Archive for September 7th, 2010

Fuel cell development is a bit of an iceberg: a little bit is lurking above the surface for anyone who pays attention to business or tech news, but at this point, most of the development is still deep underwater, in the labs and R&D departments of a few very brave companies capable of working with very long-term business plans. The appeal of fuel cell technology is fairly obvious: fuel cell-generated energy is clean, quiet, non-toxic and fantastically renewable. In the case of hydrogen fuel cells, the fuel (hydrogen) can be extracted from water, and the oxidant (oxygen) can come from air. Ultimately, when consumer fuel cell technology is mass-produced and commercialized, it will be an inexpensive, renewable and non-polluting source of energy. Read the rest of this entry »

The DOE is granting $122 million over 5 years to create the Energy-Efficient Building Systems Design Hub to be led by a team from Penn State and will be located at the Philadelphia Navy Yard Clean Energy campus. Bringing together researchers from academia, two U.S. National Labs, and the private sector, the Energy Innovation Hub’s mission is to “research, develop and demonstrate highly efficient building components, systems, and models which are applicable to both retrofit and new construction.” Read the rest of this entry »