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Fuel cells have been commercially available since the 1960s, though they were mostly confined to space program applications then. Automobile manufacturers have
by philipkglass 7y ago
Fuel cells have been commercially available since the 1960s, though they were mostly confined to space program applications then.
Automobile manufacturers have produced small numbers of fuel cell vehicles since the turn of the millennium:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell_vehicle#List_of_models_produced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell_vehicle#List_of_mode...
I'm not making claims about the actual merits of fuel cells, mind you. But claiming they're further out than fusion is bizarre. Some people are driving them around today. Nobody is generating net power from fusion today.
- ThomPete 7y agoThere are many types of fuel cells. I am talking about the kind of fuel cells which can be used by wind and solar to store energy and distributed economically feasible. We are not even close to that. If you know of anything, by all means, please let me know as the group I am part of would invest in it in a heart beat.
- philipkglass 7y agoI am talking about the kind of fuel cells which can be used by wind and solar to store energy and distributed economically feasible. I don't know of anything like that either. Small fuel cells rely on expensive precious metal catalysts and large ones have too much capacity to be a good match for the distributed generation sector. A technology that is commercially available but too expensive at present for large scale adoption, like fuel cells, is more mature than a technology that hasn't been demonstrated even in a cost-is-no-object context. That's why it's strange to hear fuel cells described as even further out than fusion power.
- ThomPete 7y agoAgain no. Fuel cells that can be used for wind and solar to store their energy isn't close at all it's not just cost it's also the physics.