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12/31/2002   Soupy Market Stocks And Funds For 2003 by John Dobosz - Forbes

"In the 1990s, investors got so used to high returns from stocks and the word 'risk' seemed to disappear from the lexicon," says Gerald Appel at Systems & Forecasts, which began publishing in 1965. Appel is something of a village elder in the newsletter world, but even he has not seen a bear market that's dragged on as long as this one has. "In this kind of a market, you really need a diversified portfolio with current income and true value stocks," says Appel. With the small portion of your portfolio that's in speculative areas, Appel says to look at the energy sector, particularly exploration and services as well as alternative energy sources like hydrogen fuel cells.

12/29/2002   GM Rethinks Hydrogen Fuel Cells by David Kiley - USA Today

General Motors, which had been focusing on hydrogen power for alternative fuel vehicles, now plans to sell 1 million cars, pickups and sport-utility vehicles powered by gas/electric hybrid engines by mid-decade. GM had fought making heavy investments in hybrid technology, saying it would have cars and trucks powered by hydrogen fuel cells in driveways after 2010. But technological stumbling blocks and competitive pressures have forced GM to rethink its plans. The fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce energy without the pollution of gasoline. Hybrids combine an internal combustion engine and an electric motor to deliver high fuel economy and ultralow emissions. In a hybrid, the gas engine recharges the electric motor, so no additional infrastructure is needed. But fuel cells will require service stations that can provide the hydrogen. That will take longer to establish than automakers thought in part because oil companies aren't rushing to invest in hydrogen technology at their stations until they are sure vehicles will be produced in large numbers.

12/27/2002   2003 Brings New N.Y. Laws Affecting Business by Eric Durr - The Business Review (NY)

From new income tax deductions to additional health insurance mandates, a variety of new state laws kick in on New Year's Day 2003. Among the $242 million in tax breaks effective on Jan. 1 is a tax credit designed to reward people who install fuel cells. Chapter 63 of the Laws of 2002 allows a state income tax credit of up to 20 percent of the system's cost, up to $1,500. State officials estimate the tax credit will result in new fuel-cell users getting $1 million in total tax breaks.

12/26/2002   G.E. Research Returns to Roots by Claudia H. Deutsch - New York Times

According to [Jeffrey R. Immelt, G.E.'s chief executive], G.E. is "incubating" service-heavy businesses in security, water treatment, oil and gas and other areas that cannot be bolted onto existing G.E. units. It is even doing research into hydrogen energy, which some see as a way, first, to turn fossil fuels into clean energy and ultimately as a means to replace petroleum. "I'd be surprised if, a bunch of years down the road," Mr. Immelt said, "we aren't into businesses that require new names."

12/26/2002   Kentucky Scientists Working on 'Clear' Coal Fuel by Byron Spice - Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette/Henderson Gleaner (KY)

Researchers from five universities are developing a process to turn dirty-but-abundant coal into a liquid fuel so clear "you'd swear it was water." "It's crystal clear," said the University of Kentucky's Gerald Huffman, director of the Consortium for Fossil Fuel Science. Whether formulated as gasoline, diesel or aviation fuel, it burns with little smoke. The only problem is, it costs 30 percent to 40 percent more than fuels made from petroleum. ...At the heart of the process is something called C1 chemistry, which involves breaking down carbon-containing materials like coal and natural gas into carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, which together are known as synthesis gas. "Once you have this synthesis gas, you can make any petroleum product," said Irving Wender, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

12/23/2002   G.M. to Offer Hybrid Power in 5 Models by 2007 by Danny Hakim - New York Times

...G.M.'s hybrid plan is a notable step toward improved fuel efficiency for a company that had previously been noncommittal on the idea of producing a full hybrid vehicle. "I don't think anybody's got confidence that the economics make any sense," Rick Wagoner, G.M.'s chief executive, said in an interview in August. At a meeting in the late 90's, company officials decided to throw most of G.M.'s research-and-development dollars behind hydrogen fuel cells, which the industry has embraced as the power source that will eventually make the internal combustion engine obsolete. But there is wide disagreement on when fuel cells will be ready for mass marketing, and on the big challenges like outfitting the nation's filling stations with hydrogen instead of gasoline. The economic equation will be addressed by relying on government incentives. G.M. plans to price the hybrids at cost, meaning that they could cost a few thousand dollars more than the conventional versions of similar vehicles at first. Increasingly, fuel economy is becoming a business issue as well as an environmental one and attracting the attention of Wall Street. Mr. Casesa of Merrill Lynch said, "We're moving toward a future with higher fuel-economy standards, risks to energy supplies and higher environmental consciousness." "If we decide to dramatically increase fuel economy," he added, "there is no way to do that besides making cars smaller, unless you have a new technology. And this is that technology."

12/22/2002   U.S. Should Rejoin Revised Fusion Energy Project, Experts Say by Kenneth Chang - New York Times

Fusion, which produces energy by fusing hydrogen atoms into helium, has been looked on for decades as a potentially attractive energy source. Hydrogen is readily available, and fusion reactors would not produce long-lived highly radioactive waste as do current nuclear fission reactors, which split uranium atoms to produce energy. But progress has been slow, and even optimists believe commercial fusion power plants are still decades away.

12/20/2002   Nuvera Makes Deal With Italian Firm - Boston Business Journal (MA)

Cambridge-based fuel cell developer Nuvera Fuel Cells Inc. announced an agreement with Milan, Italy-based BWT (Best Water Technology) AG to develop a membrane for industrial fuel cell applications. ...In October, Nuvera announced a co-development deal with Bekaert Fibre Technologies, a unit of Belgium-based Bekaert SA, to create new components for a line of Nuvera products. Bekaert Fibre has offices in Belgium and Milan. ...Last month, New York City-based oil and gas company Amerada Hess Corp., which markets gasoline through Hess gas stations, bought the ownership interest in Nuvera formerly held by Dehon Inc., the only surviving entity of Arthur D. Little Inc. Terms were not disclosed. Following the deal Amerada Hess announced that it owns about 53 percent of Nuvera's outstanding shares.

12/19/2002   Nissan Unveils Fuel Cell Vehicle - EarthVision

Automaker Nissan has unveiled its first fuel cell-powered vehicle and will begin road testing soon. The Nissan hydrogen-based X-TRAIL FCV is powered by a UTC Fuel Cells (UTCFC) power plant. This hybrid vehicle draws its main power from a 75-kilowatt UTCFC fuel cell power plant. ...UTC notes that at the 2001 Michelin Challenge Bibendum, an annual event where new automotive technologies are evaluated by independent judges, a sport utility vehicle powered by a 75-kilowatt UTC Fuel Cells' ambient pressure fuel cell system scored best in class in both quietness and efficiency. UTC Fuel Cells has been developing fuel cells for transportation applications since 1996. Its partnerships have included developing and producing 5-kilowatt fuel cell power plants for BMW. The units now provide auxiliary electrical power for prototype Series 7 BMW automobiles.

