APPLICATIONS AND ECONOMICS

OF FUEL-CELL POWER
PLANTS/POWER SOURCES
10.1. SCOPE OF CHAPTER
The fuel cell is the most efficient, environmentally friendly, and elegant energy
conversion device. One may ask the question: Why has it taken more than 165
years, since its invention by Sir William Grove, to reach the era of applications and
commercialization? Other energy conversion technologies have reached this stage
in considerably shorter times with billions of dollars invested in their development
and commercialization. The advances in these technologies have decelerated the
progress in fuel cell technology. During the last century, NASAs space program,
the Energy Crisis in 1973, the USA Partnership for the Next Generation of Vehicles
(1993-2000), along with environmental legislations in the USA, several European
countries, and Japan have stimulated the development of fuel cell power
plants/power sources for power generation/cogeneration, transportation, and
portable power applications. Significant progress has been made in the six leading
fuel cell technologies since the early 1960s. This progress led to the first application
of fuel cell as power sources for NASA and Russian Space Vehicles. The overriding
factors slowing the entry of fuel cell power plants and power sources into the
terrestrial energy sector are the capital cost, short lifetimes of the electrochemical
cell stacks, and choice of fuel and complexities of fuel-processing. On the positive
side, the hope is that multi-billion dollar investments in the research and
development programs of the leading fuel cell technologies since the early 1960s