Alternative Energy Corp. (AEC, Burlington, Ontario, Canada) announced that it has purchased technology that will enable the company to offer safe and affordable hydrogen to fuel cell vehicle owners all over the world. AEC's inexpensive hydrogen technology is expected to help make hydrogen-fueled engines outperform in safety and affordability.
The company's technology, which saw its first successful fuel cell testing last week, submerges a number of its specialized fuel plates in water to create the affordable hydrogen. The system is designed to produce the hydrogen only when the fuel cell requires it. Effectively, the hydrogen produced is consumed as quickly as it is made. Since there is no longer a requirement to store the hydrogen, its safety can be compared more closely to a typical car battery versus that of a high-pressure propane tank in a car trunk.
In addition, though the hydrogen production unit has yet to be tested on a fuel cell vehicle (except a golf cart), engineering estimates indicate the plates to have outstanding longevity. Because the attrition rate of the on-board plates is very small, the frequency of "re-fueling" is greatly reduced and is more comparable to a quarterly oil change versus a weekly fill-up.
