"Major Breakthrough" in Hydrogen Production: Video Interview with Daniel Nocera

It's people like Daniel Nocera that give me some much-needed hope for humanity.

so can i buy a system or make one at home? i'd like to make a mini model one, but is this top secret?

hydrogen when leeks goes high very high and leavs the planet .... do we want leeks in hydrugen to make an intergalactical gas? save the hydrogen.

sorry, what has he discovered here? People have been making hydrogen with solar power and storing it like a battery for a long time. Anyone know how much this new catalyst improves efficiency?
I thought the real problem with hydrogen was storage.

This sounds like a boon for private persons who want to make their own.

But...how does it compare with industrial scale production of hydrogen made from fossil hydrocarbons?

Sign me up. Don't let a Big Oil Company buy you out, Daniel!

I would rather have him talk about the discovery instead of explaining the principles of hydrogen economy that have been around since the 1970es!

I hope to see more details on this soon. It seems the improvement is in being able to run the system on clean water rather than the usual electrolyte treated water.

If it works at high efficiency this is indeed good news. The combination of a hydrogen generator and fuel cell could definitely beat out storage batteries for efficiency. If you could get large fuel cells that is. Maybe in a few years.

I would like to know more about the mysterious 'catalyst', for starters do you need to replace it continuously and how often or is it basically permanent? And if so how much does it cost to replace, apparently its "cobalt-phosphorous" for the oxygen and a 2nd that 'needs more work' is used to make the hydrogen.

I love how a large university which is supposedly dedicated to advancing knowledge, develops some technology that will apparently revolutionise the planet then turns around and patents is straight away, lets hope it doesn't end up like though GM electric car batteries that are now owned by big oil and aren't allowed to be put into cars that are all electric (hybrids only). Luckily the patent on that end in 2015 which is when car companies are claiming they will go all electric and likely the reason.

Maybe they will make it fairly easy to licence the technology but they can only do that so fast and then you need to take into account getting the technology to other countries. Plus 3rd world countries could really do with a system like this where the government sucks, people are spread thing and/or there is little or no infrastructure. Like how mobile phones are more popular than landlines in many places.

This kind of thing is something that could really do with a DIY solution, couple it with a DIY wind turbine and you will end up like that guy in Kenya that made his own windmill to power irrigation.

I've written to the good prof to ask for more info regarding the net energy efficiency of his discovery.

As to the question about storage of hydrogen, I seem to recall a Canadian prof discovered an inexpensive way to store the gas under relatively low temp and pressure.

Now, if the industry can overcome the engineering problems and what other problems might exist, we can be on the way to the hydrogen future, I hope.

Sorry, but I just can't see this as the magnitude of "breakthrough" it is being touted as. All this catalyst does is reduce the overvoltage at the oxygen electrode. Yes, it "does" reduce the total energy needed to split water electrochemically somewhat, but it is hardly the barrier-shattering discovery it is being sold as.

Nanosolar's "printed solar cell" is one heck of a lot more "game-changing" than the MIT work.