Fuel Cell's Day has Come

An astounding market projection for fuel cells—$8 billion in 2005 and reaching $32 billion by 2010—from Frost & Sullivan, San Antonio, Texas, pales the figures reported above.

In Fuel Cell Vehicles and Stationary and Portable Fuel Cells, researchers expect to see the demand for reliable power spur the market for fuel cells, especially in areas of residential or industrial expansion on the fringes of a public grid.

"The main issue involving fuel cell technology is the high cost of manufacturing the devices, which has largely limited them to a handful of exotic applications. Now falling prices and new technologies indicate that the fuel cell's time has finally arrived," say researchers.

In other fuel cell news:

• Altair Technologies reports that Dr. Jackie Y. Ying and other researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are on schedule in the development of a reliable and economic nano-materials-based solid-oxide fuel-cell system. The company has a sponsored research agreement with MIT.

• Energy Ventures of Calgary, Alberta, will develop commercial prototypes of fuel cells using the company's direct-methanol fuel cell technology. The Alberta Research Council is kicking in $2 million Canadian in support.

• Stock Traders Daily believes that alternative energy is a speculative sector that has much in common with the Internet sector. In a comparison between the alternative energy sector and the Internet bubble stocks, it concludes that "there are often no earnings, the products are in development stages and market capitalizations are often near or over $1 billion."

• Metallic Power of Carlsbad, Calif., recently displayed a regenerative fuel-cell technology that uses zinc and air as an electrochemical fuel source. The unit is said to be a cost-effective means to supply a rack full of network or telecommunications equipment with eight hours or more of backup power in a package hardly larger than a traditional UPS.
  From Pure Power, Fall 2001.