Demo home, lab finding may boost fuel cells

The vast potential of fuel
cells to produce abundant, clean energy has come
closer to fruition this month with two important
breakthroughs in Colorado.

By Steve Raabe
Denver Post Business Writer

At the metro Denver Parade of Homes, a fuel cell is
generating electrical power for a $1.7 million mansion
in Douglas County.

A few miles north, in a Jefferson County laboratory,
scientists have found a way to power fuel cells with the
energy from pecan shells, wood chips and coconut
shells.

The Douglas County showhome is the first residence in
Colorado – and among the first in the nation – to use
electrical power from a fuel cell.

The Jefferson County discovery marks one of the first
times in the world that waste products have been
converted to clean energy using a fuel cell.

"I think it’s significant," said John Scahill, a senior
engineer with the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory in Golden. "We’re on our way to making
fuel-cell technology happen."

Scientists predict that within the next decade, fuel cells
will be used to power cars and supply electricity for
homes, offices and factories.

The devices may be especially well suited to homes in
remote locations, or undeveloped countries, where the
cost of running power lines is prohibitive.

But with widespread use of fuel cells limited by their
own current high cost, most existing uses are
demonstration projects such as the Parade of Homes
and the experiment conducted by Jefferson County
firms Ascent Power Systems and Community Power
Corp.

"This is a prototype and it’s not yet economical," said
Rick Grice, executive director of the Colorado
Governor’s Office of Energy Management and
Conservation, one of the sponsors of the fuel cell used
at the Miller Burton Homes Inc. entry at the Parade of
Homes.

Fuel cells can cost as much as $1,600 to $4,500 a
kilowatt, while fossil-fueled generators can produce
power for as little as $35 a kilowatt.

Like other emerging technologies, costs will diminish
and efficiencies will increase, experts say.

Fuel cells use a chemical process to convert hydrogen
to electricity, with little or no pollution.

The hydrogen can be obtained from many sources,
including conventional fuels such as gasoline, natural
gas and propane.

But the magic of fuel cells is that the petroleum-based
fuels aren’t burned, as they would be to create
conventional power.

The fuel cells extract hydrogen from the fossil fuels,
create electricity, and leave by-products of only heat
and water vapor.

In some fuel-cell uses, the resulting heat can be
captured to warm buildings or to heat water.

The Jefferson County experiment is considered a
breakthrough because it uses a type of fuel cell that
can more effectively strip away the unneeded carbon
from hydrocarbon fuel sources such as forest and
agricultural waste.

Community Power Corp. previously created a system
to use coconut shells as a power source in the
Philippines. But the system involved burning the
shell-derived gas, unlike a fuel cell, in which no
combustion takes place.

The Parade of Homes fuel cell uses natural gas, from
which hydrogen can be easily separated.

Partners in that project include Xcel Energy, Built
Green Colorado, the city and county of Denver,
Intermountain Rural Electric Association and Plug
Power Inc.

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