Discovery Could Make Fuel Cells Much Cheaper

[dkf]

One of the biggest issues with hydrogen fuel cells, aside from the lack of fueling infrastructure, is the high cost of the technology. Fuel cells use a lot of platinum, which is frightfully expensive and one reason we’ll pay $50,000 or so for the hydrogen cars automakers say we’ll see in 2015.

That might soon change. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a platinum-free catalyst in the cathode of a hydrogen fuel cell that uses carbon, iron and cobalt. That could make the catalysts “two to three orders of magnitude cheaper,” the lab says, thereby significantly reducing the cost of fuel cells.

Although the discovery means we could see hydrogen fuel cells in a wide variety of applications, it could have the biggest implications for automobiles.


Despite the auto industry’s focus on hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles — driven in part by the Obama administration’s love of cars with cords — several automakers remain convinced hydrogen fuel cells are the best alternative to internal combustion.

http://m.wired.com/autopia/2011/04/discovery-makes-fuel-cells-orders-of-magnitude-cheaper/

[DCKit]

1. Yes, and as long as they're "in love" with technology that will always be 20 years off...

they're free to continue building the same old engines.

For the automakers and oil corporations, things are perfect just the way they are.

[Thav]

2. Combine this with the MIT research that is able to..

use solar power to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, and we have a promising future for hydrogen.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10002704-54.html