Metal Fuel For China? | Green Energy News

March 30 2003 – Vol.8 No.1

METAL FUEL FOR CHINA?

Officials in China only have to watch the news on television to reaffirm the perils of becoming overly dependent on imported oil. China has little oil reserves but automobile ownership is rapidly growing at rates expected to be more than 20 percent each year in this decade.

A best guess is that China doesn’t want be in the same kind of situation as the United States.

As part of its effort to look for oil alternatives for China, the U.S./China Energy and Environment Technology Center (EETC) in opening its Shanghai office, has chosen PowerZinc Electric as a model to use towards the commercialization of electric vehicles.

PowerZinc manufactures zinc-air fuel cells that are refueled by the replacement of zinc anodes, which themselves can be recycled. (The energy used to make the anodes in the first place, as well as that needed to recycle them is the energy used to power the vehicle.) Since refueling a zinc-air vehicle is mechanical, it can either be done by hand or possibly automated by robotics. It seems likely, too, that car design itself would have to be altered to accept the technology and its refueling.

With most attention focused on hydrogen fuel cells, zinc-air and other metal-air fuel cells aren’t receiving the research needed for commercialization. China’s interest may help this technology move forward. The effort with U.S./China EETC will be to design cars metal-fueled cars that are attractive and affordable.

PowerZinc is also working with Zhejiang University in discussions with China First Auto-mobile Works to build up to 400 electric buses to run in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics. China has spent one billion yuan ($121.5 million) into research for electric vehicles. A dollar goes a lot farther in China, if that figure seems small compared to the billions spent in the U.S. on alternative fuel vehicle development. Visit PowerZinc at http://www.powerzinc.com/ .