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Re: 9lt98x post# 12574

Thursday, 01/22/2015 12:02:19 PM

Thursday, January 22, 2015 12:02:19 PM

Post# of 30168
It means it works... its just like the flight at Kitty Hawk...it was only 90 feet but it worked...not a lot to get excited about...

They tested it for months and it worked...$165,000 is a lot for the government of India...first deal is in the can...scooters drones and drones next.

They know they need electrical power...this is it..its scale-able and fits the needs of millions...

http://www.pragma-industries.com/reports/fuel-cell-explained/

Fuel cells allow independent scaling between power (determined by the fuel cell size) and capacity (determined by the fuel reservoir size). The fuel cell size can be adapted by simply changing the number of elementary cells and the active area. Scale-up is therefore very easy, from the W range of a cell phone to the MW range of a power utility plant. For miniaturized systems, techniques derived from microelectronics are being developed.


Fuel cells are the ideal solution when space is limited or weight is a concern, offering clean and quiet operation in a wide range of installation conditions. For example, the reduced footprint requirements for normal rooftop loading limits, and zero-emission combined with silent operation make them highly suitable for indoor/outdoor, urban/rural applications.


In addition, they can be fueled by a variety of fuels including intermittent renewable energy like solar energy or wind turbines as the primary source, in conjunction to hydrogen storage.



3. Issues

There are three main barriers remaining to widespread adoption of the fuel cell technology:

- Cost

Firstly, fuel cells and the hydrogen delivery-storage infrastructure needed to support them still cost far too much to be competitive with internal combustion engines (ICEs). In the automotive sector, the low-volume costs for PEMFCs are currently in excess of $1,800/kW vs. an automotive target price of $40/kW. The lion’s share of cost lies between bipolar plate (45-50%) and membrane-electrode assembly (35%) manufacturing. Not only is platinum catalyst a very expensive metal, but the other stack components are still driving the prices up. In the stationary sector, the threshold price is estimated somewhere around $1,500/kW, where fuel cells systems can start to compete economically with other applications, and will actually compete with industrial batteries.


The main reason is that whatever the technology considered, manufacturers haven’t made many fuel cells to date, and they have neither the capital equipment nor the experience with mass production that would be required to bring the costs down at some point. While material costs should remain stable with volume, one can forecast that production costs will massively go down.

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