DH News-State-owned oil companies are working on a project to launch India’s first hydrogen gas dispensing stations in select cities to provide hydrogen as an alternative auto fuel in the next two to three years.

The project, which aims at proving the efficacy of hydrogen gas as a clean and environment friendly automotive fuel, will also come out with an exclusive fleet of two and three-wheelers using hydrogen gas in admixture with the CNG, sources in Petroleum Ministry told Deccan Herald.

The oil firms would work with some of the auto companies manufacturing two and three wheelers for developing prototypes which can use hydrogen in admixture with the CNG.

In fact, the oil sector road map for ushering in Hydrogen gas as an alternative fuel in the country was outlined by Petroleum Secretary B K Chaturvedi at a meeting attended by all the top officials of the state-owned oil and gas firms including the ONGC, IOC, Gail, HPCL, BPCL and Oil India Limited.

It was decided that the oil sector in association with leading automobile manufacturers and research institutes in India and abroad would chalk out programmes for taking up a few projects to demonstrate the use of Hydrogen initially in a few applications like two and three-wheelers and portable gensets.
Visualising Hydrogen as another energy revolution in the making, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas has proposed that the major oil and has companies in India, which already have the necessary experience, should form a consortium and create a corpus fund for hydrogen research in the country.

As part of this, the Indian Oil Corporation’s Research and Development Centre at Faridabad, has been made the nodal agency, the sources said. It is now establishing linkages with various national and international R&D institutes working on hydrogen gas besides joining some of the ongoing hydrogen research programmes being conducted abroad.

These include a US-sponsored project for production of Hydrogen as auto fuel by the Pure Energy Corporation of USA and the Cooperative Automotive Research (CAR) project initiated in India, sources said.

A project proposal from Canada-based Stuart Energy, made earlier to the ONGC, is also being considered by the Oil Industry Development Board (OIDB).The IOC’s R&D center is also considering associating itself with an ongoing project on Hydrogen Pathways by an International consortium based in University of California.

'Green' car crosses Australia -Click to Listen to Story

The car, designed by Japanese students, is much greener than a regular vehicle. Instead of harmful fumes, its exhaust blows out pure water-

Experts say, in making the 2,533-mile trip, the car has shown there is an environmentally-friendly alternative to cars which pollute the atmosphere. 

The car runs on hydrogen and solar power and has been named Apollondine. 

The man who organised the trip was full of praise for the students from Tokyo's Tamagawa University who invented the car. 

"It's interesting that clever university students have come up with this design, instead of the major car companies," he said.

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Lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull came up with an unusual toast to students from a Japanese university who yesterday became the first people to cross Australia in a solar and hydrogen-powered vehicle.

Mrs Turnbull met the Apollondine under cloudy skies at Sydney Town Hall at 10.30am, commending the crew for demonstrating the potential that hydrogen fuel-cell technology has to revolutionise motor vehicle energy.

To toast the achievement, she drank the waste product of the car, an ecologically friendly glass of distilled water.

Mrs Turnbull congratulated Professor Hiroyuki Obara and his team from Tokyo's Tamagawa University for continuing the dream Australian adventuring pioneer Hans Tholstrup started 21 years earlier. Mr Tholstrup set off on the original trans-continental journey from Perth on December 19, 1982.

The engineering students left Perth on December 19 and travelled 4084 kilometres in eight days.

The Tamagawa University Solar Hydrogen Challenge was driven by Mr Tholstrup, who encouraged the crew to attempt the cross-continental journey after being inspired by the technology he witnessed at the university in August.

"I was on the brink of leaving these ideas of sustainable energy behind. People don't want to listen and it's so frustrating," he said. "But I saw the car and I thought to myself this car can do it. And it has."

Mr Tholstrup said the advances over the past 20 years in solar-powered vehicle technology was equivalent to the past 100 years in flight. "It's mind-boggling how fast and far we can go when we have to."

Hydrogen fuel-cell technology is being touted by sustainable-energy enthusiasts as the way of the future for motor vehicles.

Businesswire- Alternate Energy Corporation (OTCBB: ARGY) announced today that it has received $530,000 via a private placement with institutional investors. The proceeds are expected to be used to fund interim working capital requirements and for certifying the Company's Hydrogen Production System.

The financing includes the issuance of 1.06 million shares of restricted shares at $0.50 per share and 318,000 warrants exercisable over a 3-year period to purchase the Company's common stock at $0.85 per share. The Company shall have the option of calling any unexercised warrants once the registration statement is effective and the Company's common stock price exceeds $2 per share for 30 trading days. The company has agreed to register the shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"The proceeds from this financing will help us certify our hydrogen technology through testing before governmental entities and leaders in the alternative energy field," said Blaine Froats, AEC's Chairman. "We have already made substantial progress towards this goal and are pleased to announce the first step towards funding this certification."

    About Alternate Energy Corporation (AEC):

    AEC (OTC Bulletin Board: ARGY) is an energy company committed to delivering innovative, practical and environmentally responsible fuel and power solutions to consumer, commercial and government markets. AEC owns an affordable, on-demand high-grade hydrogen production process that is expected to enable the hydrogen economy to replace the fossil fuel economy., AEC's inexpensive hydrogen production process has been recognized for its ability to overcome two major industry obstacles - affordability and safety. The hydrogen production system leverages a proprietary chemical process that yields fuel-cell-quality hydrogen from fresh or salt water, with no known harmful by-products. AEC's achievements are already profiled in a variety of "green energy" publications and broader press outlets. The company has been covered in Fuel Cell Today, Solar Daily, Live Power News, Canada's Centre for Energy, and a variety of news wires. AEC test results have been featured in CNN's Market Wire and the Toronto Star, who called the company's test results, "a new chapter in hydrogen production history."

