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4/28/2000 Experts Warn of 'Catastrophe' With Rapid Consumption of Oil
- Toledo Blade (Ohio)
The oil shortages of the 1970s were temporary, minor, and
political in origin. Yet inflation became rampant worldwide, economic growth was
imperiled, and monetary systems were strained, said Dr. Craig Bond Hatfield, a professor
emeritus of geology at the University of Toledo. "When the price of oil goes up, the
price of everything increases because our economy is largely oil-driven," Dr.
Hatfield said. "If you can envision that situation on a permanent rather than a
temporary basis, with oil production rates declining indefinitely every year into the
future, then you can begin to appreciate the magnitude of the problem. "We have no
long-term energy policy," he said. "We don't even seem to recognize the
existence of a long-term problem. We simply vacillate from panic to complacency in direct
concert with short-term shortages and surpluses respectively." ...The oil won't run
out for more than a century, but "that time of exhaustion is an unimportant
date," Dr. Hatfield said. "The important date is the time when oil production
rates stop growing and begin that permanent decline," he said, "because that
will be an economic catastrophe unless we prepare for it, and that time will be within 12
years." ...Dr. Hatfield advocates accelerated research in fuel processors, which
extract hydrogen from gasoline, and fuel cells, which use the hydrogen to generate
electric power. But such efficiency can only buy time. "We must use that time to
quickly develop long-term alternatives to conventional fuels," Dr. Hatfield said.
4/28/2000 Nation's First Hydrogen Pavilion Opens at  Sunline Transit Agency
- Sunline Transit, Thousand Palms, CA
On Apdl 28, the millenium's first major clean air
achievement was cast in concrete. The hand-prints-in-cement ceremony was part of the
dedication of the SunLine Hydrogen Generation and Education Pavilion, located at SunLine's
Thousand Palms headquarters. The project is the first hydrogen generation and education
facility in the nation to be built and operated by a transit agency. "This is a true
milestone for transit, the Coachella Valley, and for public- private partnerships,"
noted Richard Cromwell, III, SunLine general manager and CEO. "What happens here in
the next few years has the potential to change transportation forever. We believe the air
quality and economic benefits will be staggering!" To honor SunLine's valued hydrogen
partners, three buildings were named: the Schatz Hydrogen Generation Center, City of Palm
Desert Vehicle Complex and Zweig Education Building. Distinguished innovator Louis W.
Schatz, Ph.D., president of General Plastics Manufacturing Company, established the Schatz
Energy Research Center (SERC) at Humboldt State University in 1989. In 1990, SERC
introduced one of the first solar hydrogen/fuel cell power plants in the nation. In 1994,
the City of Palm Desert, which had a "golf carts as public transportation
program," approached the research center with the idea of developing solar/hydrogen
fuel cell technology for mobile uses. By 1996, SERC's first hydrogen fuel cell powered
vehicle was put into service in Palm Desert. Two additional vehicles arrived in 1997; the
fourth, a neighborhood electric vehicle, in 1998. The fleet, which is still operating, was
the first to test hydrogen fuel cells in daily service. Today, SERC is known as one of the
foremost fuel cell development laboratories in the world, and the City of Palm Desert
operates the world's largest fleet of fuel cell vehicles. Renowned hydrogen proponent
Robert Zweig, M.D., became interested in the components of smog in 1972. He began
investigating alternate fuels, found hydrogen to be the cleanest and most healthful, and
has dedicated the years since to developing hydrogen vehicles. He is chairman of the
public advocacy group Clean Air Now, which developed a solar-hydrogen generation facility
and vehicle demonstration at Zerox Corporation's campus in El Segundo. That project was
relocated and reintegrated into the SunLine Hydrogen Generation & Education Pavilion.
In 1994, SunLine Transit Agency became the first transit agency in the nation to park a
fleet of diesel buses and switch overnight to buses powered by clean-burning compressed
natural gas. Since then, the agency has been a beta test site for projects ranging from a
smog-munching catalyst to a hydrogen fuel cell powered bus. Because of its leadership role
in promoting alternate fuels, SunLine received California's highest environmental honor,
the Governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Award for Environmental Management.
For more information on SunLine's alternate fuels projects, contact Sharon O'Donnell,
(760) 343-3456, ext. 170.
4/28/2000 Energy
Cells Fuel the 'Green' Debate by Dick Ahlstrom - Irish Times
(Ireland)
High on an environmentalist's wish-list
would be a power source that delivered unlimited amounts of power while producing no
pollution and little or no carbon dioxide. Impossible, many would say, but a new research
project at University College, Cork aims to provide just such a power source. The approach
is based on combining a renewable energy supply, the wind, with a fuel cell, a device that
burns hydrogen and air to produce electricity, heat and pure water. The project's promoter
is Dr Eamon McKeogh of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCC and
head of the sustainable energy research group there. ...The plan developed by Dr McKeogh
and Dr Egan is to provide all the power, heating and light required for a proposed 200,000
sq ft "green building" which would be built on campus and be used as a centre
for environmental research. It would need no connections to external power supplies and
would be selfcontained in terms of its own energy requirement.
4/27/2000 Generating Electricity from Natural Gas - The
Hindu (India)/New Scientist
Conventional fuel cells cannot cope with hydrocarbons
because the process produces carbon which clogs up the cell's nickel catalyst within
minutes. But, this week, Raymond Gorte and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia have shown that using a copper and cerium oxide catalyst in the fuel cell,
instead of nickel, prevents carbon building up. ``This discovery is a winner,'' says Kevin
Kendall of the University of Keele chemistry department. Gorte sees his fuel cells
powering clean cars, but Kendall thinks the main application could lie elsewhere.
``Millions of homeowners replace their gas-fired central heating systems in Europe every
year. Within five years they could be installing a fuel cell that would run on natural
gas,'' says Kendall. This battery in the basement could generate enough electricity to run
the home as well as heating it, he says. ``Every home could have a combined heat-and-
power plant running off mains gas.''
4/26/2000 NWA Faces Fine Due To Hazardous Cargo - CDT/AP
FAA Says Airline Improperly Carried Hydrogen On Two
Flights. ...The Federal Aviation Administration said Northwest carried a 50-pound
container of compressed hydrogen from Guam to California on two separate flights April 25,
1999. Under FAA rules, airlines must use cargo-only planes to fly such flammable
containers. The proposed fine is for carrying the container and failing to provide proper
paperwork to the pilot on one of the flights. ...The category "dangerous goods"
includes such items as oil-based paints, paint thinners, automobile batteries, infectious
substances, toxic or poisonous materials, flammable adhesives, industrial solvents, bleach
and acids.
4/25/2000 Washington
State AddsFuel Cells to Net Metering Law - Financial Times E Source (UK)
Among the other states that include fuel
cells in net metering laws are Colorado (Public Service Co.), Connecticut, Maine, Ohio,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island (Narragansett Electric), Vermont (if the hydrogen is
from a renewable source), and Wisconsin.
4/23/2000 Fuel Cells May Threaten Utilities, or Put an
Extra Charge in Services by Shanon Murray - Baltimore Sun
Because the on-site devices allow customers to disconnect
from a utility's power grid, they could siphon off customers and revenue. But utilities
could embrace fuel cells and use them to increase their customer base and develop new
revenue sources, analysts and industry experts said. "In the U.S., fuel cells will
become a solid alternative and augmentation to the existing power system," said Rhett
Ross, development director at Breakthrough Technologies Institute, an energy and
environmental nonprofit group in Washington that studies fuel cell technologies.
..."Eventually, fuel cells may start to displace the new construction of power
plants," Ross said. "But we won't see utilities shut down operational
coal-plants because of fuel cells. The U.S. is growing too rapidly and is using too much
energy to justify that." Brian Fernandez, an analyst with First Albany Corp. in
Albany, N.Y., agrees that the demand for energy creates a mandate for fuel cells.
"We're almost at capacity now," Fernandez said. "Siting [a power plant] is
getting harder, and getting a new oil-fired or coal-fired plant through the necessary
processes and the time it takes make it very difficult for utilities to expand capacity.
Fuel cells are a rational alternative."
4/23/2000 Hybrid Cars Are Here; How They Work by David
Whitney - McClatchy/Rocky Mt. News/Scrips Howard (Denver, CO)
As impressive as hybrid cars are, they are only an
interim step to a new age of automobiles that probably won't use gasoline at all. The
first cars using fuel cells that convert hydrogen into electricity will be on the market
within a few years and are expected to be readily available within a decade. "We see
fuel cells as having a much bigger impact than hybrids over the long term." said
Edward Murphy of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade lobby for the domestic oil
industry. Murphy said that if fuel cell cars go commercial by 2005, as manufacturers such
as Honda promise, worldwide petroleum consumption could drop by the end of the
decade....According to Burke, who directs the Electric Vehicle Power Systems Laboratory at
the University of California-Davis, what started the technological revolution was
California's toughened air pollution requirements that accelerated development of electric
cars. ...Ford recently announced its intention to market a hybrid SUV. In fact, every
domestic auto manufacturer has a hybrid entrant in the works, and all are engineering fuel
cell models as well.
4/21/2000 [ FuelCell Energy] Advanced Fuel Cell Completes One Year of Operation - EarthVision Environmental News
According to the National Energy Technology Center
(NETL), which has been working with FuelCell Energy on the project, the demonstration
included the longest running (8,600 hours) carbonate fuel cell fuel cell stack ever, as
well as the largest. Beginning operation in February 1999, this grid-connected power plant
used a full-size stack of 340 nine-square-foot area cells. The stack, manufactured at the
company’s state-of-the-art production facility in central Connecticut, is the
building block for FuelCell Energy’s family of commercial products ranging in size
from 250 kilowatts to three megawatts. The next step toward commercialization will be
field trials of the packaged submegawatt product. "FuelCell Energy’s one-year
anniversary of the start up of this advanced power plant is a major milestone in our
efforts to develop the clean energy systems of tomorrow," said Rita Bajura, Director
of the NETL. "This is not a small scale laboratory experiment but rather a
full-sized, grid-connected power plant that has been powering FuelCell Energy’s own
facilities and providing power to the local utility grid for a year," Bajura said.
"It has been running in an unattended mode for the past eight months and has operated
exactly as designed, delivering clean, high quality electric power efficiently, quietly
and reliably." While the US trials have been progressing, so have European field
trials of the sub-megawatt FuelCell Energy stack. The European trial started in November
1999 at Bielefeld, Germany by the company’s European partner, MTU, a unit of
Daimler-Chrysler. The MTU unit provides 225 kilowatts of electricity with utilization of
waste heat. The unit showed overall thermal efficiency of 77 percent with 45 percent
fuel-to-electricity efficiency.
4/21/2000 [ Ballard] DART
Buses Should Run on Nonpolluting Fuel Cells - Dallas Morning News
Dallas Area Rapid Transit should look to Canada for ideas
about how to obtain nonpolluting buses for a region that badly needs to clean its air.
...Last month, Ballard and a consortium that also includes the automobile manufacturers
Ford and DaimlerChrysler, completed testing of two fuel-cell powered buses operated by the
Chicago Transit Authority. The result: fuel-cell powered buses that can withstand the
strain of daily passenger service. For two years, the buses carried more than 100,000
passengers, covered more than 30,000 miles and clocked more than 5,000 hours of service.
They operated in rain and shine, in freezing and blistering temperatures. They emitted
neither nitrogen oxide (an ozone-forming chemical) nor carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas),
just water. How's that for environmentally friendly technology? ...DART should be bold
about acquiring this promising technology when it is cheaper. With federal
environmentalists primed to punish Dallas-Fort Worth unless it complies with federal
clean-air standards, fuel-cell powered buses could significantly improve the region's
economy, environment and quality of life.
4/21/2000 Gore Still Wants Traditional Car Engine Eliminated
by Thomas Ferraro - Reuters
Vice President Al Gore arranged to go to Detroit, home of
the automotive industry, Friday to renew his embattled eight-year-old call to abolish the
internal combustion engine. Aides said the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee
would be joined by industry and union leaders who agree the engine should be replaced with
a cleaner machine for the benefit of all. Gore first proposed abolishing the internal
combustion engine in his 1992 best-selling book, "Earth in the Balance," a call
to arms to protect the environment. ...In his 1992 book, Gore wrote: "It ought to be
possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of
completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five year
period." Gore does not change a word in the re-release of the book, and in the new
introduction tells critics where they can find the passage on his call to abolish the
combustion engine. "It is possible (to abolish this engine); it needs to be done; it
will create more jobs, not destroy jobs," Gore adds in the new introduction. "I
am proud that I wrote those words in 1992, and I reaffirm them today." As vice
president, Gore heads a partnership between the federal government and the U.S. automotive
industry dedicated to developing more fuel-efficient cars that use alternative energy
sources.
