Fuel Cells: Promising, but struggling to catch on

Fuel cells have been the next best clean-energy thing for, well, a long time.

A technology with roots in the 1800s and modern-day use in every NASA-manned space flight from Apollo through the end of the space shuttle program, fuel cells just kind of look like a big box. Inside, they electrochemically combine hydrogen and the oxygen from ambient air to create electricity.

The by-products of that reaction are heat and water. The heat can be recycled into the fuel cell itself and/or used for external heating and cooling – generally referred to as combined heat and power. That makes stationary fuel cells – the kind used for electricity, as opposed to ones used in vehicles – extremely efficient and as clean an energy source as solar and wind.

But because the hydrogen source for most fuel cells comes from natural gas, they are generally not considered renewable, leaving them in an environmental limbo.

Read the Yale Climate Connections story - “Fuel Cells: Promising, but struggling to catch on.”

Attenborough advocates for an Apollo-like blitz on renewable energy

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David Attenborough.

n Apollo-style research programme to make renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels has won the backing of Sir David Attenborough, who says this alone would be enough to halt climate change.

The renowned naturalist joins a group of eminent scientists, business executives and politicians backing a 10-year public research and development plan to cut the costs of clean energy and deliver affordable technologies to store and transport solar and wind power.

In a letter to the Guardian, the group argue that the approach, mirroring the intense Apollo programme that put men on the moon, “will not only pay for itself but provide economic benefits to the nations of the world”.

Read the story - “David Attenborough backs huge Apollo-style clean energy research plan”.