8/31/1999  Natural-Gas Autos Appear to Catch On by Russ Wiles - Arizona Republic

Legislation that cleared both houses of the legislature and was signed by Gov. Jane Hull in May offers some unusually generous tax incentives to individuals and businesses willing to power their vehicles with natural gas, electricity and various other low-pollution fuels. ...Arizona lawmakers have been dangling carrots in front of consumers and businesses on the alternative-energy front for several years, but this spring's enhancements were especially sweet. The centerpiece of the program is a tax credit for new and used cars and trucks that have been equipped to run on electricity, solar energy, hydrogen, natural gas or propane.

8/30/1999  Research Paves Way for Fuel Cell Power by Jon Van - Chicago Tribune

Researchers at Northwestern University are developing an alternative technology that apparently will burn methane directly, they report in the journal Nature. "Our design burns hydrogen and carbon, leaving water as the only waste product," said Scott Barnett, a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern's Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. Barnett said his team's next step is to alter the materials in the fuel cell to see if it could be induced to burn natural gas or propane. Because the design developed at Northwestern runs at temperatures much lower than most ceramic fuel cells, Barnett is hopeful that automotive researchers might take an interest.

8/26/1999  Hydrogen Could Power Electric Cars by Michael Woods - Toledo Blade (Ohio)

Epyx was formed by Arthur D. Little, Inc., to perfect the system as part of a much bigger program called the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. Started in 1993, the partnership is a government-private sector effort to develop technologies for environmental friendly vehicles with up to triple today's fuel efficiency and very low emissions without sacrificing affordability, performance, or safety. The government will spend about $237 million on the project this year. Scientists at the corporate partners - DaimlerChrysler Corp., Ford Motors Co., and General Motors Corp. - are working with colleagues funded by the U. S. Department of Energy and other federal agencies. The program's dream is production of midsize family sedans that carry six passengers and get the equivalent of up to 80 miles a gallon.

8/26/1999  U.S. Interior Department Presents BP Amoco Conservation Award - Oil & Gas Online

The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) has selected BP Amoco Gulf of Mexico Offshore as the 1999 recipient of the Conservation Award for Respecting the Environment (CARE Award). ...MMS commended BP Amoco Gulf of Mexico Offshore and its employees for an exceptional commitment to environmental performance, an unusual willingness to open operations to public disclosure, and for building credibility with stakeholders.

8/23/1999 Ford Bets Big on Hydrogen by Paul Eisenstein - The Car Connection

"Bill’s Filling Station" isn’t likely to have much of a drive-up business. It doesn’t help that it’s hidden off a back road in Dearborn, Mich. But the biggest drawback is the blend of fuel it sells. It offers two grades of hydrogen: liquid and highly compressed gas. But if this experiment proves successful, service stations like this one could become commonplace by the middle of the next century. ...It’s only the second facility of its kind anywhere in the world, and it’s designed to support Ford’s increasingly aggressive effort to turn hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, into the fuel of the future. The automaker recently told its dealers it will spend $1 billion on alternative fuel research over the next five years, $400 million on hydrogen alone. ...As part of a partnership with DaimlerChrysler AG, and the Canadian research firm, Ballard Power Systems, Ford will start field testing a small fleet of fuel cell-powered "supercars" in California next year. ..."Storage is one of the big issues, but if we could see breakthroughs, that would show us the way to go," said Jim Katzer, vice president of technology at Mobile Oil Corp., which is "partnering" with Ford’s hydrogen research program.

8/21/1999  Unocal Explosion Shuts Site by Jon Little - Anchorage Daily News

The plant was being shut down to fix a leak in its carbon dioxide removal system, she said. The 120,000-gallon-capacity tank that exploded is part of that system. It had just been filled when the blast occurred, flinging the tank 30 to 40 feet into the air and 50 feet away from where it had been anchored to concrete, according to a DEC report. The tank struck a cooling tower, the report said. Unocal was trying to determine a cause of the explosion Friday afternoon, Sinz said. Sinz said the tank contained a mixture largely made up of 60 percent water and a chemical called methyldiethanolamine, MDEA for short. It is a solution that soaks carbon dioxide out of hydrogen and nitrogen in the ammonia-making process.

8/20/1999  Power Plants Focus of Safety Inquiry by Ameet Sachdev - St. Petersburg Times (Flordia)

Federal inspectors are investigating several worker complaints about safety at Tampa Bay area power plants that were filed after April's deadly explosion at a Tampa Electric Co. facility. Some of the cases deal with working conditions at Gannon Power Station, the Hillsborough County plant where three people died and 45 were injured when hydrogen gas used to cool generators exploded. The complaints arose while inspectors with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were interviewing employees after the blast. ...Falck declined to give details about the nature of the recent complaints, citing the ongoing investigations. But Florida Power said the complaint against the company stemmed from an incident at its plant on the Anclote River. In April, just three days before the Gannon blast, the plant began releasing hydrogen from one of its generators, a routine procedure to prepare the generator for maintenance. But plant supervisors failed to warn employees about the release.

