Funded by €5-million from the European programme FCH JU, the target is reportedly to develop fuel cell stacks that can be manufactured in high volumes for use in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2020, building on Intelligent Energy’s industry leading PEM fuel cell technology. Reducing global emissions on that large of a scale does largely hinge on Toyota selling up to 30,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles annually with over a third of those sales coming from their home country, Japan. “Energy Department-supported projects have helped reduce the modeled cost of transportation fuel cells by 50 percent since 2006, and more than double durability and reduce the amount of platinum necessary by a factor of five”.
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The auto is Toyota’s first mass-market hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and went on sale in Japan at the end of past year. The date was chosen to represent the atomic weight of hydrogen (1.008).
Seven of the 10 projects that are being supported by the Department of Energy are focused on the research and development of hydrogen fuel cell technology as well as hydrogen production. Three more address early market and demonstration in areas such as the use of mobile hydrogen refueling and fuel cell-powered range extenders.
The “first of its kind” hydrogen fuelling station has been opened in Golden, Colorado, by Air Products. By embracing this technology of the future, we aim to consolidate hydrogen’s role as a practical alternative fuel for the 21st century and beyond.
The department’s 2014 Fuel Cell Technologies Market Report, shows that the industry has reached Dollars 2.2 billion in sales in 2014, as compared to USD 1.3 billion in 2013.
While hydrogen is an abundant element, little exists in the pure form that fuel cells need and so it needs to be extracted from other compounds, like water or methane, which can be produced via renewable energy sources including solar and wind power.
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The end goal is, according to Energy.gov, to accelerate American innovation in clean energy technologies and reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
