FuelCellsWorks

NORTH CANTON — Ohio’s two largest utilities, FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron and Columbus-based American Electric Power, are seriously considering adopting fuel cell technologies.

Speakers from each company today addressed more than 200 people attending the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition’s seventh annual symposium on the Stark campus of Kent State University.

The message was clear: Fuel cells will have a role to play in utility-distribution systems, meaning consumers should not be surprised to see them popping up in neighborhoods over the next decade or two.

Elizabeth Shaw, FirstEnergy’s energy supply technical adviser, said the utility hopes to use fuel cells to meet Ohio’s mandates that utilities begin generating and selling renewable energy by the end of this year. The state’s new utility regulations require just a fraction of a percent of the power sold this year to come from renewable technologies, but that will grow to 12.5 percent by 2025.

The company in December will install a one-megawatt (1 million watts) fuel cell made by Ballard Fuel Cell Systems of British Columbia. The giant version of the 150,000-watt fuel cells that Ballard has tested for years in buses will come in a tractor-trailer that FirstEnergy engineers can move around the system.

John Schneider, technology consultant for AEP, described a future scenario in which big coal and nuclear power plants are used less and utilities turn to fuel cells, solar panels and wind turbines strategically located across a utility’s local distribution system.

Schneider and Shaw were followed by representative of Ballard and Rolls Royce Energy Fuel Cell Systems.

Mark Fleiner, president of the Rolls U.S. fuel cell division, said financing difficulties have slowed the company’s efforts to roll out one-megawatt fuel cells that would run on pipeline natural gas.

Fleiner said the recession recovery over the next year will determine a commercialization schedule. In the meantime, Rolls has about 50 engineers developing and refining the technology at labs at part of the North American headquarters on the nearby Stark State College of Technology campus.

Listening to battery enthusiasts wax poetic about the Tesla recently – - and seeing a few of them appearing on the streets of west Los Angeles – - I began thinking about the old Tony Curtis film “The Great Race” (remember every time he smiled, there was a shiny sparkle of superiority that gleamed from his teeth?). The roads and Holiday Inns have improved dramatically since the period depicted in the movie, but the idea of testing the claims of exciting new technology at the dawn of a new transportation age is very much the same. So let’s have a 21st Century “Great Race” and pit the Tesla against the other electric car on the market today, the Honda Clarity.

The Tesla is an electric sports car powered by batteries, while the Clarity is an electric sedan powered by hydrogen (a fuel cell converts the hydrogen to electricity). The range of each is rated by USEPA-approved testing at about 230 miles. The similarities end there however – - the Tesla is the fastest production car ever built at zero to 60 mph, giving the little hot rod a distinct advantage that would seem to make a race with a Clarity anything but “great”. Or would it?

The venue for the race has already been set – - in late May, hydrogen enthusiasts are staging a road rally from BC to BC (Baja California to British Columbia), some 1400 miles up the west coast of North America. The idea is to demonstrate the commercialization of numerous hydrogen vehicles and the fueling stations along the way – - the “Hydrogen Highway” – - that will power the 2010 winter Olympics in Whistler near Vancouver. Already, clean electric buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells shuttle skiers around the resorts and slopes of the soon-to-be Olympic venue.

So all that’s needed for The New Great Race is to get a Tesla to participate. Surely the champions of battery technology, the undisputed 0-60 mph speed record-holders, would accept such a challenge. Well, given that they haven’t, let’s use a little math and imagination to stage The New Great Race anyway.

Acceleration speeds aside, highway laws in the four states/provinces along the route will limit competitors to something around 60 miles an hour. The 1400-mile distance means that each car will be driving for about 23.3 hours. At 230 miles range between fueling stops, the cars will also each stop 6 times. It takes me about 7 minutes to refuel my Honda Clarity, so add about 40 minutes for refueling and it will take Team Hydrogen about 24 hours to get from Tijuana to Vancouver.

Team Battery, however, will need four hours of charging time for each battery refueling according to the Tesla website. That’s 24 hours for charging stops in addition to the 23.3 hours of driving for a total of about 48 hours to cover the same distance. Oh well, The New Great Race isn’t so great after all.

