Fuel Cell Technology

At one point many people (myself included) thought fuel cells would continue to improve and one day drive cars down the world’s roads. The prediction was always for just 10 more years. Then fuel cells would power the future.

This book was written during that more hopeful time when Ballard’s stock price was looking as rosy as the future. Events have dimmed the luster of fuel cells. Geoffrey Ballard has died, and the Ballard company he founded has largely gone bust. No one but the most optimistic now think fuel cell cars will get out of the million-dollar prototype stage any time soon. If ever.

So predictions for the future change. But the past does not change. Read as history, Powering the Future still reads well. It gives a good glimpse into how technology develops, and how important people are to the process. Tom Koppel tells the story of how Geoffrey Ballard and his early partners struggled to bring fuel cell technology from the fringes to the mainstream.

None of us can predict the future. Neither can Koppel. Time proved that. But Koppel has a good eye for human personalities as well as for technology. He writes well too. That makes even this dated book worth reading.

Rating: 4 / 5

Fuel cells will enter a particular market once the cost of the fuel cell hits a particular cost point and becomes cost competitive. Fuel cells must reach a tolerable durability level of useful life of more than 5,000 hours. Suppose, a fuel cells operational life is 1,000 hours or 20,000 miles than durability issues inhibit consumer investment until fuel cells reach 5,000 hours operational levels or 100,000 miles making them feasible. Introduction of the fuel cell will probably start with PCs and handheld PDAs then be introduced into transit and commercial fleets, and finally automobiles when cost reduces to $50 kilowatt. Suppose that new passenger vehicle market sells 17 million vehicles and new transit vehicle sells are 5,000 per year. It is doubtful that fuel cell manufacturers will be able to recoup their investment, if they are sell primarily to the transit vehicle market. Initially fuel cell manufacturers will depend on government subsidizes that support the public transit system. Automotive market is the only market segment that offers sufficient volume to attract the interest of, and investment by, the vehicle manufacturers and fuel cell manufacturers. “10% market penetration” is needed to create adequate momentum for the fuel cell technology to propel itself forward exponential and replace the internal combustion engine.

Fuel cell cars will follow a three phase cycle: pre-production vehicles, number in the hundreds which will be tested and improved; phase II, next generation fuel cell vehicles into fleets numbering in the thousands; and phase III, adoption sells of tens of thousands of vehicles. Factors affecting the three phases will be gasoline and diesel prices, technical issues such as durability and useful life, government incentives to support initial introduction tactics, standard for hydrogen production, and the development of hydrogen infrastructure (Stuart Energy Systems, HydrogenSource, Proton Energy Systems, and H2Gen are offering commercial hydrogen appliances). Volume production means learning how to make identical products, with real quality control, and meeting customer expectations.

Ballard’s PEM fuel cell stacks largely solved the cost problem. Ballard estimated that fuel cell stacks could be made available at $5 worth of catlyst per kilowatt of electricity generated, or about $300 for a small car needing a sixty kilowatt stack. Dupont’s Nafion membrane was over designed lasting 100,000 hours, whereas, the automobile membrane running only part time lasted 5,000 to 10,000 hours in its lifetime. The membrane dropped in cost into the range of $5 to 15 per square foot. Ballard set out to create its own membrane. Ballard aimed at a small production of specialized polymers which were taylor made for small niche markets. Steck third generation lightly flourine membrane managed to reach 15,000 hours operation threshholds. Ballard had managed to create a superior membrane for 2 to 3 million dollars verses $100 million dollars to develop the Dupont Naifon membrane.

Ballard could be the Intel of the automotive industry. “If an industry standard is reached in what is the core component of a car, the engine, then even a newcomer from the outside such as Ballard could become the price leader. Ballard is recognized as the leader in PEM fuel cell technology and has experience in stack cell technology, stack components, and integration of stacks with fuel processors. Ballard maybe the first company too offer $20-35 kilowatt or $2,250-3,750 for 75 kilowatt engines. The race is on to make fuel cells cars affordable.

Rating: 4 / 5

….

I believe Mr. Koppel had a tough choice in crafting book – how to tell the story of the company and the personalities involved, while at the same time explain the technology – which is quite fascinating and a topic of its own. To achieve this and not end up with a 1000 page text is a hard thing to do.

However – I wish they had made a choice on covering one topic and doing it justice – in this case the story of the company and the personalities involved. Koppel managed to gloss over …some (to me) very significant episodes in the history of the firm. Perhaps he was not privy to all the details – but that in itself is a confusing issue as well. It seems he had access to Geoffrey Ballard and Fairoz Rasul – but does mention that Rasul told him that Ballard Power Systems would not assist in the creation of this book. The timing of this statement is not clear – did it happen while the book was being researched or after or before?

This also leads to another problem in the accounts – they are very Geoffrey Ballard centric and as the book explains – Ballard was a powerful personality and therefore (assumption here) prone to being very opinionated. One wonders how much of the other 2 sides of the story … we are missing.

Furthermore, Ballard was not actively involved in the company when it really made its transformation from R&D focused niche player to commercial entity. That period, to me as a student of organizational behaviour, would have been very rich in detail on how the company managed the change, got the message across, set its strategy, executed at the tactical level, protected its interests, won or lost on the issues, etc. All of that is given a summary passing over “obstacles were overcome …”, “effeciencies were increased…”, etc.

That left me sort of hanging. I commend the book for taking on a very rich subject and trying to navigate the highlights. But that tactic left me just short of being really enlightened about either fuel cell technology or growing a small niche business into a viable commercial entity. Thus the mediocre score.
Rating: 3 / 5