----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2002 9:29
AM
Subject: [Winona] Fuel Cells Now
Morning, Glen and All.
Not only *could* we start converting to a fuel cell-driven economy
today -- the conversion is well under way.
Major automakers have been mass-producing fuel cell vehicles for a
couple years now. I see more and more of them (especially Toyota Echo's)
every time I'm on the road.
Some of the biggest investors in fuel cell technology are the large
American automakers.
On the electrical generating front, a company by the name of
H-Power was slated to begin installing, late last year, the residential
fuel cell generators it is now producing by the thousands. These are 10
kW units, cost about $10,000 each, but are expected to fall in price to
$4,000 or less in a few years.
Whether H-Power succeeds or fails remains to be seen, but the
technology is here to stay. Almost none of the automakers who went
head-to-head with Henry Ford in the early days survived in the business, but
the basic technology seems to have done okay.
The process of a society-wide conversion from hydrocarbons to hydrogen
could take 50 years or more if we're lazy about it.
Or we could get it done by the end of the decade if we wanted to.
Vice President Cheney was right when he said, essentially, that
conservation measures won't even *begin* to address our energy
needs, and that we need to start building generating plants at breakneck
speed.
Amen, with one key qualification:
If the American consumer insisted that lots more of those
generating plants were fuel cell units, and that lots fewer were
coal-powered relics, then we'd make the changeover sooner rather than
later.
What's needed is plenty of high-profile promotion and education
concerning the technologies, and I don't see much -- if any -- of that sort
of thing taking place today.
Most Americans have no idea what fuel cells are, much less that they
are currently generating power everywhere and could produce many
magnitudes more, virtually at once.
Wouldn't it be nice if President Bush were to make a proclamation --
comparable to Kennedy's "we will go to the Moon in this decade" -- to
the effect that we will convert to a hydrogen-based economy by 2012.
-Dan Nerhaugen