In recent testimony before Congress, Energy Secretary Steven Chu acknowledged that for batteries to compete with the performance expected by consumers – - and delivered today by the Honda Clarity and other hydrogen vehicles – - it will take $2 billion of taxpayer subsidies (in the current energy bill for starters) and many years of R&D. The results are uncertain, as recent announcements by MIT researchers suggest – - their “breakthrough” in the lab with lithium batteries that dramatically decreased charging times is years from commercialization and doesn’t address the half ton of batteries you still need to lug around to power a car, which makes the battery-electric vehicle much less efficient than hydrogen-electric vehicles.

By the way, the hype around plug-in electric/gasoline hybrids is also deflated when examined in a distance-driving setting like this. That technology would either make all but 40 miles of the trip on gasoline (the range of the batteries) or stop 35 times to recharge, adding days to the trip.

While all of these technologies are important to help us kick our oil addiction and solve climate change, the clear winner of The New Great Race is definitely hydrogen. Cue the sparkling smile and roll the cameras!

Electric Kyoto by Claude Estèbe (CC).

As the planet warms and the economy cools, renewable resources are emerging as a realistic means to solve both problems in a timely fashion. Advocates of renewable energy want trillions of dollars spent in the coming decades on a continental-scale smart grid that will slash global greenhouse gas emissions and turn society toward a prosperous and ecological future.

How can we build such a grid? What are the next steps? Are we trapped in a future of false promises on clean coal, more nuclear proliferation, resource wars for oil, rising pollution, and business as usual?

The wind doesn’t blow constantly and the sun doesn’t always shine. Aren’t renewables, by their sporadic nature, limited to contribute 20 percent of grid power in a system mainly reliant on coal and nuclear plants for baseload power?

Fortunately not. A hard-nosed, scientific design for a complex and responsive continental renewable resource grid is emerging from behind the coal and nuclear cooling towers. Prospects are moving from rudimentary calculations to data-driven models and computer simulations.

German scientist Gregor Czisch modeled such a super grid for Europe [PDF 2.15MB]. He and I are currently co-developing a proposal for modeling a North American super grid.

In late April 2009, Jon Wellinghoff, Chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), said that renewables in a properly designed smart grid can meet our energy needs. He stated that new coal and nuclear plants may be a thing of the past. “We may not need any ever,” he told a U.S. Energy Association Forum. The transformation from baseload power plants that pollute to a renewable future will be similar to the rise of distributed computing networks to replace a world of mainframe computers.

Principles and Prospects for a Renewable Super Grid

The current grid is based on hundreds of large, central, fossil fuel and nuclear generators, with a substantial contribution from large-scale hydroelectric and some emerging wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable power sources. This system relies on regionally based central control and one-way communication with limited long-distance alternating current (AC) transmission interconnection. The regional AC transmission backbone feeds local distribution nodes with limited local generation and storage.

A sustainable super grid system would be based on tens of thousands of renewable energy generators of various types on a continental scale with appropriate storage resources. A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission backbone would link these generators to bring energy from sources to sinks on a continuous basis. The scale of a continental renewable grid using HVDC allows it to be inherently more self-managing than regional grids with more limited power and storage resources. When the wind is not blowing in the east, for example, it may be blowing in the west or the north. Continental scale can take advantage of a variety of storage resources, such as storage hydro and pumped-storage hydro, compressed air, batteries, and flywheels.

System resources are integrated with many millions of locally distributed renewable generators, cogenerators, and storage systems within local power nodes that both reduce demand on the continental system and greatly improve system reliability and responsiveness. These distributed resources include, but are not limited to, rooftop photovoltaics (PV), basement and block cogeneration systems to replace furnaces and boilers, district heating and cooling systems, ground-source and water-source heat pumps, fuel cells, storage batteries, electric car batteries, and flywheels.

The smart grid system combines central and local control with two-way information flows that allow energy users and distributed generators to respond very quickly to price and load signals to help balance the system. Spot price signals, detected at shorter and shorter intervals, are a good proxy for system state. Current Automatic Generation Control (AGC) signals, calling for major power plant response within 2 seconds to balance the system, can become a common standard for distributed smart grid response.