8/18/1999  Anchorage Mail Processing Center to be Powered by World's Largest Commercial Fuel Cell System - E-wire

A new system for generating power that is virtually pollution-free and requires little maintenance will be installed by for the U.S. Postal Service by Chugach Electric Association, Inc. ...Five fuel cells, connected in parallel to produce one megawatt of electricity, will be the primary source of power for the Anchorage facility, located adjacent to the Anchorage International Airport. It will be the world's largest assured-power fuel cell installation. ...The PC25™ fuel cell power plants that make up the system are manufactured by ONSI Corporation, South Windsor, Connecticut. ...The new technology developed for this project assures that an automatic shutdown will not occur when the grid goes down. If there is a grid outage, the installation will automatically operate as an independent system, continuing to power the facility. The automatic transition will appear seamless, with the equipment providing assured power and eliminating the need for conventional stand-by generators. Excess power from the fuel cells will be fed into the Chugach electric grid.  ...The assured-power fuel cell system is being funded, in part, by the U. S. Postal Service, U. S. Department of Energy, Cooperative Research Network of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and the Electric Power Research Institute. The control system for the project will be developed and delivered by the Construction Engineering and Research Laboratories of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

8/17/1999  Hydrogen-Powered Autos Closer by Sheri Hall - Detroit News

Ford does not know whether it will market vehicles that use pure hydrogen or convert gasoline to hydrogen, Director of Environmental John Wallace said. "Ford is trying to explore every possible path," he said. "The real story in terms of penetration has to do with public demand. It is our intent to make hydrogen a viable option -- reasonably affordable and efficient." Building profitable hydrogen stations is the biggest challenge for hydrogen vehicles, said Jim Katzer, Mobil vice-president of technology. Fuel processors that convert gasoline to hydrogen at gas stations are another option. "We have to take a serious look at the challenges facing a hydrogen infrastructure," said Bill Powers, vice-president of research. "We feel having a hydrogen station at our facility will help us understand the risks and opportunities."

8/17/1999  Ford Tests Hydrogen-Powered Engine by Brian S. Akre - AP/Washington Post

It's a modified version of Ford's 2-liter Zetec four-cylinder gasoline engine that promises 25 percent to 30 percent better fuel efficiency, Bill Bates, Ford's manager of alternative power sources, said Monday. The company plans to begin road-testing later this year. Bates said the hydrogen-powered engine could be an alternative until engineers refine the fuel-cell powertrain. ...Ford's hydrogen engine can run on either compressed hydrogen gas or liquid hydrogen, and the extra cost of the thick, heavy hydrogen storage tank should be offset by elimination of the catalytic converter and other exhaust treatment systems used on a gasoline engine, Bates said. The announcement came as the world's second-biggest automaker showed off its $1.5 million hydrogen filling station at its North American research complex in Dearborn.

8/17/1999  Fuel Cells Tapped as Backup Energy Source for Computer Systems by Matthew L. Wald - New York Times

Batteries have long used chemistry to make electricity, but they eventually exhaust their chemicals; a fuel cell is supplied continuously with the chemicals it needs -- generally a hydrocarbon fuel like natural gas. Understood for 100 years but still rare in the marketplace, fuel cells combine oxygen from the air with hydrogen from natural gas or other fuels to make three products: water, heat and a flow of electrons -- or electric current. ...Fuel cells could have a variety of uses in the near future. The Ford Motor Co., under contract with the Energy Department, has just completed a car that runs on a low-temperature fuel cell and goes from 0 to 60 miles an hour in 12 seconds. Its tailpipe, made of plastic, emits nothing but a few drops of pure water. Others are working on tiny cells that would power laptop computers or cellular telephones. The portable cells use the same chemical reaction as the ones at the bank, which are built by Onsi (a name based on on site), a subsidiary of the United Technologies Corp. of Hartford, Conn., but they rely on a different system that can increase and decrease output rapidly and that runs at a lower temperature. But both the portable cells, called proton exchange membrane cells, and the Onsi cells, called phosphoric acid cells, have yet to achieve large scale commercial acceptance.

8/16/1999  New Filling Station Gives Ford Advantage in Developing Hydrogen Vehicles - Ford/PRNewswire

Ford Motor Company today opened the first filling station in North America that can refuel vehicles with either liquid or gaseous hydrogen. It is the second such filling station in the world and bolsters Ford's commitment to clean hydrogen vehicles. "Ford intends to be the leader in the production of fuel cell vehicles," said Bill Powers, vice president of Research. "This refueling station right on the site of our North American Research and Engineering campus gives Ford an edge by allowing us to easily refuel and conduct tests on our vehicles and in our labs." The station officially opened with the refueling of Ford's P2000 HFC (hydrogen fuel cell) sedan, which is powered by gaseous hydrogen. The station will help Ford researchers analyze the benefits of liquid vs. gaseous hydrogen refueling, different types of nozzles for refueling and different pressures for optimal refueling with hydrogen. "We have to take a serious look at the challenges facing a hydrogen infrastructure," said Powers.

8/16/1999  Ford and Mobil Make Progress on New Gasoline Reformer for Fuel Cell Vehicles - Ford/PRNewswire

Ford Motor Company and Mobil Corporation today announced significant progress in developing a smaller, lighter, less expensive on-board gasoline fuel processor for fuel cell vehicles. Scientists and engineers are working in Michigan and New Jersey on a gasoline reformer to meet specific requirements in cost, performance, safety, reliability and fuel economy, while maximizing the use of existing fuel infrastructure. For example, in fuel economy, the system is anticipated to provide a 50 percent improvement over today's internal combustion engine. Today's most accepted technology is a Partial Oxidation (POX) reformer. The reforming process begins at temperatures of 800 to 1,300 degrees Celsius (1,472 to 2,372 degrees Fahrenheit) with the fuel going through four stages of reforming and gas cleanup. The resulting hydrogen-rich gas stream is supplied as a fuel to a PEM fuel cell power system. "While much of the research is still ahead of us, we have developed new catalysts that allow the reformation process to begin at much lower temperatures," said Jim Katzer, vice president of Technology for Mobil. "We are very encouraged that this will result in a less expensive system because we will have lower costs for mechanical design and be able to use more conventional materials as opposed to exotic alloys."

