metal hydrides bind with hydrogen however they require high temperatures around 120 °C – 200 °C to release their hydrogen content which makes them impractical except in specialized applications. Some alloys which consists of a strong hydride former and a weak are able to form weaker bonds, thereby requiring less input to release stored hydrogen. However if the interaction is too weak, the pressure needed for rehydriding is high, thereby eliminating any energy savings. These guys seem to think they have discovered a happy medium http://www.ergenics.com/index.html of course it could be another "cold fusion" scam or it might be a way for intermittent energy such as solar and wind to become practical
As we all know, electricity can be generated by exposing a coil of copper wire to a magnetic field and varying that field. The Earth is like a huge magnet but we would need some kind of potential that would act like that copper coil. I know the ionosphere carries an overall positive charge and even on a sunny day, there is an electric field between the Earth (which has an overall negative charge) and its ionosphere. I also am aware that long copper antennas exposed to the elements and insulated from ground potential can accumulate an electric charge by themselves. In fact, some large antenna arrays need to have a circuit to bleed off the natural current in order for them to work properly as antennas. Maybe some solution there? I think this is an intriguing field of research actually. Tesla had some ideas but his was more about distribution from an ionosphere charged from Earth via a huge coil/tower. I think he actually did an experiment too.
I'm not smart enough to know the physics but I keep thinking that we occupy electrically charged Earth and electrically charged air and that there might be a way to harness nature's power? Maybe it means a 100% rethink about our 120/240 volt systems and appliances? Maybe we need to figure out how to store energy from lightning and release it on demand? Maybe there's some combination solar flare/magnetic stuff we can tap into? How can we harness Earth's magnetic field to create perpetual motion machines which generate power? Maybe power generation can come through chemical processes?
It's interesting. Basically its just a variation on an expanding fluid heat engine. Basic thermodynamic efficiency of the Carnot cycle still applies. But the addition of the adsorption and desorption of hydrogen in a metal hydride may have some novel expansion/compression characteristics at low temperature/pressure that may have use for low energy gradient applications.
in other words it is going to convert chemical energy to kinetic energy and it's efficiency will be subject to the difference between the highest and lowest temperature in a cycle and if they are able to come up with a formula that allows the metal hydrides to absorb hydrogen at a low temp it will work and be suitable for small scale applications. See how easy it is to speak in common language.