12/19/2002   Making a Fuel Out of ME by Michael Fitzpatrick - The Guardian (UK)

Something small and portable, such as a methanol cartridge that pops into a powerful micro-fuel cell, would also be better suited to portable electronics, goes the present thinking. With legislation slated for the US and elsewhere designed to phase out the use of environmentally unfriendly laptop and mobile batteries, the major electronics companies are racing to be the first on the market with a viable fuel cell. ...Korean electronics company Samsung says it has developed a mobile phone with a fuel cell the size of a credit card. Running on a supply of methanol, which is stored in an ink cartridge-like capsule, Samsung claims its prototype fuel cell can operate a mobile for 26 hours on standby or power the phone for 2.6 hours of chat. After that the fuel cell is recharged with another methanol capsule. The Koreans hope to market it in 2004. Toshiba, meanwhile, says it will commercialise a fuel cell battery-operated notebook computer by 2004 with an operation time of about 10 hours, three times longer than conventional batteries.

12/18/2002   Davis' Security Team Edgy Over Lighting of Christmas Tree by Bob Shallit - Sacramento Bee (California)

Eager to promote the superclean technology, officials arranged to have an Oregon company called IdaTech bring its portable fuel-cell generator to town and employ it lighting a Christmas tree in some well-traveled location. The first choice was the tree in the reception area outside Gov. Gray Davis' Capitol office. But the governor's security people couldn't quite get comfortable with the idea, says Doug Grandy, chief energy policy adviser for the Department of General Services. "The unit uses a methanol-water fuel, sort of like windshield wiper fluid. How scary is that?" Grandy says. But security people can be risk-averse, so Grandy's department opted to switch the project to the courtyard of the Cal-EPA building at 1001 I St. where, as of Thursday, the device will power some 5,000 lights adorning a redwood tree.

12/18/2002   Ballard Buys Alstom's Stake in Generating Unit - Reuters

Ballard said it paid Alstom 2.5 million Ballard shares for the stake in Ballard Generation Systems. The shares were trading at C$18.70 in Toronto and $12.041 on Nasdaq at midday on Wednesday. Ballard last year bought out a stake in the unit held by Japan's Ebara 6361.T and has a deal in place to purchase a stake held by FirstEnergy Corp FE.N . It will then own 100 percent of Ballard Generation. The deal with Alstom is similar to the one reached with Ebara. The French engineering firm is required to keep all of its Ballard shares for four months, and 1.9 million of them for at least four years. Alstom's will now have non-exclusive rights to market Ballard stationary fuel cell systems in all countries except Japan. It previously had exclusive marketing rights in Europe.

12/18/2002   World's First Hydrogen-from-Coal Powerplant Proposed for United Kingdom - Coventry Evening Telegraph (UK)

Plans for a £375 million "clean energy" scheme to produce power for more than 500,000 Welsh homes have been outlined. Valleys Energy Ltd is seeking planning approval for a 460-megawatt power station near Onllwyn in the Dulais Valley, south Wales. It claims the power station, which is expected to use locally-produced coal, would be one of the most environmentally friendly of its kind in the world. The project would boost the local economy by creating about 120 new direct jobs - and it would also help to maintain up to 1,000 other jobs in supporting contracts - including with Welsh coal producers, Valleys Energy said. The company said the project could also help to put Wales in a favourable position for the development of the emerging hydrogen market - with expectations that hydrogen will be widely used to provide "green" fuel for vehicles, as well as power for homes and industry in coming years. The managing director of Valleys Energy, Peter Whitton, said: "We will use locally-produced coal, but instead of burning it we will turn it into clean gas to generate electricity. Pollutants will be removed during the process, creating clean hydrogen to drive an advanced gas turbine and generate electricity.

12/13/2002 Hydrogen Politics by David James - BRW (Australia)

    The push by the United States to change the political regime in Iraq is routinely condemned as the "politics of oil". This is merely a statement of the obvious. Since the 1970s oil shocks, the balance of power in the Middle East has been a primary economic and security concern to the West, when it became obvious how vulnerable developed economies are to changes in oil supply or price. The recent rise of Islamic extremism, much of it coming from within Saudi Arabia, has only served to intensify the politics of oil. Now it is concerned not just with the balance of power between national regimes but also the interplay between states and terrorist networks. Less noticed is the emerging politics of hydrogen, which is the interest of Jeremy Rifkin, fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School executive education program and author of a new book, The Hydrogen Economy. Rifkin believes that world civilisation is at a critical turning point. Unless the choice is made to develop industrial economies based on the most plentiful energy source, hydrogen, the world economy will go into an inevitable and disastrous decline as oil and gas supplies peak in 2020. It is a message that Europe is taking seriously. The European Union (EU) has just committed t2 ($3.56) billion to prepare a plan to reduce the region's dependence on oil. EU Commission president Romano Prodi describes it as a new "socio-economic model".

12/13/2002   FPL Unveils 'Clean,' Fuel-cell Prototype by Kathleen Cooper - Miami Herald (FL)

The unit at Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, 3109 E. Sunrise Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale, is one of five experiments in the production of cleaner electricity that Florida Power & Light will install within its service area. Each unit is made up of dozens of fuel cells that combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electric power without combustion. ...The cells aren't yet available to the public. FPL's prototypes cost $50,000 to $100,000, said Bill Swank, company spokesman.

12/12/2002   Fuel Cell Partnership Wants 60 Cars in 2003 - Sacramento Business Journal (California)

The Partnership says its highlights of the past year include placing 20 fuel cell vehicles into testing and demonstration; installing a hydrogen fueling station in Richmond; providing a methanol fueling station at its West Sacramento demonstration center; conducting a technology forum; training several emergency response agencies; leading a summit meeting of fuel cell organizations from around the world; conducting fuel cell awareness events that reached more than 200,000 people, including a three-day, 300-mile road rally along California's Central Coast; and distributing 1,000 fuel cell learning kits to middle and secondary school teachers.

12/11/2002 Detroit Research Center for Alternative Energy is Dedicated by Alejandro Bodip-Memba - Detroit Free Press (Ohio)

NextEnergy will be located at Wayne State's Research and Technology Park near the New Center area. Construction of the 40,000-square-foot facility will begin next spring and is expected to be completed by summer 2004.

