Issue 1002    

Content:

Market News:

BMW: Educational efforts for sustainable energies

TUV Nord: H2 Check for hydrogen applications

Avista Labs: Cost reduction with new supplier

Hydrogenics: Unterinterrupted power supply for telco

Dr. Muhlen: Hydrogen from the Blue Tower

Young inventors at the show: H2 bicycle and FC model boat

Interview of the month:

This time with Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute

Event News:

Hydrogen Expo: 110 exhibitors, 40 seminars

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BMW: Educational efforts for sustainable energies

During the world summit in Johannesburg the BMW Group once again underlined its commitment to an environmentally benign energy supply. Under the headline "Sustainability. It can be done" the company presented its view of sustainable economic activity in its "EarthLounge" and introduced two new educational initiatives. At the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg BMW funds the creation of a department for sustainability, which is unique in South Africa. UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer sees a starting point in this initiative: "I sincerely hope that this signal of a constructive partnership goes around the world – what we need are partnerships." Further, the Bavarian car manufacturer presented the English language version of its hydrogen textbook at the summit. The collection of materials and work sheets called "H2 – Mobility of the future" can be downloaded free of charge on www.bmwgroup.com in the download area under "CleanEnergy". How key players such as BMW incorporate sustainability into their corporate philosophy is something the financial markets increasingly monitor. A spokesman for the swiss capital consultancy SAM Sustainable Asset Management said in Johannesburg: "Corporate sustainability is an approach which will create shareholder value in the long run while minimizing risks." BMW Group was included in the family of the leading sustainability indexes for the fourth time in succession. In a ranking by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index published at the beginning of September, the company made second place for the automotive industry. BMW exhibits at Hydrogen Expo in booth 4205. Representatives of the company also contribute to the panel discussion on educational initiatives and to the youth conference.

An H2 Check for hydrogen applications will be the one of the main attractions on the TUV Nord booth at this year's Hydrogen Expo. "Ecological and energy-political requirements increasingly call for new solutions. Therefore we focus our activities on hydrogen as a key technology", says Roger Koch, Project Manager Hydrogen/ Fuel Cells. The H2 Check has been designed to verify the safety of hydrogen applications. This does not only include parts of a plant. "The parts of a plant usually have to be certified anyway because of legal requirements. We look at the whole hydrogen system, including its integration into an existing plant", Koch goes on to explain why his company offers the service. The extent of the verification can be agreed on on an individual basis: pressure tanks, pipelines, fuel cells and other system components can be specifically tested. "The H2 Check provides a high level of safety for the operation of a plant powered by hydrogen, which is the fuel of the future, yet it has to be treated with care", adds Roger Koch. In order to free the fuel from fearful connotations often made by the public, he will talk about the safety aspects for H2 handling in the expo's seminar forum: "I will present several real life examples to show how hydrogen can be treated safely and to illustrate how plants can be planned, constructed and operated safely". TUV Nord exhibits in booth 4140 and has a speech in the German forum on October 10.

Avista Labs, a wholly owned subsidiary of Avista Corporation, recently announced a strategic supply agreement by which Avista Labs will purchase membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) exclusively from 3M for integration into its commercial fuel cell products. The agreement enables reduced and competitive product costs which will immediately benefit Avista Labs customers. 3M will supply MEAs for use in Avista Labs' 250 and 650 series fuel cell cartridges, which are integral components in the company's "Independence" product line. An MEA allows the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel cell to produce electricity with water and heat as byproducts. Avista Labs cartridges can be used to supply power in applications ranging from 50 watts to 5 kilowatts. Before signing the agreement with 3M Avista Labs had been purchasing the assemblies from W.L. Gore & Associates. "It is imperative to our product performance to have high quality MEAs that function well with our air-cooled, self-hydrating technology," said J. Michael Davis, Avista Labs CEO. "This agreement provides the quality and performance we need on terms that meet our aggressive cost targets." The agreement runs until June 2004. Avista Labs will showcase its technology at Hydrogen Expo on the US Pavilion in booth 4325 and gives a speech in the seminar forum on October 11 at 14.15 hrs.