As load increases, prices rise, to which your programmable local control responds by reducing load by duty cycling, deferring non-essential tasks, using storage, or increasing generation. As load and price decreases, local control may increase usage, decrease generation, or fill storage. Complete price signals sent to end users can include location-specific pricing right to the transformer feeding your house, sending price signals that encompass costs for local distribution line loads. As an alternative path for distributed control, a smart grid can use local detection of small electric system frequency variations to keep the system in balance from the bottom to the top and make issues such as AGC an artifact of the past.

Quick price response of user devices is not unrealistic. My associate Pentti Aalto has produced a working prototype of a load controller scraping 5-minute ISO-NE price signals from the web, and using a satellite pager network system to transmit changes in price to a local computer controller that can record energy use and price as well as operate several end-use devices.

In sum, a renewable super grid will:

1. Be continental in scale,
2. Use HVDC transmission for long-distance power flows,
3. Integrate system and distributed power resources and storage,
4. Meet all power needs reliably year round,
5. Be responsive,
6. Be substantially self-regulating and self-healing and protect against common mode failure,
7. Be adaptable to technological changes, and
8. Maintain a dynamic and evolving balance between system and distributed power resources and storage.

Sophisticated modeling and computer simulations are crucial to designing such a renewable grid. We need good data. We need a thorough understanding of current energy use, by node, across the continent on a continuous basis using the shortest time intervals available. We need an understanding of current power plant resources and performance, data on current transmission resources and power flows, data on potential renewable resources and their performance based on comprehensive weather and geotechnical data, access to necessary storage to balance the system, infrastructure for future DC transmission and power flow paths, the ability to integrate this system with increasing distributed generation and storage resources, and future options for interconnection with neighboring continental grid systems.

The working model needs to include optimization of the cost of the system and the price of power; needed changes in regulatory framework, such as proper incentives for distribution utilities and ways to facilitate HVDC construction with proper regional and local participation; potential investment tools to facilitate entrepreneurial and user participation such as use of renewable energy hedges by developers and end users that give users reasonable long-term energy costs and developers long-term reasonable income streams, such as the 15-year wind hedge negotiated between Southern New Hampshire University and PPM Energy. Such hedge arrangements can be used, as well, between HVDC power line builders and energy users to facilitate financing and construction.

The Challenge

The technical and business challenges of planning and constructing a twenty-first century renewable grid system are substantial but not insurmountable. The greatest challenge at the moment is perhaps a crisis of the imagination.

There is clear self-interest in the status quo by the mega-polluters and those who profit from business as usual. What should also be clear is that we are on a path toward self-destruction. We have to bring to the table a clear-eyed understanding that the current path is radically unsustainable. If scientists such as James Hansen are right, we may have limited time before we pass a point where we can no longer merely turn down the thermostat by reducing carbon emissions. Instead of despair or false hopes from clean coal and more nukes, we can embrace the prospects and enormous benefits—economically, ecologically, and socially—of building the renewable super grid.

The super grid can be the key to the successful pursuit of sustainability. It is not all that we must do. But it is a necessary step in evolving from self-destructive industrialism to a twenty-first century ecological civilization.

Simple, tabletop hydrogen extraction system.
Photo: Peter Holst, stock.xchng

In 2004, the State of Colorado planned to invest both federal and state funds in to small companies working on research and development of hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen powered vehicles (HPV). The state’s idea was to support existing small businesses and to spawn the growth of what was expected to be the future of transportation. The initial idea was to use $2 million in federal grant money combined with another $10 million in private investment funds to create a laboratory that would be a collaboration between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Gas Technology Institute, and private companies in Colorado.

Although it appears the grand plans of cooperation and collaboration never came to fruition, the NREL is still doing incredible work in the field of renewable energy and the Gas Technology Institute is still doing phenomenal research into gas technology that includes hydrogen for both fuel cells and as a combustible fuel.

What remains to be seen is the effect of Department of Energy Secretary (DOE) Steven Chu’s May 8, 2009 announcement of a major cut in funding for research in to hydrogen powered vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells. This announcement came in spite of an April 17, 2009 announcement that the DOE was planning a $41.9 million dollar investment in hydrogen fuel cell technology.