12/10/2002   Researcher Hopes to Power Shuttles with Refined Landfill Gas by Jim Waymer - Florida Today

Within the next two months, Brevard County plans to sign a contract with a Stuart gas company to develop the methane vented from Cocoa's landfill. The move could make the once-wasted gas a hot commodity. ...Muradov said the landfill in Cocoa emits enough methane to produce enough liquid hydrogen for up to eight shuttle flights a year. The space agency launches four to six times a year. ... Rockets are just one of the hydrogen ambitions at the solar energy center. Muradov and fellow scientists say such gases could ultimately help power cars, cities and most anything else that runs on fossil fuels. It would all be driven by fuel cell technology, which converts hydrogen into electricity. They seek to extract hydrogen from what Florida has plenty of: municipal, citrus and sugar cane waste.

12/9/2002   California's First Fuel Cell Bus Enters Into Service - EarthVision

THOUSAND PALMS, CA, December 9, 2002 - The first fuel cell hybrid bus to enter passenger service in California can now be seen plying the streets of the greater Palm Springs desert resort area. The 30-foot ThunderPower bus, operating under a UTC Fuel Cells (UTCFC) power plant, is part of the SunLine Transit Agency lineup. SunLine expects the bus to travel 100 miles a day on its Line 50 route.

12/9/2002   BALLARD: Ford, DaimlerChrysler To Provide Funding - Dow Jones/Yahoo

Ballard Power Systems Inc. said it plans to combine three of its four divisions - Transportation, Power Generation and Electric Drives & Power Conversion - into a single organization. It said this leaner structure will enable it to focus and accelerate the development of its core technologies while reducing administrative overhead expense. Ballard said its Material Products Division will continue to operate as a stand-alone division. Ballard will continue to have operations in Burnaby, B.C., Dearborn, Mich., Lowell, Mass. and Nabern, Germany. The company said it will cut its workforce by about 250 employees through normal attrition, transfers and layoffs. The transfers will be accomplished through the intended redeployment of about 100 employees from Ballard's Nabern operations to DaimlerChrysler AG . ...Over the next 12 months, Ballard intends to reduce employment by an added 150 positions. These cuts will result from the centralization of transportation system design in Germany, following the completion of the heavy-duty bus program in Vancouver, and the restructuring of Ballard's fuel-processing business. The company said the combined job cuts will decrease Ballard's employee base worldwide by about 400 employees, to 1,000 employees.

12/8/2002   Japan's Automakers Zip Ahead on Fuel-cell Cars by David Lazarus - San Francisco Chronicle (California)

Last week, Toyota and Honda began road-testing hydrogen fuel-cell cars in California and Japan. Talk about deja vu. Japanese automakers are once again racing ahead of the curve as Detroit remains in the slow lane, obsessed, as ever, with big, gas- hogging vehicles. "You'd think the Big Three would learn from history," said Kate Simmons, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club. "But they don't. They're stuck in their gas- guzzling ways." In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a study the other day showing that Honda produces the least-polluting cars and trucks in the U.S. market, followed by Toyota and Nissan. Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler brought up the rear. ...The Japanese are obviously hoping to claim an edge in this regard by getting their fuel-cell vehicles onto roads first. And they just may prevail if Detroit doesn't wake up and smell the hydrogen.

12/8/2002   Hawai'i's Future Requires Technology-based Growth by Shelley M. Mark - Honolulu Advertiser (HI)

    As we criss-cross our islands, we are struck by the contradiction between our abundance of renewable energy resources and our dependence on imported fuels to meet our energy needs. Hydrogen fuel cells produced from our vast renewable energy resources can reduce Hawai'i's dependence on fossil fuels, promote higher energy efficiencies and eventually bring down the price of gasoline for our consumers. Specifically, there is need for a comprehensive engineering and market study for the production of hydrogen cells in Hawai'i, using actual cost data from industry. By coming together in a common purpose — business, labor, academics, communities and government — we can achieve our goals and realize our vision. As we see it, the key is the knowledge we have attained, the technological progress we have made, and our respect for the natural beauty that has made Hawai'i so special.

12/7/2002   GM Shuffles Fuel Cell Research Leaders - Naples Daily News (Florida)

Frank Colvin, vice president of GM's fuel cell activities, will retire effective Feb. 1 after 38 years with the automaker, GM announced Friday. Byron McCormick, executive director of GM fuel cell activities, will assume Colvin's responsibilities. He will report directly to Larry Burns, GM vice president of research and development and planning. Julie Beamer, formerly director of GM business planning and support, has been appointed director, fuel cell commercialization. She will report to McCormick. In her previous role, Beamer served as secretary to GM's North American Strategy Board.

12/6/2002   Tech: Fuel-cell Bus Tested in Winnipeg - Canoe (Canada)

Hydrogenics is testing the same technology it will use in Winnipeg buses in a pilot project in California with Nextel Communications, a major cellular phone company. Hydrogenics has built a emergency generator for Nextel to continue operation of cellular towers through a power outage. According to the company, the generator exceeded expectations in early tests. The Winnipeg pilot project is designed to capitalize on emerging markets for hydrogen fuel-cell engines. In Canada, the Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympics bid has a requirement for 100 fuel-cell buses.

12/6/2002   Province Drives Hybrid Bus - New Winnepeg (Canada)

Following Manitoba's support for the touchy Kyoto Protocol, the Premier announced that Winnipeg will be home to a new $8 million hybrid fuel cell transit bus project to reduce greenhouse gases. With the Government of Canada, and a cluster of other private companies, the province will build on the hydrogen fuel cell technology and develop an advanced hybrid electric fuel cell bus.

12/6/2002   Hy-wire Act Full Steam Ahead to the Future by Kevin Eason - London Times (UK)

I have seen the future of motoring and it sounds like a hairdryer and leaves a trail of steam like a kettle on boil. Actually, to be completely accurate, I have also smelled the future and there is no odour, no fumes and no poisons no matter how close your nostrils get to the exhaust pipe of the General Motors Hy-wire. ...There has never been a better time for change. In the 21st century of space travel and supersonic flights, of face transplants and genetic engineering, we are still running around in metal boxes using a technology that Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz first pioneered in their workshops in the 19th century. For all the fancy packaging of a modern motor car, Henry Ford — if he could make an arrangement for a day pass from motoring heaven — could lift the bonnet and still recognise the basic arrangement of engine, gasoline and exhaust pipe on a metal frame. The internal combustion engine might have revolutionised our lives but the cost has been borne by generations who have breathed the toxic and unpleasant fumes of diesel and petrol while tonnes of carbon dioxide have floated upwards and, for all we know, super-heated the skies into a giant electric blanket that has suffocated our weather systems. The ideal is to generate hydrogen from renewable sources, such as wind power, but even using coal or gas powered stations, total emissions could be cut by half immediately. With hydrogen, we are being offered a Utopia of clean air; we simply have to ditch fossil fuels and turn to nothing more harmful than an exhaust pipe full of steam.

