12/19/1997 The Day of the Fuel
Cell-Powered Car Nears - ENN
"Iridium is a metal with rare and
useful properties," said William C. Kaska, professor of chemistry at UCSB. "The
idea is to use this material as a way to strip hydrogen from cycloalkanes," he said.
"Instead of burning, you strip off the hydrocarbon and the hydrogen gas is then used
to operate a fuel cell which produces electricity.... The discovery of the new iridium
catalyst is the result of basic science research in which we were looking at ways to break
carbon-hydrogen bonds," said Kaska. "We had no idea we would be getting
hydrogen."
12/16/1997 Ford Investing $420 Million for Fuel-Cell-Powered Auto - by
Donald W. Nauss - LA Times
The fuel-cell-powered automobile received a dramatic
boost Monday when Ford Motor Co., betting that the technology could replace the internal
combustion engine, announced it will invest $420 million in a venture with Daimler-Benz
and a pioneering Canadian firm to bring the vehicles to market in seven years.
12/15/1997 Clean
as a Breeze - Time
An even more advanced technology, the fuel
cell, is being pioneered by a small Canadian company called Ballard Power Systems. The
fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity cleanly and quietly; the
only waste it produces is water. Small, mass-produced and without moving parts, the
devices are a spin-off of the U.S. space program, which uses them to meet the electricity
needs of the shuttle fleet. Fuel cells could one day sit in millions of basements
producing power and hot water without fossil fuels.
12/15/1997 Ford
Motor Co. Joins Ballard, Daimler-Benz in Transatlantic Fuel Cell Pact -
H&FCL
In a complex set of interlocking investment
arrangements totalling Can. $600 million (U.S. $422.5 million), Ford will be spending Can.
$296 million (U.S. $208.4 million) in cash on 3,662,500 Ballard shares, paying Can. $80.8
(U.S.$56.9) per share. Ford is also acquiring from Daimler-Benz 393,750 shares of Ballard
common stock, giving Ford 15.1 % of Ballard. Daimler-Benz will own 20% of Ballard. Ford
will also pay Can. $100 million (U.S. $70.4 million) in cash in DBB Fuel Cell Engines, and
will spend another Can. $16.5 million (U.S $11.6 million) on DBB stock held by
Daimler-Benz. After completion of these transactions, Ford will own 23.3%, Ballard will
own 26.6% and Daimler-Benz will own 50.1% of DBB Fuel Cell Engines GmbH. Additionally,
Ford will be the lead investor and managing partner in a new jointly held subsidiary to
further develop and commercial- ize electric drive trains, provisionally named E-Drive Co
(ECo), with Ford investing Can. $ 202 million (U.S.$142.2 million) in cash, technology and
other assets in this operation. Ballard will invest Can. $48 million (U.S. $33.8 million)
in cash in ECo. Daimler-Benz will acquire Can. $48 million worth of ECo shares from Ford,
giving Ballard and Daimler-Benz each 19.2% of ECo, and Ford owning 61.6%.
12/15/1997 Is
This Clean Machine for Real? by
Margot Hornblower - Time
Meanwhile, Daimler-Benz has formed a $325 million
alliance with Ballard Power Systems, a Canadian firm that designs fuel cells that combine
hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity. Goal: to build 100,000 Mercedes-Benz fuel-cell
vehicles a year by 2004, as much as 10% of the automaker's future car sales.
12/15/1997 Ford
Fuel Cell Partnership Praised by Methanol Industry - AMI
12/13/1997
Direct Methanol Fuel Cell
Debuts at EVS 14 - AMI
12/11/1997 Airship
Fire Mystery Solved After 60 Years by Andrew Gimson -
Electronic Telegraph (UK)
Mr. Bain agrees that electricity which had accumulated in
the thundery weather almost certainly sparked the conflagration, but is convinced it was
the outside of the airship rather than escaping hydrogen which caught fire. He managed to
track down scraps of the fabric used to cover the Hindenburg, including part of a swastika
painted on the airship's side which is kept in a safe by the Zeppelin Collectors' Club in
Chicago, and took samples for tests at the Kennedy Space Centre. There, he told America's
Popular Science magazine, he found the fabric contained a mixture of extraordinarily
inflammable materials, including aluminum powder, "a fuel used in the solid rocket
boosters on the space shuttle". The fabric ignited immediately on exposure to an
electric shock.
