| Harold L. (Hal) Mansfield, Ph.D. | |
| 7366 North County Road 27, Loveland, CO 80538 | |
| Phone: 970.667.3878 | E-mail: hal.mansfield3@gmail.com |
If silence is golden and efficiency is grace, fuel cell use is what the world has been waiting for. Fuel cells produce energy with little discernable noise. Compared with most other ways that energy is produced, the fuel cell is a model of efficiency. But the promise of fuel cells goes far beyond these two benefits. Widespread fuel cell use will improve air quality on a global scale, create a huge global industry and millions of jobs, and make obsolete unsightly power generating stations, substations and power lines.
The theory behind fuel cells has been around since 1839; practical, operating units were developed more than thirty years ago. Intense research efforts are under way around the world to develop fuel cells that will produce electricity and power motor vehicles. An example is the ONSI Corporation's PC25 model which will generate 200-kilowatts of electricity at sea level.
Here's how the fuel ceil works: The first section is called The Fuel Processing Section. In this section low pressure natural gas (other hydrogen bearing fuels such as gasoline, propane, ethanol and diesel will also work) is combined with steam in a catalyst chamber called a reformer to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The product, called converted natural gas, goes to the next section as hydrogen rich fuel.
The second section is called The Fuel Cell Power Section. Here, hydrogen rich fuel from the first stage chemically reacts with oxygen from the air in a second catalytic "battery." The "battery" is actually a stack of anode and cathode plates that use phosphoric acid as the electrolyte. This reaction produces direct electric current and water vapor. The fuel that has not reacted plus the steam from the reaction process is recycled back to the Fuel Processing Section. Continuous cycling occurs. Excess heat also passes through a heat exchanger and can be used for water or space heating. That is not being done in the Durango test situation.
The third section is the Power Conditioner Section. This section uses transistorized electronic circuits to convert the direct electric (DC) current into standard alternating current (AC), the kind that is found in conventional electric grid systems. The third section also includes a microprocessor control system that enables the fuel cell to operate connected into an electric utility grid or as a stand-alone electric generator.
Fuel cell benefits are numerous: When fuel cells generate electric power they produce few (depending on the type of fuel cell and the energy source used) emissions compared to the conventional methods. Autos powered by fuel cells would have low-level exhaust emissions. In the United States, fuel cell use would decrease oil imports, reduce the trade deficit and create jobs.
If you add in the quietness, efficiency and over-all air quality benefits, it is no wonder that the race to develop fuel cells has become an international competition. Substantial markets and profits await the winners of this race.
Fort Lewis College (FLC) in Durango, Colorado, was chosen as the site for a year long test of an ON SI PC25 by the local cooperative utility, La Plata Electric Association (LPEA). LPEA chose FLC because the college long has been recognized for its willingness to try new approaches to education. By having a fuel ceil unit on campus, professors and students in several departments can gain first-hand information about this leading-edge technology.
The cooperation between FLC and LPEA has been exceptional, according to Mark Schwantes, LPEA's chief engineer. "This is a great opportunity to get chemistry [engineering] and physics faculty and their students [involved]," Schwantes said. There will be sociological and psychological implications, which means that those disciplines could become involved, too.
The unit in Durango is the only one of its kind in Colorado. It is one of only 40 in the United States and 120 in the world. It represents the first time that a stationary, on-site fuel cell unit has generated electricity at such a high altitude, 6,800 feet (1,857 meters). The efficiency of the unit at the FLC altitude is one of the main factors under study. So far, the unit is producing about 150 kilowatts, a decrease of 25 percent from the sea-level output.
Fine-tuning the FLC/LPEA experimental unit at its high altitude site has been a challenge. The unit "takes a lot of handholding," according to Dan Harms, a staff engineer with LPEA. However, it soon should be as reliable as any other source of electric energy, according to Harms, once all of the fine adjustments for the site and altitude are made.
The ONSI FC25 model cost about $6QO,OO0. The unit was purchased by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The FLC/LPEA unit will generate most - if not all -of the electricity for Hesperus Hall, a classroom building near where the unit was placed. The plan calls for the fuel cell to operate twenty-four hours a day for the full year. If it shuts down for any reason, the normal electricity supply for the building will automatically take over. A unit this size normally produces enough electricity for about twenty average American households.
The electricity produced by the unit will cost about six times the LPEA's normal rate. The natural gas required to run the unit - a major operational cost - will be paid for by Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which supplies wholesale electricity to LPEA. La Plata Electric paid the installation costs and will assume additional costs. The college will pay the standard LPEA rate for the electricity the unit produces.
The leadership at LPEA applied for the demonstration unit because the LPEA board of directors and the LPEA management team want to keep the utility at the forefront of electric energy generation development.
"We've been trying to be on the leading edge of technology for several years," LPEA general manager Dave Potter said at a recent news conference. As he spoke, the unit was a few feet away, quietly producing electricity. "I think it is the power source of the 21st century," Potter added.
LPEA's territory includes significant mountain terrain and remote users. Building and maintaining transmission lines over such terrain to one - or even a few - users is expensive. If the overall cost of buying and running fuel cell units can be brought down to competitive levels, the utility and its users - because it is user-owned - will reap the benefits. LPEA could buy the units, place them at the user's site and charge only for the electricity used, according to LPEA board member John Voelker, a retired space engineer and a firm believer in the future for fuel cell use.
There seems little doubt that costs for conventional fuels for electric generation and for fossil fuels, overall, will rise as demands increase and supplies-eventually- decline. Just as surely, the cost of fuel cell units of all kinds and sizes will come down, as the demand for them increases and as the technology improves. The time will come when the fuel ceils will be more than cost competitive with the older energy sources.
That is just what Fort Lewis College and La Plata Electric Association are banking on as they experiment throughout the next year with the ONSI unit. When the test year is up, the unit's owners, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, will place the unit in Alaska to determine how it operates under the temperature extremes of the Far North.
Meanwhile, the ONSI fuel cell electric generating unit performs its role by providing educational opportunities, experimental data and electricity for this innovative liberal arts college, which just happens to be located in a community that attracts tourists from around the world for its 19th century narrow gauge train and to the ancient cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park just a few miles to the west of town. Appropriately, Durango and Fort Lewis College are located near one of the world's largest natural gas fields.