Fuel Cells 2000 has been tracking the presidential candidates’ proposed energy policies and has compiled a report of their comments regarding fuel cells (Where the U.S. Presidential Candidates Stand On Fuel Cells and Hydrogen).
While their comments on energy focus on the general categories of “renewable energy” and “advanced technologies” the candidates do touch, albeit briefly, on hydrogen and fuel cells. For example, Senator McCain has spoken several times about expanding efforts to develop advanced automotive technologies, including hydrogen-fueled vehicles, and has promised to encourage infrastructure development and market growth for fuel cells and other alternative technologies. Senator Obama hasn’t yet mentioned fuel cells or hydrogen specifically in his policies, but in the past has supported legislation encouraging development of fuel cells and fuel cell vehicles. He has also secured funding for several fuel cell projects in Illinois.
Given the recent focus on other renewable fuels and alternative technologies, how can we ensure that fuel cells are adequately addressed in a new administration’s national energy policies? What stance should Senators McCain and Obama take to further development of fuel cell technologies and a hydrogen infrastructure?
~ Sandra Curtin
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July 13, 2008 @ 6:51 am
John Trocciola says...
Everything is just “talk”; time for real action .
The Gov in fact built the interstate highways, helped build the railroads ( free land to the RRs) built the dams that keep power costs in the Northwest at very, very low rates. Enough talk , buy 100,000 stationary fuel cells and put them at every shelter, Homeland Security Center, Police Station etc in the country.
As “they say” talk is cheap and the fuel cell talk is 45 years old.
Remember every 10 cents of gasoline cost raises 10 billion dollars per year.
Let’s be bold and ask for what is required. Year by year tax credits just increase more unceretainty in an already uncertain energy market.We don’t need just more “fuel cell development” we need a large scale purchase agreement
July 16, 2008 @ 10:18 am
fc-skeptic says...
“Enough talk , buy 100,000 stationary fuel cells and put them at every shelter, Homeland Security Center, Police Station etc in the country.”
This has to be the most self-serving demand I have ever seen.
Your frustration after 45 years is understandable but is no justification for wasting precious public funds.
Develop a fuel cell technology that makes economic sense and they will be beating down your door.
July 17, 2008 @ 6:24 am
John Trocciola says...
Let’s see wasting public funds:
1.The big hole in Nevada for storing spent nuclear fuel
2.The many ships and soldiers/sailors in the Persian Gulf protecting our gasoline supplies
3. The huge subsidies Amtrak gets
4. The Corps of Engineers dredging American Ports
5. The Police and Fire Depts in every town
6. Repairing the interstate Highways
What were the calculated ROIs for those projects?
I guess you have never heard of that section of the Consitution which calls for the “Common Good”?
July 19, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
fc-skeptic says...
Yeah I’ve heard of the “Common Good”. Most of the things you list do serve the common good. Even if they didn’t, that would be no justification for wasting even more public funds on technology that doesn’t pay its own way.
Getting the government to spend $Billions on the fuel cells that are available today would not serve the common good in any way. It would just be a boondoggle for UTC and FCEL. (I guess you have never heard of “Pork”.) The money would be much better spent on investment and production tax credits for renewable generation capacity and rebuilding the grid. Fuel cells should not even qualify for renewable energy tax credits unless the project developers are required to run the fuel cells on truly renewable fuels (NOT natural gas or coal derivatives).
The “fuel cell community” and “hydrogen community” have become run-of-the-mill special interest groups. Bankrolling special interest groups just because they tell their technologically illiterate Congressmen good stories does not serve the common good.
Fuel cells still aren’t selling because they still don’t make any economic sense. Develop a fuel cell that does and the market will beat down your door.
July 21, 2008 @ 6:43 am
John Trocciola says...
So rebuilding the grid ,which is mostly owned by investor owned utilities, using Gov money ( our money) and tax credits does not fit your definition of “pork” as would the Gov buying fuel cells for shelters , energency power etc?. Gee, if it oinks and squells it sure sounds like a porker to me.
Gee , would nuclear be “economic” if the Gov did not have a law limiting their liablity?
Would coal be economic if we accounted for the health consequences of all the mercury emitted into the atmosphere when it is burned. Can you guess why tuna fish has high levels of mercury in it?
Would wind be economic if it weren’t for its tax credit?; tax credit means someone pays less taxes which sounds like our money being transferred to someone else, which by the way I fully support in the case of wind since it is in the common good.
But putting mercury in the air does not fit any definition of “good”.
Nor does limiting liability in the case of a nuclear acident.
July 21, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
David Redstone says...
“So rebuilding the grid ,which is mostly owned by investor owned utilities, using Gov money ( our money) and tax credits does not fit your definition of “pork” as would the Gov buying fuel cells for shelters , energency power etc?”