8/16/1999  Rocket Fuels Researchers Suspend Frozen Hydrogen Particles In Helium - NASA/Science Daily

Rocket fuels researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center have made for the first time tiny particles of frozen hydrogen suspended in liquid helium. This is the first step toward new rocket fuels that can revolutionize rocket propulsion technology needed for getting off the Earth. In the experiments, small amounts of liquid hydrogen were poured onto the surface of liquid helium. The liquid hydrogen was at a temperature of 14 kelvins (minus 435 degrees F), just above freezing point; and the liquid helium was held at 4 kelvins (minus 452 degrees F), or just above absolute zero. As the liquid hydrogen fell toward the surface of the helium, small, solid hydrogen particles formed and then floated on the surface of the helium. The suspension will be used to make futuristic atomic fuels that take advantage of the chemical recombination of atoms into molecules. "Atomic fuels will make possible rockets with liftoff weights one-fifth that of today’s or with payloads three to four times more massive," said Bryan Palaszewski, Glenn principal investigator for the experiment. Using atomic fuels could reduce or eliminate on-orbit assembly of large space vehicles, thereby eliminating multiple launches and years of assembly time and making flights to all parts of the solar system less expensive and more practicable.

8/15/1999  Launch Makes Collins More Celebrated by Marcia Dunn - Washington Post

Eileen Collins used her strongest, loudest voice when Columbia's master alarm went off, just seconds into what proved to be the most menacing space shuttle launch in years. Problem with a fuel cell, she called to Mission Control. Her voice was muffled by the roaring rockets and rattled by the fierce vibration. Many bystanders froze, fearful of what was happening. ...A far more insidious problem, though, was occurring. Hydrogen fuel was seeping from three ruptured tubes in the right engine nozzle. The tubes were damaged moments before liftoff by a pin that came loose inside the engine and hurtled down through the combustion chamber and out the nozzle faster than the speed of sound. Columbia leaked more than 2,500 pounds of hydrogen during the 8 1/2-minute climb to orbit, enough to cause the engines to shut down one second early and leave the shuttle seven miles short of its orbital mark. If more hydrogen had leaked or if the backup engine computers had failed, Collins almost certainly would have found herself attempting a dangerous emergency landing.

8/13/1999  Research Sheds New Light on Natural Gas - Pioneer Planet (Minnesota)

Details of Berndt's discovery are published in today's edition of the journal ``Science.'' The Earth's crust contains plenty of methane, and scientists have long tried to figure how it got there, Berndt said. ``Some was created by bacteria, but not all of it.'' Understanding how methane is produced is important to scientists because the gas contains carbon, one of the building blocks of life, and is produced by bacteria, one of the earliest life forms. Finding an inorganic source of methane may help scientists better understand what the Earth was like before life began, Berndt said. To find the source, Berndt teamed up with Juske Horita from the chemical and analytical division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. They had read in the scientific literature that some researchers had found native metals in the oceans' crust and used them as catalysts in dry-gas reactors. The metals were very good at creating gases in reactors, Berndt said, so he and Horita assumed they would work well in nature, too. Working in the lab, the two researchers found that olivine, a mineral commonly found in the oceans' crust, reacts with water and, under the proper temperature -- from 100 degrees to 400 degrees Celsius -- it produces a nickel-rich iron alloy and hydrogen gas. The hydrogen gas, in turn, reacts with carbon dioxide and converts it to methane. Berndt and Horita call their process abiogenic methane formation -- not connected with biological processes. ``There is a lot of olivine in the oceans' crust and wherever it reacts with sea water, you could be making some methane,'' Berndt said. An abundant supply of heat for the process comes from the Earth's interior, so the only limiting factor is a shortage of carbon dioxide, he said. ``By far and away, most methane is generated by the breakdown of organic matter,'' Berndt said. ``But the stuff we make (in the laboratory) looks virtually the same, so we don't know how much (naturally occurring methane) is formed in the oceans' crust.''

8/12/1999  Ukraine: Zenit Rocket May Lose Satellite Business To New Boeing Rocket - Radio Free Europe

The Boeing Company, the giant U.S. aerospace and airplane-manufacturing concern, is now testing a new hydrogen-powered rocket engine, the RS-68. The new engine was designed from the start not for the military, but for the rapidly growing commercial market for satellite launching vehicles. Project spokesman Dan Beck of Boeing says the RS-68 is designed to be reliable, cheap and quick to build, and simple to operate. Beck says it is also the first large, liquid-fueled rocket engine developed in the United States in a generation. The RS-68 is to power the Delta Four rocket system, whose initial launch is scheduled for early in 2001, Beck says. It will be the Delta Four, Beck predicts, that will likely spell trouble for Ukraine's currently popular, heavy-lifting Zenit rocket powered by its kerosene-fueled RD-180 engine. Ukraine inherited the Zenit stockpile as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union. So far, Zenits have found steady and lucrative work abroad doing the heavy lifting for commercial launch vehicles. The rockets have been a major moneymaker for Ukraine. Zenit customers include Boeing's aerospace competitor, Lockheed Martin Corporation, but also Boeing itself. ...the RS-68 engine has already generated more lifting power than the Zenit or any other rocket.

