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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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