4/20/2000 Standard for Fuel-Cell Cars Sought to Drive Competition
- Japan Times
The government aims to set a standard for hydrogen intake
systems for fuel cells by fiscal 2002 to spur the production of pollution-free vehicles,
sources at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry said Wednesday. Automakers
have come up with a variety of hydrogen intake systems in their quest for emission-free
cars. The ministry hopes that mandating one particular format will encourage competition
among carmakers and streamline infrastructure development, the sources said. ...Various
methods being developed for generating and handling hydrogen include storing it in a
special alloy that can be loaded onto cars, and installing removable devices in which
materials decompose to produce the gas, the sources said. Basic infrastructure to support
fuel-cell vehicles, such as hydrogen stations, is planned to be in place by fiscal 2005.
By 2010, the government aims to have fuel cells generating up to 2.2 million kw of
electricity, which is equivalent to the amount that can be generated by two nuclear
reactors.
4/20/2000 [ Ballard] Fill'er Up With Fuel-Cell Stocks by Jeff Clabaugh -
CBS MarketWatch
One Merrill Lynch analyst who covers Plug Power rates it
a long-term buy and says its recent price jump indicates the market has decided that a
succession of announcements about significant moves toward commercial viability are real
and that fuel-cells will have an impact. Another Merrill Lynch analyst has a strong buy
rating on Ballard with a target price of more than double its recent trading range. And a
Bear Sterns analyst puts a buy rating on both companies saying fuel-cells are getting
significantly closer to reality. And expect more names to come into play. Merrill
Lynch's Sam Brothwell says there is a lot of pre-IPO stuff out there and by the end of the
year there could be another three or four names.
4/19/2000 India: Hydrogen Leakage Cause of Cryogenic
Engine Test Failure - BBC/Financial Times/PTI (India)
Inadvertent leakage of hydrogen caused a fire and
subsequent premature shutdown of India's first test of an indigenous cryogenic engine, the
Indian government admitted for the first time Wednesday [19th April]. Preliminary analysis
indicates that the hydrogen leakage caused a flame outside the engine, resulting in
premature shutdown of the test by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in February,
India's Junior Minister for External Affairs [and Space] Vasundhara Raje told Lok Sabha
(the lower house of Indian parliament) in a written reply. The test firing on 16th
February this year had to be aborted at 15 seconds instead of the planned duration of 30
seconds. ...The indigenous cryogenic engine using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen was
ignited at liquid propulsion systems centre test complex at Mahendragiri in southern
Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
4/19/2000 The Fuel Cell’s Future and the
Developers Who Will Take It There by Cathy Swirbul - Power Online
Dozens of companies worldwide—from Ford Motor
Company to newly formed Avista Laboratories of Spokane, WA—are banking on the
marketability of fuel cells, technology still in its infancy. A fuel cell is a device that
chemically produces electricity that could power vehicles and portable devices, such as
cellular phones and wearable computers, and provide electricity and heat for homes and
other small buildings. ...For the residential power market, developers must reduce the
fuel cell’s operation/maintenance costs and the price per kilowatt in order to
compete with combustion engines, according to Dan Rastler, area manager for distributed
resources at EPRIsolutions. ...Despite the challenges remaining to wide-spread
commercialization of fuel cells, numerous developers are making great advances in research
and development and a few have products already on the market. Other developers plan to
introduce their products to the market within the next two to three years.
4/19/2000 Hydrogen-Powered BMW 750hl To Appear At New York
International Auto Show - BMW
As an additional highlight, the BMW 750hL
will feature a fuel cell implemented where BMW Group researchers consider it to be most
useful: as a battery replacement to provide vehicle electrical power. This means, for
example, that the air conditioning system can be operated without the engine running. This
will be important in climates where drivers are tempted to leave their engines and air
conditioners running in the summer even when they are not in the car. Since hydrogen fuel
is not widely available, the V12 engine of the 750hL is configured to run on hydrogen or
gasoline. Running like a normal smooth-as-silk 12 cylinder gasoline engine, this one
produces the same power of approximately 204 horsepower from a displacement of 5.4 liters,
whether using hydrogen or gasoline. BMW Group engineers see the development opportunities
with this high-tech power-plant, which will allow it to approach the same levels of
utility as modern gasoline engines. BMW researchers have attained a travel range of up to
250 miles on one tank of super-cooled fuel (-423o F). If the hydrogen tank is empty far
away from a hydrogen station, the driver simply switches to gasoline operation.
4/18/2000 Earth Day Turns 30, Stretches Across Globe
by Patrick Connole - Reuters
This year's global Earth Day theme is clean energy,
according to Denis Hayes, one of the event's founders in 1970, and now head of the
Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation which funds environmental projects in the Pacific
Northwest. "We presently have the technology ... fuel cells, solar cells, hydrogen
... the opportunities are amazing for clean energy," Hayes said. He said this year's
celebration needed a global focus, and the theme of clean energy applied to all countries
and a call by environmentalists for ratification of the Kyoto global climate change
treaty.
4/17/2000 Tanker Carrying 125,000 Cubic Feet of Flammable Liquid Hydrogen Catches
Fire, Forces Evacuation - Chemical Incident Reports Center
Burns Harbor, Indiana -- Early Saturday
morning Dennis White, a trucker for Praxair, Inc., noticed a safety device malfunctioned
on his tanker's vent stack, causing a "clear fire" to erupt and burn straight
into the air. Minutes later, emergency personnel converged on the scene at Air
Products and Chemicals, just west of Bethlehem Steel's main gate. Everyone within a
one-mile radius was evacuated. Traffic along U.S. Highway 12 was detoured, 300
residents from a mobile home park evacuated and train service was curtailed to allow
firefighters to run water hoses across railroad tracks. Local firefighting units kept
steady streams of water on the volatile tanker to maintain a safe
temperature. Tom White, assistant director of the Porter County Haz-Mat team,
said his primary concern was that the tanker would overheat, causing an explosion and
endangering emergency personnel. The gas product inside the tanker is kept at minus 434
degrees (Fahrenheit) and could cause severe burns upon touch, White said. The
gas could also pose a serious health hazard if inhaled in an enclosed area. No one was
injured. The mechanical breakdown that caused the fire is under investigation.
4/17/2000 [
Ballard] Fuel-cell Stocks Poised to Power Ahead
by Mark Thompson - MSN Money Central
For several decades, fuel cells
have powered spaceships. They are now propelling buses around Chicago. Just five years
ago, skeptics would have scoffed at any suggestion that the technology could reach this
point this soon. But the power source of the future -- the clean, efficient fuel cell that
produces electricity from hydrogen, one of the most ubiquitous elements on earth -- has
arrived. Well, almost. ..."Fuel cells are getting
significantly closer to reality," adds Robert Winters, an analyst at Bear Stearns,
who initiated coverage of Ballard and Plug Power in early April with "buy"
ratings. ...With no expectation of revenue or earnings any time soon, however,
"valuations are very, very difficult," says Christine Farkas, another Merrill
Lynch analyst. She covers Ballard and gives it a "strong buy" rating with a $165
price target, more than double its recent price in the $60s, but closer to its
pre-pullback high of $145. ...In the next several months,
Farkas expects DaimlerChrysler to take the wraps off its own prototype car powered by
Ballard fuel cells. And she wouldn't be surprised by fuel cell-related announcements from
other auto makers, as well as in the portable-generator market. ...Fuel cells have already
reached performance milestones that would have been considered unthinkable not long ago.
"They haven't completely resolved the performance issues," says Winters, of Bear
Stearns. "But Ballard's Mark 900 has power-generation capability north of 70
kilowatts, which is comparable to the internal combustion engine, in the same space. That
is performance far beyond what anyone thought was possible in this time period five or 10
years ago. They've also tremendously brought down the cost, as well."
4/17/2000 Energy Lab Contributes to Futuristic Power
Source Cells in Netherlands by Tracy Carbasho - Pittsburgh Business Times
The 100-kilowatt solid oxide fuel cell
system represents a research collaboration between the National Energy Technology
Laboratory in South Park Township and Siemens-Westinghouse Corp. in McKeesport. DOE
officials say the $196 million project achieved a milestone in January by completing one
year of operations at a Dutch cogeneration plant. The accomplishment signals the halfway
point in the two-year demonstration phase and also marks the longest-known period of
operation for a solid oxide fuel cell of this size. ...The DOE is funding $82
million of the project, with the remainder coming from Siemens-Westinghouse and the Dutch
government agency known as Novem. The test unit at the Dutch power station has operated
for a record 8,760 hours, providing electricity to the local power grid in Westervoort in
the Netherlands and hot water for the area's district heating system. ..DOE officials
describe the cells as the new power plants of the 21st century, representing an effective,
environmentally friendly energy source.
4/16/2000 Bubbles in Fuel Caused Crash of H-II Rocket, Experts Claim
- Japan Times
The panel has found that the blades in the turbo engine
pump in the H-II rocket were damaged as a result of forces generated by bubbles that built
up inside the liquid-hydrogen fuel tank during the rocket's brief ascent from its launch
pad. The bubbles, combined with what experts believe were shoddy production process in the
construction of the rocket, led to the rupture of the blades in the fuel pump, the panel
said. Investigators say they have found tiny cracks in the fuel-pump blades which they
believe occurred during the production process. As the outside atmospheric pressure
declined during the rocket's ascent, launch controllers reduced the pressure inside the
fuel tank. This process led to an increase in bubbles inside the fuel pump, triggering a
fluctuation in internal pressure that put stress on the engine. This phenomenon was not
widely known when the rocket was being developed, but the experts said the problem should
have been dealt with in 1998, when a Japanese expert raised the issue. The H-II rocket
crashed after the main engine in the first stage stalled four minutes after it lifted off
from Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture on Nov. 15.
4/15/2000 Tanker Carrying
125,000 Cubic Feet of Flammable Liquid Hydrogen Catches Fire, Forces Evacuation -
AP/Chemical Incident Reports Center
Burns
Harbor, IN - Early Saturday morning Dennis White, a trucker for Praxair, Inc., noticed a
safety device malfunctioned on his tanker's vent stack, causing a "clear fire"
to erupt and burn straight into the air. Minutes later, emergency personnel
converged on the scene at Air Products and Chemicals, just west of Bethlehem Steel's main
gate. Everyone within a one-mile radius was evacuated. Traffic along U.S.
Highway 12 was detoured, 300 residents from a mobile home park evacuated and train service
was curtailed to allow firefighters to run water hoses across railroad tracks. Local
firegighting units kept steady streams of water on the valatile tanker to maintain a safe
temperature. Tom White, assistant director of the Porter County Haz-Mat team,
said his primary concern was that the tanker would overheat, causing an explosion and
endangering emergency personnel. The gas product inside the tanker is kept at minus 434
degrees (Fahrenheit) and could cause severe burns upon touch, White said. The
gas could also pose a serious health hazard in inhaled in an enclosed area. No one was
injured. The mechanical breakdown that caused the ire is under investigation.
4/12/2000 The Man Who Was Sure of Shell by
Roger Trapp - The Independent (UK)
Mark Moody-Stuart would not be happy to
suffer the high-profile attention paid to Sir John Browne, his counterpart at Britain's
other giant, BP Amoco. ...What brought the company up with a jolt were the events of 1995
– the company's annus horribilis. The disputed disposal of the Brent Spar oil
platform and the company's activities in Nigeria, amid severe civil unrest in the
oil-producing Niger Delta area, led to boycotts of the company in some countries. If this
period triggered the conditions that produced the company's poor financial performance
three years later, it also sparked a realisation that the organisation needed to think
carefully about its role in the 21st century. In 1998, Shell joined the trend for
publishing reports on its environmental and social record, as well as financial
performance. This was backed by a commitment to sustainable development by moving into
other energy areas, notably renewables, such as solar power and forestry, and hydrogen,
which produces the fuel cells being developed to power vehicles. To critics who suggest
such ventures were distractions when they were initiated in the midst of the company's
financial troubles, Mr Moody-Stuart says sustainable development and financial performance
are inextricably linked. "Sustainable development builds the platform on which
business thrives and society prospers," he says, though he also accepts a commitment
in this area is no substitute for a first-rate financial performance.