This reversal on one of the most promising clean technologies is troubling. Funding of $2.4 billion for research into gasoline powered hybrids and plug-in hybrids was announced in March of 2009. Research in to hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen combustion technology was funded at a minuscule 1.5% of the level for “cleaner” fossil fuel based transportation.

If the research dollars had been historically reversed, with 98.5% of research funds being spent on hydrogen fueled cars, we would already be pulling up to a filling station to buy hydrogen, not gasoline and diesel. When Secretary Chu stated that a hydrogen infrastructure was still 10, 15, or 20 years away, no one could argue. The lack of funding has put the common goal of a truly clean fuel technology just out of reach. By cutting research funds, the Chu and the Obama administration are putting one of the most promising potential source of clean energy even further out, to possibly 20, 30, or even 50 years.

The hopes, dreams, and data that are driving this decision are that plug-in hybrids will help solve the climate change problem sooner than a truly clean technology. On paper, it is beautiful. A person driving a car powered by clean, cheap, abundant electricity will have no emissions as long as the driver doesn’t drive more than 45-50 miles a day. The longer the distance driven, the more fossil fuel is used. In fact, a person driving from Denver to Seattle would burn less gas by driving a VW Jetta TDI, a diesel powered car, than any currently produced hybrid.

The next question on hybrids is this: How is the power being generated? We are still decades from the time when the majority of our power will be solar or wind generated. We are still building numerous coal fired power plants, and will likely have to build more as the demand for electricity increases due to its use in transportation. At present, powering a car with electricity is still an activity that emits greenhouse gases.

So, why cut funding to the one technology that emits only water? DOE funding, as a percentage, was already minimal. If we had funded hydrogen research adequately, we would already have a hydrogen pump next to the diesel pump. Is the reason hydrogen research was underfunded a lack of lobbying by Big Hydrogen? Or maybe because Big Hydrogen couldn’t complete with the established energy industry in campaign contributions?

The reality is that we are decades away from having a primarily hybrid national vehicle fleet that uses electricity generated primarily from clean sources. It is counter-productive to pull funding on one of the most promising, and truly clean, technologies available.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger championed the qualities of the new hydrogen-powered Honda FCX Clarity yesterday (27th May).

The former actor, who already owns a vegetable oil-fuelled Hummer, made an appearance at a Shell petrol station which is the state’s first to sell gasoline and hydrogen.

Members of the public are being encouraged to test drive 11 fuel cell cars at 28 stops along a 1,700-mile route from San Diego to Vancouver, an event known as the Hydrogen Road Tour.

But Mr. Schwarzenegger revealed that it is the new Clarity that has particularly grabbed the attention of his family.

He said: “I just got the Clarity, which is a wonderful hydrogen vehicle. We’re all fighting over who is driving it. My daughters want to drive it all the time and take it away from me.”

However, the hydrogen fuel technology will need to overcome a number of challenges after the US government decided to cut funding for research by $101 million to $68 million for 2010.

The Obama administration believes that widespread use of hydrogen vehicles is not plausible in the near term, while the lack of fuelling stations – California, for instance, only has 26 – is also a problem.

Meanwhile, Proton Motor has announced the signing of an exclusive five-year deal with Deutsche Mechatronics, designed to take its fuel cell products to the market quicker in Germany.

Under the terms of the deal, Deutsche will manufacture the company’s fuel cell hybrid systems and will eventually aim to improve production capacity to 5,000 units per year per shift.

Proton Power Chief Executive Thomas Melczer said: “This contract manufacturing agreement will enable us to prove to our potential customers that we have the immediate capabilities to mass produce and supply our products to them.

“Furthermore, volume production will reduce the cost of our products and will enable us to more easily accommodate the individual needs of our customers.”

Elsewhere, UltraCell Corporation has confirmed that it is using $3.8 million of new funds to help boost the production, testing and sales of its flagship XX25 portable fuel cell.

The XX25 can power specific laptop computers for eight hours with one 250cc fuel cell cartridge, while also offering weeks of running time for remote video monitoring, surveillance and communications equipment.

UltraCell has secured the new funding from current investors BASF Venture Capital GmbH, OnPoint Technologies, Espirito Santo Ventures and Miami Valley Venture Fund.

