Hydrogen cogen for electricity and hot water without external energy sources
idrogenoverde.it
idrogenoverde.it
https://data.epo.org/publication-server/document?iDocId=6120...
Apparently, hydrogen and oxygen are combusted to produce high-temperature steam, which drives a turbine to generate electricity. Inventor claims the steam can be condensed to liquid water, then the electricity can be used to to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, allowing the cycle to continue indefinitely, which is of course impossible.
Didn't know the European Patent Office gave parents for perpetual motion machines.
https://www.idrogenoverde.it/faq/
the thingy is not perpetual motion (though possibly very, very efficient), as it does consume "fuel", approximately (every 6 months):
1) 20 liters of distilled water
2) 1 litre of bio-ethanol
Still according to the site, there is a maintenance fee of around 600 Euro (every 6 months) that includes the supply of the above fuels.
It is seemingly "always connected" (to the internet) and incorporates a "siren" to warn the customer that there is no connection to the internet[1].
In any case it is at the moment "future ware" in the sense that there are no news of any of these devices having been actually built and installed yet, here and there you can find some info that they are "nearly ready for production", but AFAIK it is 3-4 years that this is said, moving the "target" by a few months in the future.
[1] what?
There is a video (recent enough, May 2022) on Youtube where the inventor shows a prototype of the machine that - besides being "bulky" shows no signs of "industrialization", what is shown is an assembled mish-mash of more or less standard components:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvZTb2_C2pU
The "startup" that has been promoting this since 2018 has been seemingly been actually incorporated in 2019 and has a 2020 (2021 is not yet available) gross income of around 220,000 Euro.
On one side the company page is about a plant to produce it in Italy that will be built in Tuscany (with jobs for 150 people), and another one that will be built in the North (another 150 people), one that will be built in Switzerland (another 150 people or so), plans to expand in Bulgaria and other countries, on the other the owner (which evidently is a Civil Engineer) is promoting on the company site two of his books (about construction science).
It is strange, if it is a scam, it is so approximate to be unbelievable, if it is a serious endeavour it is so approximate that there is no way that the people managing it will be able to actually produce anything, let alone on a large scale.
I also have seen a couple reports about people having being quoted around 14,000 Euro for one of these devices and having paid some form of advance, that are waiting since several months to have the (at the moment non-existing) device installed.
And the same goes for the network of installers/maintenance firms, it seems like half the country is not (yet) covered and the few areas that are actually assigned are given to firms that - at face value - don't look like being qualified or large enough to reliably perform the installation and maintenance.
Finally, at least personally, I would not want an always connected device that can be tuned/regulated via internet, I mean it is not the usual crappy net enabled thermostat or webcam, we are talking of a device that - in theory - should produce heat and electricity 24/7.