Tag Archives: fuel cell

Want Fuel Cells? Think Outside the Hydrogen Tank

In this week’s Science magazine, an energy expert advocates investing in “the other fuel cell” to reduce reliance on fossil fuels now, not in decades.

COLLEGE PARK, Md.– When most people hear the words “fuel cell,” they think of eco-friendly, hydrogen-powered cars that emit nothing more than water.

And that, says Professor Eric Wachsman, director of the University of Maryland Energy Research Center (UMERC), is one of the reasons we’re all not driving one.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) recent decisions about how to fund fuel cell research, he says, are putting the country at risk of falling behind in the development and implementation of the most efficient means of converting fuel to electricity. Fuel cells have up to three times the efficiency of an internal combustion engine. (more…)

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JPL-Developed Clean Energy Technology Moves Forward

A team of scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in partnership with the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, developed a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell technology for future Department of Defense and commercial applications. Recently, USC and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which manages JPL for NASA, awarded a license to SFC Energy, Inc., the U.S. affiliate of SFC Energy AG. The non-exclusive license for the technology will facilitate the expansion of the company’s methanol fuel cell products into the U.S. market. (more…)

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