“Over the past year we have seen an increase in field use of our XX25 product and success in building our products in our Dayton facility,” said UltraCell Chief Executive Keith Scott.

“Our founding vision was to bring fuel cells out of the labs and into mass manufacturing – and we’re thrilled to be succeeding in this goal.”

Finally, an annual two-day event began in Ohio yesterday which is designed to provide an opportunity for ideas and successes to be discussed in the state’s ever-growing fuel cell industry.

The Ohio Fuel Cell Symposium was set up in 2004 when the state was searching for backing for the fuel cell division of its Third Frontier technology grant-making programme.

Many of the firms in attendance this year are rolling out new fuel cell-based products across the state, such as Crown Equipment, which has been selling a forklift in the New Bremen region.

In addition, Catacel Corporation has been developing catalytic heat-exchange materials and expects fuel cell business to boost its revenue to more than $2 million over the course of 2009.

The firm – which has just won a patent for a new, more efficient reactor for fuel cells – is planning to expand its Garrettsville facility in Portage County and take on 20 extra staff.

President William Whittenberger told Ohio.com: “The hydrogen and fuel cell industries are at a stage where they have the momentum and energy to accomplish some truly revolutionary things in terms of how they apply their technologies.”

Pat Valente, Director of symposium sponsors the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition, added that the creation of a new fuel cell workforce to support local companies will be discussed at the event.

Penn State Bruce Logan, Kappe professor of environmental engineering

University Park, Pa. — Converting waste water into energy has earned Bruce Logan, Kappe professor of environmental engineering, Penn State, the 2009 National Water Research Institute’s Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize for excellence in water research.

The prize was established in 1993 to recognize outstanding research scientists who have demonstrated excellence in water-science research and technology. The prize includes a medallion and $50,000 and is awarded annually. Logan is the 16th recipient.

Logan, receives the award for his innovative efforts to generate clean, renewable forms of energy during the treatment of wastewater. The energy needed to power water infrastructure is often cost prohibitive in developing countries. Logan, who is director of Penn State’s Hydrogen Energy Center, has developed an energy-sustainable water infrastructure for both industrialized and developing nations. His microbial fuel cells allow energy generation form organic materials found in wastewater, producing clean water and energy. His microbial electrolysis cells break down organic matter to produce hydrogen — a portable fuel — and clean water.

The author of Microbial Fuel Cells, one of the first books written on the technology, he has also published more than 220 technical papers. He is a Visiting Professor at both Harbin Institute of Technology, China and Newcastle University, U.K., where he focuses on renewable bioenergy producing. He also collaborates with Tsinghua University, China, where he is developing a zero-electrical energy desalination technology. He is a Global Research Partner with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia.

The prize will be awarded on July 9 at the Sixteenth Annual Clarke Prize Lecture and Award Ceremony, Fairmont Newport Beach, Newport Beach, Ca.

President Barack Obama released details of his FY2010 proposed budget, which recommends major cuts of funding for hydrogen and fuel cell projects. Within the budget for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Administration proposes zeroing out funding for the Hydrogen Program, which was funded at $168.9 million in the FY2009 Appropriations bill. The Administration instead recommends $68.2 million in funding for “Fuel Cell Technologies,” refocusing the program on fuel cell systems R&D for stationary, portable, and transportation applications. In the DOE Office of Fossil Energy, the budget proposes zeroing out funding for Hydrogen from Coal Research, which received $20 million in the FY2009 budget. The Fossil Energy budget’s Fuel Cells activity proposes $54 million for the Innovative Systems Concepts/SECA program, a reduction of $4 million from the FY2009 appropriation. The Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Network has established an action alert for concerned citizens to “Tell Congress to Restore Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Funding”.

HOPKINTON, MA — Hy9 Corporation (http://www.hy9.com), a manufacturer of high performance fuel processing and hydrogen purification systems for the portable power, stationary and backup power, industrial gas and transportation markets, is introducing their HGS-M series of methanol-based hydrogen generators for the stationary power market.

The complete HGS family of hydrogen generators, running hydrocarbon fuels such as methanol or natural gas, when integrated with cost effective PEM fuel cells, provides backup power companies a reliable, cost effective, compact and efficient solution to meet increased customer demand for an extended runtime of 72 hours.