4/12/2000 Inventor
Hopes to Create Fuel from Sewage by Mike Berry - Wichita Eagle
(Kansas)
Officials at the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and
Energy have seen demonstrations of Thomas' process, which involves introducing water into
a mix of powders made from manufacturing waste metals, including magnesium, iron and zinc.
The combination produces what is known as a galvanic effect, releasing hydrogen gas, a
hot, clean-burning fuel. Officials say similar processes have been developed before, but
no one has come up with an economically feasible way of liberating large amounts of
hydrogen from water. John Turner, a senior electrochemist at the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory in Golden, Colo., says Drano, the common household drain cleaner, produces
hydrogen gas in basically the same way, so that's nothing new. In Thomas' process, Turner
says metallic elements don't just disappear when hydrogen is produced from them, and he
wonders what organic compounds may remain behind to be disposed of. "I have some
serious concerns about what's left in the pot when they get through," he said. ...In
addition to providing a cheap source of energy, Thomas says his process could also clean
up polluted groundwater. Contaminated water, such as waste from hog and cattle feedlot
lagoons, can be used in the process, whose byproducts are water vapor and a bit of
grayish-white ash. ...Neil Rossmeissl, head of the Department of Energy's hydrogen
research and development program in Washington, D.C., isn't convinced yet. "It's
strictly a matter of economics," he said. Magnesium is a relatively expensive metal,
and unless Thomas can find huge amounts of waste magnesium for free, it probably would
cost more to make hydrogen than gasoline, he said. Thomas' process may have "niche
applications," such as the on-farm scenario, but Rossmeissl added, "When you try
to make a very large-scale business out of it, suddenly the economics just don't make
sense."
4/11/2000 Firms to Test Run Fuel-Cell Cars; Mazda to Team Up with
Mitsubishi, DaimlerChrysler Units - Japan Times
DaimlerChrysler Japan Holding Ltd. and Mazda will each
provide a car for test runs at Nippon Mitsubishi's refinery in Yokohama to collect data
for the development of a fuel cell-powered vehicle. Nippon Mitsubishi will provide the
fuel for the experiment. ...The experiment, which will cost over 1 billion yen, is to be
completed within fiscal 2000, which ends in March 2001. It is expected to receive 200
million yen to 300 million yen in subsidies from the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry. Mazda's main stockholder, Ford Motor Co. of the United States, and German-U.S.
company DaimlerChrysler are cooperating in the development of fuel-cell cars.
4/10/2000 The Right Fuel
for Fuel Cells: a Crucial Choice by Bill Eggertson - Environmental
News Service
"The fuel cell is a remarkable
technology that has the potential to replace the internal combustion engine as a clean and
economic source of power," says David Hocking of the David Suzuki Foundation.
"But if we make hydrogen from the wrong fuel source, such as gasoline, we will have
squandered a crucial opportunity to address global warming and air pollution."
4/10/2000 Mazda Joins
Test for Fuel Cell Cars - Associated Press
Mazda Motor Corp. said Monday that it will join the
Japanese unit of DaimlerChrysler AG and a Japanese oil company in a government-led project
to test fuels for next-generation vehicles. Japan's Trade Ministry will contribute about
two-thirds of the $3.77 million to $4.71 million it will cost to test fuel-cell-powered
vehicles, said Keiichi Yumoto, an official in the ministry's Natural Resources and Energy
Agency. Yumoto said the aim of the three-year project is to help decide which fuels are
most appropriate for use in Japan. He said the companies will test a variety of fuels,
including methanol and hydrogen. Mazda and DaimlerChrysler will each contribute fuel cell
vehicles, while Nippon Mitsubishi Oil contributes the fuels and test track, Yumoto said.
...Mazda, which is 33.4 percent owned by Ford Motor Co., has a small, prototype model,
called the Demio FC-EV fuel cell vehicle, which runs on methanol.
4/10/2000 Will
We Live On Mars? by Jeffery Kluger - Time Magazine
For the past decade--ever since NASA's 1989 proposal laid
its half- trillion-dollar egg--the space community has been intrigued by a mission
scenario known as the Mars Direct plan. Developed by engineers at Martin Marietta
Astronautics, a NASA contractor, Mars Direct calls not merely for visiting the Red Planet
but also for living off the alien land. As early as 2005, when Earth and Mars are in their
once-every-26- months alignment, the plan envisions launching a four-person spacecraft to
Mars--but launching it with its tanks empty of fuel and its cabin empty of crew. Landing
on the surface, the craft would begin pumping Martian atmosphere--which is 95% carbon
dioxide--into a reaction chamber, where it would be exposed to hydrogen and broken down
into methane, water and oxygen. Methane and oxygen make a first- rate rocket fuel; water
and oxygen are necessary human fuels. All these consumables could be pumped into tanks
inside the ship and stored there. Two years later, when Mars and Earth are again in
conjunction, another spacecraft--this one carrying a crew--would be sent to join the robot
ship on the surface. The astronauts could work on Mars for 18 months, living principally
in their arrival craft, and then, at the end of their stay, abandon that ship, climb into
the robot craft and blast off for home.
4/9/2000 Industry Touts Fuel Cells as Viable Energy Source
by Asako Murakami - Japan Times
As Group of Eight ministers discussed climate change,
industry representatives meeting here Friday were touting fuel cells as an "energy
for the future." The Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment held
its 15th general assembly meeting at a hotel near the site where the environment ministers
from the G-8 are currently holding talks. ...While prototypes of automobiles run by fuel
cells have been developed, some difficulties still need to be worked out before they
become commercially viable, said Norihiko Nakamura of Toyota Motor Corp. He cited the high
cost of fuel cell production as one of the biggest obstacles to proliferation of the
cells. Nakamura also pointed to the importance of cooperation among the government and
business in promoting the product. Osaka Gas, Ltd., Sanyo Electric Co. and Matsushita
Electric Works, Ltd. also gave presentations, focusing on their ongoing development of
compact fuel cell development systems for residential use.
4/8/2000 Canada,
U.S. Join Forces to Build World's Largest Fuel Cell Demo - Canadian Press
Canada and the United States are joining forces to build
the world's largest prototype heat and power plant using solid oxide fuel-cell technology.
The $18-million Cdn project, which will be a test plant, is being jointly funded by the
Canadian government, the U.S. Department of Energy and Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp.
The plant, to be built in Toronto, is being incorporated into the existing technology
facilities of provincial utility Ontario Power Generation, which will operate it. A number
of Canadian technology companies will contribute to the development, manufacture and
delivery of components for the prototype. ...Ottawa is investing more than $2 million to
help develop and build the prototype heat and power plant. Additional funding is being
provided by the National Research Council.
4/8/2000 Ranchers Fear Methane Boom Could Mean Watery Demise by
Mead Gruver - Associated Press/Nando Times
Gas companies, state and federal
governments, and mineral rights owners stand to reap a financial windfall by tapping into
the vast underground methane gas reserves in northeast Wyoming. But many of those who live
on the land fear losing precious underground water reserves and seeing their land scarred
by runoff and heavy equipment. ...Coal-bed methane is a form of natural gas considered a
clean-burning fuel. It is held in place in underground coal seams by water pressure, and
is released by placing wells at regular intervals over a large area and continuously
pumping out the groundwater. ...The use of coal-bed methane gas was nearly nonexistent 12
years ago. It accounted for 5.9 percent of the nation's natural gas production in 1997,
according to the Gas Research Institute in Chicago. Today, methane development is booming
in Wyoming and beginning in Montana and Colorado, among other places. Industry officials
promote it as an alternative fuel and say it can be developed with little environmental
impact. For Wyoming, the growth comes at a time when state coffers are suffering from a
decline in other mineral industries. If projections for up to 15,000 coal-bed methane
wells come true, the state could reap millions in royalties and taxes on production. ...In
southeastern Montana's Powder River Basin, a moratorium has been declared on new drilling
permits for coal-bed methane wells pending a judge's decision on an injunction. The ban is
being sought by a conservation group that claims the state issued the permits without
studying the environmental effects.
4/7/2000 Hydrogen
Will Drive Petrol Cars into History by Niall McKay - Irish Times
(Ireland)
"Fuel cells will end the 100-year reign of the
internal combustion engine" said William Clay Ford, Ford chairman. The sports utility
vehicle is the last great hulking tribute to the internal combustion engine. Soon the only
place you will find petrol-fired cars is in museums. Remember, at the end of the last ice
age, how large mammals got? Well SUVs are the dinosaurs of the transportation industry,
said Bill Van Amburg vice-president of CalStart, a California advanced transportation
technology consultancy. With the price of oil tripling in the US in the last 12 months, Mr
Van Amburg may have a point. This September, in California's capital city, Sacramento, the
world's largest automakers - Ford, Daimler Chrysler, Honda, Nissan and Volkswagen will
join forces with the world's largest Oil companies - Shell, ARCO and Texaco, to solve the
problem and test drive fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen. The coalition is calling
itself the California Fuel Cell Partnership and its objective is to road test fuel-cell
vehicles. ...How much would it cost? Well most scientists believe that by the time the
public actually gets there hands on fuel-cell vehicles it will cost about the same as
petrol. While hydrogen is more expensive than petrol, fuel cells tend to be about 50 per
cent more efficient. ...The Canadian company, Ballard has made great progress in the last
couple of years and now it boasts that its fuel cells "due for release in 2003"
will not only compete with the internal combustion engine on price but on power too. Ford
and Daimler Chrysler seem to concur that Ballard has solved the problem and have sunk over
$1.25 billion into the company.
4/7/2000 Fuel cells Power Former General Motors CEO by Rick
Haglund - Newshouse News Service/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune (Minnesotta)
Stempel's new company, Energy Conversion Devices Inc., is
betting that the internal combustion engine eventually will give way to the fuel cell.
Many are talking about the Internet economy, but Stempel said the buzz is about to change.
We're heading into a "hydrogen economy," said Stempel, ECD's chairman.
"When [hydrogen] replaces fossil fuels, it will change the world economy
forever," he said in a recent speech to the Automotive Press Association in Detroit.
...In most experimental systems, the hydrogen is stored as a super-cooled liquid or as a
gas in high-pressure tanks. Both methods present safety concerns in the event of a crash.
ECD has developed what the company claims is a safer, more efficient method. Its system
stores hydrogen as a solid in hydrides, or metal alloys, that soak up the hydrogen. The
hydrogen is released as the hydrides are heated. GM used ECD's storage system in its
Precept concept fuel-cell car, which the automaker introduced at the Detroit auto show in
January. "We believe hydrogen will be the fuel of the future," Larry Burns, GM's
research and development chief, said at the Precept introduction.
4/7/2000 [ Ballard] Electric
Dreams by Peter Brewer - Canberra Times (Australia)
Some of the world's greatest inventions have
been discovered by accident. One such accident led to the discovery of the fuel cell;
another led to its commercialisation. And in around 30 years', when most of the energy
analysts have predicted the oil wells will run dry, motorists will be thankful for both
these strange twists of fate. ...The early development of the fuel cell was fraught with
problems and high cost, although in 1954 US giant General Electric's intensive work had in
operation a prototype that, by using pure oxygen and hydrogen, proved sufficiently
effective to interest NASA. The Gemini space program proved the viability of the fuel cell
to provide electrical power. The spacecraft used six ''stacks'' of cells, with three cells
in each stack.The electrical power output from each stack was quite modest, just one
kilowatt and, as a by-product, produced half a litre of water for each kilowatt hour of
operation. The Gemini cells were notoriously temperamental and required constant
monitoring, and had to regularly be purged with extra bursts of oxygen and hydrogen to
avoid breakdown. At this time if anyone had thought to suggest to Canadian scientist
Geoffrey Ballard that he would become a world leader in fuel-cell technology he would have
laughed. ...The big breakthrough on Ballard's fuel cell came by accident in the search for
cheaper materials. Up until late 1986 Ballard's team had only worked with one type of
fuel-cell membrane manufactured by Dupont, but Dow Chemical had also developed a similar
membrane, which had not been released for sale. Ballard's team tracked down an
experimental batch of the Dow material, put it into a fuel cell and set up a standard
test. Within a few minutes, the fuel cell was generating so much electricity on the test
bench that it had melted through the power-output cable. Ballard immediately knew he had a
saleable product, the problem was: should he aim his fuel cell at small niche markets like
military field generators, wheelchairs and golf carts, or ''go for broke'' and try to sell
it as a full-blown alternative to the combustion engine?