8/12/1999  White House Press Conference on Alternative Fuel Initiative - U.S. Newswire

DOE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR RENEWABLE & ENERGY EFFICIENCY DAN REICHER: ...Ethanol is one of the possible sources of hydrogen for a fuel cell. It's a rather simple molecule that you can extract the hydrogen from, so essentially what you would do in a hydrogen or a fuel-cell automobile is fill up the tank with ethanol -- there would be a little chemical reformer on board that would pull the hydrogen out -- push it into the fuel cell, and you'd make electricity to power the car. We might also use natural gas -- methanol.

8/11/1999  Research Finding Could Lead to New Generation of Fuel Cells by David Kinney - Nando Times

A researcher says he has made an experimental fuel cell that is simpler than others because it runs on natural gas instead of pure hydrogen. If it can be repeated on a large scale, the finding would make it cheaper to produce a type of fuel cell that may one day be common as a low-pollution power source for buildings. The findings of the Northwestern University research team led by Scott A. Barnett are reported in Thursday's edition of the science journal Nature. ...In previous experiments, cells cracked and became caked with carbon at higher temperatures, and at lower temperatures, the cells did not produce much electricity. Barnett was able to make a fuel cell in a lab work at a lower temperature by using cerium oxide. Cerium oxide, also found in catalytic converters, makes the methane react quickly. The success at a lower temperature is significant, said John Turner, a senior scientist at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Lower temperatures put less strain on the components, meaning cheaper parts could be used, he said. But another DOE expert said Barnett's experiment was too limited to determine whether the process would be simpler. "He has not done it on a large enough scale under realistic operating conditions to draw the conclusions he's drawing," said Michael Krumpelt, manager of the fuel cell program at the Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago.

8/10/1999  Praise for Hydrogen, Fuel-Cell Power - MSNBC

“I believe the fuel cell can be done for the same price as a piston engine, or lower. And I believe it can let the owner travel fifty percent farther for the fuel used, with an engine that will be truly maintenance-free.”
       — Ferdinand Panik, head of DaimlerChrysler’s fuel-cell program
“We are at the peak of the oil age but the beginning of the hydrogen age. Anything else is an interim solution. The transition will be very messy, and will take many technological paths ... but the future will be hydrogen fuel cells.”
       — Herman Kuipers, manager of exploratory research at Shell
“The launch of the fuel-cell powered house is up there with the introduction of the electric refrigerator, the room air-conditioner and the fluoresent light.”
       — Dan Reicher, Energy Department assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy

8/10/1999 [ DCH Technology] Getting Electrical Power from Small Fuel Cells by Stephen Heiser - Power Online

In 1996 and 1997, Mahlon S. Wilson of LANL developed a smaller, simpler class of fuel cells that relies on ambient air pressure for oxygen and on its own water generation for humidification (instead of pumps and fans, which are needed in other types of fuel cell technologies). Mr. Wilson improved PEM technology by designing a round fuel cell stack in which hydrogen is delivered through a central tube that also houses the bolt that holds the stack assembly together. This design is smaller, lighter and easier to fabricate than rectangular PEM fuel cells, and it is also more efficient because it leaves the entire exposed surface of the cell open for ambient oxygen intake and heat dissipation. It also more efficiently retains water, the reaction product, to prevent dehydration of the cell. The circular fuel cell can be packaged as a D-cell battery-sized stack combined with a metal hydride canister that will last more than three times as long as a comparably sized pack of nickel-cadmium batteries. The cells also can be easily ganged together for higher power applications. In 1998, DCH Technology, Inc. successfully negotiated a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) and exclusive license agreement with LANL for the "air-breathing proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell", patented by Mr. Wilson, LANL and the United States Department of Energy.

8/1/1999  Singapore Physicists Report High Hydrogen Storage Capacities in Alkali-Doped Carbon Nanotubes - Peter Hoffmann's Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter

Injecting new impulses into the debate about prospects for vastly larger hydrogen storage in carbon nanotubes, scientists from the National University of Singapore report they have developed alkali-doped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that can store hydrogen volumes that are multiples of those typical for other storage materials such as hydrides or cryoadsorption systems. Writing in the July 2 issue of "Science" magazine, the four researchers from the university's physics department report they have stored about 20 or about 14 weight per cent, respectively, hydrogen in lithium- or potassium-doped nanotubes in laboratory tests. ...The storage capabilities reported by the Singapore team are considerably below those claimed by Northeastern University researchers Nelly Rodriguez and Terry Baker who say they have achieved storage capacities of as much as 67%  with non-doped nanotubes.

8/1/1999  [ Ballard] Getting on Board the Fuel-Cell Bus - MSNBC

Ballard engineers have dramatically reduced the thickness and cost of the carbon plates and membrane. A company official displayed different “stacks” as the fuel cells are known. The stack made in 1990 produced three kilowatts of power, the 1993 version turned out 10 kilowatts, the 1995 model 28 kilowatts, and the 1997 cell produces 50 kilowatts. The third generation met the requirements of the auto industry for a practical automobile. ...Ballard has had to change from a research and development company to a manufacturing company. To do that it brought in new people from the automotive industry. ...“This is the kind of technology that if it’s a success, it’s a huge success. It goes from niche market to mass market,” said Christine Farkas, senior analyst at Merrill Lynch in New York who has followed the company for more than three years. “The car companies,” she added, “are very supportive and excited about the potential of emission-free vehicles.”  “Ballard recognized that they had to change from an R&D shop so they brought in people who understand manufacturing,” said Farkas. “It’s important they reorganized themselves instead of waiting for someone to do it for them.” 