12/9/1997
Methanol Fuel Cell Bus Visits
Florida - AMI
12/1/1997 Lessons Learned from
Clean Air Now’s Hydrogen Permitting Process by James J.
Provenzano - Clean Air Now (CAN)
The experience of Clean Air Now in obtaining permits for
our Solar-Powered Hydrogen Generating and Dispensing Facility, located at Xerox
Corporation in El Segundo, California. We attempted to make the system as 'idiot-proof' as
possible with current codes and standards. If hydrogen is to move to wide public
acceptance, it is obvious that we need to think about ease-of-use for hydrogen systems
now. For instance, we had to rig our own grounding system for recharging the trucks, as
there was no known standard or practice besides using an insecure alligator clamp. Our
system employs a safer approach where grounding of the vehicle to the fueling station
needs to be completed before the fueling port door on the truck can be opened. This is
just one example of ingenuity used during the planning and installation phases of the
project that dealt with the deficiency in the codes and standards for hydrogen. This was
also a situation where we felt we could improve the safety of the facility. -- from Winter 97/98 NHA Advocate
12/1/1997 Presidential Energy
Advisers Urge Doubling of Hydrogen Funding, New PNGV Program - H&FCL
11/28/1997 Coal
Nightmares, Electrical Dreams by Matthew L. Wald - New York Times
Cleanest of all would be electrification with power from
no-fuel "renewable" technologies like wind. But with a stubbornly low price of
oil, and declining prices for coal, their future popularity is hard to predict. Globally,
electricity use is growing; in this country, about 40 percent of all fuel is converted to
electricity before the energy is consumed; that total is slowly rising. Another area for
improvement, therefore, is the choice of fuel and the means by which it is converted to
electricity. Of the hydrocarbon fuels, coal has more carbon than hydrogen, and when it is
burned -- or oxidized -- it produces relatively little H2 O and lots of CO2 . Oil is more
evenly balanced, and natural gas is mostly hydrogen, and so the fuels line up in that
order in greenhouse effect.
11/22/1997 Kyoto Agreement Could Be Boon to
Global Climate and World Economy - Worldwatch
11/19/1997 Alternative Fuel Vehicles: What Do
the Drivers Say? - NREL
11/19/1997 Kaiser Study Links Current Smog Levels with
Hospitalizations - South Coast Air Quality Mamagement District
(Californai)
Increases in daily levels of fine particle
pollution in Southern California are closely associated with increases in the number of
people admitted to hospitals for respiratory problems...
11/15/1997 Physicists
in Britain Nearer to Making Nuclear Fusion a Reality
by Aisling Irwin - Electronic Telegraph (UK)
But it is a moot point whether their success will boost
confidence that fusion physics could be the 21st century's great energy source. The work
has cost international funders extraordinary amounts of money - Abingdon absorbs £54
million a year - and enthusiasm for spending £6 billion on the next planned facility,
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), is waning.
11/10/1997 "Neutron Jurgen"
Ignites a Revolution at Daimler-Benz - Fortune
In September the company announced development of a
fuel-cell engine powered by liquid methanol, which does away with the need for bulky
tanks. The methanol is converted into hydrogen, which is fed into fuel cells where it
reacts with oxygen to produce electricity. The electricity powers an electric motor that
gets nearly 23 miles per gallon. The car could go into production in less than ten years.
