Fuel Cells Coming to Life : Backers Call Them Next Non-Polluting Energy Source

By MICHAEL PARRISH

Feb. 26, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The once-exotic fuel cell may soon become a commonplace energy source in a surprising range of practical items, from batteries in video cameras and radios to smoke detectors that could last for 20 years--even powering the family lawn mower.

They may also be put into service as a non-polluting source of electricity to run cars, buses, trucks and trains.

“We intend to bring fuel cells down to earth,” Henry W. Wedaa, chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said Friday at the end of a three-day conference in Long Beach for fuel cell marketers, researchers and environmental regulatory officials.

Entrepreneurs and scientists from the United States and Canada compared notes at the conference, where Wedaa’s goal seemed even closer than many participants had expected.

On Thursday, Wedaa and Moe Sihota, British Columbia’s minister of the environment, proposed a North American Clean Air Alliance to support development of low- and zero-polluting vehicles--one of the most challenging applications of the fuel cell.

The results of ongoing research, including work by a team at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, suggest that the fuel cell-powered car is closer to reality.

“If they can do it, we’ve got it made in the shade,” said Catherine Anderson, a project engineer at AeroVironment Inc., the Monrovia-based research firm that developed much of General Motors Corp.’s upcoming Impact electric car.

Fuel cells, which have intrigued scientists since the 1800s, convert fuel--most often hydrogen--directly to electricity without combustion. Internally, they operate something like batteries to which fuel and oxygen are constantly being added.

Environmentalists long have supported fuel cell research, because most working fuel cells emit only benign wastes--pure water and heat, both of which can be put to good use in a variety of ways.

But several technological hurdles have kept fuel cells on theorists’ lists of long-term, rather than short-term, energy sources.

One is cost, which for most uses is significantly higher than competing systems--except in remote locations, including in space or beneath the ocean. Liquid hydrogen is an expensive fuel, currently produced in relatively small amounts, mainly for use by food processors and in space shuttle rockets.

Another drawback has been the bulk of the cells themselves, as well as the heavy, voluminous tanks needed to safely store hydrogen on a vehicle.

Virtually every auto maker in the world is looking into fuel cells, if only as insurance against a rival breakthrough.

Yet fuel cell buses are practically here, said Paul Howard, vice president of Vancouver, Canada-based Ballard Power Systems, as he pointed to the “engine” of a small prototype bus parked in front of the conference site.

Very small fuel cell systems may reach the market first, according to Joseph P. Maceda, vice president of development for H Power Corp., a small firm based in Belleville, N.J.

Unlike the highly competitive transportation industry, the world of battery-driven appliances is ripe for a new energy source, he said. Using existing fuel cell technology, for instance, laptop computers could run 12 hours at a stretch before recharging and still be eight ounces lighter than today’s, Maceda said.

The Fuel Cells in Our Future

Scientists and entrepreneurs are finding a surprising range of appliances and devices that could eventually use fuel cells, which can create electricity directly from fuels such as natural gas without pollution-causing combustion.

Transportation:

* Buses and trucks

* Locomotives

* Ships

* Airplanes

* Automobiles

To replace batteries in:

* Laptop computers

* Movie cameras

* Smoke detectors

* Remote sensors

* Lighted highway signs