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I love starting threads, and I love pingin' you. Here's an oldie:

Researchers Succeed In Fueling Up
by Jane Brooks
The principle behind fuel cells is not new-it was discovered in 1839... Basically, a fuel cell is a device-think of it as a high-tech battery-that converts the energy of a fuel (hydrogen, natural gas, etc.) and an oxidant (air or oxygen) into useable electricity... There are no moving parts and it produces little noise. Unlike traditional combustion engines that currently dominate the energy market, fuel cells do not produce any particulate matter, nitrogen or sulfur oxides; when fueled by pure hydrogen, they have only heat and water as by-products... To date, hydrogen has been the conventional fuel for a fuel cell. But practical generation and storage of hydrogen has been a problem-it's expensive and inefficient. The model developed by Gorte's team aims to get around this dilemma... Previous attempts to use hydrocarbon fuels to run a solid-oxide fuel cell failed because the electrochemical process that generates electricity caused a buildup of carbon, which ruined the cell. In a solid-oxide fuel cell, oxygen anions are transported through an oxide membrane and react with the fuel at the anode... The Penn researchers were looking for an anode material that did not result in fouling... Eventually, they settled on a composite of copper and ceria. Ceria is an important catalytic component of automotive catalysis, which is why the researchers focused on its properties... Says Gorte, "Running a car is a transient process and you've got to have a pretty big fuel cell to power it, something on the order of 50kw as opposed to a 5kw cell to power a house, for instance." ...At least one major automotive manufacturer is seriously studying this technology... Their work has generated a great deal of excitement and was touted in Nature magazine (3/16/00). Professor Gorte has been interviewed by MSNBC.

I would have used the MSNBC story, but it's on the List and I don't want FR to pull the thread. ;')

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent

"Running a car is a transient process and you've got to have a pretty big fuel cell to power it, something on the order of 50kw as opposed to a 5kw cell to power a house, for instance."

BS ALERT!!! BS ALERT!!

Not true. The fuel cell only needs to be big enough to provide power sufficient to provide maximum estimated desired continuous speed. "Transient processes" (passing acceleration) will be handled by a BATTERY, which will be charged by the fuel cell during periods when the car is running at less than maximum cruise speed.