4/6/2000 [ Ballard] DaimlerChrysler
Plans Fuel-Cell Bus-Building Program - Canadian Press
Automotive giant DaimlerChrysler will build
and sell up to 30 city pollution-free buses over the next three years using the
Canadian-developed Ballard fuel cell. In an announcement Thursday in Frankfurt,
DaimlerChrysler said it will be the first automaker to offer hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles
for sale. Along with Ford, DaimlerChrysler is a major investor in Ballard Power Systems, a
high-tech company based in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. ..."We want to introduce
our customers early on to technology that is particularly suited to city traffic because
of zero emissions and significantly lower noise levels," said Wolfgang Diez, head of
DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes-Benz/Setra Bus business unit. The first buses are planned for
delivery in 2002 and will be used under normal conditions for two years to provide
detailed operating data. The buses, which will carry up to 70 passengers, will cost about
$1.2 million US each, about three times the price of conventional diesel buses. Ballard's
own prototype buses have undergone tests in Vancouver and Chicago, although there are no
purchase orders yet. While the technology is maturing, DaimlerChrysler is aware it has to
reduce the cost, volume and weight of fuel-cell systems to compete with
internal-combustion engines, said Ferdinand Panik, head of the company's fuel-cell
project. "We have decided to begin a dialog with our future customers at this early
stage so that they can gain experience with this new technology," he said. The buses
will use drive units developed and built by Xcellsis, jointly owned by Ballard, Ford and
DaimlerChrysler, with fuel-cell stacks supplied by Ballard.
4/6/2000 [ DCH Technology] Sales Up,
Costs Down for DCHT in 1999 by Leon Warden - Santa Clarita Signal
(California)
DCH Technology of Valencia cut its losses by
almost 25 percent in 1999, offsetting a portion of its capital-intensive
research and development activities by finding new markets for its cutting-edge
hydrogen sensors and fuel cells.
4/5/2000 Nation's First
Propane Fuel Cell Installed at Delta-Montrose Electric Association -
DMEA/E-Wire
This prototype, built by H Power of Clifton,
N.J., is reputedly the first in the nation outside of a laboratory which runs on propane,
a fuel readily available in areas served by rural electric cooperatives. "We're proud
to be in the vanguard of fuel cell installations nationally," said Dan McClendon,
DMEA's general manager. "Sixty-two years ago our cooperative was formed to bring
electric power to rural areas at a time when for-profit utilities were not interested in
providing electric service to our communities. Fuel cells--particularly propane powered
fuel cells--represent an exciting way to continue our mission of providing power to areas
not currently served through traditional means. Fuel cells will also provide more options
and benefits for all of our members." "We are very pleased to have delivered the
first unit of our propane-powered fuel cell generating system to DMEA for field
testing," said Dr. H. Frank Gibbard, H Power's CEO. "DMEA was our first contact
in the rural electric cooperative community." DMEA's propane fuel cell is the
first of a series of units which will be installed this spring by rural electric
cooperatives working with Energy Co-Opportunities (ECO), a national cooperative created to
assist electric distribution cooperatives diversify into new energy services. ...The
Delta-Montrose Electric Association will unveil its prototype fuel cell to the public on
Earth Day, April 22.
4/5/2000 Earth Day Turning 30, Organizers Push Clean Energy by
Patrick Connole - Reuters
Denis Hayes, an Earth Day founder and chief architect of
this year's gala, said much progress had been made on environmental policies since 1970,
but much needs to be done for fighting the gravest threat yet: global warming. "Earth
Day will not just be a call for clean energy, but a bold demonstration that we currently
possess the technology necessary for responsible energy production and consumption,"
Hayes said. The move to clean power encompasses a sweeping agenda, led by EPA efforts to
force old, coal-burning power plants to meet stringent new clean air standards, to
developing hydrogen-fueled vehicles, to Congress passing budgets with adequate funding for
research and development, speakers said.
4/3/2000 Sticker Shock Stalls Fuel Cells by Bill
Virgin - Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Washngton)
A lot of companies and research organizations in the
Pacific Northwest are betting they can drive down the cost of fuel cells, and that the
potential market will be closer to the former figure than the latter. If they can make
fuel cells more affordable, the potential applications are huge. Vacation cabins or
islands far from transmission lines. Industrial plants, especially those that wind up with
hydrogen (a feedstock for fuel cells) as a byproduct of their own manufacturing processes.
Telecommunications relay towers. Military vehicles that can operate their weapons without
running noisy engines that can tip off the enemy. Ships. Auxiliary power units to drive
all the electronics on cars. Auxiliary power units to drive heating and air conditioning
units on trucks without running the engine. ...Some of the biggest players in the
current bid to drive down fuel cell costs and bring them to the mass market are utility
companies. ...Ballard Power Systems is perhaps the best-known Pacific Northwest player in
fuel cell development, in part because of its partnerships with major auto manufacturers,
in part because its stock has been one of the market's high fliers in recent months.
...Idacorp, the Boise-based parent of Idaho Power, bought a Bend, Ore., company last year
that is developing fuel cells. Northwest Power Systems is building the 10 fuel cells that
the Bonneville Power Administration will deploy this spring at participating utilities.
...Seattle City Light is due to get one of Northwest Power Systems' units in a second
round of testing later this year. ...Avista Labs currently has 30 fuel cells installed
around the country (at the utility they're used to recharge batteries). In June, it plans
to increase production to build 10 fuel cells a week until it has 120 units for further
deployment. ...Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories is part of a consortium known as
the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance, which is looking at ways to drive down the
cost of fuel cells through mass production. ...The Spokane Intercollegiate Research and
Technology Institute was the site of research sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency into developing a fuel reformer that will convert ammonia to hydrogen to
ammonia for use by a fuel cell. ...King County's wastewater treatment division has been
working on a fuel cell demonstration project at its Renton facility. The Environmental
Protection Agency is providing financing.
4/3/2000 Utility Companies Hope Fuel Cells Will Power Homes by
Bill Virgin - Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Washngton)
"They're quiet, they're small and they'll definitely
produce electricity as well as hot water," says Corinne Grande, power analyst with
Seattle City Light's environment and safety division. "It's just that they're
expensive." True -- for now, anyway. The demonstration units that 10 Northwest
utilities will be testing this spring cost around $50,000 each. But the cost of
electricity produced by fuel cells, excluding the cost of the units, is already
competitive with conventionally delivered power in some parts of the country. As
manufacturers mass-produce fuel cells, the costs will drop even more. ...If fuel cells catch on, they could be used to accommodate
growth in electricity demand, particularly in the peak hours when the load on the system
is the greatest.
4/2/2000 New Energy Technology Gains Power by Fred
Barbash - Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
A number of companies have stepped up work on newer
approaches, with some aiming at lower power uses, such as transportation; others at
residential uses; and still others at heavy commercial deployment. Among the companies are
Avista Corp.'s (AVA) Avista Labs, Plug Power Inc. (PLUG), Ballard Power Systems Inc.
(BLDP) and FuelCell Energy Inc. (FCL), all of which have stocks that are heating up as
well, despite the absence of any fuel cell sales, let alone profits from fuel cells. The
funding comes almost entirely from investors, government grants and research money from
partner firms.Why now? Fuel cell materials are less expensive. Sophisticated computers are
permitting better testing. The big power producers are making less power and not building
new plants. The Department of Energy is funding an increasing number of projects. More
significant has been pressure to reduce pollution, combined with electricity
deregulation--which is inviting more players into markets that were once monopolies.
"The first spark was primarily the quest by the automotive industry to strive for
zero-emission vehicles," said Kim Zentz, president of Avista Labs. "The
stationary markets [homes and buildings] are being driven by changes in the utility
industry." A larger vision is at work here. Fuel cells and micro-turbines,
essentially small jet engines, are now seen by some as the links in a new chain of
"distributed power generation."
4/2000 [ Stuart Energy] High Oil Prices, Iceland
Plans, Skepticism about Small Home PEMs Mark Annual NHA Meeting - Peter Hoffmann's Hydrogen & Fuel Cell
Letter
In late February, Stuart Energy delivered a
larger 40 standard cu.m./hour fueler to SunLine Transit in California's Coachella Valley
in Riverside County, which is fast emerging as a national leader in putting into place
hydrogen technology for its urban bus routes after starting with CNG buses six years ago.
The Stuart fueler began churning out hydrogen 36 hours after it was delivered.
3/31/2000 Military Is
Interested in Fuel Cells for Fighting - Seattle Times/Gannett News Service
The Pentagon is as excited about fuel-cell technology as
the private sector, but not for the same reasons. The military sees new mobility, stealth
and speed from this potentially super-efficient power source. Military planners envision:
Tanks and other vehicles running on quiet fuel-cell engines that generate cooler thermal
signatures that are harder to detect than combustion engines. Fuel cells on ships and
other large battlecraft could maintain mission-critical systems in the event the engine
room is destroyed. Fuel cells boast another bonus especially valuable on the battlefield:
almost no moving parts, nothing to jam up at critical times.
3/31/2000 Clean Energy Partnership Delivers New Power Technology To
Long Island - Department of Energy News
Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson joined
state and local officials at the Energy Department's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory
today to dedicate an advanced fuel cell power system at the lab. Today's installation of
three state-of-the-art 7 kW cells is the first of several installations across Long Island
planned by the Long Island Power Authority and Plug Power to test the performance and
measure the potential for power generation from fuel cells.
3/31/2000 Scientists
Seek Cleaner Environment by Robert S. Boyd - Pioneer Planet (St. Paul, MN)
Research on artificial photosynthesis is following two
major tracks, each with its own motive: The first track harvests the energy of sunlight to
split water into its constituent elements -- hydrogen and oxygen. Many experts think
hydrogen can be a limitless source of energy for the time when Earth runs out of fossil
fuels. The other research track aims to convert carbon dioxide to useful chemicals without
adding to the load of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
3/30/2000 Efficient Cars
Key to Solving Oil Crisis - Gore by Sue Pleming - Reuters
"Energy-efficient cars will
dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Right now, millions of Americans are
paying higher gas prices," Gore said at a ceremony to roll out the three new
fuel-efficient cars, made by leading automakers Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler .
...Ford Group Vice President John Rintamaki said his company would build a mass-production
hybrid electric vehicle beginning in 2003. Ford is also making good progress in developing
a hydrogen-fueled car that would be ready for production by 2004. The vehicle's only
emission would be clean, hot water -- which drivers could use to make a cup of tea,
Rintamaki quipped.
3/29/2000 [ Calstart] So
Who's the Greenest of Them All? by John O'Dell - Los
Angeles Times (California)
Among auto makers, grabbing for the green crown is likely
to be the next big marketing effort after years of competition for leadership in comfort,
utility, quality and safety. "After all, you can only put so many air bags in a
car," said Bill Van Amburg, spokesman for Calstart in Pasadena. The nonprofit
industry consortium was formed to pursue and promote development of advanced technologies,
including alternative fuel systems, for the transportation industry. The increased
globalization of the auto industry also makes eco-friendliness a major concern. "When
you are selling in countries where every city is crippled by pollution, cup holders are no
longer an issue," Van Amburg says. "Tailpipe emissions are." ...For
Californians, there are four key organizations that issue broad-based green ratings of
auto makers and their products: the Union of Concerned Scientists, Calstart, the American
Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and the state Air Resources Board. ...Calstart,
for instance, promotes development and use of advanced technologies--low-sulfur fuels,
hydrogen -charged fuel cells and lean-burn, direct-injection gasoline engines.