“The HGS-M hydrogen generator provides a superior alternative to the high cost, storage limitations and logistical challenges associated with delivered compressed hydrogen cylinders, giving end-users a practical alternative to batteries and diesel generators. The high energy density of methanol provides for extended runtimes of 72 hours without extensive fuel storage,” says Brad Bradshaw, CEO of Hy9.

The HGS-M series is available in 25 liters per minute and 75 liters per minute hydrogen capacities, corresponding to net 1.7 and 5 kW fuel cell systems. Hy9’s hydrogen generators reliably produce hydrogen in excess of 99.9999% purity, ensuring long-lived, high performance fuel cell operation. The systems are highly scalable due to the unique and compact reformer and membrane purifier design, with the added benefit of a minimal system footprint. In addition, systems can be modified to meet customer’s unique requirements including different capacity levels.

“The HGS-M is designed for PEM fuel cell backup power applications requiring extended runtime hydrogen supply. It operates on a fuel mixture of methanol and water with a fuel consumption rate of just over 1/4th of a gallon per kilowatt-hour. A typical 1.7 kW fuel cell could be powered for 24 hours on just 11 gallons of fuel,” adds Mr. Bradshaw.

Hy9’s unique and patented membrane purifier, a core part of the HGS-M hydrogen generator, eliminates the costly and complex purification steps required of many reformer-based hydrogen generators when coupled with fuel cells. Hy9 has successfully placed close to 1,000 hydrogen purification systems in the field, with over 3 million cumulative hours of operation without any field failures recorded to date.

Alternative energy company ITM has been invited to take part in an “Eco_Rally” from Brighton to London, using a Ford Focus which it has modified to run on hydrogen as well as petrol.
The company, whose main research and manufacturing facilities are in Sheffield, plans to make the 53-mile journey using hydrogen generated from water, using renewable energy to power its patented electrolyser technology.

ITM modified the factory standard Ford Focus in order to show that hydrogen can be used to fuel today’s engines and society doesn’t have to wait for cars powered by fuel cells to be developed before people can drive cars with zero carbon emissions, using hydrogen.

ITM’s Charles Purkess said: “We need an alternative clean fuel; we need a fuel to replace a fossil fuel; a fuel is a store of energy.

“Existing sources of renewable energy are intermittent and variable; when the wind blows at 3am we waste the electricity generated because it isn’t used or stored. If however, electrolysers were deployed we could store the energy as a clean fuel for whenever we need it.”

“We need pragmatic thinking to allow our car industry to evolve, to achieve long term zero carbon goals.

“We have to consider where our power is coming from, make better use of renewable energy, and reduce our dependency on oil. These are some of the reasons ITM Power are developing electrolysers.”

The state’s growing fuel cell industry is gathering in North Canton this week to celebrate successes and discuss new directions.

The Ohio Fuel Cell Symposium — an annual affair sponsored by the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition — kicked off a two-day event Wednesday with a reception, exhibitions and a ”Fuel Cell 101” course.

While many people might still scratch their heads over what a fuel cell is, that hasn’t stopped Ohio from becoming an industry leader, said coalition director Pat Valente.

The organization was founded in 2004, when the state needed a partner for the fuel cell arm of its Third Frontier technology grant-making program.

Today, ”Ohio has the best supply chain for fuel cells of anyone in the country,” Valente said. ”Any component you need for a fuel cell can be purchased in Ohio.”

Fuel cells have long held promise as a clean source of energy, especially for their potential to replace the polluting engines of automobiles and airplanes. They combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity, with water as the only byproduct.

But they are complex to build, and expensive because of their reliance on the rare metal platinum.

Still, several Ohio companies are having success commercializing new products, such as a fuel cell-powered forklift being sold by Crown Equipment Corp. in New Bremen.

William Whittenberger, president of Catacel Corp., a Portage County company that develops and manufactures catalytic heat-exchange materials, said fuel cell clients will help push his revenue to more than $2 million this year.

Plans are under way to expand the Garrettsville facility, he said, and grow the work force of 20 by another 10 to 12 people.