12/5/2002   Hydrogen: Empowering the People by Jeremy Rifkin - The Nation

In a hydrogen economy the centralized, top-down flow of energy, controlled by global oil companies and utilities, would become obsolete. Instead, millions of end users would connect their fuel cells into local, regional and national hydrogen energy webs (HEWs), using the same design principles and smart technologies that made the World Wide Web possible. Automobiles with hydrogen cells would be power stations on wheels, each with a generating capacity of 20 kilowatts. Since the average car is parked most of the time, it can be plugged in, during nonuse hours, to the home, office or the main interactive electricity network. Thus, car owners could sell electricity back to the grid. If just 25 percent of all US cars supplied energy to the grid, all the power plants in the country could be eliminated. Once the HEW is set up, millions of local operators, generating electricity from fuel cells onsite, could produce more power more cheaply than can today's giant power plants.

12/5/2002   Whither the Caspian Riches? by Dale Allen Pfeiffer - FTW

Over the last 24 months the hoped-for Caspian oil bonanza has vanished with Each new well drilled.  Global implications are frightening. ...ExxonMobil announced in June that it was closing one of its Caspian offshore projects, the Oguz oil field, due to the poor results of exploratory drilling. ...ChevronTexaco is withdrawing from the Tengizchevroil venture. Corporate representitives and Kazakh government officials have offered contradicting explanations for the failure of this enterprise. The nominal reasons for the move involve financial disagreements between ChevronTexaco and the Kazakh government. Disputes seem to center around distribution and reinvestment of profits and taxation. Obviously, there are some hard feelings between Chevron and the Kazakh government. But the contradictory explanations offered by both sides may indicate that -- beneath all the disputes -- the venture simply isn't profitable enough. ...When all of this is added to ExxonMobil's withdrawal from Azerbaijan and Russian Lukoil's recent announcement that it intends to sell its interest in the Azeri-Chirac-Guneshli complex, one has to wonder why all the major oil companies are leaving the Caspian region.

12/4/2002   Hydrogen-Burning SUVs Road-Tested by Larry O'Hanlon - Discovery

And while the clean SUV seems to have arrived, it still faces some big challenges that ought to keep them off car lots for many years. Topping the list is the matter of how to store and re-fuel with hydrogen, says Ken Kurani, director of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. Although hydrogen fuel-cell technology has been around for decades and has been used in spacecraft, people often equate hydrogen with disaster. To some it's the fiery Hindenburg. To others it's the H-bomb, says Kurani. The fact is, he says, hydrogen is safer than gasoline because it disperses quicker and doesn't pool as explosive vapors. What's more, it's nowhere nearly as dangerous to human health as carcinogen-packed gasoline.

12/4/2002   Gas and Renewable Fuels May Edge Out Oil by 2025, Shell Chair Says by Nancy DuVergne Smith - MIT News Service

By 2025, natural gas and renewable resources may provide more global energy than oil, today's dominant fuel, according to Philip Watt, chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell Group's managing directors. ...Watt's future fuel scenarios suggested that renewables like wind, solar and hydrogen could meet a quarter of the world's energy needs by 2050. ...Shell's future scenarios play out along both evolutionary and revolutionary paths. Both paths assume resource scarcity, technological advance, and changes in people's behaviors as consumers and citizens. The dynamics-as-usual model proposes evolutionary but competitive progress from oil to gas to renewables. The revolutionary model, titled the "Spirit of the Coming Age," leaps to a hydrogen economy sparked by breakthroughs in fuel cell and hydrocarbon technologies as well as carbon dioxide sequestration, which reduces the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere.

12/3/2002   Coleman Finally Launches Version Of Ballard-Powered Unit by Lynne Olver - Dow Jones

After a year's delay, Coleman Powermate, a unit of Sunbeam Corp. (X.SBM), launched an industrial version of the AirGen fuel-cell power generator for portable and back-up power applications. This version costs US$5,995 - less than the US$7,000 to US$8,000 analysts had estimated for the not-yet-available residential AirGen version, but more expensive than current portable and back-up units that run on batteries. ...Suitable for factory laboratories or telecommunication sites, the unit is being sold directly to industrial customers by Coleman Powermate. "Basically the main requirement is that they (customers) have a ventilation system to exhaust any gases, for safety concerns in the event there is a leak," said Jon Hoch, spokesman for Coleman Powermate. "The system itself doesn't emit anything, other than water vapor," he said, adding that the company wants to make the units safe and "as foolproof as possible."

12/2/2002   Stuart Energy In Pact With Toyota - Dow Jones

In a news release, Stuart said Toyota has purchased a Stuart Energy Community Fueler Station 450, or CF-450, which has been installed at Toyota Motor Corp.'s (TM) U.S. Headquarters in Torrance, Calif. This is Toyota's first on-site electrolysis hydrogen fueling station in California, it noted. The CF-450 station at Torrance generates 24 kilograms of clean hydrogen fuel a day, enough to meet the fueling needs of a small fleet of fuel cell vehicles, Stuart said.

12/2/2003   Panel Reviewing National Hydrogen Plan by Scott R. Burnell - Washington Post

Department of Energy researchers briefed a select group of National Academies of Science members Monday as part of the panel's study into possible methods for generating hydrogen as a fuel source. The Energy Department also wants expert advice on the most practical, economically feasible ways to produce enough hydrogen to begin replacing petroleum as the U.S. economy's main energy source, David Garman, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, told the Committee on Alternatives and Strategies for Future Hydrogen Production. ...The meeting coincided with Japanese carmaker Toyota's delivery of two fuel-cell sport-utility vehicles to the University of California campuses in Davis and Irvine, part of an effort to create a fuel-cell vehicle community in the state.

December 2002  Toyota, Honda Launch California Fuel Cell Fleets With Back-to-Back Events by Peter Hoffmann - Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter

The close spacing and coordination of these events, pretty remarkable for car makers who normally compete fiercely in automotive markets all over the world, surprised some people at the UCI event, less so others who professed to see the fine hand of Japan's powerful Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in all this. "It's been choreographed at the highest level in Tokyo," opined one sage wise in the ways Japan, Inc. operates. If true, it offers a glimpse of how much economic importance Japan's policymakers attach to hydrogen and fuel cells' technology for the future.

11/27/2002   SOFC: Fuel Cell Improvements Maximize Power Output by Joji Maekawa - Daily Californian

Of the major protocols that exist in the fuel cell technology, the Berkeley scientists chose what are known as "solid oxide fuel cells" for refinement. Unlike present-day fuel conductors, the new design moved away from traditional ceramic-based systems, and instead centered on a stainless steel structure that provides strength and support. "The advantage of solid oxide fuel cells operating at elevated temperatures is that they can use both hydrogen and carbon containing fuels directly, where the (current technology) needs pure hydrogen," said De Jonghe, a UC Berkeley professor of materials science and engineering.

