Anyone who has read this blog for a while knows that I’m a fan of hydrogen and fuel cells for providing clean power for cars, large businesses and small electronic devices. Fuel cells are like batteries though they last longer and don’t need to be recharged like rechargeable batteries.

PowerTrekk has come up with a small fuel cell backup power gizmo that will power your small electronic device immediately. The advantage of the PowerTrekk fuel cell is that it is small, lightweight, can be quickly refilled and can power any USB device.

This means that cell phones, GPS devices, cameras, laptops and many more electronics can receive power even when you are off-grid and don’t have access to an electrical outlet. If you have a solar charger, well those don’t work well at night plus they take much longer to charge an electronic device.

Disposal of batteries is not the greenest action you can take. The only byproduct of these fuel cells is a little water vapor. So, if you’re thinking what you can do to go green when off-grid fuel cell power such as this device from PowerTrekk is the way to go. So, go on now. Go away (into the wild green yonder).

This will be a multi-year demonstration of the zero emissions capability of this stationary fuel cell located approximately 44 miles north of Akron, Ohio. The purpose of the fuel cell is to provide peak energy to homes and businesses cleanly especially during hot summer months when homeowners and businesses alike are running air conditioning, lights and other machines and appliances that are a drain to electricity supplies.

Peak energy for a power company is also the time where most pollution is generated by either coal or natural gas. So, having this utility scale hydrogen fuel cell supplying power to the peak load for the utility company will do double duty in cutting emissions.

Look more an increasing number of stationary utility scale hydrogen fuel cells to be coming onto the market in the near future.

According to John D. Sutter of CNN, “Meanwhile, some schools that train the green-collar work force are billing their programs as near-guaranteed ways to find stable jobs. Sidney Bolfing, chairman of the Texas Renewable Energy Education Consortium, an association of community colleges, said nearly 100 percent of his graduates find jobs in the fuel-cell industry — many before graduation … He hopes that the standard list of childhood dream jobs — astronaut, firefighter, police officer — soon will include things like wind technician and fuel-cell engineer.”

Okay, so if a person wants to train or retrain for a career in fuel cells, whether it is in engineering, CAD design, robotics, manufacturing or technical writing, where does one turn to get an education? Oddly enough, our own U. S. DOE (Department of Energy) website is a good resource as a person can search by institution, state, researchers or by topic.

Also, once you get your degree, how do you find a job in fuel cells? There are two quality sources of information that I’ve found that will get you started including Fuel Cell 2000 and FuelCellJobs.com (imagine that). The first resource will point to other top resources and the second is a job placement service in this specific niche industry. Of course, Monster and Hot Jobs is always another way to go.

A lot of people think fuel cells are just about hydrogen cars. But, the fastest growing segment is fuel cells to power small electronic devices like laptops, digital cameras and cell phones. So, if you have big dreams about going into fuel cells, think small and get some training today. Fuel cells will drive our tomorrow.

The fuel cell components include a water reservoir, a metal hydride chamber, a thin membrane separating the two and an assembly of electrodes. So, basically a small amount of water is used as fuel. This water is split into its components of hydrogen and oxygen by the metal hydride chamber.

The hydrogen and oxygen gases then pass over the electrodes where an electrical charge is created. As the hydrogen reaction drops, just add water to keep the fuel cell going. This tiny fuel cell is a zero emissions, zero gravity device as it uses surface tension to control the flow of water through the system.

This means that the device the fuel cell is installed inside such as a small electronic gadget, can be flipped, turned and tossed about with no ill effects. Since small fuel cells pack 3 to 10 times the energy density of lithium ion batteries, one can expect laptops, cell phones and iPods over the next couple of years to make the conversion to this very green power source.

In fact, Hammond says the new layer-by-layer assembly technique is what makes the MIT fuel cell superior to Dupont’s Nafion. This type of nanotechnology makes the MIT DMFC less permeable to methanol leakage.

Methanol is a fuel favored in many portable devices since it has a high energy density and can be used directly instead of being reformed into hydrogen then run through a PEM fuel cell. Methanol is a liquid and is easier to handle than hydrogen gas, is arguably safer and the only waste is water and a small amount of CO2.

The thin film assembly technology that MIT has developed will not only be useful as a replacement for current battery technology, but the researchers are also examining its use for the photovoltaic industry as well.

But, hydrogen fuel cells (often called proton exchange membrane or PEM fuel cells) have come a long way since then in both the mobile and stationary marketplace. For instance, developing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle used to cost the large automakers several million dollars apiece. Now, the prices are considerably lower. In fact, there is a fuel cell bus in the UK being developed that is expected to cost around $190,000 when it rolls out.

The price of stationary hydrogen fuel cells has also come down considerably. Sure, you may still spend several hundred thousand dollars or more for a stationary fuel cell to power your corporate data center. But, smaller portable stationary hydrogen fuel cells are also starting to make headway in the market. Fuel cells for laptops, cell phones and other small electronic devices keep rolling out right and left.

For the emergency power market, Horizon and Millennium Cell have teamed up to rollout a portable hydrogen fuel cell for under $400. In fact, I came across this page from HiTech that lists many fuel cells from hundreds of dollars to the tens of thousands of dollars depending upon the size and application.

For the critics who keep saying that hydrogen fuel cells are too expensive, it’s time to take another look. The price of hydrogen fuel cells keeps falling and their scope is widening. In the future, your home, car, cell phone, laptop and all portable devices just may be powered by hydrogen fuel cells. And, this will be a very clean and green future indeed.