11/1/1997 What
Really Downed the Hindenburg? by Mariette Dichristina - Popular Science
A startling variety of highly flammable compounds proved
to have been added to the cotton fabric base. `They used a cellulose acetate or nitrate as
a typical doping compound, which is flammable to begin with--a forest fire is cellulose
fire,' says Addison Bain. `OK, you coat that with cellulose nitrate--nitrate is used to
make gunpowder. And then you put [on] aluminum powder. Now, aluminum powder is a fuel used
on the solid rocket boosters on the space shuttle.' The wood spacers and ramie cord used
to bind the structure together, along with the silk and other fabrics in the ship, would
also have added to the fuel-rich inferno. Even the duralumin support framework of the
Hindenburg's, rigid skeleton was coated with lacquer, ostensibly to protect it from
moisture. In a flame test, a fabric section ignited and burned readily. The arc test, in
which 30,000 volts were zapped across a piece of fabric several inches long, was even more
revealing: `Poof, it disappeared. The whole thing happened faster than I can explain it,'
Bain says. `I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel.'
11/1/1997 Electric Cars . . . Fueled by
Gasoline? by S. Perkins - Science News
A government-industry team has demonstrated a
gasoline-fueled system that could form the heart of a clean, fuel-efficient electric car.
The system consists of a fuel processor that partially oxidizes gasoline to create
hydrogen gas, which is then sent to a fuel cell that generates electric power. Members of
the partnership include the Department of Energy and Arthur D. Little of Cambridge, Mass.
In tests conducted in mid-October, the prototype fuel processor generated hydrogen at a
rate sufficient to produce 50 kilowatts of electric power -- enough to run a midsize car,
says Robert S. Weber, a senior scientist for the project at Arthur D. Little. Although the
laboratory tests used gasoline and ethanol as fuels, the system can also use methanol and
natural gas as sources of hydrogen. A car equipped with the system would get about twice
the gas mileage of a comparable car with an internal combustion engine, Weber says.
11/1/1997 Gasoline-to-H2 Conversion for Fuel
Cells Announcement Gets Wide Media Coverage - H&FCL
10/27/1997 [Ballard]
Firm Powers
Research on Low-Pollution Cars - CNN
A Canadian company is at the wheel for an exciting spin
into the 21st century. Ballard Power Systems, a
leader in research that could help cut motor vehicle emissions, is touting the development
of a fuel cell engine as the answer to the pollution caused by cars, trucks and buses.
10/27/1997 DOE-Ford-IFC Team
Successfully Runs Automobile-sized Fuel Cell Engine - DOE
10/24/1997 Turning Up the Heat on Global Warming
by Fred Branfman - Salon.com
Jae Edmonds of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
concludes that it will be virtually impossible to limit carbon emissions to less than 450
parts per million, but that 550 parts per million might get agreement. He argues that
tighter restrictions would require convincing evidence of the problem's seriousness
earlier than we are likely to get it. The most important thing we have to do now, he
argues, is to develop technologies to get us off fossil fuels, and he calculates we have
25 years to do it.
[Bramfman] -- Are you saying a "two times carbon world" is acceptable?
[Edmonds] -- Probably -- if we reach that 550 parts per million gradually over the next 75
years, while beginning now to achieve flat energy growth and later shifting to a
hydrogen-based economy. But if we get there sooner and we're still relying on carbon-based
fuels, it would be a big problem.
10/23/1997 MIT Device Could Lead to
Near-Term Environmental Improvements for Cars - MIT
News
Essentially the device, which is about the size of a
large soup can, works as an onboard "oil refinery." It converts a wide variety
of fuels into high-quality hydrogen-rich gas. Adding only a small amount of such gas to
the fossil fuel powering a car is known to make possible a significant decrease in
emissions of pollutants like nitrogen oxides.
10/23/1997 Clean Energy Technologies Ready
for Climate Change Challenge - NREL
10/21/1997 U.S. Unveils Technology
for Pollution-Free Cars - CNN
Researchers have developed a chemical process using
gasoline that could lead to fuel-efficient and virtually pollution-free electric cars that
don't need bulky batteries and can refuel at conventional gas stations. In a news briefing
Tuesday, Energy Department Secretary Federico Pena called new technology -- a fuel cell
operating on gasoline -- "real evidence of President Clinton's belief that we can
develop new, clean technologies that help our economy and our environment at the same
time."
10/21/1997 Government
Beats Big Three to the Punch Fuel Cell Breakthrough - ABC
...use of gasoline as a source of hydrogen
for the fuel cell would allow for development of an electric car without the need of heavy
batteries and that could use the existing network of gasoline stations.
