Fuel Cell Applications

There are many uses for fuel cells — right now, all of the major automakers are working to commercialize a fuel cell car. Fuel cells are powering buses, boats, trains, planes, scooters, even bicycles. There are fuel cell-powered vending machines, vacuum cleaners and highway road signs. Miniature fuel cells for cellular phones, laptop computers and portable electronics are on their way to market. Hospitals, credit card centers, police stations, and banks are all using fuel cells to provide power to their facilities. Wastewater treatment plants and landfills are using fuel cells to convert the methane gas they produce into electricity. The possibilities are endless.
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Stationary. More than 2500 fuel cell systems have been installed all over the world — in hospitals, nursing homes, hotels, office buildings, schools, utility power plants, and an airport terminal, providing primary power or backup. In large-scale building systems, fuel cells can reduce facility energy service costs by 20% to 40% over conventional energy service.
Fuel cells are ideal for power generation, either connected to the electric grid to provide supplemental power and backup assurance for critical areas, or installed as a grid-independent generator for on-site service in areas that are inaccessible by power lines. Since fuel cells operate silently, they reduce noise pollution as well as air pollution and the waste heat from a fuel cell can be used to provide hot water or space heating for a home. Many of the prototypes being tested and demonstrated for residential use extract hydrogen from propane or natural gas.ransportation.
Transportation. All the major automotive manufacturers have a fuel cell vehicle either in development or in testing right now, and Honda and Toyota have already begun leasing vehicles in California and Japan. Automakers and experts speculate that the fuel cell vehicle will not be commercialized until at least 2010. Fuel cells are also being incorporated into buses, locomotives, airplanes, scooters and golf carts. Portable Power.
Portable Power. Miniature fuel cells, once available to the commercial market, will help consumers talk for up to a month on a cellular phone without recharging. Fuel cells will change the telecommuting world, powering laptops and palm pilots hours longer than batteries. Other applications for micro fuel cells include pagers, video recorders, portable power tools, and low power remote devices such as hearing aids, smoke detectors, burglar alarms, hotel locks and meter readers. These miniature fuel cells generally run on methanol, an inexpensive wood alcohol also used in windshield wiper fluid.
Landfill and Wastewater Treatment. Fuel cells currently operate at landfills and wastewater treatment plants across the country, proving themselves as a valid technology for reducing emissions and generating power from the methane gas they produce.