This is great and all, but, it won't save us from our addiction to fossil fuels. We might be able to generate boatloads of electricity, however, Solar, wind, hydrogen, ect., do not produce any carbon by-products used for making plastics and fertilizers for industrial agriculture.

PEAK OIL'D!

This thing is absolutely HUGE, A little tweaking and what this could mean for third world country's alone for fresh water/power production. Converting sea water is the next step.

How about having one of these units running during 'off peak' times from the electric grid to save money or loads on the power distribution system.

This will work for any source of non continuous power production , Solar, wind or wave

This is the last you'll ever hear about this.

Agree++

Sadly, little mind-blowing 'this is going to change everything' pre-advances happen all the time and make their way across the web... then disappear, never to be heard of again. I think it's a function of PR more than science.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

Good thing catalysts like platinum are so cheap and plentiful.

Lets put it on the table here, Lets look at the raw math of what this REALLY means.

Per unit creation of Hydrogen now only takes 10% of the power it once did with this system. In short what once took 100 watts of power now takes 10 to create the same per unit amount of hydrogen.

Okay, so lets break this down what does this mean for your fuel cell car. vs your gasoline car.

Lets assume you have a good car that gets 40 MPG. So for 40 miles it is going to cost you 4.00 a gal. Best math on this means to get 40 miles from hydrogen (if you are using power from your power company ) is going to cost you (drum roll please) .84 cents on peak time power creation of hydrogen and 64 cents if you create Hydrogen at night

Lastly NO platinum is not a requirement to work, Here is the Scientific American article

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-power-on-the-cheap

84 cents a gallon. add road taxes and anything else you want and whoo okay Ill pay a DOLLAR per 40 miles

Please read the article before posting platinum was the OLD process

Incredible. So this is the singularity. Whee!

Good thing catalysts like platinum are so cheap and plentiful.

Even if this process used platinum it would probably be cathodic or anodic process using a platinum fixture (recoverable). Then you can experiment with other noble metals like regular or platinum coated niobium which could slowly dissolve in solution.

Good thing catalysts like platinum are so cheap and plentiful.

You do realize that just about every single car on the planet has platinum in it....in the catalytic converter.

Good thing catalysts aren't consumed in reactions......otherwise they'd be called REACTANTS.