7/31/1999  Drivers Urged To Avoid Paris After Pollution Alert - Reuters

Police Friday urged drivers to avoid Paris after vehicle exhaust-linked pollution reached health-threatening levels. ...It was the second alert issued in two weeks. The French government has drawn up legislation to ban the sales of leaded gas from 2000, in line with European Union directives on fuel quality.

7/30/1999  A Realizable Renewable Energy Future by John A. Turner, NREL - Science Magazine

The missing links required for a sustainable energy system are an energy storage scheme (a way to store the renewable energy for times when it is not being generated) and an energy carrier (something to replace gasoline and other fossil-derived energy carriers). Energy storage technologies include H2, batteries, flywheels, superconductivity, ultracapacitors, pumped hydro, and compressed gas. The most versatile energy storage system and the best energy carrier is H2. Hydrogen can replace fossil fuels as the energy carrier for transportation and electrical generation when renewable energy is not available. Because H2 is transportable by gas pipelines or can be generated on site, any system that requires an energy carrier can use H2. The conversion of the chemical energy of H2 to electrical energy by a fuel cell produces only water as waste. Currently, H2 is manufactured in large quantities from steam reforming of natural gas. However, H2 can be generated by solar energy. ...Thermolysis, the direct splitting of water at high temperatures, suffers from the rapid back reaction of H2 and O2 at these temperatures, preventing this pathway from being a viable approach. Thermal cycles, in which O2 and H2 are generated in separate steps, are well known, and although these were initially developed to use the waste heat from a nuclear reactor, some have been adapted for solar concentrator systems. The conversion of biomass to H2, although fairly straightforward, has a low conversion efficiency from sunlight to H2, and any system designed to generate substantial amounts of H2 must be rather large. Nonetheless, if the biomass used is a waste by-product, then this is perhaps the least expensive of the H2 generation technologies. Wind energy and PV systems coupled to electrolyzers are perhaps the most versatile of the approaches and are likely to be the major H2 producers of the future. These systems are commercially available but are very expensive. ...Markets that can afford the higher initial costs for new technologies would be used to develop commercial applications of fuel cells. These markets include buses, mining vehicles, buildings, and distributed and remote stand-alone power systems. Fuel cell vehicles would be available when the costs of fuel cells come down to an acceptable amount for automotive applications. Again, one can easily show that renewable energy can supply all of the H2 necessary for cars.

7/30/1999  Bringing Fuel Cells Down to Earth by Robert F. Service - Science Magazine

If fuel cells, as expected, become cheaper and can match the performance of traditional car engines, they "will be the most prominent power source in the next century," predicts Ron Sims of Ford's research lab in Dearborn, Michigan. Those are brave words, considering that the internal combustion engine--thanks to a stream of technological advances since Henry Ford's day--has managed to beat back challenges from every upstart alternative for powering automobiles. And the fuel cell's challenge could be blunted by a bruising battle over which fuel should provide the hydrogen the cells will consume. It's a battle that could undermine the technology before it ever gets up to speed. Engineers and clean-air experts say the simplest and cleanest option is hydrogen gas itself. But it would cost tens of billions of dollars to outfit all the filling stations in the United States to supply hydrogen--not to mention an intense marketing campaign to convince the public of the safety of a fuel still associated with the fiery demise of the Hindenburg, a hydrogen-filled zeppelin, in 1937. Car and oil companies would prefer to equip vehicles with miniature chemical factories to convert liquid fuels, such as gasoline or methanol, into hydrogen gas that can be fed into fuel cells. Critics, meanwhile, argue that the converters likely will be expensive and prone to breaking down. "Everybody is pushing their own version of the technology," says Reinhold Wurster, a fuel cell expert at LB Sustain Technique in Ottobunn, Germany. The outcome of this battle will set the course for fuel cell technology--and perhaps alter the world's energy map--well into the next century.

7/30/1999  Company Aims to Give Fuel Cells a Little Backbone - Science Magazine

"The membrane technology is directly related to what power you can get out," says Tom Zawodzinski, a fuel cell researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. ...Five years ago, Jeff Kolde and Bamdad Bahar, two chemical engineers at Gore, realized they could make a better membrane if they combined a proton-conducting material like Nafion with the company's well-known Gore-Tex membrane, a water-repelling mesh, permeable to gases, that's used in everything from mountaineering parkas to synthetic blood vessels. When the duo first described their idea to fuel cell experts, Bahar recalls, "people told us we were crazy." Gore-Tex membrane is an insulator, skeptics said, so how could the material turn an ion-exchange membrane into a better conductor? Yet the same polymer structure that gives Gore-Tex membrane its strength and porosity also helps hold the ion exchange membrane together, like reinforcing bars in a concrete wall. By embedding the proton conductor into the open spaces between the rebars, Bahar and Kolde thought they could make a better membrane: one that could absorb water without becoming soggy. Their colleagues encouraged the duo to give it a try in a small trailer behind the company's building. The early results were promising. Kolde and Bahar found they could make the fuel cell membranes extremely thin, which increased the flow of protons through the membrane as much as 10 times. When they sent the membrane to a fuel cell designer in late 1994, they got a surprising call a few days later. "He said he'd melted the wires on his fuel cell," Bahar says. Delighted with the power output--and with happy customers--Bahar and Kolde have since moved from the trailer to a new state-of-the-art building, where they are part of a global fuel cell membrane team. ...According to studies by the consulting firm of Arthur D. Little Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fuel cells, which now run about $3000 per kilowatt, won't penetrate power markets until they come down to about $1500 per kilowatt.

