Because I have to say it somewhere

[redbird]

A battery is not an energy source.

Batteries are storage devices, and the energy has to come from somewhere. A fuel cell is a kind of battery.

[Also, mushrooms are not squash, but I'm not actually annoyed at having been given a different kind of soup than I ordered.]

Comments

[webbob.livejournal.com]

I agree that a fuel cell, comprising the electrochemical reactor in which oxygen reacts with hydrogen, the oxygen storage tank, and the hydrogen storage tank, is an energy storage device. Energy is used to separate reactants chemically, the reactant chemicals are stored in the fuel cell device (given that it's comprised as above), and energy can be extracted from the fuel cell only to the extent that reactants were produced for and stored in it.

In the sense of a fuel cell operating on natural gas, propane, or some other hydrocarbon (via a regenerator) and atmospheric oxygen, I disagree. The fuel and oxidant are more or less available in the ambient environment (or at least made available for multiple energy-transforming purposes) and the electrochemical fuel cell (which does not comprise the fuel store or an oxidant store) transforms chemical potential energy to heat and electrical energy. It's an energy source to the same extent that a gas-fueled motor-generator pair is an energy source.

Artillery batteries are energy storage and release devices. Battery chickens, on the other hand, don't fall into either of the "energy storage" and "energy source" categories.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Battered chickens on the other hand *are* an energy source, one I very efficiently convert into energy storage around my waist!

[webbob.livejournal.com]

Correction: reformer, not regenerator. The unit in which natural gas is broken down into carbon oxides and hydrogen.