(The following article is part of Climate Solutions' Earth Day 2000 series on rapid development of clean energy sources, a central theme of the millennial Earth Day. Climate Solutions will send installments weekly through April 22, when Earth Day takes place. All publishing rights granted with credit to Climate Solutions. Please send tear sheet of print publication or URL of electronic publication to address at end of article.) FUEL CELLS: GOOD CHEMISTRY FOR THE CLIMATE By Patrick Mazza Invented in 1839 before the internal combustion engine, the fuel cell is the leading contender to take its place in 21st century cars, and will also become a mainstay of a new decentralized electrical network. Fuel cells resemble both a battery and an engine. Like batteries, they provide electricity from chemical reactions without combustion or moving parts. But they never need recharging because like an engine they run off a fuel source. The fuel source is hydrogen, most abundant element in the universe. Combining with oxygen, the reaction pumps out electricity, heat and pure water. Most fuel cells use fossil fuels, breaking hydrogen from carbon. So fuel cells release some climate-altering greenhouse gases, but less than if the fuel is burned. A March 2000 study by David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development shows that fuel cells cut natural gas emissions 70%, but reduce gasoline emissions only 20%. Ultimately fuel cells will be powered by greenhouse-emission-free pure hydrogen, which a Ford-U.S. Energy Department study showed can actually be stored more safely than gasoline. A company called Energy Conversion Devices is working on an even safer solid-form hydrogen. Fuel cells can be scaled from postage-stamp size to utility power plant. Several companies plan to market home systems around the size of a major appliance. Today a couple of hundred 200-kilowatt fuel cells are part of the power supply at institutional sites ranging from a New York City police station to Vandenberg Air Force Base. Tomorrow they will be everywhere. Fuel cells "are on the leading edge of a tidal wave of change that promises to scale down electric generators and distribute them as broadly as the home computer," notes Bonneville Power Administration chief Judi Johansen. Mass production economies are expected to dramatically drop prices in a few years. Leaving out the vehicle market, sales are expected to grow 25-fold from 1999's $40 million to over $10 billion by 2010, Allied Business Intelligence projects. Says David Walker, president of fuel cell maker DCH Technology, "...what was once far off, is now a market reality." GE's Plug Power will begin selling home cells in 2001 in New Jersey for $7,500-$10,000, and aims to bring that below $4,000 by 2003. At that price, about the same as a heat pump, electricity would be 7-8¢/kilowatt hour, very competitive with grid power in many regions. GE plans to market business-scale systems by 2002. In January investors suddenly aware of fuel cell prospects tripled Plug Power's stock to $79 in one day. Auto industry developments are also moving at a frenzied pace. Recently considered too expensive and heavy for vehicles, fuel cell technology has been making unanticipated breakthroughs. "I believe fuel cells will be a significant part of our industry in the not-too-distant future," Ford Motor Chair William Clay Ford Jr. says. Within 4-5 years, fuel cell vehicles will reach Ford, Daimler-Chrysler and Nissan showrooms. Companies hope to sell at only a 10% premium over conventional cars. Daimler will premier an $18,000 fuel cell version of its Mercedes A in 2004, aims to sell 100,000 fuel cell vehicles by 2005, and projects that 25% of the 2020 global auto market will be fuel cell-powered. General Motors, working with Toyota on fuel cell engines, plans to include them in 10% of cars it sells in 2010. Volkswagen, BMW, even Southern States Power, have fuel cell vehicles in the works. Fuel cells will realize their full potential as a technology for fighting global warming when they are fed not with fossil fuel but by pure hydrogen. The National Renewable Energy Lab recently patented a technique to produce hydrogen from algae. The gas could also be supplied by large-scale renewable power installations generating electricity that cracks hydrogen from water. Iceland is already exploring the potential. An Icelandic consortium in 1999 signed a deal with Daimler and Shell aimed at developing the world's first fossil-fuel-free hydrogen economy, with fuel cells at the center. Coming over the next few years to the next generation of cars and the new distributed electricity network, the good chemistry of fuel cells is certain to draw positive reactions all around. ---------- Patrick Mazza is staff writer-researcher for Climate Solutions. These articles are excerpted from Climate Solutions' upcoming report, Accelerating the Clean Energy Revolution: How the Northwest Can Lead. Climate Solutions is co-convening the Symposium on Clean Energy: The Next High Tech Revolution in Seattle, April 3-5. For more information contact Climate Solutions, 610 E.4th Ave., Olympia, WA 98501, U.S.A. (360) 352-1763 or rhys@climatesolutions.org . WEB: www.climatesolutions.org