11/26/2002   Fuel-cell Vehicles Key Product for Future by Yoshikuni Sugiyama - Daily Yomuri (Japan)

Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. will begin selling the world's first fuel-cell electric vehicles on Monday, moving into the forefront of the international competition to develop the most environment-friendly automobiles. Nissan will follow in their steps in 2003. ...Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will attend a ceremony to be held at the Prime Minister's Office on Dec. 12 at which the fuel-cell vehicles will be delivered for use by the government under lease. The new vehicles will be used as official cars by the Prime Minister's Office, the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, the Construction and Transport Ministry and the Environment Ministry. The leasing fee for each car is 1.2 million yen per month. The government has decided to use the vehicles despite the high leasing fees as part of its national strategy to help fuel-cell technology develop. Toyota President Fujio Cho says Toyota hopes to set a Japan-originated global standard, indicating the No. 1 Japanese automaker's resolve to seize the initiative in the global race to develop the next generation of automobiles.

11/26/2002   Jesus You Can Drive My Car by Alex Beam - Boston Globe (MA)

The GM and Ford types listened politely to the clerics' basic complaint - that Detroit should improve its cars' fuel efficiency, with particular attention to gas-guzzling SUVs - and waved the usual PR juju in their faces. Ford, represented by chairman William Clay Ford. Jr. (''he was very gracious,'' Ball reports), made much of its plans to build a hybrid Escape SUV next year, and a fuel-cell powered Focus after that. General Motors is working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and so on.

11/25/2002   Gasoline and the Grid by Peter Huber - Forbes

About 60% of the fuel we use today isn't oil--it's coal, uranium, natural gas and hydroelectric. About 60% of our GDP now comes from industries and services that use electricity as their front-end fuel. ...If hydrogen does somehow emerge as a transportation fuel of choice, that too will eventually lead supplies back to the grid, which will provide the power needed to extract hydrogen from water. Hydrogen can't really be viewed as a fuel at all; it is a storage system, and what it will most likely store, in the end, is electrical energy from the grid. The greens hope it will be wind or solar electricity. Coal and nuclear electricity are a more likely prospect. In any event, it won't be electricity generated from oil. The fuels we use to generate electricity remain cheap and abundant. And over the long term, the price of electricity keeps falling, because so much of its cost lies in power-plant hardware, which keeps improving.

11/22/2002   How a Microscopic Organism in Your Genital Tract Could Solve the World's Energy Crisis by James Meek - The Guardian (UK)

Ostensibly, the goal is to design a new living organism capable of turning raw materials into hydrogen to solve the world's energy problems.   ...The work will be carried out at the Institute of Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA) in Maryland. A genome is the collective word for the set of genes carried in the cells of an organism. "We could potentially engineer an organism with the ideal qualities to begin to cope with our energy issues," said Mr Venter. Hamilton Smith, a Nobel prize-winning scientist, will head the lab work. "We have just begun what will probably be long but intellectually challenging work in trying to create a synthetic genome. I am convinced this project can succeed," he said. ...What Mr Venter and Mr Smith plan to achieve is not so much the creation of life from scratch as the creation of a new life form by stripping down the genome of an existing creature. The humble creature in question is Mycoplasma genitalium, a single-celled organism that makes its home in the human genital tract. It is so small that it can only be seen with an electron microscope. The plan is to remove more than 200 of its 517 genes so that it becomes, effectively, a new kind of creature - but one that can live and reproduce. ...Ultimately, another altered organism may be used for hydrogen generation. In the meantime, for satirists, the notion of man solving his thirst for oil and coal using a microorganism living inside his genitals has dizzying possibilities.

11/22/2002   Blood and Oil -- Alternatives to War in Iraq by Michael Renner - Worldwatch Institute

By rejecting U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol early in his tenure, George W. Bush sought to throw a wrench into the international machinery set up to address the threat of climate change. By securing the massive flow of cheap oil, he may hope to kill Kyoto. In a perverse sense, a war on Iraq reinforces the assault against the earth’s climate. ...What is required is precisely the kinds of policies spurned by the Bush administration. The following measures will set in motion a long-overdue transition to a more sustainable and peaceful energy system:
        · Expand research and development efforts in support of wind and solar power, fuel cells, and energy efficiency technologies
      · Provide financing assistance for energy alternatives (in the form of low-interest loans, investment credits, etc.) to reduce up-front costs
      · Guarantee markets for renewable energy through “feed-in” laws that mandate access of wind- and solar-generated power to the electric grid at fair prices
      · Create markets for renewables and energy-efficient products through government procurement (for example, of efficient light bulbs and hybrid-powered automobiles) and incentives for businesses and private households
      · Raise standards for automobile, building, and appliance energy efficiency
      · Disseminate information about energy alternatives through eco-labeling programs and public education
      · Establish new priorities in transportation policy (reducing highway building and automobile subsidies, promoting rail, public transit, biking and walking)
      · Introduce a tax on fossil fuel use (and use the proceeds in favor of renewables, energy efficiency, and transportation alternatives).

11/21/2002    Caves of Steel - The Economist (UK)

The mechanisation of mines has increased their size and productivity, but has done little to alter the lot of miners who toil deep underground. The diesel-burning machines that are now commonplace certainly do not make the air in mines any cleaner. ...But all this is changing. A technological revolution is coming to the business of mining. One important change will be the introduction of fuel cells. These devices, which generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen and so produce only water as an exhaust, have long been trumpeted as the next generation power pack for vehicles on the surface. ...The first fuel-cell-powered mine locomotive has just been unveiled at a seminar in Palm Springs, Florida, by Vehicle Projects, a company based in Denver, Colorado. According to Arnold Miller, the boss of Vehicle Projects, this prototype cost around $2m to build. It was tested successfully in September at an experimental mine in Quebec.

11/21/2002   Find Small, Clean Alternatives to Big Power Plants, State Urged by Terrance Dopp - Express-Times (Pennsylvania)

An environmental group on Wednesday released a scathing report calling for New Jersey to explore small "micropower" generators as an alternative to large, fossil fuel plants many contend are polluting the nation. The New Jersey Public Interest Research Group said the Department of Environmental Protection needs to crack down on older, heavily polluting diesel generators and require newer generators to meet tougher emissions standards. But according to the "Micropower at the Crossroads" report, smaller power sources could be the key to finding new energy without expanding older fossil fuel facilities. ...Adopting strict guidelines could make diesel generators less attractive than renewable energy sources such as solar, wind power and fuel cells...

