FuelCellsWorks

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Complementing its culture of social responsibility and its commitment to utilizing clean energy, United Natural Foods, Inc. (Nasdaq: UNFI) today announced plans to adopt hydrogen fuel cell technology to power the lift truck fleet at its Sarasota, Florida distribution center. Intended to improve efficiency, productivity and reliability, 65 GenDrive™ fuel cell powered lift trucks will be mobilized at the Sarasota distribution facility, with a targeted completion date in June 2010.  The Company will add 29 new hydrogen fuel cell-powered lift trucks, to its fleet, and 36 existing lift trucks will be retrofitted to hydrogen fuel cell technology.

“We consider environmental stewardship an essential component in every facet of our business.  This hydrogen fuel cell project is further proof of UNFI’s leadership as an environmentally-conscious organization by advancing the use and development of alternative-fuel technologies,” commented Steve Spinner, UNFI’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

As part of the Sarasota initiative to replace lead acid batteries and their associated charging equipment with hydrogen fuel cells, UNFI has partnered with a number of companies to implement the roll-out, including Plug Power Inc., (Nasdaq: PLUG), Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE: APD) and Abel Womack, Inc.

As background, a hydrogen fuel cell produces energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen in an electrochemical reaction that yields electricity, heat and water.  Hydrogen is non-toxic, non-poisonous, the lightest of all gases and the most abundant element in the universe.  By converting UNFI’s Sarasota lift truck fleet to hydrogen fuel cells, the Company expects carbon emissions will be reduced by approximately 132 metric tons annually, an amount equivalent to the annual emissions of 35 automobiles.

Tom Dziki, Senior Vice President of Sustainable Development, commented, “This project is a natural extension of our strategy to create an environmentally and socially responsible environment in all the communities we serve.  Hydrogen fuel cells not only provide greater productivity and lower operating costs but will be an important component of a clean energy future and we are happy to be pioneering the use of this technology in Florida. Once implemented, this fuel cell project is expected to create annual energy savings of approximately 640,000 kilowatt hours.”

The 352,000 square-foot Sarasota facility, which employs approximately 160 associates, serves as a regional distribution hub for customers in the Southeastern United States.

About United Natural Foods

United Natural Foods, Inc. (http://www.unfi.com/) carries and distributes more than 60,000 products to more than 17,000 customer locations nationwide. The Company serves a wide variety of retail formats including conventional supermarket chains, natural product superstores, independent retail operators and the food service channel. United Natural Foods, Inc. was ranked by Forbes in 2005 as one of the “Best Managed Companies in America,” ranked by Fortune in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010 as one of its “Most Admired Companies,” winner of the Supermarket News 2008 Sustainability Excellence Award, and recognized by the Nutrition Business Journal for its 2009 Environment and Sustainability Award.

For more information on United Natural Foods, Inc., visit the Company’s website at www.unfi.com.

Brunnthal/Munich, Germany – March 12, 2010 – SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG, leading supplier of fuel cell products for mobile and off-grid power applications based on fuel cells, today reports the appointment of David Morgan as Member to the SFC Supervisory Board.

David Morgan brings extensive experience in technology and manufacturing businesses including international, financial and general management. He has previously spent over 20 years with Johnson Matthey plc, 10 of which were as an executive director with specific responsibility for corporate development. He is currently Chairman of the International Advisory Board of Conduit Ventures Ltd and also a member of the Advisory Board of Imperial College, London, Dept of Chemistry, and was formerly a member of the UK Science Forum and a non executive director of RiverSoft plc. He is a qualified chartered accountant and holds a degree in Mineralogy and Petrology from the University of Cambridge.

“We are proud to welcome the experienced industry expert David Morgan to the Supervisory Board of SFC Smart Fuel Cell”, says Dr. Rolf Bartke, Chairman of the SFC Supervisory Board. “With his international finance and clean tech expertise we consider him to be extremely well qualified to make significant contributions to the Company in his new role. To Dr. Roland Schlager, who left SFC’s Supervisory Board in November 2009 and whom David Morgan is now replacing, we wish to extend our thanks for his valuable support in this function.”

Founded in 2000, SFC Smart Fuel Cell has successfully sold over 17,000 fully commercialized fuel cells to industrial customers and private end users, while most other fuel cell companies are still in the research and development phase or run subsidized demonstration projects.

More information at www.sfc.com and www.efoy.com.

by Jill Sakai

Materials scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have designed a way to harvest small amounts of waste energy and harness them to turn water into usable hydrogen fuel.

The process is simple, efficient and recycles otherwise-wasted energy into a useable form.

