Greetings and Introductions: Chapter President, John Gotthold, greets all attendees and asks each attendee to state their name and a short synopsis of their background and what they hope to learn by attending the meeting. 10 minutes.
1. Transportation: Fuel cell developers moving away from auto market to concentrate on viable nitch markets like telco backup and material transport vehicles. Battle goes on. Opinions range from "hydrogen for vehicles is a total mistake" to "fuel cell cars are coming very soon." Who is correct? New hydrogen fueling stations opening around the world. H2 powered bus starting production in Wales, only $190,000.
2. Government Support for Hydrogen: Cap and Trade debated in Congress. Alternative energy bill moving through both houses of Congress.
3. Hydrogen Technology: Submarines - ideal fuel cell vehicles. Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft Gmbh, (say that ten times rapidly) or just call it HDW now sells class 212 and 213 subs. They run on nine 34 kilowatt Siemens PEM fuel cells. The cells have been tested to 50,000 hours. Underwater for up to three weeks and virtually undetectable. H2 from biomass, from aluminum gallium, cellulose, wired hydrogenase enzymes. Storage: lithium borohydride (up to 18%), polyaniline hyper cross linking, and many other chemical attempts to easily store and release hydrogen near room temperature. This is still the holy grail of the hydrogen business. Salad bar ingredients for hydrogen production. One volt of electricity increases efficiency to 80 to 91%.
4. Hydrogen Business: National Hydrogen Association meeting in Sacramento, March 30 to April 4. ITM Power to keynote and report on production progress of home hydrogen generator at $150/kilowatt, ten times better than previous.
5. Global Warming and Oil Depletion: Weather related disasters have quadrupled over the last decade. From an average of 120 weather disasters a year in the 1980s it's now up to 500 per year. Oil at $85 per barrel is the pain threshold, above $106 is the stagnation threshold where demand will go down because consumers are forced out of the market. Socgen analysis from McGraw-Hill Platts. UN: World must fix climate in less than ten years or human development will reverse. Weather changes in history have led to famine, wars, and population declines.
6. Demonstration and Video: Illustrations of hydrogen fuel injector spark-plug concept.