11/21/2002   Michigan Alternative Energy Zone Earns Tax-Free Status - ENN

The NextEnergy initiative was announced by Michigan Governor John Engler earlier this year, and the necessary legislation to make the vision a reality, a bill creating a new state authority that will encourage the development of alternative energy technologies and businesses within the state, was signed in mid-October. The state plans to become a leading center for alternative energy by developing a centralized business corridor focused on research, development, and promotion of alternative energy. In addition to the research center located at Wayne State, a public university in the city of Detroit, the initiative also includes statewide tax incentives for companies engaging in new alternative energy research, development, and manufacturing to expand or locate their business anywhere in Michigan. ...The Zone is likely to contain a hydrogen power park, a joint effort between DTE Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy. Hydrogen will be generated primarily from renewable energy sources, stored, and then used to power a 50-kilowatt fuel cell and a 25-kilowatt Stirling engine or reciprocating engine. The hydrogen power park would supply electricity to a microgrid system that will serve the Zone with. DTE Energy hopes to install about 600 kilowatts of generating capacity within the Zone in 2003, with additional generation added in the following three to four years. Eventually, hydrogen-supplied electricity will provide all the power needed for the Zone, with the conventional power grid to serve as merely a backup power system.

11/21/2002   The Driving Force of Change by Warren Brown - Washington Post

And though it is fashionable in Washington to believe that the death of the gasoline engine will occur through "technology-forcing regulation," the real-world evidence is that fossil fuels are running out just as potentially new, lucrative global automotive markets are opening up. Without long-term sources of acceptable fuels to run the cars and trucks that auto manufacturers want to sell, how will car companies exploit those new markets? How many high-horsepower V-8 gasoline engines can a company sell in Beijing? With Germany and Japan having limited access to oil, is it logical for car companies in those countries to ignore the promise of alternative fuel technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells, diesel-electric gasoline engines, clean-burning common-rail diesel engines, compressed natural gas or the less effective but more politically acceptable -- at least in the United States -- gasoline-electric hybrid cars?

11/20/2002   2002 Fuel Cell Seminar: Groups Gather Locally to Push Fuel-cell Science by Benjamin Spillman - Desert Sun (California)

Fuel-cell promoters say strict pollution standards and a heavy reliance on cars makes California the epicenter for fuel-cell research as well as a market for the technology. About 57 percent of California’s carbon dioxide emissions, a major contributor to global warming, come from various forms of transportation, mostly cars, according to the California Energy Commission. By comparison, transportation produces just around 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions nationally, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental research firm. Bob Rose, one of the organizers of the conference in Palm Springs, said demand for the technology is much greater than the current supply. That’s why events like the conference are so important, he said. "What you are really seeing is the birth of a commercial industry," Rose said.

11/20/2002   Text of Lynn Orr's remarks at the announcement of the Global Climate and Energy Project - Stanford Report (California)

Suppose, for the moment, that hydrogen becomes the preferred transportation fuel of the future. We will need to find ways to generate H2 on a large scale and at reasonable cost. The development of an advanced infrastructure for hydrogen distribution could favor generation of the hydrogen at central facilities, while the absence of such an infrastructure would favor distributed generation. If hydrogen were made centrally from methane, coal or other fossil fuel sources, then CO2 would also be generated as a by-product, and it would be necessary to separate, capture and store the CO2 generated (perhaps in depleted oil and gas reservoirs, or unmineable coal beds, for example). On the other hand, if sufficient electricity could be generated by solar, wind or nuclear power to make hydrogen from water, no CO2 would be created in the hydrogen generation step, and CO2 sequestration methods would be less important. Advances in wind or solar generation technologies or in efficient, low-cost energy storage systems that make renewable energy sources more attractive would alter the demand for CO2 capture and storage.

11/19/2002   Toyota Leases Fuel-Cell Autos to 2 UC Campuses by Alan Ohnsman - Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times

The automaker will lease one modified version of the Highlander sport utility model to UC Irvine and another to UC Davis. The schools will each pay $10,000 a month on a 30-month lease. ...The FCHV has a Toyota-developed fuel cell stack, seats five and has a top speed of more than 90 mph.

11/19/2002   Scientists Advance Fuel Cell Technology by Scott R. Burnell - UPI

The ARC project, overseen by research scientist Partho Sarkar, is working to shrink fuel cell designs based on electrodes laid atop a ceramic base. The latest result is a prototype tube-shaped cell only 2 centimeters long and 2 millimeters in diameter, somewhat smaller than a AAA battery, capable of running a small electric fan.

11/19/2002   Toyota to Lease Fuel-cell cars to Japan - Japan Times

Toyota Motor Corp. will start leasing fuel-cell cars to four central government bodies on Dec. 2, becoming the world's first automaker to launch a fuel-cell vehicle in any market. The four customers are the Cabinet Secretariat, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry, and the Environment Ministry. Each will lease one Toyota FCHV (Fuel-Cell Hybrid Vehicle) for 30 months, a Toyota spokesman said.

11/19/2002   Global Thermoelectric Says May Sell Fuel Cell Unit - Yahoo/Reuters

The Calgary-based company said that while it believed its solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology system was becoming a scientific success, it would need "significant additional expenditures" to make it commercially viable. ...The company said on Tuesday it has hired the investment firm Salomon Smith Barney to explore the possible sale of its SOFC division or to find a partner to develop the technology for commercialization.

11/18/2002   Ex-U.S. Secretary of Defense Joins MTI Board - Albany Business Review (NY)

William J. Perry is currently a professor at Stanford University and serves on the board of a number of high-tech companies. He served as secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 1997.

11/18/2002   Japan OKs Market-ready Toyota Fuel Cell Passenger Vehicle - Toyota

Initially, four Toyota FCHVs will be leased to customers in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which is due to soon have in place the necessary infrastructure, including hydrogen- supply facilities, an inspection and maintenance system and a system to address traffic mishaps. The Cabinet Secretariat, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation and the Ministry of the Environment will be the first customers. TMC sees the Toyota FCHV customer list eventually including other government bodies, including on the local level, and energy-related businesses.

11/16/2002   Energy Station to Promote Hydrogen Fuel by Michael Squires - Las Vegas Review Journal (NV)

Billed as the first facility of its kind in the world, the Las Vegas station will produce hydrogen fuel for specially equipped city vehicles and a fuel cell that will generate enough electricity for 30 homes. The facility's primary purpose, however, is to house a five-year hydrogen fuel demonstration project to encourage the creation of hydrogen fuel infrastructure in the region. It will allow researchers to test their technology under real-world conditions. "This (facility) will not only answer technical and practical questions, it will also capture the spirit and advance the day of a new, cleaner energy source," said U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary David Garman. The federal agency and two publicly traded companies, Air Products and Chemicals Inc. and Plug Power Inc., paid for the $10.8 million energy station. Las Vegas contributed the land at its northwest valley Transportation Services Center. ...The nation's only other hydrogen fuel development facilities are in California. Las Vegas' proximity to those programs will aid researchers in sharing data and encourage the creation of more hydrogen fueling sites in the region, officials said.

