Hydrogenics, a company devoted to hydrogen generation and fuel cell production, has signed a contract with Ford Motor Company to sell one of its HySTAT-30 stations to the automaker. The Hydrogenics HySTAT hydrogen generation station uses electrolysis to create H2 from water.
Ford will use the HySTAT station upon its fuel cell testing grounds in Dearborn, Michigan to refuel its line of prototype hydrogen cars including the Focus FCV, Explorer Fuel Cell and HySeries Edge.
The HySTAT-30 can run at night, drawing electricity during off-peak hours to lower the operating costs and then store the hydrogen at 5,000 psi in one of its high-pressure storage tanks. According to Hydrogenics President Daryl Wilson, “Onsite hydrogen stations play a key role in building our future hydrogen infrastructure for a broad range of emerging hydrogen and fuel cell applications.”
Besides hydrogen generation for entities like UC Irvine and Toronto’s Hydrogen Village, Hydrogenics is also heavily involved in building fuel cells for automotive purposes. Hydrogenics has already developed fuel cells for shuttle buses, minibuses, forklifts and delivery vans.
Now, Hydrogenics has received an order from Spain for three fuel cell minibuses to be used at the EXPOAGUA Zaragoza 2008 conference. The fuel cell minibuses will shuttle attendees around the conference, which is focused on sustainable resources.
The fuel cell converts hydrocarbons directly to electricity without burning it. Infrastructure is in place with gasoline distribution. Gasoline is a hydrocarbon too. So if gas is put into the fuel cell you can power the electric car with the fuel cells gasoline made electricity. The conversion efficiency is much higher than the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. in an engine 70% of the burned gas becomes wasted heat which goes out the tail pipe. That 70% is now converted to electric propulsion. So a car that now that gets 30mpg will now get 100mpg. But Exxon knows that gas is the best bet! The system is so great that it will undermine efforts of solar panels and windmills. The system can be made for stationery use in the home too. Liquid fossil fuels are here to stay! It remains the most concentrated source of energy. Except for nuclear…nothing else comes close.