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Future of fuel cells has a road through Dayton
California-based company to open factory at Dayton International Airport
Sunday, September 09, 2007
LIVERMORE, Calif. — — In a nondescript industrial park not far from one of nation's biggest nuclear laboratories, researchers at a small start-up company have spent the past five years developing a new kind of energy source.
This week, UltraCell Corp.'s book-size, hydrogen-powered portable fuel cells move past research and closer to the real world, when the company officially opens what it says will be the first high-volume factory of its kind, at Dayton International Airport.
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Production manufacturing technician Debbie Fairburn performs an air leak test in UltraCell's lab. The UltraCell Corp. has set up its manufacturing facility in a building at Dayton International Airport where they will manufacture fuel cell power generators.
UltraCell Vice President of Manufacturing Frank Beafore stands with the UltraCell fuel cell power generator (left) and one of its applications, a portable radio powered by the fuel cell. The $74 million factory, which could eventually employ more than 300 workers, is indicative not only of UltraCell's growth, but also of a significant shift in the long-promising — but also long-sputtering — fuel cell industry.
Just a few years ago, researchers and government leaders from President Bush on down were saying fuel cell-powered cars were the nation's answer to high gasoline prices, environmental issues and our dependency on foreign oil.
But while the government and the automotive industry can't seem to get zero-emission vehicles rolling down the nation's hydrogen highways, companies making portable fuel cells designed to power everything from laptop computers to remote surveillance equipment are leaving carmakers in the dust.
"This is going to be the first place the common person sees a fuel cell," UltraCell CEO Jim Kaschmitter said while holding one of his devices. They weigh less than conventional batteries, and with a large enough supply of hydrogen-based methanol fuel, can power a laptop for weeks.
Bob Rose, executive director of the U.S. Fuel Cell Council, an industry trade group, agrees. Portable fuel cells, he said, "are the hot area now."
Kaschmitter was a researcher at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories before he started UltraCell in 2002. Along with small companies like his, electronics giants such as Sanyo, Samsung, Motorola and Matsushita have all said they're looking at portable fuel cells to power future laptops, radios and other devices.
Other companies have other ideas.
New York manufacturer Plug Power Inc., for instance, in July installed a $70,000, five-kilowatt fuel cell that helps power the Florida governor's mansion. Plug Power also sells portable fuel cells to power remote cell phone towers and forklifts used in warehouses and shipping docks.
In West Palm Beach, Fla., fuel cell maker EnerFuel plans to soon start selling $2,000 remote surveillance camera systems that can run for months on the company's hydrogen fuel cells.
Early next year, EnerFuel and the state of Florida plan to open a motorist rest stop outside Orlando that gets its power from a fuel cell that converts methanol from citrus waste to electricity. In the future, the company plans to make emergency power generators that run on hydrogen fuel cells.
EnerFuel is still pursuing automotive applications for its fuel cells. But impatient investors looking for profits, not just promises, are pushing it and other companies toward easier-to-make portable fuel cell products.
"Investors in general don't like to sit around and fund something for 10 to 20 years," said EnerFuel President Rex Hodge. "They like to see a product and a company become profitable as soon as they can. One of the ways to do that is to go after these smaller devices."