3/28/2000 Fuel Cell Bus
Undergoes Public Testing by A M Hansen, Ecotraffic Norge, and E F Hagen,
Norsk Hydro - CADDET Centre for Renewable Energy (Oxfordshire, UK)
In Oslo, a new hydrogen fuel cell bus,
“Nebus”, has been tested for the first time under normal public transport
conditions. It showed good driving performance, particularly in dense city areas, and the
prospects for the technology are promising. ...The Greater Oslo Transport Authority and
Norsk Hydro have been evaluating hydrogen as a fuel for bus operation since 1994. In
1997/98, the possibility of using fuel cell technology became more realistic – major
equipment manufacturers announced fuel cell vehicle programmes, and fuel cell-powered
vehicles were being demonstrated in Canada. In 1997, DaimlerChrysler developed Nebus, a
demonstration bus powered by fuel cells operating on hydrogen. A collaboration between the
Norwegian project and DaimlerChrysler was established in 1998 to focus on this fuel cell
technology. In August 1999, the demo-bus was tested in normal operation, on a test drive
along an ordinary public transport route. Nebus is fuelled by compressed hydrogen at 300
bar, which is stored in seven 150 litre cylinders on the roof of the bus. The fuel cell
stack contains 10 fuel cells each rated at 25 kW, and the stack provides 190 kW for the
drives. The fuel cells also supply electricity to the power-steering pumps, an air
compressor and the door control system. The range of the bus is 250 km before refuelling
is necessary and the maximum speed is 80 km/hour. The overall energy efficiency is 37%.
The only by-product of the fuel cells is water at 80¡C which can be used in the heating
system of the bus. The German Technical Inspectorate has licensed the Nebus for use in
public transport. ...According to Norsk Hydro, hydrogen consumption was 636.6 Nm3 for the
test period. The energy content of the hydrogen was 11 MJ/Nm3. Based on the measured 583
km travelled, the specific average consumption was 1.092 Nm3/km, which is equivalent to
0.33 litres/km of diesel. The average diesel consumption in city driving ranges from
0.4–0.5 litres/km. Therefore, energy consumption for the Nebus is significantly less
than that of a diesel bus.
3/28/2000 A Saviour on the
Horizon for Smoky River Coal? - Daily Herald Tribune (Calgary, Canada)
Major Floyd McLennan says if the region's
coal isn't mined today, it will be in the future as technology improves environmentally
friendly hydrogen fuel production.
3/27/2000 Ukraine:
Power Reduced at Chernobyl Generator Due to Failure - Ukrainian news agency
UNIAN
The emergency shut-down was caused by a
failure in one of the systems of the electric generator, which is designed to prevent
hydrogen from leaking from the cooling system of the electric generator. As a result of
the shut-down of the turbine generator, energy generation was reduced from 800 MWh to 500
MWh (to 50 per cent of the normal level).
3/27/2000 [ Ballard]
Race to Replace
Gas Takes Off by Gary Wisby - Chicago Sun-Times (Illinois)
Driven by increasingly tougher government demands,
automakers are spending billions to develop fuel cell cars, which convert hydrogen to
electricity. Honda's Insight, a gas and electric "bridge" model, is in
showrooms, and Toyota's Prius will be soon. ...Brian Urbaszewski of the Chicago Lung
Association said ethanol and natural gas are the front-runners among fuels vying to
replace gasoline. Cars of the future will be powered by cells that convert alternative
fuels to hydrogen, whose only by-product when burned is water. "Within the next five
years you're going to see [fuel cell cars] in commercial production," Urbaszewski
said. "It's not rocket science anymore. The only question is how to make them
cheaper." Last week the CTA, Ballard Power Systems and XCELLSIS Fuel Cell Engines
Inc. ended the nation's first demonstration of a fuel cell bus. Over the last two years,
three cell-powered buses traveled more than 30,000 miles, carried more than 100,000 riders
and emitted nothing but water vapor. "A commercial fuel cell bus engine is now just
two years away," Ballard Chairman Firoz Rasul said.
3/25/2000 Gas
Lessons of the '70s Foster Calm by David Crary
- Associated Press
"There's a difference between 1973 and
today," said Ed Porter, research manager for the American Petroleum Institute.
"We haven't done any major stupid things yet." ...Jason Mark, transportation
analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said America should focus less on expanding
oil production and more on reducing demand. He cited promising automotive technologies,
such as fuel cells. "The time is certainly right to put a down payment on strategies
that move us away from petroleum," he said. "Even in the auto industry, people
are talking about moving beyond this century-old technology. The opportunity is very
real."
3/25/2000 [
Ballard/Weststart Calstart] Smog, Health, Traffic Pushing Clean Vehicles, Globe 2000 Conference Told
by Steve Mertl- Edmonton Journal (Canada)
Mounting air pollution, global warming and traffic
congestion are driving more countries to mandate clean transportation technologies, Bill
van Amburg told a Globe 2000 panel Friday. In Europe, smog and gridlock have forced some
major cities to ban all but electric cars and transit buses from city centres at least one
day a week, he told the business and environment conference. Vehicles are fingered as a
major and growing source of greenhouse gases, as much as 25 per cent in Canada and perhaps
one-third worldwide, said van Amburg. ...But van Amburg, whose company
Weststart-Calstart works with a consortium of transportation technology firms, noted
domestic automakers recently pulled out of the anti-Kyoto coalition. Most of the major
automakers worldwide have plunged into developing more fuel-efficient, cleaner vehicles.
..."About all major automakers have very aggressive fuel-cell projects under
way," he added. Ballard Power Systems' reputation as a leader in hydrogen fuel-cell
technology is such that a worldwide survey of government and private environment experts
ranked the Vancouver-based company's recognition factor sixth behind major automakers.
3/26/2000 [ Ballard] Old Car-Engine Concept Still A Dream - Canberra Times
(Australia)
A fuel-cell engine uses no combustion process, the
fundamental cause of poisonous emissions from conventional engines. Instead, it combines
hydrogen and oxygen in a chemical process to produce electricity. The by-products are heat
and water. There is much work being done in " bio-mass" fuel-cell power plants
that use vegetation to produce the gas needed to provide the hydrogen , but the time when
these will have practical use is still far distant. It's believed that this is just one of
five fuel-cell principles being worked on at present, including a ceramic type in
Australia. But there is one fuel-cell type that is powering experimental motor vehicles
right now, and that is the Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell, the type used by Ballard
Power Systems of the US. The advantage of PEM technology is that, unlike other fuel-cell
systems, it operates at practical temperatures - around 80 degrees Celsius. Ballard PEM
fuel cells are being trialled in conventional motor vehicles by several manufacturers,
including GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen, Honda and Nissan, and are being tested in
buses by the US public transport bodies, Chicago Transit Authority and Translink. ...But
different markets may need different fuels, so the boffins are working on several fuel
options and it's quite likely that we will have a choice of fuel types when we go to buy
our fuel-cell-powered family car sometime after 2004.
3/24/2000 Climate-Change Tech Firms Out-Performed NASDAQ
- Canadian Press
The Delphi Group's Climate Change Innovative Technology
market index isn't available yet. But the Ottawa environmental information firm says an
analysis of stocks on the index show it out-performed the red-hot NASDAQ index over the
last few months. The index's performance shows investors are becoming aware of the profit
potential of companies in the forefront of technologies to reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions, Michael Gerbis, Delphi's director of environmental market research, said
Friday. "We see tremendous growth in these companies," said Gerbis, managing
editor of Delphi's Environmental Business Canada newsletter. "A number of them are in
the research phase, so it's potential growth." The climate change index is made
up of only 11 companies specializing in greenhouse gas-reducing technologies. It includes
firms such as Ballard Power Systems, developing hydrogen fuel cells, alternate-energy
producer Global Thermoelectric and Kafus Industries, which is developing moulded fibre
board from recycled and sustainable materials.
3/23/2000 OPEC
Should Enjoy Stranglehold While It Can, Future Technologies Will Eliminate Dependence Upon
Oil, ABI Says - Allied Business Intelligence/ Business Wire
While
rising gas prices seemed to be a problem decades ago, the recent squeezing of the US by
OPEC nations may be the last time such a crisis arises due to emerging technologies. In
the near future, vehicles will run on the simple combination of hydrogen and oxygen,
commonly known as a fuel cell. Fuel cell technology is now in development with the R&D
leading to fuel cell implementation this decade, according to Allied Business
Intelligence. "Automotive fuel cells is just another emerging energy technology which
will change the way we live," said Allied Business Intelligence Senior Energy Analyst
K. Atakan Ozbek. "Technologies such as wind turbines, photovoltaics, and fuel cells
are now being readied for mass deployment during this decade," Ozbek said. Fuel cells
purveyors are providing a new energy source which is arriving at the most opportune time,
according to Ozbek. "Domestic and world demand for transportation fuels is growing
rapidly, with U.S. demand growing at a rate about half that of the rest of the world
(ROW)," Ozbek said. From 1990 to 1996, U.S. transportation energy use increased 10%
(1.6%/year) to about 13 million barrels per day while that for the ROW increased 22%
(3.4%/yr) to about 30 million barrels per day. "Within ten years, transportation will
account for over fifty percent of total worldwide petroleum demand, a percentage the US
has exceeded since the early 1970's," Ozbek added.
3/23/2000 Ballard Power Systems, XCELLSIS, Chicago Transit Authority
Conclude Successful Fuel Cell Bus Demonstration Program -
Ballard/CTA/Business Wire
"This very successful program proves that hydrogen
fuel cells can power transit buses in the daily grind of revenue service," said CTA
President Frank Kruesi. "There's no question that these buses performed well in the
heat of summer and the chill of winter. This program has benefited the CTA, our customers,
our employees, and the city of Chicago." During the past two years, three buses
powered by Ballard(R) fuel cells have clocked more than 5,000 hours in revenue service,
covered over 30,000 miles, carried more than 100,000 passengers, and emitted nothing more
than water vapour. Later this year, XCELLSIS and Ballard will complete a second two-year
program involving another three buses in revenue service in Vancouver, Canada. The
demonstration programs were initiated by Ballard with XCELLSIS assuming responsibility for
them following the formation of XCELLSIS as part of the fuel cell engine alliance between
DaimlerChrysler, Ford and Ballard. "As a pioneer in the use of fuel cell technology,
the Chicago Transit Authority has contributed directly to advancements in fuel cell
engines now being used in both cars and buses," said XCELLSIS President Dr. Ferdinand
Panik. "Our experience in Chicago enabled the design and construction of the next
generation fuel cell engine that is simpler in design, easier to maintain, and half the
weight of the engines used in the Chicago buses." A bus using the new XCELLSIS
pre-commercial fuel cell engine will enter revenue service in Palm Springs, California
this summer as the first vehicle delivered under the California Fuel Cell Partnership.
Under the partnership, 25 buses and 30 cars will hit the streets of California for testing
and demonstration between 2000 and 2003. [CHBC
Note: The Palm Springs XCELLSIS hydrogen bus will be operated by Sunline Transit Agency.]
3/23/2000 Ordinary Energy
Powers New Fuel Cell - ENN
Researchers at the University of
Pennsylvania have built a fuel cell that runs efficiently on readily available forms of
hydrocarbon fuels such as methane and butane instead of pure hydrogen. ...Previous
attempts to run a solid-oxide fuel cell on hydrocarbon fuels failed because the
electrochemical process that generates electricity caused a buildup of carbon, which
ruined the cell. ...The Gas Research Institute in Chicago, Illinois, funded Gorte's
research. The goal of the institute is to generate electrical power in every home through
sources such as fuel cells.
3/22/2000 Problems,
Promise in Building Wonder Car by Charles Soloman - Los Angeles Times
(California)
Fuel cells offer even greater promise: They
run on hydrogen, and their only waste product is pure water (it's even potable). The
technology has improved significantly in recent years, bringing down cost and weight while
increasing energy output. Motavalli notes that prototype fuel-cell buses in Chicago and
taxis in London have received overwhelmingly favorable reviews. But pure hydrogen requires
special insulated fuel tanks, as it must kept at minus 400 degrees to remain liquid.
Hydrogen for fuel cells can also be extracted from methanol, gasoline, diesel fuel and
natural gas. But all of these sources have drawbacks, including the cost of creating an
infrastructure to support them.