11/13/2002   U.S. Maps Path to Hydrogen Economy by Miguel Llanos - MSNBC

The words sounded like those of some environmentalist promising a pie-in-the-sky solution to pollution. But the pitch to auto executives — to imagine a world running on hydrogen and fuel cells — was made by none other than Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham as he presented the Bush administration’s “roadmap” to an energy revolution. ...“We must also establish a national hydrogen infrastructure,” Abraham said, “just as we once established the extensive and complex national infrastructure that brings to the corner service station the gasoline and other oil products we need for our cars today.” Producing hydrogen: The FreedomCar team will look for “a safe, energy-efficient, low-cost way to produce the hydrogen to fuel the vehicle,” Abraham said. Though the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen does not exist in large quantities on its own and extracting it requires using energy to get energy. “Overcoming” the obstacles, Abraham added, “will take an intensive and equally complex effort — but it will be worth it because the stakes really are so high.”

11/13/2002   Tech Taps into Portable Power Sources by Sandeep Junnarkar - ZDNet

The consumer electronics industry is focused on finding a way to replace the nickel cadmium batteries, which today power most portable electronic devices. Some researchers are also working on more efficient solar cells and methane-powered fuel cells. With fuel cells and improved batteries becoming reality, the industry is likely to dramatically alter notebooks and cell phones, making them smaller but more powerful. New power technologies could extend the life of laptops two to three times longer than with current batteries. Research scientists in ARC's advanced materials business unit have constructed a working demonstration unit able to power a small electric fan. The fuel cell consists of a small, hollow ceramic tube that is two millimeters in diameter and two centimeters in length.

11/13/2002   Deal Energizes Plug Power's Finances by Kenneth Aaron - Times Union (Albany NY)

Plug could have tried issuing new stock to generate capital, but it achieved much the same thing by issuing shares to H Power's shareholders. And, as a bonus, Plug gets H Power's patents and other intellectual property. "I think the motivation behind this is pretty straightforward," said David Kurzman, an analyst with the New York City investment banking firm H.C. Wainwright. "What Plug gets out of this is cash, primarily." H Power, which had $47.6 million in the bank at the end of August, had a market capitalization far below that. Other companies in the same position should look out, Kurzman said: "For a number of companies that are trading at a discount to cash right now, there could be some targets, some bull's-eyes, that are being painted on them at this point." ...Plug's move marks the first major merger of fuel-cell companies, an industry that many on Wall Street consider ripe for such transactions.

11/12/2002   Plug Power to Buy Rival H Power - Reuters

Plug Power said it would exchange about 0.8 share of its stock for each H Power shares. The deal values H Power at about $4.70 a share, more than double its closing Nasdaq stock price on Monday of $2.19. H Power, based in Belleville, New Jersey, recently executed a one-for-five reverse stock split in a bid to retain its Nasdaq listing. The deal should close no later than the first quarter of 2003. Neither company has ever been profitable, and the development stage companies only recently began selling fuel cell products.

11/12/2002   List of Top Innovators Says a Lot for California Dreaming by Glennda Chui - Mercury News (California)

Among the 50 top science and technology leaders named by Scientific American magazine as the most noteworthy of 2002, one-third were from California. The list honors not just scientists, but also companies, business people and policy leaders who help turn discoveries to practical use in a dozen areas, from transportation to medical diagnostics, manufacturing, energy and the environment. ...The overall business leader was Geoffrey Ballard, who revived the idea of using fuel cells to generate power. He founded Ballard Power Systems in 1979 to develop fuel cells, and last year co-founded General Hydrogen in Vancouver, B.C., to work on ways to distribute hydrogen as a fuel for the cells. Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Woodland Hills, was honored for writing a bill making California the first state in the nation to regulate tailpipe emissions of gases that contribute to global warming. The bill was passed and signed into law in July, although the auto industry said it would sue to keep the law from taking effect.

11/10/2002   Ben Bova: What Fuel Won't Cause Global Warming or Deplete the Ozone? Hydrogen by Ben Bova - Naples Daily News (Florida)

Everyone remembers the Hindenburg, the hydrogen-filled dirigible that exploded in Lakehurst, N.J., in 1937. But hydrogen can be stored and used safely. Daimler-Benz ran a fleet of hydrogen-powered buses in Dusseldorf for more than 10 years without a problem. The gaseous hydrogen was stored in fuel tanks filled with metal chips. The hydrogen bonded to the chips, quite safe from exploding. A hydrogen fuel tank might even be safer than a gasoline-filled tank, because the element is so light that hydrogen fires tend to rise straight up rather than spread along the ground.

11/9/2002   Bringing Fuel-cell Gospel to University of California, Davis by Matthew Barrows - Sacramento Bee (California)

In 1979, Ballard founded Ballard Power Systems Inc., based near Vancouver, British Columbia, which pioneered fuel cells that power cars, trucks and buses. Four years ago, he started General Hydrogen, a company which focuses on building an infrastructure that would make hydrogen fuel more widely available. Three years ago, Time magazine named him a "Hero for the Planet" and he was recently made chairman of the board of advisers for the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis. On Friday, Ballard told a packed room of engineering students and professors that fuel cells will not only revolutionize transportation, but also change how energy is stored and distributed. For the first time, he said, large amounts of electricity will be available under the hoods of cars. In fact, if 4 percent of the vehicles on California roads today ran on fuel cells, he said, they could generate the same amount of energy produced by all the electrical power plants in the state. He said homes, even entire buildings, could be powered by cars idling silently outside. "Transportation as we know it is about to revolutionize our way of life," he said.

11/8/2002   MesoFuel Leaps Hydrogen Delivery Hurdle by Andrew Webb - New Mexico Business Weekly

Researchers at MesoFuel, which develops hydrogen fuel cell technology, announced Monday that it had successfully demonstrated the generation of 99.9 percent pure hydrogen from ordinary hydrocarbon fuels, like methane or propane.

