Big Turnout, New Products, Calls for Greater Effort Highlight Fuel Cell Seminar SAN ANTONIO, TX - A glimpse of how Toyota sees its fuel cell future, calls for much more funding from both sides of the Atlantic, a good-sized number of new products and equipment, two- and four-wheeled scooters and cars at the obligatory Ride-and-Drive event kept participants in the 2004 Fuel Cell Seminar here informed, busy and entertained.
Opportunities: NASA/Glenn RFP, Rockport, IL Airport NASA/Glenn Research Center plans to issue a Request for Proposal for development of a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Regenerative Fuel Cell (RFC) Breadboard. The Contractor will be expected to design, build, and test a closed-loop hydrogen-oxygen PEM RFC Breadboard, and to evaluate its operability and durability.
Greater Rockford Airport Authority, Rockford, IL intends to select a qualified firm or team to provide planning, design/build and provide operational management for the Northwest Chicagoland Airport Renewable Hydrogen Project at that airport.
Briefly Noted: Ceramatec/INEEL High-Temp Electrolysis A new look at high-temperature electrolysis: Researchers at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) and Ceramatec, Inc., Salt Lake City, UT say they have demonstrated the feasibility of splitting water - steam - to make hydrogen in a three-year project using 800 deg. C (1,600 deg. F) heat in a small demonstration unit.
Briefly Noted: NY State/Honda New York is the first state customer in the Northeast for a fuel cell vehicle by leasing two 2005 Honda FCX fuel cell vehicles.
Briefly Noted: X-43A Scramjet Gaseous hydrogen - all two pounds of it - propelled NASA’s experimental X-43A air-breathing plane to nearly ten times the speed of sound in the last and fastest of three unpiloted test flights in the agency’s Hyper-X program in mid-November.
Briefly Noted: California-Northrine Westphalia MoU State-to-state links across the ocean: California and Germany’s state of Northrhine-Westfalia agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding in mid-November to cooperate on hydrogen and fuel cell activities.
Briefly Noted: Bi-Fuel Hot Module What is claimed to be Europe’s first bi-fuel molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) “HotModule” went on stream at the “Fuel Cell Innovation Park” Berlin in late September.
Briefly Noted: Meeting Point Renewable Energy Shanghai Five German and one Singaporean companies exhibited equipment and services at China’s first commercial hydrogen and fuel cell exhibit, “Meeting Point Renewable Energies China,”.
Briefly Noted: UTC/Toshiba UTC Fuel Cells and Toshiba are reconfiguring their two-decade relationship, in essence each going their separate ways in several categories.
Briefly Noted: Quantum/Starcraft Irvine, CA-based Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, Inc. has signed an agreement to acquire Starcraft Corp.
Briefly Noted: FuelCell Energy/Versa Power Systems In another corporate rearrangement, FuelCell Energy, Inc., Danbury, CT said it has sold its Canadian solid oxide fuel cell operations to Versa Power Systems, Golden, CO.
Briefly Noted: AEC/Astris Energi Las Vegas, NV-based Alternate Energy Corp. (AEC) says it has ordered the first Model E alkaline fuel cell (AFC) portable power generator from Astris Energi, Mississauga, ON.
Events A “2020: California’s Energy Future Conference” and Blue Sky Awards luncheon will be held Dec. 2 at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