3/22/2000 [Gasoline]
Fuel Cell Powered Cars Not the Answer: Report - National Post
(Canada)
In a report funded by the David Suzuki Foundation, the
Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development said fuel cells are themselves clean because
hydrogen, the fuel that ultimately makes fuel cells tick, is a clean fuel. The problem,
the institute said, is that hydrogen has to be extracted from other sources, which could
include gasoline, methanol and natural gas. The institute says this can produce
"dirty" hydrogen because the extraction process generates greenhouse gas
emissions. Rob Macintosh, a director with the institute, said natural gas is the cleanest
fuel source, generating about 70% less emissions than today's ordinary gasoline-powered
internal combustion engines. But fuel cell cars running on gasoline generate only
"modest" emissions reductions of about 20%, while methanol would reduce
emissions by about 35%. The institute's report takes aim at a June, 1999, memorandum of
understanding between Ballard Power Systems, Methanex and Petro-Canada to establish a distribution
network for methanol fuel for fuel cell vehicles.
3/21/2000 Hydrogen Can be Extracted from Natural Gas at Central Refineries
- Canadian Press
Ballard Power Systems of suburban Burnaby is considered
the world leader in fuel-cell development. Its technology is licensed to several major
automakers and DaimlerChrysler and Ford Motor Co. both have large equity stakes in the
company. The Suzuki Foundation's David Hocking noted Ballard's test fleet of Vancouver
transit buses carry large hydrogen tanks on their roofs and refuelling is handled safely.
"It has to be done carefully but just like with propane there are methods that have
been developed and used and are operating today," he said. Methanex Corp. of
Vancouver, the world's largest methanol producer, questioned the study's conclusions,
especially the difference in greenhouse-gas efficiency between methanol and natural gas.
"There isn't the big gap that they're showing," said Brad Boyd, director of
investor relations. Petro-Canada Ltd., which is partnered with Methanex in a fuel-cell
pilot project, is intrigued by the study's conclusions about natural gas, said spokesman
John Percic. But there are questions about whether gas could be converted in sufficient
quantities to produce hydrogen for transportation use, he said from Calgary. Automakers
don't see methanol or gasoline as the ideal hydrogen source, said Chris Banks, spokesman
for Ford of Canada. Parent Ford Motor Co. is a big investor in Ballard. "Methanol is
the first step," said Banks. "Our goal is to use straight hydrogen."
3/20/2000 DCHT
Unveils New Fuel Cell Subsidiary - Power Online
About the size of a beverage can and weighing less than
two pounds, the PFC unit provides 12 watts of electric power at 12 volts with the same
simplicity of a battery, without the weight and environmental issues and limitations.
Haberman said Enable Fuel Cell Corporation hopes to use the PFC as an effective recharging
technology for batteries minimizing the inherent longevity and recharge issues associated
with current technology. “Our solid-state fuel cell, designed specifically with users
in mind, delivers the features that the commercial customer demands,” Haberman said.
“It is part of our strategy to be the first company to provide fuel cells to everyday
people for everyday needs. When most of us think of fuel cells we envision space shuttles,
urban buses and cars, and large stationary power plants. Yet, we believe fuel cells can
also enhance the quality of our individual lives. It is exciting that customers see uses
for small, portable fuel cells beyond our own vision.” The Enable Fuel Cell
Corporation is also developing a larger “active” fuel cell, with increased power
output using a proprietary control system. A 5 kW unit known as the Enable AFC
(application fuel cell) will be evaluated soon by strategic allies, public utilities and
energy services companies.
3/20/2000 Avista Gets Fuel Cell Patent, Stock Jumps by Jim Brumm -
Reuters
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office took more than two
years to decide on the patent because the Avista claims are "very broad, very
sweeping," said Kim Zentz, president of Avista's Avista Labs Inc. unit. She told
Reuters the patent supports Avista's cartridge-based approach. This approach "is
reliable and convenient for consumers because fuel cell cartridges can be easily removed
and replaced while the power system continues to operate," Zentz said. Explaining
that each cartridge produces 60 watts of power, she said the company expects the
technology to enter the market in supplemental power sources for residences and small
commercial establishments needing more reliable power than provided by their local
utilities.
3/17/2000 Blast Injures Attleboro
Worker - AP/MSNBC
An
explosion Thursday morning in an Attleboro [MA] factory left one woman injured. Fire
officials say the accident at the Stern-Leach plant on Pearl Street was caused when
hydrogen used in the precious metals factory exploded in duct work at about 8:30. A woman
working in the area at the time of blast was hospitalized with what authorities said are
non life-threatening injuries. The second-floor explosion shattered several windows.
3/16/2000 Ford Motor Company Recognized as Top Automaker In Global Survey of
Environmental Leadership - Calstart/PRNewswire56
"The results of our Green Index(TM)
clearly show that Ford's growing commitment to environmentally friendly, clean
technologies and vehicles is starting to reap positive image benefits," said Michael
J. Gage, president and CEO of CALSTART. "This environmental
commitment -- the new competitive advantage -- is beginning to set Ford apart from its
competitors. We're glad Ford sees this value as it positions itself to be an early
leader." ...DaimlerChrysler was viewed as the fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV)
leader (47%).
3/15/2000 Clean Fuel Cell Uses Gas - ABCNews/Reuters
The Penn fuel cell is a kind of high-tech
battery that combines oxygen and hydrocarbon molecules to produce enough free electrons to
generate electricity. Unlike a battery, however, it does not run down or need recharging
as long as it is supplied with fuel. Earlier versions ran into trouble because the
electrochemical process caused a buildup of carbon that soon ruined the cell. But the Penn
team overcame the problem by substituting different materials, for example, using a
Cu-ceria composite instead of zirconia for the cell’s anode. As a result, the cell
was able to generate one-tenth of a kilowatt of electricity and remain in operation for
four days. The process occurred at a temperature of 700 degrees C (1,292 F). Gorte said
that equalled only half the amount of heat used in combustion.
3/15/2000 Fuel-Cell Future for
Gasoline? by Miguel Llanos - MSNBC
“We've demonstrated that we can run a
fuel cell directly on hydrocarbons like gasoline and diesel,” researcher Ray Gorte
told MSNBC. “In the past, everyone assumed you had to use hydrogen.” Essentially, the University of Pennsylvania fuel cell
streamlines the fuel-cell process. Until now, supplying hydrogen to fuel cells was seen as
the best way to power them. The new process gets hydrogen directly from hydrocarbons like
gasoline, diesel or natural gas, so there’s no need for extracting hydrogen from
costlier and more complicated sources like methane. And because fuel cells are two to
three times more efficient than internal combustion engines in how they use energy, a
gasoline fuel cell could get two to three times the mileage of a traditional engine.
...Gorte’s team used a “solid oxide fuel cell,” while others have tended to
focus on “proton-exchange membranes.” Gorte emphasized that the the experiment
was not on a commercial scale and that long-term testing is needed. One hitch is that the
cell is sensitive to sulfur, so that gasoline would have to be cleaned further to make it
a viable fuel. Moreover, the small-scale fuel cell churns out only one-tenth of the power
of a hydrogen fuel cell.
3/13/2000 Solid, Man, Solid… ECD Could Make Fuel Cells Safe and Practical
by Paul A. Eisenstein - The Car Connection
While the fuel cell itself is looking increasingly
attractive as the "green" alternative to the Internal Combustion Engine,
it’s not likely to see widespread use unless and until engineers can find a practical
way to store or produce a steady stream of hydrogen gas to feed the fuel cell. Storing
hydrogen in liquid form is impractical, since that means cooling it to nearly absolute
zero. Storing it as a compressed gas isn’t much better, since it would be
difficult—and potentially dangerous—to carry enough to provide much range. So
until now, the onboard reformer has seemed the only practical alternative. ...ECD’s
hydride mixture absorbs 7 percent of its weight in hydrogen gas. In a given space, that
means it can hold three times more hydrogen than in compressed gas form, and 50 percent
more than in liquid form. Fill a container the size of today’s typical gas tank with
this hydride, and you could hold enough hydrogen to double the range of a conventional,
gasoline-powered car. General Motors’ prototype Precept is an example of a
hydride-fueled vehicle. Introduced at the North American International Auto Show, last
January, it is a five-passenger midsize sedan "that could deliver (the equivalent of)
better than 100 miles per gallon fuel economy performance, just over nine seconds 0-60 mph
acceleration, and 500 miles range," said Byron McCormick, co-executive director of
GM’s Global Alternative Propulsion Center. "And all of this with no compromises
in driving safety, crashworthiness and safe refueling." ...While it’s not
difficult to produce hydrogen, there’s currently no easy way to get it to the pump.
One possibility would be to place reformers at service stations. Given an efficient method
of storing hydrogen onboard a car, it would be more practical and cost effective to
convert gasoline, natural gas or methanol into hydrogen at a fixed location. Hydrides
could provide another alternative, according to Stempel. Hydrogen could be produced at
regional refineries, then shipped to service stations on fuel tankers filled with
hydrides.ECD is reportedly negotiating with a major oil company that would like to use its
hydrides to ship hydrogen from Iceland, where large quantities of the gas are already
being produced.
3/13/2000 Promising Industries of 21st Century - Korea Herald
Fuel cells, which generates limitless amounts
of energy with only a modicum of electricity and water, are receiving great attention as a
next generation energy source that can substitute for oil. The fuel cell is expected to be
widely used from mobile telephones and laptop computers to the electric power supply for
large buildings and houses. In Korea, several large companies are developing fuel cells.
Hyundai Motors has developed the first prototype fuel cell for automobile usage in Korea,
and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology succeeded in developing a 40W PEM (roton
exchange membrane) fuel cell for laptop computer usage.
3/13/2000 SGL Carbon
Reorganizes, Sees New Growth From Fuel Cells by Angela Cullen -
Dow Jones
Chairman Robert Koehler also forecast the
group raising operating profit to DEM600 million over that period, from DEM200 million in
1999. ...Koehler expects fuel-cell technology to revolutionize the auto industry, with
companies such as Porsche and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (G.BMW) leading the way. He said
this division could realize sales of more than DEM200 million by 2003 or 2004 if the
technological breakthrough occurs. ..."We're in talks with a number of companies
(involved in the catalyst part of fuel cell technology) to see about making processes more
efficient," he said. ...Germany's Degussa-Huels AG (G.DHA) subsidiary dmc2 Degussa
Metals Catalytic Cerdec AG, U.K.-based Johnson Matthey PLC (U.JMA) and U.S.-based
Engelhard Corp. (EC) are the three main players in the market.
3/13/2000 US DOE
Richardson: Stable Grid Requires Legislation by Campion Walsh and Bryan
Lee - Dow Jones
"The reliability of our electric grid is at times
faltering, mainly because policymakers have not kept pace with rapid changes in the
electric utility industry," Richardson said. In addition to endorsing legislation to
create a mandatory and government-enforced system for grid reliability, the task force
report called for development of market-based approaches to reliability. Such market-based
mechanisms include competitive markets for ancillary services - power generation needed to
keep the grid stable - and real-time pricing to give consumers a role in reducing demand
when reliability is at risk. The report called for promoting "distributed
generation" technologies, such as fuel cells and small-scale gas-fired power
turbines, by removing roadblocks to their interconnection with the grid.
3/13/2000 US DOE
Grid-Outage Report Boosts Distributed Power by Bryan Lee - Dow
Jones
Manufacturers of so-called "distributed
generation" technologies got a major endorsement from the U.S. Department of Energy
Monday. The agency released a report by a DOE task force looking into last summer's grid
outages, which strongly recommended deployment of what is known as distributed power or
distributed generation as a means of shoring up grid reliability. "We need to remove
the barriers to distributed energy resources - micro turbines that are closer to consumers
- to help utilities respond faster to an increased demand for electricity in areas where
demand is already high," Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said in announcing the
report's release. The government endorsement is seen as a boon for manufacturers of fuel
cells and small-scale natural gas-fired power turbines, which generate small amounts of
electricity for use on-site by a home or small business.
3/13/2000 [ Ballard]
The Future is Green for BWT - Reuters
Europe's leading manufacturer of water treatment
technology has seen its shares soar over 130 percent since it announced in January that it
had developed a high-performance membrane for use in fuel cells. Billions of dollars are
being invested worldwide in developing fuel cells, a pollution-free alternative to
batteries as a source of power. ...Dwindling reserves of fossil fuels and mounting concern
about damage to the environment caused by carbon dioxide emissions and greenhouse gases
have prompted big conglomerates to seek alternative sources. Car makers including Ford,
DaimlerChrysler, Honda, Nissan, General Motors and Toyota as well as the big oil groups
are all working on the development of fuel cell technology. DaimlerChrysler plans to start
limited production in 2004 of a car using fuel cell technology developed by Canadian-based
Ballard Power Systems. According to business consultants Arthur D. Little, global sales
potential for the fuel cell market should reach three billion euros per year by 2005.Of
this, 300 million euros is expected to be generated by membranes in the auto industry
alone. ...BWT says its membrane differs from conventional membranes in that it is
recyclable. It says rival products such as those made by its main competitor DuPont,
Ballard and W.L.Gore & Associates Inc of Goretex fame are generally made from
fluoropolymer, a non-recyclable compound. ...Membranes now cost between between
$1,000-1,500 per square metre but carmakers say the price needs to be slashed to around
$75 to be worth mass-producing. A 50-kw engine needs around 12 square metres of membrane.