11/8/2002   Siemens Postpones Fuel Cell Plant Startup by Suzanne Elliott - Pittsburgh Business Times

A sluggish energy market coupled with a technology that is not ready for market have prompted officials from Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp. to delay opening its $122 million fuel cell plant on the banks of the Monongahela. ...When it was first announced in October 2001, the Siemens Westinghouse plant was originally expected to begin production this year. The fuel cells were scheduled to be ready for the commercial market by 2004. By 2007, the plant was expected to be expanded to 434,000-square-feet and employ as many as 500. When fully operational, the Siemens Westinghouse plant is also expected to be one of the region's largest manufacturing employers. ...Siemens Westinghouse is a subsidiary of Munich-based Siemens AG. The German company bought Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s power generation business in 1998 for $1.52 billion.

11/8/2002   Angloplat Buys Stake in Johnson Matthey Unit - Reuters/iAfrica

World number one platinum producer Anglo American Platinum said on Friday it had acquired a 17.5 percent stake in refiner Johnson Matthey's fuel cells unit for £20-million. Angloplat said in a statement the acquisition of the stake in Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells Ltd would provide the company with exposure to the commercialisation of the jointly developed fuel cell technology. ..."The development of fuel cells is a logical extension to our strategy of growing the market for platinum group metals. Fuel cells will drive the long-term demand for platinum and this strategic holding will provide commercial returns as well as stimulate demand," said Executive Chairman Barry Davison.

11/7/2003   Proton Energy Systems Supplies On-site Hydrogen Generator To Berlin's First Hydrogen Fueling Station - Proton Energy Systems

Owned by TotalFinaElf and located in Berlin's Wedding district, the new HYDROGEN fueling station made its debut by fueling a hydrogen fueled bus at an October 23 press conference. The hydrogen-compatible bus was manufactured by the MAN Group AG. ...The gaseous hydrogen produced on-site by Proton's HOGEN generator will fuel the hydrogen vehicles, beginning in Spring 2003 in the newly implemented Berlin Hydrogen Competence Center of BVG and TotalFinaElf. The HOGEN generator, which produces hydrogen using electricity, water and a proton exchange membrane, is connected to a hydrogen-fueling dispenser via a high- pressure compressor and a high-pressure storage tank installed by Diamond Lite.

11/6/2002   Japan and European Union Seen as More Aggressive On Backing Automotive Fuel Cell Deployment, US Needs to Renew Leadership Role, Says Allied Business Intelligence - ABI/Business Wire

Support for fuel cell technology in the European Union and Japan has been increasing, according to a new study by Allied Business Intelligence (ABI). Japan auto makers Toyota and Honda are expected to be releasing fuel cell powered vehicles by late 2002, early 2003. These vehicles will be available in the US and Japanese market. "The US will have to aggressively execute a strategy toward solving technological challenges and infrastructure layouts to help early fuel cell vehicle introduction in the second half of this decade," said Atakan Ozbek, Director of Energy Research for ABI. The number of fuel cell vehicles introduced in the world in the coming decade will reach 800,000 by 2012 according to ABI's new study, "Automotive Fuel Cells: Global Market Issues, Technology Dynamics and Major Players."

11/5/2002   Power Lunch by Marylin Berlin Snell - Sierra/Utne Reader

    "If, after the oil crisis of 1973, we had decided we wanted to pay attention to 19th-century writer Jules Verne, who told us that we were going to eventually get our fuel from water-namely, by separating water into hydrogen and oxygen - we would probably have a hydrogen economy by now." - David Freeman, energy policy coordinator for Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, now chair of the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority
    "I, too, see the goal in this century being an electricity-hydrogen-energy economy that will make us independent of fossil fuels. . . . If we like Gulf wars and all the other issues that are dependent on our addiction to that oil source, then we don't need to do anything." -Kurt Yeager, president and chief executive officer of the industry-funded Electrical Power Research Institute

11/4/2002   Israel: Technion Team Helping to Make Hydrogen Fuel Cells Work in Cars by Rick Radin - Israel 21c (USA)

In 1998, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., demonstrated a novel apparatus for solar-to-hydrogen conversion. To achieve unprecedented efficiency, the device used multiple layers of semiconductor materials. The researchers arranged the layers to form two active regions, or junctions that would absorb solar photons that dislodge electrons. Some of the less energetic photons weren't captured in the first junction, but passed to the second, where they generated more current. The design gained an energy advantage by combining solar electricity and water splitting into one unit. Their cell's efficiency doubled that of any previous solar-to-hydrogen device. Licht and his colleagues have improved upon that pioneering effort in several crucial ways. The NREL device had to be completely immersed in water to operate. That feature forced the researchers to select semiconductors that wouldn't break down in solution. By keeping their stack of semiconductor layers dry, Licht and his group were free to optimize them for both converting sunlight to electricity and water splitting. Their design permits a low electrolysis current, which also reduces energy waste.

11/4/2002   Sanyo: Moving Fast Into Solar, Fuel Cells, and Other Technologies - Business Week

Sanyo is working with Samsung Electronics to develop fuel cells, which produce electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen. By 2010, fuel cells could be used to power everything from handheld computers to home generators.

11/3/2002   Fueling the Future: Hydrogen-powered Vehicles Touted as Way to Clean Air by William Brand - Hayward Daily Review (California)

Fuel cell-powered cars are the vehicles with sex appeal in the auto world today. A drive to perfect the technology, first used in NASA spacecraft, that began during the Clinton administration has hit warp speed and it's happening here. Nearby, in the same West Sacramento garage at the California Fuel Cell Partnership, there's a Honda, a Ford, a Nissan, a Hyundai, a General Motors vehicle and a Mercedes - all powered by hydrogen fuel cells. - Honda will send its first FCX test vehicles for real-world use to the Los Angeles city fleet in coming months. Toyota plans a similar announcement, sending a handful of Pathfinder SUVs, possibly to a Bay Area fleet, a few more will be tried in Tokyo. Whether or not those Toyota SUVs land here, Bay Area residents will be seeing the whole Fuel Cell Partnership fleet a lot more in coming months. AC Transit, the local bus company and a member of the partnership, this past week dedicated the first hydrogen refueling station in the Bay Area. The plant makes hydrogen from water. It will be used as a pit stop for the partnership fleet. AC Transit is in line to test a fuel cell bus in general service in 2004. The district plans a large hydrogen facility at its Seminary Avenue yard in Oakland. A fuel cell bus will be tested in Santa Clara in 2004.

11/3/2002   Hindenburg Accident Haunts History of Hydrogen as a Fuel by William Brand - Hayward Daily Review (California)

Hitler's giant machine was kept in the air by more than 200 tons of lighter than air hydrogen - sealed in huge bags inside its silver skin. After the disaster, in which 37 people died, pundits said this was the end of hydrogen. But - according to modern scientific researchers - it wasn't hydrogen that caused the disaster. A retired NASA engineer discovered that the silver fabric used to cover the surface was coated with an aluminum powder, very similar the aluminum compound used in rocket fuel.