Hydrogenics Corporation from Canada released news about the successful completion of the test of the "HyUPS" regenerative back-up fuel cell power generator at a cellular tower site provided by Nextel Communications. Hydrogenics installed the prototype power generator at the site in early July and subjected it to a rigorous test protocol over a two-month period. The unit was required to respond to simulated, as well as actual, power failures. The test protocol was designed to compress the profile of a full year's intermittent outages into a two-month time period. It is said that during the test, the unit's performance not only met the high expectations of the Company and the client, it also produced instantaneous power exceeding the quality characteristics of the local utility grid during each power outage. Deployability, higher energy density, zero-emissions, and rapid rate of recharge proved to be the key advantages of the unit over incumbent lead-acid and diesel gen-set technologies. Hydrogenics and Nextel are analyzing the data and discussing the next steps in a fuel cell program. Hydrogenics will be at Hydrogen Expo in booth 4315 and gives a speech on October 10 at 15.45 hrs.

Dr. Muhlen GmbH & Co. KG presents a project called "Blue Tower" at Hydrogen Expo. The technology which currently undergoes pilot testing generates hydrogen from biomass. In a step by step reformation process the material undergoes thermal fission, leaving behind a gas and coke. The gas is refined by adding hydrogen in a further reaction step. The coke provides the necessary process energy. The resulting gas contains more than 50% H2 and with its side ingredients is suitable for deployment in high temperature fuel cells such as MCFC and also for gas turbines. The gas can also be used for chemical syntheses such as methanol. Since November 2001 the technology has been successfully tested in the so-called Blue Tower in 1MW plant in Herten (Germany). According to a release by Dr. Muhlen two contracts with companies from Japan were just signed, a further project for a 2,5MW plant in Germany is underway. As part of the project "H2Herten Hydrogen Competence Center" a 10MW plant will start operation in 2003. This plant will be operated by the local utilities company and AGR GmbH. Dr. Muhlen and H2Herten exhibit at the pavilion of the North-Rhine Westfalian Future Energies Initiative in booth 4415.

Once again Hydrogen Expo gives young inventors the chance to showcase their developments in the exhibition. Joerg Weigl, a student from Ulm (Germany), already made the news last year with the fuel cell scooter he demonstrated in Hamburg. This year he will bring a bycicly with PEMFC powertrain. The bycicle has a 24V/400W front wheel motor and reaches a high speed of 42km/h. Weigl put the power supply consisting of an accumulator and an H Power 300W PEM fuel cell on a trailer. A Dynetek composite cylinder holding 26l hydrogen at 350bar stores the hydrogen fuel. German manufacturer let the student integrate their fueling system. Weigl will show the up and running bycicle at Hydrogen Expo and is looking for partners and sponsors for further development. His colleague Enno Wagner brings a model boat powered by an AFC to Hamburg. Two double cells power a small air-pump and the boat's motor. The project is supervised by Prof. Hartkopf from the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt (Germany). Joerg Weigl and Enno Wagner can be seen on booth 4540.

This time with Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute

H2 Report: What does the Earth Policy Institute do?

Lester Brown: Earth Policy Institute is a research organization. Its mission is to help build an eco-economy, an environmentally sustainable economy, by providing a vision along with a roadmap of how to get from here to there and a continual assessment of progress in this effort. No other environmental organization is currently providing such a vision. Building an eco-economy requires raising public awareness to the point where it will support an effective public response to the threats posed by continuing population growth, rising CO2 emissions, the loss of plant and animal species, and the many other trends that are adversely affecting the Earth. Earth Policy is raising awareness through its books and electronic news releases called Eco-Economy Updates.

H2 Report: In your latest book "Eco-Economy" you put forward a very ambitious vision for our future. Can you sum your ideas up for our readers?

