The „Hypothesis IV“ conference was held from 9. to 15. September in Stralsund . Almost 200 participants from 24 countries had submitted 105 contributions. The state government of Mecklenburg Western Pomerania supported the conference; environment minister Methling gave the opening speech. There was also a „Young Hypothesis“; more than 200 pupils, some of them even from Mainz, heard from experts about background and chances of the technology.

The first dedicated commercial fair on hydrogen and fuel cells was held from 11. to 13. October In Hamburg. 62 exhibitors from all branches on about 4000 m² attracted almost 5000 visitors.

Mobile: BMW showed its well-known 745h, but also the study on a hydrogen motor in a Mini. This four-cylinder motor is said to have the same consumption values like the gasoline version. A hydrogen tank of special shape was used for the first time. Opel was there with the HydroGen. The Hamburg fleet was represented both by the transporters with internal combustion engine and by the one with the XCELLSIS fuel cell (see No. 2/00 „Hamburg“).

Electrolysis: Very attractive were the island systems of P&T Technologies from Hamburg. They are specially meant to be combined with renewable energies like sun and wind. Proton Energy Systems from USA showed a membrane electrolyser. The device will be delivered to the TES filling station in Berlin (see Nr. 3/01 „Berlin project“).

Portable: Smart Fuel Cells showed the first video camera of the world running on a direct methanol fuel cell. Fuel Cell Power Systems develops micro-tubular cells for similar applications.

Projects: A planning company from Moenchengladbach (NW Germany) intends to build the first solar hydrogen village of the world. A central electrolyser will be supplied from power from renewable sources. The individual houses will be equipped with fuel cells.

Exhibitors and visitors were satisfied. Some exhibitors even said that their expectations had been exceeded. For next year there are plans to use two halls.

On the Hydrogen Expo in Hamburg BMW presented a folder with teaching aids under the title „H2 — mobility of the future. It is meant for classes 7 and above and consists of a teacher's folder and an interactive CD-ROM. In the teacher's folder there are ten overhead transparencies and 28 copy masters with information, tasks, and hints on how to do it. On top of all there is a glossary and a big link list.

(Press release of 11. October 2001)

Under the name „KnowH2ow“ Air Products offers a hydrogen training program for companies including lessons, practical work, and printed matter. It is already a success in the USA and the UK and is now offered also in Germany. The customer can select from the total menu a program to his needs which can take from a half to two days.

(Press release of 5. October)

A hydrogen filling station will be installed in the commercial area Brunnthal-Nord near Munich. It will serve a small test fleet of fuel cell buses which are to connect the communities SE of Munich with the city's East Station. The filling station is installed with financial support of the county, the conversion of the buses is partly funded by the Bavarian state government.

(Hyweb, 11. September 2001)

Late this or early next year the filling station will be opened which is being built in the framework of TES on a ground of the city transportation utility. It will initially supply a fuel cell bus with liquid hydrogen tank which apart from Berlin will be tested in Copenhagen and Lisbon. A mobile filling unit will also make the trips. In a second phase it might remain stationary and serve two double-decker buses; funding has been applied for at the federal ministry for the economy.

(see No. 3/01 „Berlin project“)

The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin is now able to investigate friction, lubrication, and wear in liquid hydrogen. Not only the low temperatures make this interesting, but also the chemistry. Hydrogen is chemically reducing, which means that the friction partners can not cover with a protective oxide coating.

A particularly fast hydrogen detector is made of about 100 Palladium conductors with a diameter of only a few nm and a length of 100 to 500 µm. In less than 75 ms is can detect hydrogen concentrations between 2 and 10 %. This range is important because the lower limit for the flammability of hydrogen-air mixtures is 4 %. Power consumption is < 100 nW.

(F. Favier et al., Science 293 (2001) 2227-31

More than 350 participants met for the fuel cell congress „f-cell“ on 15. and 16. October in Stuttgart. The society for the promotion of the economy in the Stuttgart region (WRS) hoped that this would give important push for the region in which there are many car manufacturers and suppliers. „About 70 % of the components of a car will be replaced or changed by the new technology“, said WRS project head Holger Haas.

