Royal B.C. Museum security guards have been entrusted with hydrogen fuel cell flashlights, paid for by the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

“I feel really proud to be able to use them,” said Bill Chimko, head of museum security.

The flashlights are the first of their kind in Canada to be used in a museum.

Chimko normally goes through two double D batteries a week with the old flashlights. Compare that to the hydrogen fuel cell flashlights that run on 10 cents worth of hydrogen for 30 hours. The new flashlights are just as light – about one pound – and recharge in about 15 minutes.

The ministry contributed $25,250 for seven hydrogen fuel cell flashlights and a battery charger that will be used by museum staff and patrons. The charger can also recharge blackberries, iPods and cellphones while patrons peruse the gallery.

In addition to being functional, the new equipment is an entry point in educating the public about B.C.’s plans to create a Hydrogen Highway – hydrogen refuelling stations in Victoria, the Lower Mainland and Whistler. The highway will also feature mobile, stationary, portable and micro-fuel cell applications.

“We want to develop this technology here and export it around the world,” Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said, adding that the province and technology sectors have redoubled their efforts to showcase hydrogen fuel cell products and uses at the 2010 Olympics.

“We could see mass consumer deployment of hydrogen fuel cell applications in five years,” said Paul Zimmerman, CEO of Angstrom Power.

The Vancouver-based company has developed micro-structured hydrogen fuel cells that enable high energy density in small forms – like flashlights. Zimmerman predicts hydrogen fuel cell flashlights to be popular with police, firefighters, search and rescue crews and military, because of their long-lasting capabilities.

The price of hydrogen fuel cell products and the lack of infrastructure to support them are both obstacles.

Zimmerman was reluctant to put an exact price tag on the products, but estimated them “in the high hundreds of dollars.”

Hydrogen and fuel cell companies have invested more than $1 billion in research and development over the last five years in Canada – much of that taking place in British Columbia.

Zimmerman noted B.C. is a leader in the clean technology revolution, thanks in part to its social, political and educational climate.

While the government is backing hydrogen fuel cell technology, American social critic and author James Howard Kunstler has called B.C.’s investment in a network of refuelling stations for hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars as “tremendous wishful thinking.” In an interview with Tyee Books during promotion of his book The Long Emergency, Kunstler went on to say: “It would be nice if we developed alternative technologies on top of the ones we already know about, but it is a big mistake to think that technology and energy are identical and mutually substitutable.”

A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device similar to a battery. Reactants used in a fuel cell include hydrogen and oxygen. The only waste product is water vapour.