More Progress On Hydrogen-Air Fuel Cells

blamario writes: "Check out this article from Ottawa Citizen. It describes one particular fuel cell design by Ballard Power Systems and includes several quotes from various other institutes and companies, all racing to produce the engine of the future (and then collect the royalties):."

Comments

One Point

[Alpha State]

This is an excellent article, however there is one point I have to make. It seems the media are heavily biased against coal power generation, believing it is heavily polluting. While burning coal generates more CO2 than most other forms of power generation, it does not necessarily release large amounts of other pollutants.

The quantities of SO2, NO2, metals and other pollutants depend heavily on the quality of coal used. Where I live (NSW, Australia) most electric power is generated from black coal, which has low amounts of pollutants. In addition, modern power stations equipped with filters capture most of the pollution which would enter the atmosphere. In fact much of the waste can be converted to fertiliser or inert filler. Carbon monoxide emissions are close to zero due to the efficient, high-temperature combustion.

While coal-fired power stations are a non-optimal solution, it makes no sense to simply rule them out without any investigation of the facts. For the media to do this is particularly bad, as the public will be against coal power in their ignorance, and another option to improve generation capacity will be lost.