7/30/1999  Underinvestment: The Energy Technology and R&D Policy Challenge by Robert M. Margolis and Daniel M. Kammen - Science Magazine

Although the end of the Cold War and low fossil-fuel prices have decreased the level of public attention focused on energy planning, the domestic and global political challenges, and the investments needed to develop clean energy technologies, are now more dramatic and pressing than ever. We argue that inputs (R&D funding and research infrastructure) and outputs (innovations in new energy technologies) are closely linked, and that the energy sector dangerously underinvests relative to other technology-intensive sectors of the economy. Declining investments in energy R&D in industrial nations will also adversely impact developing nations that often have limited capacity for energy R&D and rely instead on importing, adapting, or collaborative policies to install new energy systems. This situation is particularly troubling given the need for increased international capacity to respond to emerging risks such as the threats to human and environmental health and global climate change. ...Without a sustained and diverse program of energy R&D and implementation, we are crippling our ability to make the necessary improvements in the global energy economy.

7/30/1999  Oil Prices Approach $21 a Barrel, Fueling Inflation Fears - Bloomberg/LA Times

Mobil Corp. said an explosion and fire early Wednesday shut a hydrogen plant at its Southland refinery, causing some units to operate below full capacity. The company didn't reveal how much the refinery was affected.

7/27/1999  Columbia Fuel Leak 'Too Close for Comfort' - The Australian

After Columbia touched down, NASA got a look, and the damage was immediately visible: three holes, no more than a 0.6 centimetres in size, in three side-by-side steel tubes in the right engine nozzle. The holes were big enough for as much as 2.25 kilograms of hydrogen fuel to leak each second of Columbia's 8 1/2-minute climb to orbit.

7/27/1999  Director of NREL Describes Current Under-Investment in Renewable Energy As a Threat to National Security - NREL

We need to ensure that this nation is a leader in world energy markets. The only way to do that is to invest in the technology that is going to serve those markets in the future - clean energy technologies. ...Investing in the future means accelerating - not de-emphasizing, as some would have us do contrary to the desires of the American public - the research and development of energy efficiency and renewable energy - technologies in which we have underinvested relative to their progress and their potential to meet future US and world energy needs. ...A remaining tough question concerns how to store hydrogen for later use. NREL scientists are pointing the way toward a good solution to hydrogen storage -- carbon nanotubes. With this scheme, the hydrogen will be stored in tiny carbon pores about 10 billionth of a meter in diameter. This approach stores a large amount of hydrogen in a very small volume, is safe, compact and easy to use. So in the future, you or your children will travel the highways by hydrogen produced from water and sunlight. And every 2000 miles or so you may have to stop to refuel with hydrogen stored in lightweight carbon nanotubes. If the engineering is clever enough, the car may circulate the byproduct water vapor for heat during the winter. Or, if need be, the water may be condensed for drinking. All without adding a drop of pollution or of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

7/25/1999  Fuel May Have Leaked During Shuttle Launch: NASA by Brad Liston - Reuters

Photographs suggested a stainless steel tube that carried liquid hydrogen from an external fuel tank to one of three main engine nozzles may have ruptured within seconds of liftoff. Liquid hydrogen is one of two propellants used in rocket engines. The other is liquid oxygen. The tube -- half an inch (1.270 cm) thick and one of about 1,000 in the engine system -- also cools the engine nozzle as it carries the super-cold hydrogen. Its rupture would explain why Columbia's engine ran hotter than normal, and consumed more liquid oxygen than normal.

7/24/1999  Fuel Cells Meet Big Business - The Economist

The moment when an experimental technology becomes a commercial one is hard to define, but the new interest of oil companies, car makers, and power-engineering firms—almost all the industries that have a stake in the business, in fact—is a sign that fuel cells are crossing the line. Now that the energy business thinks that fuel cells are coming, they probably will. ...Car makers have been unveiling increasingly sophisticated prototypes in the past few years. In 2004 or 2005 Daimler and several rivals plan to launch commercial fuel-cell cars in America and Europe. Billy Ford Jr, head of Ford and the great-grandson of the car firm’s founder, even proclaims that fuel cells are “the only clean propulsion system”, and believes they will be the driving force behind his company in the next century. ...Five years ago, for example, the amount of platinum required by a stack of PEM fuel cells for a car cost $30,000; now, it needs about $500-worth. ...BP’s Bernie Bulkin worries about gearing up to supply a less-than-ideal fuel such as methanol, only to find that a few years later everything has to be switched again to supply hydrogen. And some fuel-cell people, such as Ballard’s Mr Rasul, think that forging ahead with interim fuels would allow fuel cells to penetrate the market while the glitches in hydrogen storage and distribution are sorted out.

