Fuel-Cell Power

Richard Hollingham reports from California on how technology that took man to the Moon could soon take shoppers regularly to the mall.

It looks like an ordinary SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle), the sort of chunky 4X4 you'll find jamming American roads.

It's only when you take a drive that you realise that this is something very different.

I'm no motoring correspondent but, as we pull out of the parking lot, it's difficult not to be impressed by this car's smooth acceleration.

What's even more disconcerting is that the vehicle is almost totally silent - the only noise comes from the wind buffeting the windows and the squeal of the tyres as we bomb down the freeway.

"The car drives with electricity but - unlike a battery-electric car that you need to plug in to charge - the fuel cell vehicle makes electricity on-board from the hydrogen stored in a tank," explained Catherine Dunwoody, executive director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership.

"The fuel cell is a fuel conversion device that converts hydrogen to electricity," she told the BBC World Service's One Planet programme.

The only byproduct is water - the ultimate 'zero-emission' vehicle.
Like a battery, a fuel cell uses a chemical process to generate electricity. Inside the fuel cell, a catalyst strips hydrogen into positively charged hydrogen ions and electrons. The positive ions pass across a special membrane and react with oxygen (from the air) to form water. The electrons have to take the long way round and flow through a circuit to generate electricity.

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Sorption-Enhanced Steam Reforming

Could the cars and laptops of the future be fuelled by old chip fat? Engineers at the University of Leeds believe so, and are developing an energy efficient, environmentally-friendly hydrogen production system. The system enables hydrogen to be extracted from waste materials, such as vegetable oil and the glycerol by-product of bio-diesel. The aim is to create the high purity hydrogen-based fuel necessary not only for large-scale power production, but also for smaller portable fuel cells.
The system being developed at Leeds – known as Unmixed and Sorption-Enhanced Steam Reforming - mixes waste products with steam to release hydrogen and is potentially cheaper, cleaner and more energy efficient.

A hydrocarbon-based fuel from plant or waste sources is mixed with steam in a catalytic reactor, generating hydrogen and carbon dioxide along with excess water. The water is then easily condensed by cooling and the carbon dioxide is removed in-situ by a solid sorbent material.
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World's largest wave farm

South-West England will become the world's largest wave farm under government plans to create a new leading centre in wave and tidal technologies.

The Wave Hub project will see a giant national grid-connected socket built on the seabed off the coast of Cornwall in a pioneering energy project.

Announcing an investment of £9.5 million for the scheme, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said it would create up to 1,800 new jobs.


The project will see infrastructure built including a sub-station building and an adjacent connection point to the distribution network.

From there, a cable will be taken through a duct beneath the sand dunes and then across the seabed to an eight square kilometre area within which the devices will be moored.

The European Regional Development Fund Convergence Programme also announced it would invest £20 million in Wave Hub, which will be commissioned next summer.

The first equipment orders for the project were placed this week.

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Low carbon way 'to reshape lives'

Ambitious plans to generate one third of UK electricity from renewables by 2020 form the centrepiece of government plans for a low carbon future.

Financial packages for wind and wave energy and changes to planning procedures are among key components of the Low Carbon Transition Plan.

"Smart" meters are to be deployed in 26 million homes by 2020.

The government says the plan will create up to 400,000 "green jobs" without a major hike in energy prices.

"The strategies we are launching today outline the government's vision for achieving a low carbon future for the UK, reshaping the way we live and work in every element of our lives," said Business Secretary Lord Mandelson.
Many observers believe the targets are stretchingly ambitious.

"We need a sixfold increase in renewable energy generation in just 11 years," commented Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust.

"This can be achieved but will require not just a transformation in technology, but in political, economic and industrial thinking."

The government says these measures, when combined with an expansion in home insulation and smart meters, will not raise energy prices up to 2015, though probably will do by 2020.

From 2011, the poorest households will receive mandatory help with fuel bills.
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