Ready to Go | Green Energy News

March 10, 2002 – Vol.6 No.50

READY TO GO.

At the same time the U.S. Senate was discussing energy policy, Electric Fuel was demonstrating its zinc-air fuel cell bus outside the Capitol. Of the two Senators aboard, one, Sen. Harry Reid (D) of Nevada voted in favor of raising CAFE standards. The other Sen. John Ensign (R) also Nevada, didn’t quite get it and voted against increasing the standard. Electric Fuel’s technology could be used to raise national fuel economy, provide clean air and create new jobs and industry.

The zinc-air bus ran like any other electric vehicle - quiet and vibration free. And of course there was no plume of exhaust gases. To refuel, to reenergize the bus, 18 fuel cell modules are removed and replaced with fresh, regenerated ones. The process takes a few minutes. Spent fuel cell packs are then refurbished with fresh zinc fuel and oxidized zinc is recycled.

The Electric-Fuel bus has been proven to operate for an entire 8-hour day in a revenue producing, stop and go, fare-collecting schedule - without a change of fuel cell modules. In a full cycle, well-to-wheels analysis, the technology is as energy efficient as diesel power.

The zinc-air technology is in the same family tree with primary batteries. In a primary battery a sacrificial anode is removed and replaced. When a fresh anode is installed a primary battery is fully charged. When fresh zinc is installed in a zinc-air fuel cell it is also fully charged.

The zinc-air technology uses the earliest definition of a fuel cell - a device that produces a continuous electric current directly from the oxidation of a common fuel. In this case the fuel is replaceable/recyclable zinc. (Other metals can also be used.) Hydrogen was included in the popular definition of a fuel cell after NASA used hydrogen fuel cells in the Apollo moon program. Hydrogen was probably chosen as fuel cell fuel at the time for its energy density as compared to its weight. Hydrogen was also already on board the spacecraft as rocket fuel.

This zinc-air technology is considered ready for full commercialization. Electric-Fuel was in Washington seeking funding from Congress to build a small fleet of buses and a zinc fuel regeneration facility. Visit Electric Fuel at http://www.electric-fuel.com/ .