7/21/1999 [ DCH Technology] Power to the People by Leon Worden - Santa Clarita Signal (California)

Northwest Power Systems of Bend, Ore., announced Monday that it has purchased a 3-kilowatt fuel cell system from DCH Technology, Inc. of Valencia. The system incorporates Northwest Power’s patented fuel processor, which generates pure hydrogen that a fuel cell, such as the one manufactured by DCH, needs to produce electricity.  Northwest Power has a $3.5 million contract with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to provide 110 fuel cell units over the next four years. BPA is a federal power marketing agency within the U.S. Dept. of Energy that supplies about half the power to Oregon, Washington, Idaho and western Montana. ...Company president David Walker said the fuel cell used in the system purchased by Northwest Power is a modified form of a proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell developed by energy department scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

7/20/1999   Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International and HyGen Industries Sign Memorandum of Understanding for Renewable Hydrogen Generation and Vehicle Fueling Systems - Hamilton Sundstrand

The companies intend to establish the first commercially viable Renewable Hydrogen Economy in California. This effort could eventually be applied throughout the United States and then, potentially, worldwide.   ...Initially, the main power plants will be constructed at various locations in Southern California using solar and wind energy systems to generate renewable power. That power will be transferred via the existing electric power grid to distributed locations throughout the region, which will then be used to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen at fueling station generators provided by Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International. "We hear a lot about alternative fuel vehicles in the news, but we don't hear as much about how these vehicles will fill their tanks or recharge. This agreement helps position HGI to establish the infrastructure needed for the most promising of the alternative fuels -- hydrogen," said Woody Hastings, chief environmental officer for HyGen. One end-use application will be for vehicles converted to use hydrogen as their fuel, particularly hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles.

7/19/1999  SRT Group Announces Major Agreement with National Power PLC - SRT Group/PRNewswire

System to Provide Low-Cost Hydrogen for Future Hydrogen-Fueled Vehicles:  The SRT/National Power team is developing the reversible fuel cell under one of two cooperative agreements that SRT has with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The agreements announced in May valued at US$7.7 million, are significant steps toward realizing hydrogen as a transportation fuel and fuel-cell based distributed power. "The push for this type of product is coming from both the consumer andindustry, with substantial financial support from the U.S Department of Energy," said Robin Parker, President of SRT Group, Inc. "All recognize the problems in dealing with pollution and realize that something has to be doneto improve the existing situation and to provide an alternative for emerging economies worldwide." The SRT/NP system links low-cost, off-peak power generating capacity and hydrogen production through an energy-storage system. This dual use of the system permits the production of inexpensive hydrogen while co-providing a reduction in on-peak energy costs. Analysis of the system revealed potential costs to be highly competitive compared with conventionally delivered hydrogen and on-peak generating systems. Neil P. Rossmeissl, DOE Hydrogen Program Manager explained, "For hydrogen to successfully serve in the market place it must be competitive with other conventional fossil fuels and the technology to use it must be safe, reliableand customer friendly." Rossmeissl added, "The SRT technology can meet all of these requirements, it's unfortunate that the technology is not already commercial."

7/19/1999 TOYOTA: Carmaker Seeks Technology Alliances by Alexandra Harney - Financial Times

Toyota Motor will seek technical alliances with companies to gain access to technologies that have proved difficult for it to develop on its own, according to Fujio Cho, the carmaker's new president. ...Environmental technologies, such as fuel cells, electric vehicles, and low-emission engines, are among the critical areas of research for carmakers in order to meet stiffer emissions regulations in the future. While cash-rich Toyota has avoided equity alliances, the carmaker has linked with General Motors for joint development of electric, hybrid, and fuel cell vehicles, and Volkswagen for intelligent transportation systems, recycling and marketing. It also has a tie-up with Panasonic EV Energy for batteries.

7/14/1999  Siemens and Shell With Emission-Free Powerplant -  Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany)

Westinghouse Power Corporation, a US subsidiary of German technology group Siemens AG, and Royal Dutch/Shell Group subsidiary, Shell Hydrogen, are planning to develop together a new type of gas-fired power plant, which will emit almost no pollution. Apparently, this plant will combine Siemens Westinghouse's high temperature fuel cell and a carbon dioxide storage technology currently being developed by Shell. According to Siemens, such a Solid Fuel Oxide Cell power plant would produce only electricity, water and pure carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be pumped off and stored in empty oil or gas storage solutions. Shell and Siemens consider this new power generation technology as an important contribution to sustainable power generation on the basis of fossil fuels and as a chance to strengthen their positions in the international power market. Siemens Westinghouse has already tested the SOFC technology at length an a pilot project is up and running in the Netherlands. The first commercial such operations will produce between 250 kW and 10mW.

7/8/1999  Energy Venture Harnesses Investors by Peter Marsh - Financial Times

On a nondescript industrial estate in Belleville, New Jersey, a team of engineers is working to produce novel energy sources that could transform the way power is supplied in applications from cars to buildings. ...So far H Power has spent $27m on development - of which $20m has come from two large companies and an institutional investor, with the rest supplied by individual investors and employees. The three corporate investors, which have taken their stakes in the past three years, are Duquesne Enterprises, an arm of Duquesne Power, a Pittsburgh-based electricity utility; Singapore Technologies Automotive, an industrial group based in Singapore with interests including electric vehicles; and Sofinov, a subsidiary of Caisse de Depot, a public sector pension fund manager in Quebec.

7/7/1999  Personal Power Generators Could Spark Revolution - The Record (New Jersey)

Researchers say personal power is poised to explode into everyday life just like personal computers in 1984 and cellular phones a few years after that. "We're at the beginning of a revolution here," said Shalom Zelingher of the New York Power Authority. , These new systems provide more reliable power and drastically cut air pollution, supporters say, because they produce both power and hot water. The hot water -- which can also be used for heating and air conditioning -- makes the systems two to three times more efficient than more conventional power sources.