To Travel 3,000 km while using only 2kg of Hydrogen. This is the goal that a group of engineers from the Ballard Power Systems facility at Nabern near Kirchheim, Germany want to achieve. On their way to achieving this world record and trying to get themselves into the Guiness Book of Records as the most fuel-efficient long-distance trip, they also hope to stimulate public interest in fuel cell technology.

The group calls their project Hysun 3000 and will use the event to showcase fuel cell technology and its effectiveness in actual driving conditions.The engineers are all working on the project in their free time and the complete project is being built with the support of a number of sponsors, who will be providing most of the financing and technical equipment for the record attempt. The sponsors include Ballard, Dynetek, Aerorider, Daimler Chrysler, Schempp-Hirth, Magura, Continental AG and the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands.

The route will take them from the south of Spain over France to Belgium and Germany; Last stop: Berlin.

The Hysun’s basic design is that of a fully enclosed three-wheeled recumbent bike but without any pedal power. The group designed the Hysun’s aerodynamics using a wind tunnel .
The use of these aerodynamics has made it possible for the vehicle to achieve a drag coefficient of 0.15, and when this is added to the very small cross-sectional area of  0,6 m2 . The result has been a very low aerodynamic drag.

The tour is scheduled to begin in summer 2004. The trip is scheduled to last 14 days from start to finish, and the organizers expect the actual traveling time to be nine days. The vehicle is expected to travel at an average speed of 40 kilometers per hour, though the Hysun can attain a maximum speed of 100 kmh. 

To date the group is still seeking additional sponsors for the record-breaking journey and event. Anyone interested in becoming a sponsor please send all corespondance to.

Dr. Joerg 
73230 Kirchheim u.T. 
07021-485855 
info@hysun.de 

LANL-The Laboratory and ZECA Corp. have been recognized in Scientific American's December issue as providing one of the most significant "path-breaking developments that have taken place in recent months in laboratories, corporate suites and the halls of government," according to the article.

The issue highlights ZECA Corp. and its collaboration with Los Alamos in the Scientific American 50 article as being the "Business Leader in Environmental Science" for 2003. The work recognized by Scientific American relates to the use of coal to produce hydrogen and electricity without any atmospheric emissions. According to researchers, in the face of global instability of energy supplies, it is increasingly important for North Americans to safely access their indigenous energy reserves. In this regard, the large coal reserves in North America are the nation's 'ace in the hole.' However, traditional coal power plants produce atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and other gases, some of which are pollutants.

Laboratory researchers originally proposed this second-generation, zero-emission concept for using coal for power generation. The Los Alamos concept involves the conversion of coal into hydrogen and electricity using a series of steps that have been tested in other processes but never combined for this purpose. A unique aspect of this approach is the integration of carbon dioxide removal with hydrogen production so as to increase overall efficiency of electrical generation from coal. The process recycles the inevitable waste heat generated by high temperature fuel cells during electricity production to create additional hydrogen while separating out the carbon dioxide, which can then be stored permanently in the earth by pumping into briny reservoirs or converting it to a solid carbonate. When fully developed, the process is projected to get twice as much useful electricity from a ton of coal as is currently produced in coal-fired generators. As an added benefit, it is particularly appropriate for electrical generation in arid areas because the system does not require cooling water, which conventional systems now need. Ultimately, zero-emission coal holds the promise of being the major source of low cost fuel for the hydrogen economy, researchers say.

To evaluate the feasibility of this concept, Los Alamos researchers collaborated with a group of international participants -- known as The Zero Emission Coal Alliance -- to have these concepts vetted by Nexant, an independent engineering consultant. On successful completion of this task, ZECA Corp. was formed in 2001 and is continuing the collaboration with Los Alamos to address some of the remaining technical needs. Los Alamos research has been supported by the Department of Energy via Laboratory Directed Research and Development funds.

Laboratory researchers recently achieved a major breakthrough when the team operated a tiny prototype fuel cell at 1,000 degrees celsius in a high-sulfur environment with no degradation of the fuel cell materials. This development will have widespread impacts on other zero-emission coal concepts as well as the ZECA and Los Alamos project.

Just as important is work that Los Alamos has done to address mercury emissions. Meeting the new environmental limits on mercury emissions is a challenge for current technology. However, the closed-system aspect of Los Alamos' proposed zero-emission method allows mercury to be removed with condensed water; recent Los Alamos research has identified a novel approach to clean this water to drinking water standards.

Alan Johnson, managing director of ZECA Corp., said he is pleased to acknowledge the tremendous importance of the work done at Los Alamos in this initiative. "The real achievement has been that Los Alamos has enabled us to see that by fundamentally redesigning the way we extract energy from coal, we can virtually eliminate emissions to the air and double efficiency at reasonable cost," Johnson said.
 

PRNewswire-Astris Energi Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board - ASRNF), the world's leading alkaline fuel cell (AFC) technology company, today announced that it has completed in-house testing of the prototype POWERSTACK(TM) MC250 fuel cell power module, clearing it for pilot production. Astris also announced that it has secured the necessary funding to begin phasing in pilot production of the POWERSTACK in January 2004 in its Vlasim, Czech Republic facility.
 

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