In a parallel competition „Innovation Award Fuel Cell“ the WS Waermeprozesstechnik GmbH from Renningen came out first with a very small reformer. MTU Friedrichshafen got a special award for the molten carbonate fuel cell after the „Hot Module“ principle.

(Press release from WRS of 11. October 2001)

NEC Corporation and partners use carbon nanostructures as electrodes in an fuel cell for portable applications. The structures are Es „Carbon Nanohorns“. This are big aggregates about 100 nm across. They have a huge surface and are permeable for gases and liquids. Their effect is mainly that the platinum parts (catalyst) are unusually well distributed on the surface. They have only about half the size as on ordinary activated charcoal. The reasons for this are not yet clear.

The Sony Frontier Science Laboratories have developed a PEM cell the size of a credit card which emits 1.2 V, but no water vapor. The reason for this are substrate layers made of fullerenes („Football molecules“, C₆₀ or higher) which let the gases needed for the reaction pass without the help of water. Sony Frontier intends to introduce the device for portable applications by 2003.

(NEC press release of 30. August 2001; Asia Pulse, 20. September 2001)

By 2002 there will be a power station with a PEM fuel cell (250 kW_el), a micro turbine, a gas motor, and a cold unit for integrated supply of power, heat, and cold on the ground of the UMSICHT Institute in Oberhausen. The fuel will be natural gas at first, later coal bed methane from the own ground. This gas mixture with a high methane content is generated in coal mines and must continually be removed. Even when the mine does no longer operate it may release more than 1.000 m³/h. Which is not only a pity, but also bad for the environment, because the greenhouse potential of methane is 21 times as strong as that of CO₂.

In Munhall (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) Siemens Westinghouse builds until 2006 a production site with an area of 40.000 m² and 500 jobs for their solid oxide fuel cells. By 2003 the first 17.000 m² will be ready. In October of that year the cell will be introduced in the market.

(Press release of 26. September 2001)

MTU and Fuel Cell Energy announced in London that they plan seven more projects in Europe for their molten carbonate fuel cells this year.

(Press release from FuelCell Energy of 18. September)

A fuel cell laboratory for teenagers was opened on 29. September in the solar village Kettmannshausen (Thuringia). „It is an offer to the youth of Thuringia to make themselves acquainted with new energy technologies“ said Prof. Berthold Bley of TU Ilmenau, head of the society „Solar-Dorf Kettmannshausen“. „In Kettmannshausen we have a number of working models, which show how electricity is made.“ Most of the work with the teenagers is done by slightly older youngsters or students.

(Thueringer Allgemeine, 29. September 2001)

France must by all means decrease its lag with respect to USA, Canada, and Japan in the field of fuel cells. Two members of the National Assembly (parliament) demand this in a report. They want a support program, in particular for medium term traffic applications, and in cooperation with the EU. The only field where they see an early market introduction are applications for portable devices; nevertheless the time to act is now, they say, before US or Japanese producers once again set with their products the standards to which everybody else has to adapt then. Such a thing as a strategy is not apparent to them in France.

(Le Monde, 15. August 2001)

Manhattan Scientifics and the Japanese Mihama Corporation showed a loader which can keep a portable telephone on standby for up to four months using 200 cm³ methanol. Manhattan Scientifics has developed a direct methanol fuel cell which can take very different shapes.

Motorola wants to supply all portable devices. For the gas and liquid transport they have developed porous ceramic systems. These include pumps, sensors, and electronics. The laboratory version of the cell has dimensions of 5 x 10 x 1 cm and a permanent output of 100 mW.

Medis Technologies bets on ethanol. Their phone loader delivers about 1 W, needs no other external operation means and not more time than a loader connected to the wall plug. One serving of ethanol is enough for two loading cycles. Market introduction is planned for next year.