The company is also celebrating a patent it just won for a new, more efficient reactor for fuel cells.

”The hydrogen and fuel cell industries are at a stage where they have the momentum and energy to accomplish some truly revolutionary things in terms of how they apply their technologies” and the new reactor is part of that effort, Whittenberger said.

Also exhibiting at the symposium is an Akron-based company called item North America that makes aluminum machine-building systems. Think giant erector sets for everything from manufacturing equipment to office desks.

Territory manager Jered Lance said item attended last year’s symposium and made quite a few connections.

While the company’s product is available for just about any facility, item has picked up six fuel cell customers in the past year.

”This event opens doors,” Lance said.

During today’s lineup, Valente said he will explain a new ”road map” for the coalition, which until now has had a very broad mission of establishing Ohio as a hub for fuel cell activities.

The new focus, he said, will include creating a fuel cell work force (through programs such as the one started by the Stark State College of Technology), and better coordination of resources around the state to support existing companies and attract new ones.

Fuel cells, for years just over the technology horizon, are closer now than ever.

So says Patrick Valente, the new director of the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition and a past employee of the Ohio Department of Development who helped with funding of high-tech projects as a strategy to create jobs.

The statewide coalition’s annual symposium and trade show is under way on the Kent State Stark campus in North Canton.

Fuel cells are able to generate electricity by combining hydrogen with oxygen in the presence of a catalyst. The exhaust is water and carbon dioxide.

Some cell phone companies already use fuel cells as standby generators. Automakers hope to use fuel cells to power electric cars. Utility applications include using fuel cells to meet peak power demands and helping to balance supplies at other times.

Ohio has set aside $100 million for fuel cell research and commercialization projects.

About $40 million in Third Frontier grants has been awarded to individual projects, half of that already spent, according to the Third Frontier’s 2008 annual report, issued in January.

Companies that have received the grants have leveraged about $100 million in other investments and created or retained 250 jobs, with an average annual salary of $65,000.

More than 200 are attending the conference, representing national and international fuel cell manufacturers and fuel cell component makers

Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Mark Shanahan, the Strickland administration’s energy adviser, are scheduled to address the crowd.

FirstEnergy Corp. and American Electric Power, the state’s two largest electric utilities, are talking about how their companies plan to use very large fuel cells in their distribution systems.

Pioneer fuel cell maker Ballard Power Systems of British Columbia and Rolls Royce Fuel Cell Systems (USA) Inc. of North Canton also are on the agenda.

A number of fuel cell makers who are already selling products are also scheduled to talk about their business plans.

Members of the public can test drive 11 fuel-cell cars and SUVs at one of 28 stops along the way. Hydrogen vehicles generate no tailpipe emissions aside from water vapor.

“I’m actually cleaning the air as I drive. What could be better than that?” said Stephanie White, a state biologist who showed off her hydrogen-powered Chevrolet Equinox to the governor at the stop in West L.A..

But not everyone is a fan of the technology. Critics say the fuel is difficult to store and can require more energy to produce than it provides once it’s in the car.

Emissions can also be generated during the production of the fuel. The fuel cells are expensive – at least a couple of hundred thousand dollars per vehicle, according to Spencer Quong of the Union of Concerned Scientists — because they contain precious metals such as platinum and palladium.

Infrastructure is another problem. There are just 26 hydrogen fueling stations in California, making commutes difficult.

Although Honda and General Motors have released a limited number of hydrogen-fueled cars to select Southern California households, they will provide them only to people who live within a few miles of several fueling stations in the Los Angeles area. Critics argue that building a viable network of fueling stations could cost billions.

The Obama administration has proposed to slash funding for research into hydrogen-fueled vehicles by $101 million to $68 million in 2010, arguing that the technology is not viable in the near term.

Patrick Serfass, a spokesman for the National Hydrogen Assn., a Washington-based group that includes General Motors Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Shell Hydrogen, took issue with that proposal at today’s event.

“There is no silver bullet,” he said. “Only with a variety of technologies are we going to be able to meet our environmental and technological challenges.”

Schwarzenegger said he wants California to be at the forefront of all energy-saving technologies, including fuel-cell and plug-in cars.

“We don’t want to choose the winners,” he said. “I think the market will decide.”