10/16/1997 Three
Guesses: The Fuel of the Future Will be Gas, Gas, or Gas by Matthew L.
Wald - New York Times
At the Frankfurt Auto Show in Germany last month, two
companies displayed cars that use fuel cells, devices that make electric current without
combustion. Fuel cells mix oxygen from the air and hydrogen from any available source to
make water; that chemical reaction generates electricity. Utility companies are working to
make giant fuel cells commercially productive. Daimler-Benz put electric motors and a fuel
cell in the body of a Mercedes-Benz A-Class, its new subcompact. It gets the hydrogen it
needs from methanol carried on board. Mercedes is working with Ballard Power Systems, a
Canadian company that has built several fuel-cell-powered buses, to make fuel cells for
cars. The two companies are investing $325 million in the technology. The Frankfurt show
also exhibited Toyota's fuel-cell-powered RAV4, which ran on hydrogen derived from
methanol as well.
10/1/1997 Toyota, Daimler-Benz
Introduce Methanol PEM Fuel Cars at Frankfurt Auto Show -
H&FCL
9/15/1997 AMI
President John Lynn Regarding Passage of MTBE Related Bills by California Legislature
- AMI
9/11/1997 Laboratory Moves Toward
$100 Million Agreement to Develop Zinc-Air Fuel Cell Technology -
LLNL
9/1/1997 Chicago Chooses Nonpolluting Fuel
Cell Buses for City’s Public Transit by Jacquelyn Cochran
Bokow - NHA
The Chicago (Illinois, U.S.A.)
Transit Authority announced in September that it had added the first of three
zero-emission fuel cell-powered buses to its service fleet. A partnership between the CTA
and Ballard Power Systems, maker of the fuel cell engine which powers the vehicles, will
test the buses on actual public transit routes for two years. Once
bus operators have been trained to operate and maintain them, the fuel cell buses will be
placed into revenue service later this year. The three routes where the buses will run
were chosen because they all operate out of the same garage where the fueling station will
be located and because they travel through the downtown area where the highest
concentration of pollutants are created. -- from
Autumn 1997 NHA Advocate
9/1/1997 French-Italian-Swedish
Fuel Cell FEVER to Hit Europe's Roads This Fall, Conference Told -
H&FCL
8/16/1997 Clean Living
in Iceland - The Economist
Hjalmar Arnason, a member of Iceland's
parliament, would like to see his country become the world's first hydrogen economy - in
which carbon-based fuels such as diesel and gasoline are replaced by hydrogen - and thus,
if the visionaries are correct, lead the rest of the world into a brave, new future of
pollution-free transport. The task force that Ireland has on the project will likely
recommend that Iceland's fishing fleet convert to hydrogen fuel cells.
8/13/1997 Fuel Cells: Top Engine of Change by
Donald W. Nauss - Los Angeles Times
Auto makers are riveted on a new way to power a car--a
simple technology that creates electricity from hydrogen, with no pollution. But cost and
safety are big concerns - With an eye toward history, Ferdinand Panik presented his
Canadian host with a small gift--a model of Carl Benz's 1886 Patent Motorwagen, the first
vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.
8/4/1997 Coal Industry Victim of
Clean-Air Policy - Cincinatti Post
Clinton said he was prepared to embrace
''realistic'' goals coming out of a U.N.-sponsored global warming summit set for Kyoto,
Japan, in December. And although Energy Secretary Federico Pena has expressed confidence
in the development of new technologies leading to the cleaner burning of fossil fuels, the
administration also is interested in turning toward the use of solar cells and fuel cells
that run on hydrogen.
8/1/1997 Output of Z
Accelerator Climbs Closer to Fusion Levels - SNL
8/1/1997 Carbon Nanotubes Look
Promising for H2 Storage, Fuel Cell Components, Other Uses - H&FCL
7/25/1997 Toyota
Ahead of Pack on Hybrid Production by Michelle Krebbs - New York
Times
...it has under development a fuel-cell
electric car that uses an electro-chemical reaction of hydrogen, carried on board, and
oxygen from the atmosphere to generate electricity that drives the motor. While other auto
makers are developing no-emissions cars that use fuel cells, Toyota's uses a
hydrogen-absorbing alloy in its system that makes the fuel cell more compact and
better-performing.