...Current annual capacity at BWT's plant in Germany is 40,000 square metres of membrane.
Weissenbacher said the group, headquartered in the picturesque lake resort of Mondsee,
near Salzburg, would have no problem raising this to meet demand.
3/12/2000 Perth
Pioneers Hydrogen-Powered Buses - Australian Broadcasting Corp
Perth has
become the first city in the Southern Hemisphere to trial a new hydrogen fuel-powered bus.
A two-week trial of the New Electro Bus has been launched by the Premier Richard Court and
Transport Minister, Murray Criddle. Mr Criddle says the new buses could be introduced into
the current fleet when they become commercially available in about four years time.
3/10/2000 Ballard's
Losses Mount on Research Spending - Reuters
Ballard, which has said the key to success in the
fuel-cell market will require being one of the first to get its products into commercial
production, had research and development expenses of C$19 million in the fourth quarter of
1999, C$7 million more than in the same period 1998. Ballard officials told analysts on
Friday they expect to get more productivity from its spending on research and development
in 2000, as technical staff added in 1999 become more experienced in the company's
operations. The company said that fuel-cell orders in the fourth quarter through its
affiliate XCELLSIS and directly from Honda Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. demonstrate
progress toward commercializing fuel-cell vehicles.
3/10/2000 Others Ahead of CTA
in Buses That Use Less-Polluting Fuel by Robert Herguth - Chicago
Sun-Times
The CTA lags behind most major transit agencies in the
use of less-polluting alternative-fuel buses, according to a new report from the American
Lung Association. Designed to coincide with the CTA's anticipated announcement on the
future of its three experimental hydrogen-powered buses, the report says at least 14 major
transit fleets have a higher percentage of "cleaner" buses. It calls on the CTA
to boost its numbers so half its fleet run on natural gas, electricity or hydrogen by
2010. "One of the concerns is there are plans to buy 1,500 diesel buses [through
2007], but there are no plans to use cleaner technologies, at least not to any significant
extent," said Ron Burke, deputy executive director of the American Lung Association
of Metropolitan Chicago. ...In addition to the three hydrogen fuel cell buses, which were
first assigned to routes two years ago, the CTA has 15 that run on Oxy-diesel, a blend of
ethanol and diesel fuel. ...Burke noted the CTA canceled plans to buy natural gas buses.
CTA officials said they'll continue the hydrogen project if funding can be found.
3/10/2000 `Burping' Tank May Be Running Out Of Gas - The Oregonian/AP
CH2M Hill Hanford Group has completed its third cycle of
pumping out liquid waste and venting gas from Tank SY-101, said Richard Raymond, SY tank
farm manager for the contractor. Some 714,000 gallons of liquid and sludge remains in the
1.12 million-gallon tank, which has been a problem since the 1980s. Tank SY-101 became
known as the burping tank for its periodic release of thousands of cubic feet of hydrogen
gas. A mixer pump installed in 1993 took care of that by allowing the continuous escape of
small amounts of gas from the tank. But without the huge gas releases, the contents of the
tank did not roll over regularly, and gas bubbles and waste particles began to build up in
the meringue-like crust floating in the liquid waste.
3/10/2000 Return
of the Jetta: Mileage Matters Again by Kris Axtman - Christian
Science Monitor
"If you want a large SUV that will haul 3/4 of a ton
up a 30 percent grade, be safer than safest car,... get about 120 m.p.g., and emit nothing
but hot drinking water, we now know how to do that," says Amory Lovins, vice
president of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colo., and a long-time
alternative-energy guru. Dr. Lovins, who's considering buying one of the new hybrids
coming out this summer, has been crusading for more fuel-efficient vehicles since the
1970s. He believes the price of gasoline will become irrelevant as gasoline/electric
vehicles turn into hydrogen/electric vehicles in the next decade.
3/8/2000 Hyundai Motor to Seek Tie-Up with Global Giant - Korea Herald
Hyundai declined to disclose details about the alliance,
including the name of its prospective partner. But a Hyundai official said the partner
will be chosen from General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and Volkswagen. ...The
alliance ranges from technical tie-ups in specific sectors, production of mutually
beneficial items and original equipment manufacturing (OEM) supply for the joint
development of electric fuel cells. Special focus will go to state-of-the-art electric
fuel cells, which Hyundai hopes will make the company play a leading role in restructuring
the world auto industry.
3/8/2000 US Energy Dept
Awards $11 Mln In Clean Energy Projects - Dow Jones
The department said its awards will fund six
projects by private companies, which will develop technologies and design-methods needed
to build fossil-fuel energy plants that produce virtually no emissions. The projects fall
under the department's Vision 21 program, which aims to remove environmental concerns from
the way coal and other fuels are used to generate energy. Vision 21 envisions the
development of plants that would use a variety of fuels and recycled emissions to produce
multiple forms of energy, including electricity, transportation fuels and chemicals. The
department said the proposed awards for the six new projects are as follows:
FuelCell
Energy, Inc. (FCL), Danbury, Conn., $2.5 million.
Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp., Pittsburgh, Pa., $2.1 million.
Eltron Research, Inc., Boulder, Colo., $1.74 million.
Clean Energy Systems, Inc., Sacramento, Calif., $1.77 million.
National
Fuel Cell Research Center, Irvine, Calif., $1.5 million.
Fluent, Inc., Lebanon, N.H., $1.5 million.
3/6/2000 Melting of Earth's Ice
Cover Reaches New High by Lisa Mastny - Worldwatch Institute
The Earth's ice cover is melting in more places and at
higher rates than at any time since record keeping began. Reports from around the world
compiled by the Worldwatch Institute (see attached data table) show that global ice
melting accelerated during the 1990s-which was also the warmest decade on record.
Scientists suspect that the enhanced melting is among the first observable signs of
human-induced global warming, caused by the unprecedented release of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases over the past century. ...Some of the most dramatic reports come
from the polar regions, which are warming faster than the planet as a whole and have lost
large amounts of ice in recent decades. The Arctic sea ice, covering an area roughly the
size of the United States, shrunk by an estimated 6 percent between 1978 and 1996, losing
an average of 34,300 square kilometers-an area larger than the Netherlands-each year. The
Arctic sea ice has also thinned dramatically since the 1960s and 70s. Between this period
and the mid-1990s, the average thickness dropped from 3.1 meters to 1.8 meters-a decline
of nearly 40 percent in less than 30 years. The Arctic's Greenland Ice Sheet-the largest
mass of land-based ice outside of Antarctica, with 8 percent of the world's ice-has
thinned more than a meter per year on average since 1993 along parts of its southern and
eastern edges. The massive Antarctic ice cover, which averages 2.3 kilometers in thickness
and represents some 91 percent of Earth's ice, is also melting. ...Antarctica alone is
home to 70 percent of the planet's fresh water, and collapse of the WAIS, an ice mass the
size of Mexico, would raise sea levels by an estimated 6 meters-while melting of both
Antarctic ice sheets would raise them nearly 70 meters.
3/6/2000 SAE 2000 World
Congress by Alejandro Bodipo-Memba - Detroit Free Press/Knight
Ridder
The four-day event begins today and will
attract as many as 50,000 engineers and salespeople to Cobo Center. ...Government figures
show that salaries for mechanical engineers -- the specialty most commonly associated with
the auto industry -- have jumped nearly 70 percent since 1990. Companies are not just
going after experienced engineers, they are clamoring for newly minted college grads as
well. ...According to a recent Jobs.com survey, the average starting annual salary for
engineering graduates is $42,281, which is 23 percent above the national average for
college students entering other fields. The average starting salary for recent graduates
in mechanical engineering is even greater than that at $55,406. ...Driving this demand is
the exponential growth of technology. Everyone in the auto industry simply needs more
engineers to keep up because the cars of the 21st Century aren't the same machines that
Henry Ford built. The internal combustion engine, which has ruled the automotive world for
100 years, is facing serious competition for the first time. Exotic powertrains are
showing real promise. Automakers are spending millions to develop fuel-cell engines that
can run on hydrogen and electricity, with near-zero emissions.
3/6/2000 The Engine of the
Future -Will Fuel Cell End Otto-Cycle Engine’s Reign of Power? by
Tod Campbell - ABC
In the long run, the four-stroke internal
combustion engine will be a relic of the distant past, something you go see at the
Smithsonian Museum, where it will be displayed alongside the manual typewriter and the
teletype machine. ...Fuel cells have some incredible advantages over internal combustion
engines: They extract mechanical energy from fuel more efficiently; they are much quieter;
and, most important in this day and age, they offer the possibility of a pollution-free
engine that runs on a cheap, renewable fuel. ...Currently, car companies are pouring
massive amounts of money into fuel-cell development. Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and Ballard
Power Systems, a Canadian company that is one of the leaders in fuel-cell technology, have
invested $750 million in a joint project to develop commercially viable fuel-cell vehicles
and they plan to sink another $1.2 billion to bring the car to market. Toyota, General
Motors, Ford, and BMW are all racing to build fuel-cell vehicles of their own. The reason
for their strong interest? Tighter and tighter emission standards that automakers probably
won’t be able to meet with internal combustion engines.
3/5/2000 [ FuelCell Energy] A Back Door Is Open to the Fuel Cell Party by
Sana Siwolop - New York Times
Maurice Schoenwald, co-manager of the New Alternatives
mutual fund, is especially keen on FuelCell Energy of Danbury, Conn., which is developing
fuel cells for the power industry. On Friday, FuelCell announced that it was chosen by the
Department of Energy to help design a power plant using fuel cells. Its stock rose 19
percent to close at $87.25. Schoenwald says FuelCell's technology has the potential to be
twice as efficient as that of its rivals.
3/4/2000 Honda Develops Fuel-Cell Vehicle - Chicago
Tribune/Spokane.net
Honda has developed hydrogen and methanol
fuel-cell prototype models and is committed to introducing a fuel-cell-powered vehicle by
2003.
3/3/2000 Canada Offers CN$450 Million to Renewable Energies - Worldwide Information System
for Renewable Energy
The government of Canada will spend up to $450 million on
renewable energy, energy efficiency and other sustainable energy options, according to
plans tabled February 28 in the federal budget. Since 1998, the government has been
developing a National Implementation Strategy for Climate Change to outline how Canada
will meet its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by six percent over 1990
levels by the 2008-2012 timeframe. To maintain momentum, the budget provides $700 million
over the next three years to protect the environment and to harness new technology that
will respond effectively to the challenges of climate change. ..."The development,
dissemination and use of environmental technologies are essential as Canada makes the
transition to a more environmentally benign information economy," said Martin, who
will create a Sustainable Development Technology Fund with initial funding of $100 million
to stimulate new environmental technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as
wind turbines and fuel cells.
3/3/2000 Ford Motor Company Receives CALSTART'S Top Award For Commitment to Clean Vehicle Transportation -
Ford/PRNewswire
The Blue Sky Award is presented annually by
CALSTART to recognize outstanding marketplace contributions to advanced, sustainable
transportation that cleans the air, improves energy efficiency and helps reduce
greenhouse- gas emissions. ...In addition to members of CALSTART, the review committee for
this award included representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of
Concerned Scientists and Coalition for Clean Air. Dr. Alan Lloyd, chairman of the
California Air Resources Board (CARB), co-presented the award to Ford Motor Company with
Michael Cage, president and CEO of WestStart-CALSTART.
