Last Friday, June 12^th, the US Fuel Cell Council hosted a House briefing for Congressional staffers interested in learning more about fuel cells and hydrogen and progress being made to commercialize these technologies.  All of these presentations are available to download from the Council’s homepage, but here is a quick summary of the event.

Four Council members made presentations: Plug Power, GM, Daimler and Air Products.  The participants discussed their individual efforts to bring technology to the marketplace. They also used the time to push back on recent criticism that fuel cells and hydrogen are technologies that are still far from commercialization.

First, Plug Power discussed their material handling and power generating equipment for business and residential use.  With particular focus on their forklift products, they demonstrated how their products are lowing GHG emissions, providing customers with superior equipment while lowering energy and operating costs.

Next, GM and Daimler provided participants with a look into plans to develop fuel cells for transportation applications.   Both automakers discussed progress made to date, approach to overcoming the hydrogen infrastructure and the need for continued partnership with the federal government.  The companies agreed that even if the U.S. government scaled back their investments in fuel cell and hydrogen work, programs in countries overseas will continue.

Finally, Air Products made a presentation on hydrogen availability now and in the future.  They also discussed how utilizing hydrogen as a transportation fuel could lower greenhouse gas emissions and give adopters flexibility to use domestic feedstocks.

The briefing, held in conjunction with a similar briefing held in the Senate by the NHA, was one more way the USFCC is working with their members and allied organizations to try and restore funding to the 2010 DOE budget.