Generators electrocuted
electricity generators and car makers, beware! Only gas suppliers can breath easy (New Scientist , Vol 152, No 2051). According to Amory Lovins, the visionary director of the Colorado (us)-based Rocky Mountain Institute, in the near future one can expect cars with a mileage of 85 km per litre which may double up as super-efficient miniature power stations when not on the move, feeding the national grid and putting big power stations out of business. This would be possible as new polymer fuel cells based on solid-state proton exchange membranes are on the verge of mass production. Early next century they will be used in powering trains, buses, cars, boats and maybe, homes.
Polymer fuel cells operate at a thermal efficiency of 60 per cent, compared to the 50 per cent efficiency of modern combined cycle gas turbine generator.a Two kg of today's most advanced batteries discharge a kilowatt (kw) of power in three minutes in battery-powered vehicles, whereas the same weight of fuel cells and methanol water fuel can generate a kw in five hours. Internal combustion engines also seem to be a casualty now. Fuel cells are four times more efficient than these engines. A fuel cell driving an electric motor converts fuel into traction twice more efficiently compared to a petrol or diesel engine on full power.
Lovins believes fuel cell-powered conventional cars, or