7/16/1997 Electric
Competition Is More Than Keeping Up, It's Jumping Ahead - InFact (Austin, Texas)
By this winter Duncan hopes to start work on the next
phase of planning for "distributed generation," electricity generated throughout
the community using technologies such as natural gas, photovoltaics and hydrogen fuel
cells, the latter being large batteries that produce power with zero emissions.
Distributed generation will be crucial to staying a jump ahead of competition, Duncan
says. "If you're in an industry that's in transition, it seems to me it's important
not to think just about the next few years and do the things everybody else in the
industry is doing," he says. Just as combined-cycle gas turbines have made nukes and
fossil-fuel plants obsolete, so may distributed generation be the next wave of technology
that makes all central power plants noncompetitive. "If in 10 to 15 years distributed
generation becomes cost-effective, it could completely overturn the decisions you made
going into competition if the masses get off the electric grid except for backup power.
We've got to plan so that in 10 to 15 years we're not left out in the cold by
technology."
7/1/1997 ONSI Wins 185 Fuel Cell
Plant Orders, 1 From Russia's Gazprom, Weighs Production Step-up -
H&FCL
6/19/1997 Developing Bioreactor
Systems to Produce Hydrogen for Energy - University of Hawaii
6/10/1997 Methanol
Industry Praised Ford and Chrysler FFV Offerings - AMI
6/1/1997 CAN’s
Solar Hydrogen Vehicle Facility is Up by James
Provenzano - Clean Air Now
Clean Air Now, a California
nonprofit public advocacy corporation, has recently completed its ground-breaking
'Solar-Powered Hydrogen Generating Facility and Hydrogen-Powered Vehicle Fleet' technology
deployment demonstration project. The project is located on two-thirds of an acre, at
Xerox Corporation’s El Segundo facilities, just south of the Los Angeles [California,
U.S.A.] International Airport (LAX). The project is the largest and only fully permitted
solar-powered hydrogen-generating facility in the country. It comprises a major portion of
the developing hydrogen energy infrastructure in Southern California, which now supplies
fuel for some of the few private sector hydrogen-powered vehicles in operation. The system demonstrates a private, practical application of hydrogen
fuel. -- from Summer 1997 NHA Advocate
6/1/1997 Hydrogen Storage by Walt Pyle - Home Power Magazine
Walt Pyle discusses the various methods of storing the
potentially revolutionary energy carrier. Then he describes in "Homebrew"
detail one of his preferred methods: Storage within Metal Hydrides. -- from June/July 1997 Home Power (pps. 42-49)
6/1/1997 Daimler-Benz Unveils PEM
Bus Demonstrator, PEM Subcompact to Follow This Fall - H&FCL
5/20/1997 Hydrogen-Fueled Bus
Joins Georgia Fleet - ENN
5/17/1997 Unique
Hydrogen-Fueled Bus Joins Public Transit Fleet to Promote Clean Transportation - Georgia
Tech Research News
The technology of the H2Fuel Bus includes
the metal hydride storage system, which fuels a standard internal combustion engine, which
in turn drives a 70-kilowatt electrical generator that keeps the bus's batteries charged.
5/10/1997 Dawn of the Hydrogen Age
by Jacques Leslie - Wired
After decades of unfulfilled promise, fuel cell momentum
is now so great that its emergence as a predominant technology appears just short of
inevitable. During the early 1990s, nearly every major car manufacturer in the world
launched a program to build a fuel cell automobile. Then, in April, a stunning
announcement by Daimler-Benz AG suddenly gave the fuel cell age a timetable.
Mercedes-Benz's parent company said it was investing US$145 million to buy a one-quarter
interest in Ballard, the world's leader in fuel cell technology, and $150 million toward a
joint venture with Ballard to create a new vehicle fuel cell engine company. Daimler-Benz
also announced that beginning in 2005, the new company would produce 100,000 fuel cell
engines annually.
