SOLAR HYDROGEN HOUSE

But what is his EROEI?

His energy bill is $0.00
Jared Flescher, March 15, 2007 (Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo News)

WHO
Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house.

WHAT
Solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer provide electricity to the house year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days…The house is off the power grid, the system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions, nor does the fuel-cell car which runs off hydrogen the house system creates… Strizki converts electricity generated from renewable sources into hydrogen. Solar panels on the garage roof power the house. The electolyzer converts excess electricity to hydrogen fuel.

WHEN
Four years ago, Strizki set out to power his home completely through a combination of solar and hydrogen. A strict local zoning officer and the state permitting process caused delays. In October 2006, the system went online.

WHERE
Strizki lives with his wife in a rural section of Central New Jersey. His 12-acre property is surrounded by trees and his gravel driveway leads to a winding country road.

WHY
- Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero… According to some renewable-energy experts, the concept is not amenable to large scale use. The system is too expensive and the process of creating hydrogen from clean sources is inefficient. The total cost was $500,000. $250,000 was a grant from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.
- Strizki says, "Nothing is as wildly expensive as destroying the whole planet."

QUOTES
"My motivation was, I saw what fossil fuels were doing to the environment," [Striziki] says.
- Robert Boehm, director of the Center for Energy Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, predicts that it will be at least a decade before hydrogen energy is ready for the mainstream, and then only if enough money is put into research and development.
- "We have to start somewhere," Striziki says. "If you look at it, no one has said what I'm doing doesn't work."