Fuel Cells: Green Power

by U.S. Department of Energy

Although fuel cells have been around since 1839, it took 120 years until NASA demonstrated some of their potential applications in providing power during space flight. As a result of these successes, in the 1960s, industry began to recognize the commercial potential of fuel cells, but encountered technical barriers and high investment costs — fuel cells were not economically competitive with existing energy technologies. Since 1984, the Office of Transportation Technologies at the U.S. Department of Energy has been supporting research and development of fuel cell technology, and as a result, hundreds of companies around the world are now working towards making fuel cell technology pay off. Just as in the commercialization of the electric light bulb nearly one hundred years ago, today’s companies are being driven by technical, economic, and social forces such as high performance characteristics, reliability, durability, low cost, and environmental benefits.

73 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 18, 2011

Reviews

[Jim Razinha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well done. Gov't pubs like this can be quite dry (and sometimes riddled with typos) - not so this one. Informative, full of jumping off point references... again, well done.