5/1/1997 Hydrogen Technology
Advancement is Mission of Nevada Test Site Development Corp - H&FCL
5/1/1997 Wonders: HOH and Life Elsewhere
by Phillip Morrison - Scientific American
Life makes one further claim on hydrogen that is much
less of a commonplace. The linkages that unite molecules are strong and generally created
by the transfer or sharing of electrons between bound atoms. But some type of chemical
bond gentle enough to permit assembly and disassembly by the atomic environment without
disruptive energies is also a necessity for the unceasing transformations of the life
stream. That essential bond is provided not by electrons alone but by entire hydrogen
atoms. -- from May 1997 Scientific American
4/21/1997 Ford Confirms Plans
for Direct Hydrogen PEM Prototypes, Ballard Joins P2000 Project - H&FCL
4/20/1997 Pioneers
Get Clean, Green Energy Machine on the Road by Robert
Matthews - Electronic Telegraph (UK)
Zevco, an engineering company based in London, claims to
have solved the engineering problems, and has built the first vehicle powered by a
mass-producible cell. The vehicle, a converted Subaru van originally powered by
conventional batteries, would normally have a range of around 35 miles before needing a
recharge. The cells give it a range of 200 miles.
4/15/1997 Daimler-Benz, Ballard
to Spend Nearly Half Billion on Fuel Cell Development - H&FCL
4/7/1997 Shuttle
Flight is Cut Short After Failure of Fuel Cells - Electronic Telegraph
4/1/1997 CA Firm in Talks with Daimler-Benz On
Scale-up, Commercialization of JPL Methanol Fuel Cell - H&FCL
3/30/1997 42d Street and Broadway: Technology in the Front Seat at 4 Times Square
by John Holusha - New York Times
When the project was announced last year,
the Durst Organization, which is developing the 48-story, 1.6-million-square-foot
building, struck an environmental theme. ...If necessary city approvals can be obtained, 4
Times Square could become the first major office building in New York to have
photoelectric panels incorporated in the outer wall of the building. In addition, the
design team is working to incorporate fuel cells into the building's
power system. Fuel cells convert natural gas into electricity, while emitting only water
and carbon dioxide, a gas that is already in the atmosphere. The panels and cells would
make the building largely self sufficient in energy, with managers purchasing
supplementary power from Consolidated Edison, or another supplier as deregulation
proceeds, as needed. Energy specialists say that the value of the panels and cells would
be twofold: to demonstrate that these techniques have advanced beyond the experimental
stage and are now actually usable in buildings, and to give them a showcase in a prominent
location. "It's a great showcase for real technologies that work," said Ashok
Gupta, a senior energy economist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an
environmental organization based in New York. "Someone has to lead in introducing new
technologies to increase demand. Increased demand attracts new producers and the
competition makes the price go down." ...The current plan is to install eight (up
from three just a few weeks ago) fuel cells, each capable of putting out 200 kilowatts of
power an hour. If all eight run continuously, as they are intended to do, they would
supply 12.8 million kilowatt hours a year, enough to handle 100 percent of the estimated
power requirements of the signs or 60 percent of the demand by tenants.
3/1/1997 Again, Iceland Leads in Environmental
Preservation by J. Baldur Steen - Newsletter of the
Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto
Iceland is now in the process of studying the potential
of using hydrogen as a fuel source to power Iceland's fishing fleet. They currently use
fossil fuels that release an estimated 772,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
per year. By using hydrogen, the emissions would be virtually eliminated, but would also
save a potential eighty two million dollars (Canadian funds). It is also feasible to
produce this fuel source in Iceland, given that the country has its own vast hydropower
resources. If successful, Iceland will have not only geothermal, but hydrogen fuel
technologies to their environmental credit.