Lester Brown: We read about the deteriorating relationship between the global economy and the earth’s ecosystem in daily news stories on shrinking forests, collapsing fisheries, falling water tables, rising temperatures, melting glaciers, and more destructive storms. Our existing economy is destroying its natural support systems. It cannot take us where we want to go. The challenge is to restructure the economy to build an eco-economy, so that economic progress can continue. We can see glimpses of the eco-economy emerging in the wind farms of northern Germany, the solar rooftops of Japan, the reforested mountains of South Korea, and the steel recycling mini-mills of the United States. In the United States, North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas have enough harnessable wind energy to satisfy national electricity needs. Densely populated Europe has enough off-shore wind energy to meet all its electricity needs. China can double its current electricity generation from wind alone. Wind is a vast energy resource, one that cannot be depleted. Advances in technology have lowered the cost of generating electricity from wind from 38¢ per kilowatt-hour in the early 1980s to under 4¢ at prime wind sites today, a figure that is competitive with oil, gas, and coal. The low-cost electricity that comes from wind turbines can be used directly or to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen provides a way of both storing and transporting wind energy. It is also the fuel of choice for the fuel cell engines that every major automobile manufacturer is now working on. We now have the technologies needed both to stabilize climate and to declare our independence from Middle Eastern oil.

H2 Report: Which role will hydrogen and fuel cells play in the eco-economy?

Lester Brown: As the new century begins, the sun is setting on the fossil fuel era. The last several decades have shown a steady shift from coal, the most polluting and climate-disrupting fossil fuel, to oil, which is somewhat less environmentally disruptive, and then to natural gas, the cleanest and least climate-disrupting of the three. It is this desire for clean, climate-benign fuels, not the depletion of fossil fuels, that is driving the global transition to the solar/hydrogen age. In contrast to the old energy economy, in which a handful of countries control the supply, the new energy sources are widely dispersed. The economic opportunity for developing countries to develop their indigenous energy sources promises a strong boost to their overall development. New coalitions are evolving in support of the new energy sources, such as the one between U.S. environmental and agricultural groups in support of wind power development. Satisfying the local demand for electricity from wind is not the end of the story. A huge new market is opening up. The economic benefits of developing local low-cost renewable sources of energy are obvious. In a community, for example, that gets its electricity from wind power, the money spent for electricity stays largely in the region. Developing wind resources thus promises to help rural communities in many countries, providing a welcome supplemental source of income and employment. As the world energy economy is restructured, so, too, will the rest of the economy change. The geography of economic activity will be altered, in some cases dramatically. The traditional siting of heavy industry, such as steel production, in areas where coal and iron ore are found in close proximity will no longer be necessary. In the future, energy-intensive industries will be located in wind-rich regions rather than coal-rich regions. Countries that were once importers of energy may become self-sufficient, even exporting electricity or hydrogen. In the eco-economy, hydrogen will be the dominant fuel, replacing oil, much like oil replaced coal and coal replaced wood. Electricity and hydrogen can together provide energy in all the forms needed to operate a modern economy, whether powering computers, fueling cars, or manufacturing steel.

H2 Report: In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge for the hydrogen economy?

Lester Brown: People appear hungry for a vision, for a sense of how we can reverse the environmental deterioration of the earth. More and more people want to get involved. Wherever in the world I give talks, the question I am asked most frequently is, What can I do? People want to do something. My response is always that we need to make personal changes, involving everything from using bicycles more and cars less to recycling our daily newspapers. But that will not be enough. We have to change the economic system. And that requires restructuring the tax system: reducing income taxes and increasing taxes on environmentally destructive activities, such as carbon emissions, the generation of toxic wastes, and material going to landfills. We have to work to restructure taxes to get prices to include the ecological costs. Oystein Dahle, former vice president of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea, summed it up brilliantly when he said, "Socialism collapsed because it did not allow prices to reflect the economic costs. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow prices to reflect the ecological costs." Our challenge is to restructure the tax system so that market prices tell the ecological truth. There is no middle path. Do we join together to build an economy that is sustainable? Or do we stay with our environmentally unsustainable economy until it declines? It is not a goal that can be compromised. One way or another, the choice will be made by our generation. But it will affect life on earth for all generations to come.