Fuel cells are not yet efficeint. Right now it takes more energy to make the hydrogen than you get out of it. So the only practical use is for back up generators and rechargeable batteries. in the future when the price comes down and hydrogen extraction is cheaper then the market will bring them to your house, but not much we can do, except investing in fuel cell companies, until then.

You need energy to produce hydrogen to provide fuel for fuel cells. Fuel cells do not generate energy for free. Currently major sources of primary energy to produce hydrogen are organic fuels (natural gas mainly). If you have alternative energy source (e.g. photo-voltaic cells, wind turbin, biomass, etc...) then fuel cells might be efficient, convenient, and distributed generators of electric energy, but they do not solve problem of rising prices of currently used fuels (natural gas and oil) per se.

Fuel Cells that work using hydrocarbons (as opposed to those that require pure hydrogen) are being commercialiszed. A few already provide part of the main electricity requirement in such establishments as hotels. The main advantage of this technology over the pure hydrogen type is that the infrastructure for hydrocarbons (natural gas, etc) is already in place. The disadvantage is that they give-off a certain amount of carbon dioxide (and water) by way of exhaust, but are cleaner and quieter than conventional generators. I think that such fuel cells will take-off before the pure hydrogen type, once further commercialisation brings about economies of scale and lower prices.

It depends on the cost per KWH of the hydrogen supply, and intial cost in the fuel cell, compared to existing electricity.

The safest and most efficient way of using hydrogen for energy is the way we are already using it - in hydrocarbons.

What we need are renewable ways of making hydrocarbons, such as genetically engineered algae. 'Plant it' in the ocean east of the Carribean, then harvest it at the other end of the Gulf Stream near the UK. Extract the oils, use the remainder for animal feed (or maybe even people feed.) Fertilize it with powdered iron, the scarce fertilizer of the sea.

You could crop dust from small aircraft carriers, or even giant blimps.

If you can't get commercial quantities of oil (I mean in comparison to fossil fule prices) then change the genetic code to produce, say, soy proteins, and use it for food stock farming instead of oil production.

Nuclear fission could be used to hydrolize seawater to provide hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells. The new "pebble" nuclear fission plant being built in South Africa shows promise of less waste and no chance of meltdowns. I wish though that we could develop nuclear fusion faster than we are. Which brings up a tangential question--I've heard it said that we could "burn" up the waste we have accumulated from fission in a fusion reactor....anybody who can support or disprove this idea?

"Fuel cells are not yet efficeint. Right now it takes more energy to make the hydrogen than you get out of it."

Since the only realistic source of hydrogen gas is the electrolysis of water, and when you burn hydrogen in the presence of oxygen the only possible bi-product is water, it takes exactly the same amount of energy to produce hydrogen as you get when you burn it. The energy yield for a reaction is the inverse of the yield of the reaction in reverse. Chemistry 101 here, not rocket science.

bulls. you can get hydrogen from natural gas, oil, coal, you name it.It's called gasification and syngas watershift.

I have heard that a fuel cell that runs on natural gas should be able to convert as much as 70% of the natural gas energy to electricity. For places where natural gas power plants are used as the marginal source of electricity, a direct comparison is relevant. When a natural gas power plant is used to make electricity, generation and transmission losses cause only about 30% of the natural gas energy to reach the end user. Therefore, a natural gas fuel cell would be a great improvement over taking electricity off the grid. As far as I know, most of these plants do not even use cogeneration.

There have been alot of R&D with fuel cells. They are becoming more readily available with todays applications although they are still expensive at the the present time. Depending on the type of fuel cell you are looking for and the application the fuels also vary most of them use hydrogen as the common fuel although there has been use of methanol, ethanol, and other liquid type fuels they but they are all based on H2. There are companies that do produce fuel cell products for home use such as Plug Power,SFC, but like I said earlier they are expensive. Until the wider use of them comes to light, just like the car when it first appeared, they will remain that way.

There is great interest in the US to impliment a hydrogen infrustructure as there are many ways to produce it the most common is electrolysis, but I have heard that the use of aluminum in saltwater also produces hydrogen that can be used for them as well. But the best way to produce it is by means of solar and wind power where the energy is renewable and do not use oil or natural gas.

There are many challenges that must be faced with fuel cells and H2. One of the main problems is with containing H2 as this gas is very light and tends to pass though many materials. They are developing a new type of glass for containment but it is still in the R&D stages. It won't be long before hydrogen does become a common fuel for most things we use. Another problem is the expensive material of platinium which is use as a catalyst for fuel cells. There have been some major breakthoughs though in some areas of the design of fuelcells.

You could make your own fuelcells from scratch and buy the parts that you cannot produce. There are books on making them, although you would need many of them to produce the type of power you are talking about, but it can be done and depending where you live you can get the government to help with it by from home improvement loans and\or grants for home energy effieceny. Do some research on it you'll be surprised what's out there in funding for that type of thing.