Question:
Please tell us about yourself, and your roles in fuel cell 2000 and the US Fuel Cell Council.

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I am a mechanical engineer by training and spent my early career working for a government municipality in an advanced technology area; it was there I became involved with fuel cells. Currently I'm the technical director of the US Fuel Cell Council (USFCC) and Fuel Cells 2000, as well as very involved with several standards writing committees. The USFCC is an industry association dedicated to the commercialization of fuel cells in the United States. We have members from all over the world, such as Nissan from Japan, Ballard from Canada, and Daimler-Chrysler from Germany. The only real requirement for membership is to share the mission of commercializing fuel cells in the US. I run the 5 (soon to be 6) working groups for the USFCC, and they meet monthly to talk about whatever the members want. Each working group is given a budget to do studies, hire consultants, develop software, and go to various seminars and set up booths to educate people about fuel cells.

Fuel Cells 2000 is a project of the Breakthrough Technologies Institute, which is a non-profit organization. Generally, what we do is try to get the word out regarding fuel cells and their application in clean energy and transportation.

Question:
Please tell us about fuel cell technology in the US.

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There was a time period when the fuel cell community was essentially focused on space work (primarily the work of NASA), and a hydrogen community grew out of that space work. This group of hydrogen technologists was led by the National Hydrogen Association, which eventually became very involved in fuel cells and other hydrogen technologies. They also became involved with the Fuel Cell Seminar that had been originated by the Department of Energy. The US Department of Energy (DOE), in my mind, got on board the fuel cell movement as a follow-on to the NASA work, and was trying to bring the fuel cell technology from space applications to terrestrial applications, whether for transportation, stationary or portable.