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[FiRe] Fuel Cells and the Hydrogen Economy
These are notes from the Future in Review conference. More here.
Mark Anderson had an on-stage conversation with Geoffrey Ballard, Chairman of General Hydrogen Corp. Mr. Ballard is the man who almost single-handedly invented the fuel cell industry by founding Ballard Power and making it a successful company. Gotta admire the man.
Motivation for founding Ballard Power: Health issues for kids in inner-city environments from the toxic effects of exhaust consumption. Not at all global warming issues, which he is not particularly concerned about.
Why is the internal combustion engine so ubiquitous? You can scale power and energy separately. In a battery, though, they're self-contained: That's why they're not as ubiquitious, and that's why batteries were no real solution. Important for each solution: Fitting the mission profile of the American car owner. I.e. driving 200 miles without recharging.
Fuel cells were the right technology, but just too expensive, too big, too undevelopped. Thus, they had a classical engineering issue in front of them of making the technology smaller-better-cheaper. It was about engineering, not brilliant science.
He founded Ballard Power and developped the fuel cell further, which was very far when he left Ballard. There were working models, there were busses actually driving through cities. He left Ballard Power because he thought their new to-be-taken direction of going into manufacturing was not the right one.
Then he founded General Hydrogen ("GH develops technologies and invests in companies that facilitate the hydrogen infrastructure."). They find niches that come down the curve of the hydrogen infrastructure and help them grow and nourish them. Example: Material handling.
He still thinks that private cars will actually be the last ones to have fuel cells. Trucks and busses will be much faster. And it's also much more important because they provide a disproportionately high amount of exhaust.
He thinks: The car companies are not gonna play the dangerous game of avoiding this innovation. It would be too dangerous. If one of them broke out and introduced this disruptive innovation, they would be in severe danger. Thus, he does not believe in the theories that car manufacturers are conspiring against this technology.
His estimate: There will be a serious distribution system in place by 2005. Then a few years until the public becomes comfortable with the notion of using hydrogen. Then trucks will start at the end of this decade.
Finally: The hydrogen economy with the fuel-cell car is not a linear extrapolation of current trends, but is a disruptive development which will change the energy map.