A fuel cell technology that uses water!

Interesting news from TechOn New Fuel Cell System 'Generates Electricity with Only Water, Air'

Genepax Co Ltd has devised a fuel cell technology that uses a "Water Energy System (WES)," or, water as a fuel and does not emit CO2:

The system can generate power just by supplying water and air to the fuel and air electrodes, respectively....The basic power generation mechanism of the new system is similar to that of a normal fuel cell, which uses hydrogen as a fuel. According to Genepax, the main feature of the new system is that it uses the company's membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which contains a material capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction.
Though the company did not reveal the details, [it has used] a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA.... This process is allegedly similar to the mechanism that produces hydrogen by a reaction of metal hydride and water. But compared with the existing method, the new process is expected to produce hydrogen from water for [a] longer time...With the new process, the cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high-pressure hydrogen tank. Moreover, the MEA requires no special catalysts, and the required amount of rare metals such as platinum is almost the same as that of existing systems.... Unlike the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), which uses methanol as a fuel, the new system does not emit CO2. In addition, it is expected to have a longer life because catalyst degradation (poisoning) caused by CO2 does not occur on the fuel electrode side.

For the future, the company intends to provide 1kw-class generation systems for use in electric vehicles and houses. Instead of driving electric vehicles with this system alone, the company expects to use it as a generator to charge the secondary battery used in electric vehicles. Although the production cost is currently about ¥2,000,000 (US$18,522), it can be reduced to ¥500,000 or lower if Genepax succeeds in mass production. The company believes that its fuel cell system can compete with residential solar cell systems if the cost can be reduced to this level.

Whether this will translate further into indistrial facilities remains to be seen but power companies will be watching these type of developments with a keen eye.

Upsite and APC by Schneider Electric form global agreement for Energy Saving product

Upsite Technologies, Inc who develop energy-efficient solutions for data centres has formed a global agreement with APC by Schneider Electric for the KoldLok family of products. Upsite's KoldLok Grommets seal cable openings in raised floors to optimize the effectiveness of underfloor cooling. There is a low-cost initial investment and over the long-term, KoldLok Grommets help to reduce TCO and carbon footprint. The total solution offerings will have increasing visibility across the world, including Europe and Asia.

Google considers "Water based Data Centres"

Earth2Tech reports today on new thinking from Google on energy futures:

"When Google’s energy guru Bill Weihl told us that the search engine giant has been looking at renewable energy options for data centers like solar thermal, wind and geothermal, we had no idea the company was considering the deep blue, too. Well, according to a patent that Google filed that’s starting to get picked up around the blogosphere, the company is looking into a “water-based data center” that floats on a platform and uses “a sea-based electrical generator” and “sea-water cooling units.”
The patent mentions a wave-powered electrical generator system that uses machines made by Pelamis. Pelamis is a decade-old Edinburgh-based company that has raised £40 million of investment and employs more than 70 people. Pelamis is already working on three large wave farms that range from 2.5 MW to 5 MW in capacity. The patent also mention using wind turbines for the sea-based electrical generator to “provide pumping power for the sea-water cooling units.”
So what’s the purpose of sending data centers out to sea? Google says floating data centers on the water can get them significantly closer to users, which can cut down on the connection costs and latency issues of long distance connections. Google also sites the possible need for floating data centers to get close to emergency situations, like a natural disaster or military war zone. Other companies like IBM, Sun and HP have modular data center products, but this is the first we’ve heard of the data centers bobbing on the high seas."

In fact a company called IDS is working on its own floating hardware - though it sees things a bit differently. "IDS floating data centers will be anchored in port the majority of the time, whereas [Google's] will be positioned out at sea," reads a blog post from the company. "There [are] also some significant differences in the way sea water is used for cooling, and obviously some differences in power generation."

Innovation in Green data centre fabric can save millions of dollars per year

A survey of CIOs, CTOs, and senior IT executives who attended the 2008 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium by Voltaire, a company that designs and develops server and storage switching and software solutions has found that 90 percent of executives surveyed said they believe that greening their data centres will be crucial to meeting their companies’ business objectives in 2009, and 57 percent said they believe going green gives them a competitive advantage. Yet, 76 percent do not have a committed budget for a greening policy. Voltaire claims that a company with five data centres worldwide, and 3,000 servers per data centre, can save approximately USD 7,400,000 per year using the Voltaire unified fabric. Unified fabrics reduce power consumption by consolidating and virtualizing their data centre interconnects without sacrificing performance.

Emerson builds new Data Centre as part of consolidation plan

Emerson is building a multi-million dollar data centre on the company’s St. Louis campus that will help support Emerson’s global operations. The 35,000-square-foot facility, scheduled to open next summer, will use the latest technologies from Emerson Network Power. The new build is part of Emerson’s plan to consolidate its 100 global data centre locations into four and the technologies and design of the facility will use 17.5 percent less energy per year than the traditional data centre, according to Fox Architects, the lead designers in the project.

APC launches hydrogen based power solution

APC (part of Schneider Electric) has launched its next generation Fuel Cell Extended Run (FCXR) product that provides hydrogen-based, environmentally friendly backup power for the company's InfraStruXure(R) data centre solution. InfraStruXure integrates power, cooling, environmental monitoring and management in a rack-optimized design. The interesting point is that FCXR produces emission free electrical backup power using air and stored hydrogen, and is available in 10 kW increments up to 30 kW contained in a single 19-inch rack. Developed in collaboration with Hydrogenics Corporation, the FCXR uses Hydrogenics' HyPM XR Fuel Cell Power Modules. The solutions is also billed as offering lower total cost of ownership for runtime requirements greater than two hours in this power range, when compared to lead acid batteries. It is also answers a range of customer issues - data centres with space constraints (it fits in the footprint of a standard IT rack) or unable to operate a diesel generator due to noise or emissions concerns.