worth the same as coal.

PNM is supplies power to major cities in NM (Santa Fe, ABQ, Las Cruces). However, most of the outlying areas are using Coops like Kit Carson or Sierra Coop. Jetstream would need to sell power back through Sierra Coop based on the spaceports location and where they claim to be setting up. Sierra Coop buys back at $0.03 a kwh and sell it to the customers at $0.13 a kwh. It means that you always loose money with a grid-tie situation since they pay PV Solar and Wind customers the same that they pay for coal. Kit Carson Coop is the same. The city of Truth or Consequences (who owns their own power grid) also in the area will not accept any feed in power to the grid.

What I want to know is why even create the hype for such poorly thought out project?

By: Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:21:52 +0000

I have the strange feeling that it will be the investors that are “missing something”, when, a year or two after breaking ground, nothing develops.

By: Ed Reid

Ed Reid — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:05:20 +0000

I have the strange feeling I am missing something here. Why would a company generate electricity from two periodic or intermittent generation sources, then use that electricity to separate hydrogen from water in the desert, then store the hydrogen at elevated pressure and finally burn the hydrogen in air to produce electricity?

The only advantage I see is the potential to dispatch otherwise undispatchable power. The disadvantage is several steps, each of which reduces the efficiency of the overall process. The electricity they generate initially is some of the most expensive electricity available. The electricity they generate finally can hardly be cheaper, not only because of the intervening losses but also because of the investment required between the two electric generation steps.