3/3/2000 California Fuel Cell Partnership Honored With CALSTART 'Blue Sky
Innovation Award' - CALSTART/PRNewswire
CALSTART -- the advanced transportation
consortium -- has recognized the California Fuel Cell Partnership with a special Blue Sky
Innovation Award(TM) for taking early steps to create a fuel cell market by demonstrating
fuel cell electric vehicles in California. The award was presented Friday at CALSTART's
Awards Luncheon in Pasadena. On hand to accept the award on behalf of the partnership was
John Wallace, Chairman of the Partnership's Steering Committee and Executive Director of
TH!NK Group, an enterprise of Ford Motor Company.
3/3/2000 Nissan Joins Fuel Cell Venture
by Matthew Jones - Financial Times (UK)
Scientists hope that fuel cells will
eventually replace the internal combustion engine to help cut global levels of greenhouse
gas emissions which threaten to change weather patterns. ...Last month Shell and
DaimlerChrysler said they had successfully developed a fuel cell which could extract
hydrogen from conventional gasoline which would allow existing fuel stations and storage
facilities to be used. However, high costs mean this is unlikley to be a viable option for
years. The partnership's first demonstration vehicles will operate using hydrogen gas
itself as the fuel. However, the partnership has enlisted Methanex Corporation, a methanol
production and marketing company, to evaluate the feasibility of using liquid fuels at a
later date.
3/2/2000 Algae
As A Source Of Fuel - The Hindu (India)
Currently, hydrogen fuel is extracted from
natural gas, a non- renewable energy source. The new discovery makes it possible to
harness nature's own tool, photosynthesis, to produce the promising alternative fuel from
sunlight and water. ...While current production rates are not high enough to make the
process immediately viable commercially, the researchers believe that yields could rise by
at least 10 fold with further research, someday making the technique an attractive
fuel-producing option. Preliminary rough estimates, for instance, suggest it is
conceivable that a single, small commercial pond could produce enough hydrogen gas to meet
the weekly fuel needs of a dozen or so automobiles...
3/2/2000 The Fight to Dump Diesel
Buses in California - National Resources Defence Council
Environmentalists, green businesses, and a
network of California activists joined forces to lobby the Air Resources Board for the
stricter standards. Thousands of letters and phone calls poured into the board's offices
strongly urging the agency to clean up California's transit buses. This outpouring of
public support made it easier for those fighting for stricter bus emissions rules to
counter an extensive lobbying effort by transit agencies and bus-engine manufacturers that
wanted to hang onto dirty diesel technology and prevent any strengthening of the pollution
standards. ...Many cleaner alternatives to diesel engines are currently available,
including electric, hybrid-electric, and natural gas. Current natural gas buses emit up to
90 percent less particulate soot than even the cleanest diesels available, according to
U.S. Department of Energy analyses.
3/2/2000 California
Fuel Cell Partnership Adds Nissan as Partner, Methanex as Associate Partner - CFCP
Sacramento - The California Fuel Cell Partnership today
announced that automotive manufacturer Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., has joined its
public-private venture to help commercialize fuel cell electric vehicles. The Partnership
has also added Methanex Corporation, a methanol production and marketing firm, to its team
of associate partners. The Partnership -- which formally began in April 1999 -- includes
auto manufacturers (DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and now Nissan); energy
providers (ARCO, Shell, and Texaco); a fuel cell company ( Ballard Power Systems); and
government agencies (the California Air Resources Board, the California Energy Commission,
and the U.S. Department of Energy). "As part of our on-going research efforts and
years of experience with alternative fuel vehicles, Nissan is pleased to become a part of
the California Fuel Cell Partnership, and to help advance the cause of fuel cell vehicle
awareness and potential commercialization," said Debra Sanchez Fair, vice president,
corporate communications, Nissan North America, Inc. "We look forward to working with
our partners in the energy, automotive, fuel cell technology and government sectors, and
finding a path to success for this exciting and environmentally beneficial technology. To
help pave the way to commercialization, the five automotive partners will demonstrate fuel
cell electric vehicles in California over the next four years. The Partnership is
constructing a headquarters facility in the Sacramento area, which will serve as an
operations base for fuel cell vehicles beginning later this year. While those first
demonstration vehicles will operate using hydrogen as the fuel, the Partnership intends to
demonstrate the feasibility of using liquid fuels like methanol or gasoline as fuels for
fuel cell electric vehicles. To that end, Methanex (of Vancouver, B.C.) was invited to
join and assist the Partnership's energy providers in examining the potential for a
methanol fuel and fueling infrastructure. Pierre Choquette, President and CEO of Methanex
said, "The California Partnership is an excellent example of the type of
multi-stakeholder collaboration that will be crucial in advancing the commercialization of
fuel cell electric vehicles. We are pleased to be part of the Partnership and look forward
to making a meaningful contribution to achieving the Partnership's objectives. For more
information about the California Fuel Cell Partnership, please contact any of the company
spokespersons listed below:
Nissan: Alan Jones - Engineer
310-771-6242
Corp. Communications: Fred Standish 248-488-4227
Methanex Brad Boyd 604-661-2673
CA Fuel Cell Partnership Joe Irvin 916-600-2564
CA Air Resources Board Jerry Martin 916-322-2990
CA Energy Commission Claudia Chandler 916-654-4989
ARCO Cheryl Burnett 562-590-4493
Ballard Power Systems Debby Harris 604-412-4740
DaimlerChrysler USA: Ann Smith 248-512-6502 Germany: Annette Kliem
+49-711-179-3307
Ford: Glenn Ray 313-248-5994
Honda Art Garner 310-783-3163
Shell Kitty Borah 713-241-4544 or Stacy Hutchinson
713-241-5660
Texaco Tyra Metoyer 713-752-4784
Volkswagen Tony Fouladpour 248-340-5064
U.S. Dept. of Energy John Townsend 202-586-4258
The California Fuel Cell Partnership is a voluntary
effort to advance a new automobile technology that could move the world toward practical
and affordable environmental solutions. The Partnership will demonstrate fuel cell-powered
electric vehicles under real day-to-day driving conditions; will demonstrate the viability
of an alternative fuel infrastructure technology; explore the path to commercialization;
and increase public awareness of fuel cell electric vehicles. The Partnership will place
more than 50 fuel cell passenger cars and fuel cell buses on the road between 2000 and
2003.
3/2000 BMW's Car for
Tomorrow by Jean Borge - Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Automotive
Engineering
"We feel that hydrogen, generated from a renewable
resource such as sunlight, is the only viable long-term solution to providing an
absolutely environmentally sound fuel," said Henrich Heitmann, Board Member for BMW
AG, at the North American International Auto Show in January. "Use this fuel in a
combustion engine, and you can provide the performance characteristics desired by those
who seek the 'ultimate driving machine.'"
March 2000 Fuel Cell
Enabler by Gerry Kobe - Automotive Industries Magazine
...recently, Energy
Conversion Devices (ECD) of Troy, Mich., announced a potential breakthrough--solid
hydrogen storage. If the name ECD sounds familiar, it's because it is one of the parent
companies of GM Ovonics, patent holder for the nickel metal hydride battery. And that
relationship is important since a hydride, by definition, is a solid material that stores
hydrogen. "We use modified hydride powder to store the hydrogen electron," says
ECD chairman Robert Stempel. "Our breakthrough is that typically you can only store
one to two weight-percent of hydrogen in a hydride material. That is, one to two grams of
hydrogen for every 100 grams of hydride. But we are storing seven weight-percent, which is
actually more efficient than liquid or compressed hydrogen. We do it by adding a high
percentage of magnesium and everybody knows magnesium stores hydrogen. But typically it
takes hours to get it back out--we resolved that." Stempel says fueling might
typically take place at a gas station that has an underground reformer being fed by
natural gas. The hydrogen would be pumped into the car much the same as gasoline, filling
the storage material in less than three minutes. A tank for a high efficiency vehicle like
the PNGV cars would be roughly the size of a gas tank on today's mid-size car and only
slightly heavier than a current tank when filled with gasoline. It's noteworthy that GM
recently unveiled a fuel cell-powered version of its Precept PNGV vehicle touting 500-mile
range using solid hydrogen storage.
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THE ICHC SHORT LIST
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1)
The Riversimple Open Source Car Design
Are Our Designs Free?
Patrick's blog
40 Fires Foundation June 19, 2009
How does open source car design work?
The honest answer is that we won't know until we have done
it. But we have plenty of ideas, which will develop over the coming months
as we share the designs for the Riversimple technology demonstrator and
start to produce collaboratively a production prototype.
There are lots of inspiring examples from open source
software, and we are being advised by people with experience in this area.
But there are many differences between open source hardware and software
design.
Differences between open source hardware and software
There are some major differences between open source software
and hardware design:
- There is a "gap" between the on-line design work and the finished
product delivered to the consumer. Not only is there substantial physical
testing to be done, but also there is significant work to be done to turn
the designs into an actual functioning product (we like the analogy of a
food recipe – a recipe is not a meal, you need a chef to turn it into a
meal). The answer we believe lies in establishing the right relationship
between 40 Fires and the manufacturers (the first of which is Riversimple),
where each party has its needs met.
- There’s a technical challenge to share ideas on-line, where there is
no satisfactory open source CAD (Computer-Aided Design) application. Our
solution is to use a low tech approach at first, using a wiki-based
website and freely available 3-D viewers to show the 3-D drawings. In time
we may get involved in developing a OS CAD program.
- Licensing. We cannot simply take the standard OS software license
(the GPL is the most common), since we are dealing with hardware, which is
not so well protected by copyright. See further down for some thoughts on
the licensing issues.
We'd like to hear from you!
As in Open Source software projects, we are not attempting to
do everything at once and we don’t have to. The designs that Riversimple
is licensing to 40 Fires resemble in many ways the code base which a
complex software project starts with.
However, because a car is different to software and requires
different development stages and processes, we will be asking for input
into specific areas, as well as procedural matters.
That's why we would like to hear from you, not only from
engineers or designers, but also if you have contributed to large scale
open source software projects and can help set up our project management
structure. Lawyers with an understanding of copyright and patents would
also be useful as we review the most appropriate license to use and if and
how we should be using patents for some new inventions which emerge.
To get involved, send an e-mail to
participate@40fires.org explaining your interest and skills.
The stages
We envisage different stages:
Stage 1 Over the coming months, starting this month (July
2009), we will make available design schematics from the Riversimple
technology demonstrator vehicle, together with a description of each
component's function in the whole system, and a vehicle design brief for
the production prototype. We will provide a mailing list or discussion
forum to enable comments and discussions. At this stage we expect
Riversimple, as the creator of the original designs, to be leading the
discussions.
Stage 2 As the detailed discussions develop, we expect a
broad consensus to emerge amongst the participants as to which is the best
solution to pursue for each design . By this stage, we expect the
conversations to be more democratic, with a broad cross-section of
collaborators participate, sharing their knowledge and insights.
Stage 3 We start creating detailed designs collaboratively
and publishing them on-line. Eventually an entire vehicle will be created,
and tested, on-line. We are aiming to complete the design of the
production prototype by the summer of 2010.
Stage 4 Riversimple and other entrepreneurs, under license
from 40 Fires, can start downloading the schematics and building and
testing the vehicles. With the lessons from this, work can start on an
improved production prototype.
Are our designs free (as in beer)?
Richard Stallman famously said that free software is "free as
in speech not free as in beer."
Are our designs free?
We consider that the designs themselves will be free in the
sense of free speech, with one exception. Currently we have chosen a
Creative Commons, non-commercial license. So the designs can be used,
modified, distributed under the same license terms but not for commercial
purposes.
We have chosen to be conservative at this stage and not
allowed commercial use. This may change - we intend to set up a discussion
group to debate this. The issue is that we don't want a large,
profit-focused organisation taking the designs and starting manufacturing
with them yet. We intend that when we grant a manufacturing license, this
will be for a small fee (say $10 per car) to cover 40 Fires running costs.
We are also keen on collaborating so if a commercial
organisation wants to use the designs, we'd like to chat with them first
before allowing them to use the designs for commercial purposes.
The licensing issues are very complex (patent law is not
copyright law; cars are not software) and we don't pretend to have all the
answers. It is quite possible that our license may in the end not meet the
strict requirements of the Free Software Foundation. But all we really
care about is that the license works to ensure that the cars can be built
in hundreds of different variations around the world, by local companies
and entrepreneurs as well as big multinationals if they like, and that no
one company (whether Ford or Riversimple) can dominate the market and keep
the ideas to itself. |
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BUILDING A WORLD THAT WORKS
TM
WWW. HYDROGENCOMMERCE .COM