7/7/1999 Small Electric Plants Bring Power to the People by Seth Borenstein - Miami Herald (Flordia)

The new generators differ from place to place. The most promising are fuel cells, which use a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to produce both water and power, and microturbines, which use natural gas to run a small industrial generator. ..."When the public really gets the opportunity to make choices it will be impossible for the incumbents to stop this,'' Plug Power Chairman George McNamee has told the Senate Energy Committee. ``It's a race,'' Assistant U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Reicher agreed. "This technology is going to be, I believe, a major part of our economy.'' ...Fuel cells boast 40 percent efficiency and microturbines get around 20 to 30 percent. But what makes both technologies pay off is that they are married to cogeneration. Cogeneration is the reuse of the generator's byproduct -- clean hot water -- to heat buildings, clear sidewalks and for other industrial uses. That brings efficiency up to the 80 percent range. The First National Bank in Omaha offers a perfect example of smart and efficient use of the new energy sources, experts say. The bank opened its new credit-card processing office powered by four fuel cells, with the hot water byproduct used to heat the building. The bank went for fuel cells because it needed a 99.99999 percent reliable power supply.

7/7/1999  Personal Power Technologies Harnessing the Sun, the Wind -- Even Digestive Gases - Pioneer Planet (Minnesota)

The fuel cell. This technology, which dates to the early 1800s, was perfected by NASA for space missions. It produces electricity through a chemical reaction, usually by combining hydrogen and oxygen to make water and power. Most fuel cells are powered by natural gas, but fuels from methanol to straight hydrogen can be used. In Yonkers, N.Y., the New York Power Authority even uses gas from a wastewater treatment plant -- essentially human digestive gas -- to power a 200-kilowatt fuel cell.

7/1/1999  Taiwan Group Launches PEM Scooter Project With Help from Texas A&M, DRI - Peter Hoffmann's Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter

The scooters are expected to operate on hydrogen, stored in hydride canisters holding enough hydrogen for maybe an hour's worth of operation at full power and a range of some 50 miles (80 km), according to very early estimates.  The project idea germinated with a initiative formulated a couple of years ago by the Taiwan government to replace 40% of the island's heavily polluting 2-stroke motorcycles and scooters with electric versions between next year and 2004, Loh explained. Taiwan produces about 1.5 million such vehicles, meaning that some 600,000 electric versions are supposed to be operating by 2004, according to Loh. However, beginning last year, it quickly became clear to both manufacturers and consumers that lead battery power was "highly undesirable and impractical due to weight, range and recharge problems," Loh said, making fuel cell power a "more appealing alternative."

July/August 1999  Your Next Car by Jim Motavalli - Sierra Magazine (Sierra Club)

If the fuel cell's hydrogen is produced using renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaics or geothermal power, it can be a perfect zero-emission loop, with drinkable water the only by-product. The fuel-cell car would be an electric vehicle with none of the drawbacks of batteries. The promise of fuel cells can be compared in importance to Thomas Edison's invention of the electric lightbulb, and progress has been rapid. In March, DaimlerChrysler unveiled its prototype Necar 4, which seats five, reaches 90 miles per hour, and can go 280 miles before refueling. The company plans to mass-produce it by 2004. Other automakers are not far behind. The hurdle confronting engineers in both industry and government is the fuel itself. Will fuel cells run on pure hydrogen? In that case they'll have to carry a high-compression tank of this very flammable gas on board. Or will they require (at least as an interim step) a "reformer" to extract hydrogen from a fossil fuel such as gasoline or methanol? Although many environmentalists favor the "direct hydrogen" approach because it's cleaner, the auto industry is leaning toward familiar liquid fuels, and the first fuel-cell cars will probably run on them. If fuel-cell cars run on gasoline or methanol, we don't have to change the local service station. But to turn the trickle of hydrogen we produce for industrial use into a national network could cost billions. The Necar 4 runs on liquid hydrogen now, but DaimlerChrysler expects the finished product to rely on methanol. While a fuel cell that runs on pure hydrogen emits only water vapor, one that uses methanol also produces carbon dioxide (though only half as much as an internal-combustion engine). A reformer adds weight to a car that must be as light as possible, and it's a complicated, miniature chemical factory. What's more, "reformed" hydrogen is not pure and isn't likely to deliver the same performance as hydrogen gas.

July/August 1999  Why Detroit's Going Green by Jim Motavalli - Sierra Magazine (Sierra Club)

At a cost of only about $300 each for additional equipment, California's cars now have the cleanest internal-combustion engines in the world. The state has also become the nation's incubator for the alternative-fuel automobile, with CALSTART, a state-funded nonprofit consortium, helping electric-vehicle businesses take root. ...Electric vehicles won't completely solve our fossil-fuel problems. Early fuel-cell cars may well run on these fuels. Hybrid cars will burn them, though they'll do it efficiently. And as critics point out, even "emission-free" battery-powered vehicles rely on electricity from utility-owned power plants that often burn oil or coal. But, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, it would take 100 electric vehicles getting their power from a fossil-fuel-burning grid in California to equal the volatile-organic-compound production of the typical new gas car, 5 to equal its nitrogen oxide production, and 100 to match its carbon monoxide output. ...In Japan, all the major manufacturers are aided by a supportive central government that pours money into solar power and basic hydrogen research. In Germany, DaimlerChrysler has taken the lead in fuel cells. ..."We need to change America's love affair with the car, but first we need to change the car," says the Sierra Club's Becker. "It's hard to influence the thinking of two hundred and forty million Americans, but there are only twelve companies that make the bulk of the world's cars. It's much easier to turn them around." Becker sees "dramatic changes for the better" on the horizon, offering as an example the hydrogen fuel cell. "It emits water," he says. "We like water."