No, it does not. We must have a better grid if we are really going to scale up wind, solar, geothermal. We do not need FCs to do this.
Throwing the FCs available today into the renewable mix would be counterproductive. FCs run either directly on natural gas, on hydrogen reformed form natural gas, or on electrolytically produced hydrogen. Using electricity directly is much more efficient than converting it into hydrogen and then converting it back to electricity. (Wastewater treatment gas and landfill gas are renewable. I would not object to spending public money on FCs that would run on such renewable gas, as long as the FCs can be shown to be a better overall deal than other generation technologies.)
There will be plenty of time to talk about using H2 as a medium for storing electricity a few decades from now when we have built so much renewable generation capacity that we can no longer use it all in real time. In the meantime we need a much better grid.
Nuclear completely eliminates GHG emissions. Sounds pretty “good” to me right now.
Yes, subsidizing fossil fuels is bad policy. Yes, the failure to internalize the costs of emissions is bad policy. But how do those bad policies justify using public money to install “100,000″ of the stationary fuel cells that are available today and then run them on natural gas or hydrogen??
What you really seem to be saying is that you just want your share of the pork.
July 21, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
John Trocciola says...
Your’re right for nuclear no greenhouse gases just by product plotonium; that sounds real “good”. Folks make nuclear bombs out of that stuff don’t they?
And let’s stop subsidizing nuclear, solar, wind, improved grid (since fossil fuel burners will use it too), tax credits for hybrids ( since they burn a fossil fuel) etc and let the “free” market rule.
By the way the only part of the above I really believe is the part about plutonium.
July 21, 2008 @ 5:07 pm
David Redstone says...
I didn’t say anything about “letting free markets rule”.
I am all for subsidizing real renewable energy like wind, solar, geothermal. Not hydrogen or fuel cells or microturbines or corn based ethanol.
Nuclear power need not produce any excess plutonium that could be used in weapons.
You might consider reading about something other than FCs.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NuclearFastReactorsSA1205.pdf
July 22, 2008 @ 6:57 am
John Trocciola says...
Mr Redstone,
Didn’t the North Koreans recover plutonium from the waste material from a reactor and build a bomb? Point is that the waste material must be carefully guarded to prevent proliferation; so I have a problem talking about nuclear and true renewables in the same paragraph.Fuel cells produce water, which in fact is very, very valuable in certain parts of the world
I went to your link, the authors are from a nuclear lab so I must question their objectivity.
Have you ever heard of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island?
July 22, 2008 @ 8:59 am
David Redstone says...
You brought up nuclear, not me. I never said nuclear is truly renewable.
The North Koreans were able to recover plutonium because the fuel cycle they use allows them to do it. My link describes a completely different fuel cycle that wouldn’t allow it.
You have been working on FCs for 45 years (not to mention the fact you are demanding that the government install 100,000 FCs when the market won’t) so I must question your objectivity.
July 22, 2008 @ 9:23 am
John Trocciola says...
from your July 21 st “post”.
“Nuclear completely eliminates GHG emissions. Sounds pretty “good” to me right now”
So you didn’t mention nuclear; wow I guess I should put you in the “not objective class” along with me and the folks at the Nuclear lab you reference so proudly.
Mr Redstone,
I think our debate is over; have a glowing life
July 22, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
David Redstone says...
I didn’t say I didn’t mention nuclear. I said that you were the one who brought it up here. Which you did. You were the first to bring it it up (gratuitously attack it) in this thread in post #5 above. I was responding to you.
You do seem to see things in a way that serves your agenda rather than the way they actually are.
July 24, 2008 @ 8:27 am
John Trocciola says...
Redstone:
Nuclear = “good”, no CO2
Plutonium waste products= “no problem”, the nuclear labs have another idea
Guaranteed rate of return for utilites= “good”
Gov built storage for nuclear waste = “good”
Investment tax credits for fuel cells = “bad”
August 5, 2008 @ 10:38 am
John Trocciola says...
I think fuel cells at shelters would really help in this case:
NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Some 328,000 homes and businesses in Illinois and Indiana had no power Tuesday morning after severe thunderstorms pummeled the area Monday night, local electric companies said.
Exelon Corp’s (EXC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Commonwealth Edison unit still had some 238,000 customers in the dark, down from about 427,000 customers initially affected
October 22, 2008 @ 6:12 am
k gold scrap says...
k gold scrap…
AC Transit, who currently operates three hydrogen hybrid buses in the Northern California area has agree to buy eight 120 kW PureMotion Model 120 fuel cells to power the company’ s next generation buses. From past testing, AC Transit has found that t…
December 29, 2008 @ 10:48 am
Alan Cuthbert says...
I have an employment opportunity with “off the scale” interest value. We need an Electrical Engineer with power generation experience, (fuel cell and battery), for the next Moon lander. Must have and Electrical Engineering degree and be a United States citizen.