3/1/1997 Ballard, Delphi Team to
Supply PEM Fuel Cell for Chrysler's Proof-of-Concept Vehicle - H&FCL
2/26/1997 Methanol Fuel Cell
Shows Promise for Zero-Emission Vehicles - ENN
2/24/1999 Fueling the Future by Eric Mankin-
University of Southern California Chronicle
A revolutionary design for a cool-process,
zero-emission fuel cell just patented by Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and USC is
already under fast-track development for a wide range of uses. In one major project,
developers believe they can create a unit about the size of a thick paperback book that
can run continuously for weeks at a time, producing 50 watts of power, consuming about a
pint of methanol fuel per day, and emitting only water and carbon dioxide. The Department
of Defense hopes to use such units to replace batteries in many applications. The
technology, the development of which was funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, is easily transferable to larger units capable of powering zero-emission
motor scooters or cars. Units of up to 5-kilowatt output, powerful enough to run a small
vehicle, have already been designed. A private corporation, DTI Energy Inc. of West Los
Angeles, has licensed the technology and intends to develop vehicular applications.
"This fuel cell may well become the power source of choice for energy-efficient,
non-polluting electric vehicles," said JPL fuel cell team manager Gerald Halpert.
"This invention also has vast potential to improve the environment by providing clean
energy in portable form," said Nobel Prize-winning chemist George Olah of USC, one of
the co-inventors. ...A major problem with the existing device is that the membrane used
allows not just protons to cross to the cathode side, but also methanol, degrading
performance and shortening the life of the cell.
2/14/1997 Bill Proposes Hydrogen Use to Power
[Icelandic] Fishing Fleet - Daily News (Iceland)
Six MPs from the Progressive Party have lodged a bill
before parliament that would have the environment minister study the possibility of
running Iceland's fishing fleet with hydrogen as opposed to oil, as is currently done.
Carbon dioxide pollution from the fleet is estimated at about 772,000 tons annually.
Hydrogen, while being a much cleaner power source, would also be relatively simple to
produce, given Iceland's hydropower resources. The yearly oil bill for the Icelandic fleet
is about USD60 million.
2/10/1997 Proliferation and Explosion Dangers
in Belgrade - WISE (Amsterdam)
Forty kilograms (kg) of fresh high-enriched
uranium (HEU) and forty kg of heavily corroded HEU are stored at the Vinca Institute of
Nuclear Sciences, Belgrade Serbia... The 40 kg of spent HEU fuel is stored in four basins
with 200 m3 of water. The greatest immediate threat is that the spent fuel may explode or
burn, releasing its radioactive inventory. Hydrogen gas is building up inside the
canisters holding the damaged fuel. Officials say the spent fuel could collapse into the
bottom of the pool and cause a critical accident. Measures by the IAEA showed a radiation
level of 126 Becquerel per milliliter in Cesium-137. A new danger is the formation of
highly flammable uranium hydride on the surface of the exposed HEU fuel. If this
continues, the fuel inside the pool could start a fire.
2/1/1997 Boston Team Claims
Development of 5,000-Mile Range Onboard Hydrogen Storage Method -
H&FCL
1/31/97 Fuel Cells Could Be Key to Future
Autos by David Colker - Los Angeles
Times
JPL researchers focus on methanol in drive to create
alternative to internal combustion machines. - The buzzwords in futuristic automotive
circles these days are "fuel cells."
1/6/1997 H 2 Go - In 10
Years, Your New Car Could Be Running on Hydrogen by Donald W. Nauss -
Los Angeles Times
As the search accelerates for better power sources for
cars and trucks, a proven but problematic technology--the hydrogen fuel cell--is getting a
fresh look as possibly the most promising replacement for the internal combustion engine
in the early part of the 21st century.
1/6/1997 Chrysler Shifting to Fuel Cells by Brian S. Akre -
AP/Houston Chronicle (Texas)
"We believe hydrogen needs to be
processed from gasoline on board vehicles because hydrogen isn't a practical fuel choice
today," said Francois Castaing, Chrysler vice president of vehicle engineering.
"Simply put, there are not any filling stations supplying it to a mass market."
..."Chrysler has the right technology, but the wrong fuel," the Union of
Concerned Scientists said in a news release. "The true promise of fuel-cell
technology will only be realized through the use of renewable fuels, such as hydrogen,
methanol or ethanol."
1/1/1997 Chrysler Unveils PEM/POX
Car Mockup, Demo Vehicle to Come in Two Years - H&FCL
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