(Press releases of 1. (Manhattan, Motorola) and 4. (Medis) October 2001)

Ballard, DaimlerChrysler and Ford have reordered their shares. The formerly joint ventures XCELLSIS (Nabern) and Ecostar become property of Ballard. Die car makers rise their shared in Ballard from 18.0 to 23.6 % (DaimlerChrysler) and from 13.5 to 19.5 % (Ford). A new partnership agreement running for 20 years has been made. Ballard hopes to be no longer just a developer and producer of fuel cells, but a system supplier who can serve other car makers and market segments as well.

Similar things happen in the stationary field. Ballard becomes owner of Ballard Generation Systems, a formerly joint venture with Japanese Ebara Corporation.

Ballard's first serial product is a portable power generator. Under the name Nexa it has an output of 1.2 kW DC. It is meant for applications of any kind which problems with normal power supply. How to get the hydrogen is a matter for the system maker.

(Ballard press releases of 27. September and of 1. and 2. October 2001)

General Motors has developed a stack with a power density of 1.75 kW/l; thus it is far at the top of the field. The only comparable competitive product from Ballard makes 1.1 kW/l. Power output is 102 kW permanent and 129 kW as peak, with a weight of 82 kg and dimensions of 82 x 14 x 50 cm (58 l).

General Motors has made a partnership with Canadian Hydrogenics Corporation. GM will hold a share of initially 24 %, to be increased to 28 % later. In parallel to this the cooperation with Giner Inc. will be increased. The joint venture Giner Electrochemical Systems, of which GM holds 30 %, will in the future be active beyond the transport sector. Center of the work are electrolysers. Another cooperation was agreed upon with Suzuki. Key feature here is the development of fuel cell drives for small cars.

(Stuttgarter Zeitung, 18. October 2001)

Big Oil must prepare for the end of the hydrocarbon era, because the customers will change to alternative energies during the next decades. Nobody else than  Shell boss Steve Watts told this recently the press. „One thing I am convinced of is that the next 50 years is not going to be more of the same.“ Shell expects the share of oil at the total energy to drop from 40 to 25 % until 2050, but even then it will still be greater than that of natural gas with 20 %. The internal combustion engine will fight for survival and make full use of its development potential. 

(Shell press release of 3. October 2001; Reuters, 4. October 2001)

The Technical University Clausthal, the Clausthaler Umwelttechnik-Institut GmbH (Cutec) and some partners plan to found a Lower Saxon „Competence Center Fuel Cell“. It should coordinate research projects and raise funds. Prof. Hans-Peter Beck of TU Clausthal says that ten companies in the state have already stated that they would support the center financially and otherwise. Among them are the Oldenburg utility EWE and the railcar maker Alstom LHB. Volkswagen is not among them. Prof. Beck thinks that in Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, and North Rhine-Westphalia governments and industry started already in the mid-90s to push the topic. Lower Saxony, much dependent on the car production [Volkswagen!], is in danger to lose the contact.

A proposal was submitted to the state science ministry in Hannover according to which it would grant a start funding of 3.75 MEuro distributed over the first five years. „On top of this there would, so we hope, be 6 MEuro for four start projects during the first three years “, Beck says. The companies would have to pay the same amount. So far there is no comment from the ministry.

State economy minister Doering intends to totally stop the funding of solar plants with the turn of the year, according to a report by Stuttgarter Nachrichten of 25. September. Of course the state budget is strained, but he also thinks that these plants have achieved the market breakthrough. In an opposite move the ministry will increase the funding of demonstration projects for the use of renewable energies, for example of the fuel cell, which is just short before the threshold to the market.

The direct splitting of water by light works - in the laboratory, and yields are very low. Japanese scientists consider a satellite which catches the sunlight and converts it in a laser beam which is sent into an earthbound reactor with water. Using titanium oxide as catalyst the water would be split. The reactor could be installed on a floating platform off the coast of southern Japan, where the sky is usually clear. With a radiation power of 10 MW hydrogen fuel for about 0,15 Euro per Liter gasoline equivalent appears feasible.