A Midwest company is producing a generator it says will revolutionize the way large electric consumers get power. While the company is hailing the generator as the next big thing, it is getting mixed reviews from industry analysts and environmentalists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
A Midwest Company is producing a generator it says will revolutionize the way large electric
consumers get power. While the company is hailing the generator as the next big thing, it is getting
mixed reviews from industry analysts and environmentalists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Jonathan Ahl reports:
(sound OF the fuel cell)
Engineer Steve Brown is showing off a generator that can be the primary power source for an entire
hospital, prison, factory complex, or any other multi building facility. It’s a 250-kilowatt fuel cell
generator that’s as big as a one-car garage. It’s currently running at Caterpillar’s Research Center
just outside of Peoria, Illinois. The generator works by extracting the hydrogen from natural gas
and converting it into electricity. Brown says the only emissions from the unit are heat, water, and
carbon dioxide. He says the unit can also use that heat for other purposes, making a generator that
is up to ninety percent efficient:
“That means ninety percent of the heat, the potential heat in the natural gas has been converted into
useful energy and only ten percent is exhausted to the atmosphere. That’s sexy. It is, compared to
the typical internal combustion engine is in the high teens. And all the rest goes to waste and just
heats up the atmosphere.”
Brown says this unit can eliminate large electric consumers’ need to be hooked up to the power
grid. Peoria, Illinois based Caterpillar and Danbury, Connecticut based Fuel Cell Energy
Incorporated are manufacturing the generators. They say there is a growing market for reliable
power. They also say the generators are better for the environment than coal or oil fired power
plants. John Leitman is the president of Fuel Cell Energy:
“The fuel cell here generates electricity just like a large battery, except with a fuel cell, you can keep
feeding it fuel and air and it will keep generating electricity, very cleanly.”
Leitman says the generator will also be easily convertible to a pure hydrogen power generation unit
if that technology becomes available. But some environmentalists are not as excited about the
generators potential. Chris Johnson is a spokesman for the Illinois Public Interest Research Group,
a public policy advocacy group that focuses on the environment. He says fuel cell power
generators are a step in the right direction. But he says since this generator uses natural gas instead
of pure hydrogen to create electricity, it’s not a long-term answer to the nation’s energy problems:
“In other words, we’re sort of losing energy. It’s becoming less efficient, and in that sense we are
also having more CO-2 emissions in the long run. Also with natural gas emitting heat and CO-2,
Carbon dioxide is a huge cause of global warming.”
Johnson does concede that fuel cells are better for the environment than coal- and oil-based power
plants. But he also says fuel cells will not reach their full potential until they run off more basic
forms of hydrogen. The generators are also meeting some skepticism from the power generation
industry.
“I think fuel cells are everyone’s Holy Grail of engine power.”
Mike Osenga is the publisher of Diesel Progress Magazine, an engine and power generation trade
publication. He says such generators show promise, but also have a lot to prove:
“There hasn’t been long term testing, a lot of the engineering still needs to be done, and it’s still a
technology that has to prove itself, but it certainly seems to have some potential compared to some
of the other technologies people are considering.”
Osenga says the other issue is money. Using such a generator costs at least three cents more per
kilowatt-hour than taking the power from the local utility company. But Caterpillar and Fuel Cell
Energy are hoping customers will think the cost is worth it to have a more reliable power source.
Rich Thompson is a group president at Caterpillar. He says in light of the major blackout this past
summer, the industry is moving toward what he calls distributed power generation.
“A term you are going to hear more and more frequently, because distributed generation is the key
answer and the rapid answer to strengthening our national grid. And that is going to happen
following the northeast blackout.”
Thompson also says Caterpillar is lobbying Congress to give the company tax subsidies that other
cleaner power providers receive. That could make the fuel cell generators almost even in cost with
traditional utility power.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.