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Colorado Wants to Be World's Fuel-Cell Capital
State government plans to funnel Federal seed money to encourage the
emerging fuel cell industry to locate its core at the Colorado School of Mines.
Adapted from the Rocky Mountain News
by Sterling
D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News
GOLDEN, CO, USA
Thinking of the potential economic boost a breakthrough technology will provide
the state where the first successful small firms put down roots, and later grow
into large firms, the government of Colorado is looking at ways to funnel funds
to bolster the cell fuel research and development already under way within its
borders.
According to the Rocky Mountain News, the
state will chip in $2 million from federal grants as seed money for a proposed
Colorado Fuel Cell Research Center, to be located at the Colorado School of
Mines. Backers will try to raise another $10 million to jumpstart operations,
with the first step likely to be bringing in a small cadre of top scientists to
staff a core lab.
"It will be a collaboration between the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, the Gas Technology Institute, the state of Colorado and private
companies."
An opinion piece stated, "High-tech firms like to go where the action and
the traffic already are. That Colorado is already home to the National Renewable
Energy Laboratories is a big plus."
They hope to attract more than 100 top scientists and researchers to the
center.
"We have a grand vision: This center will be to fuel cells what Stanford
University was to semiconductors," said W. Grover Coors of Boulder- based
CoorsTek Inc. - a technology firm that will participate in the center.
"The research center will have the intellectual and academic critical
mass to make Colorado a pioneer in fuel-cell technology."
The center would compete with European and Asian countries, especially Germany,
Denmark and Japan, that are furiously working on advancing fuel cell technology,
Coors said (Rocky Mountain News).
According to CoolScienceStuff.com:
"In principle, a fuel cell operates like a battery. It supplies
electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen electrochemically without
combustion. Unlike a battery, a fuel cell does not run down or require
recharging. It will produce energy in the form of electricity and heat as long
as fuel is supplied. The only waste is pure, drinkable water. A fuel cell
consists of two electrodes sandwiched around an electrolyte. Oxygen passes
over one electrode and hydrogen over the other, generating electricity, water,
and heat."
The Rocky Mountain News further reports that plans for the fuel-cell
center were announced recently at the governor's technology summit; and that
last week Greenwood Village-based Webcom, publisher of specialized technology
magazines, including Fuel Cell, followed up with a two-day conference at
the Denver Tech Center on fuel-cell applications and technology. "It
focused on how companies can bootstrap themselves from small markets in which
they are already commercially viable into huge ones where they compete with
existing energy systems."
The conference compared the emergence of the fuel cell industry to the emergence
of the personal computer in a mainframe dominated industry. "As
personal computers got cheaper and better, of course, they eventually conquered
a lot of mainframe turf."
The Rocky Mountain News opinion piece concludes: "If something
similar happens with fuel cells, Colorado wants to be in at the start."
SOURCES
"Colorado aspires to be world's fuel-cell capital"
(June 5, 2004)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_2940401,00.html
"Fuel-cell future belongs at Mines"
(Opinion; June 13, 2004)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_2955464,00.html
http://www.mines.edu
http://www.coolsciencestuff.com/Fuelcells.html
Follow-up Coverage
- Colorado
Finalizes Fuel Cell Research Center Plans - While fuel cell
technology is proven, considerable research and development remains to be
tackled before it's adopted at a wider, mainstream level throughout the U.S.
The federal government is one of... (April, 2005)
See also
Page composed by Sterling
D. Allan June 13, 2004
Last updated July 16, 2005
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