These silent, zero-emission gadgets have long been used in NASA spacecraft. They represent the great hope of many environmentalists to power the first mass-produced electric car. While batteries alone haven't supplied the performance most drivers want, proponents believe that fuel cells, probably combined with batteries, hold the promise of performance, range and better mileage compared with today's internal combustion engines. The size and weight of fuel cells have always been problems. New fuel-cell technology promises to solve those issues.
Fuel cells can use various sources of hydrogen, including a simple tank of compressed gas.
But methanol, a liquid usually produced from natural gas, is a much more efficient way to store hydrogen. The direct method, which could be available commercially in five or six years, would use different, lighter stacks of plates that eliminate the need for a reformer. Thus, the proposed next generation of fuel cells could be smaller, lighter and more adaptable. Marsh envisions fuel cells in lawn mowers, snow-blowers, jet skis and other mobile devices which now contribute to noise and air pollution, and which don't run well on batteries. A lap-top computer, for instance, could work much longer on a tiny fuel cell than on rechargeable batteries.