Sample News Story
Japanese Companies Begin to Take Fuel Cells Seriously
28/10/1999
Petroleum and gas companies are manoeuvring to exploit the development of fuel cell technology for domestic use. They are putting their efforts into providing small co-generation systems, believing that the development work on fuel-cell-powered vehicles will bring down the price of fuel cells. The front-runners are Tokyo Gas and Osaka Gas and a consortium of LPG suppliers which has formed an “LPG Fuel Cell Promotion Consortium.”
Testing Tokyo Gas has started tests using a variety of equipment – some developed in-house and some using third-party technology, including that of Siemens. The company intends to identify the most promising technologies and start tests on prototype models in 2001, in preparation for commercial production and marketing. Osaka Gas is following a similar route: it has tests under way and aims to have commercial systems in practical use early in the next century.
LPG later? The LPG Fuel Cell Promotion Consortium aims to work on ways of developing and promoting LPG fuel cells, with a target for commercial development in about ten years.
Editor’s note: The fuel for fuel cells is hydrogen; petroleum and coal gases can provide sources of hydrogen but methane is generally preferred to other sources because it has the highest hydrogen proportion of all hydrocarbons.