“This study provides a simple and cost-effective technology for direct water splitting that may generate hydrogen fuels by scavenging energy wastes such as noise or stray vibrations from the environment,” the authors write in a new paper, published March 2 in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. “This new discovery may have potential implications in solving the challenging energy and environmental issues that we are facing today and in the future.”

The researchers, led by UW-Madison geologist and crystal specialist Huifang Xu, grew nanocrystals of two common crystals, zinc oxide and barium titanate, and placed them in water. When pulsed with ultrasonic vibrations, the nanofibers flexed and catalyzed a chemical reaction to split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

When the fibers bend, asymmetries in their crystal structures generate positive and negative charges and create an electrical potential. This phenomenon, called the piezoelectric effect, has been well known in certain crystals for more than a century and is the driving force behind quartz clocks and other applications.

Xu and his colleagues applied the same idea to the nanocrystal fibers. “The bulk materials are brittle, but at the nanoscale they are flexible,” he says, like the difference between fiberglass and a pane of glass.

Smaller fibers bend more easily than larger crystals and therefore also produce electric charges easily. So far, the researchers have achieved an impressive 18 percent efficiency with the nanocrystals, higher than most experimental energy sources.

In addition, Xu says, “because we can tune the fiber and plate sizes, we can use even small amounts of [mechanical] noise — like a vibration or water flowing — to bend the fibers and plates. With this kind of technology, we can scavenge energy waste and convert it into useful chemical energy.”

Rather than harvest this electrical energy directly, the scientists took a novel approach and used the energy to break the chemical bonds in water and produce oxygen and hydrogen gas.

“This is a new phenomenon, converting mechanical energy directly to chemical energy,” Xu says, calling it a piezoelectrochemical (PZEC) effect.

The chemical energy of hydrogen fuel is more stable than the electric charge, he explains. It is relatively easy to store and will not lose potency over time.

With the right technology, Xu envisions this method being useful for generating small amounts of power from a multitude of small sources — for example, walking could charge a cell phone or music player and breezes could power streetlights.

“We have limited areas to collect large energy differences, like a waterfall or a big dam,” he says. “But we have lots of places with small energies. If we can harvest that energy, it would be tremendous.”

The new paper is co-authored by graduate student Kuang-Sheng Hong, research scientist Hiromi Konishi and mechanical engineering professor Xiaochun Li, all at UW-Madison. Xu’s research is supported by grants from the UW-Madison Graduate School, National Science Foundation, NASA Astrobiology Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The business partnership between De Bouwer & Partners and Ballast Nedam, as far as the Autarc project is concerned, has been discontinued as per March 8^th, 2010. Parties failed to come to terms in determining the extent of Ballast Nedam’s (future) participation in the Autarc.

On Friday, February 19^th Ballast Nedam stated that the only option, as far as she is concerned, for futher participation in the Autarc project, consists of the formation of a joint limited liability company geared towards the further development, realisation and marketing of the Autarc, based on a 50/50 participation.

Shared ownership was and is unacceptable for De Bouwer & Partners.

Eventually, the Autarc is intended to be the construction marketeer’s new headquarters, their “floating front office”. Until that time, the Autarc is available to the public as a marketing platform for sustainable innovation, provided that the surplus costs for reaching autarchy are covered by sponsoring.

Apart from De Bouwer & Partners, the Autarc Consortium consists, at present, of Paul de Ruiter Architects, Deerns raadgevende ingenieurs, DHV, Wolter & Dros, HVL, Verosol, FacilitylinQ and NEMO. The Energy Research Centre ECN from Petten (The Netherlands) is likely to join in on the hydrogen project. The Autarc is supported by “Bouwend Nederland” (Dutch Construction) and the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment.

The Autarc was originally scheduled to dock at the NEMO science museum in Amsterdam in the summer of 2010. That aim will now probably not be met. The consortium will initially attempt to secure the additional financing and a replacement builder and is now aiming for the Autarc to make its entry into Amsterdam in the spring of 2011.

The Autarc is an architecturally highly advanced houseboat / floating office that is a hundred percent self-sustaining in both its water and electrical requirements. This highly ambitious pilot project sets both an example and a new standard in the field of environmental care (our aim: an “outstanding” Breeam-score) without making a single compromise in aesthetics or user comfort.

The Autarc is to be put to different uses. After the initial exhibition phase at NEMO, the Autarc will be available for other exhibition purposes in the Netherlands or abroad. After that, the Autarc will serve as De Bouwer & Partners’ “floating front office”. Eventually, in its function as a floating villa, the Autarc may be used for permanent residency.

Its principal aim is to function as a showcase for state of the art systems and technology in the field of sustainability.