Fuel Cell Industry Calls For National Strategy

In an interview yesterday, Ballard Power Systems chief executive officer John Sheridan acknowledged that the industry has failed to deliver after building up expectations that the hydrogen-powered car would soon be replacing the internal combustion engine on North American highways. Last week, Ballard completed a shift in business strategy - selling off its auto-related fuel cell business to Ford and Daimler in order to focus on more commercially appealing markets in forklifts, backup power and residential use. Now Mr. Sheridan and his colleagues want Ottawa to match government efforts in the United States, Japan and Europe to ensure that an industry that was pioneered in Canada at great expense remains here through its commercial development. "We feel we are at a critical time when commercialization opportunities are in front of us," he said before boarding a plane in Vancouver for his trip east. "We feel we have an impact we can make in terms of desperately required energy technology and environmental solutions. But I don't see the government as engaged and I don't see the government as particularly supportive of what we could be doing as a sector." Ballard hasn't abandoned the automotive business entirely - it retains a 19.9-per-cent interest in the private company that the two auto giants will control. But it will no longer be required to finance the development costs, for which it had received generous tax breaks over the past 15 years, while the car makers will remain valuable customers for Ballard technology. With the auto business on the back burner, the fuel cell industry has targeted other markets, including hydrogen-powered forklifts that run longer than battery-powered ones, and backup power for critical infrastructure such as cellphone towers. Ballard is pioneering residential co-generation applications in Japan, where sky-high power prices make it profitable to use natural gas to create hydrogen, which is then used both to generate electricity and to heat water. Hydrogenics is also in the forklift business. The publicly traded company is also selling hydrogen fuel cells to wind-energy producers around the world, who use the battery-like cell to store power that is generated intermittently by the windmills. Hydrogenics chief executive officer Daryl Wilson said the industry is hoping Ottawa will follow the lead of major competitors to provide tax credits that encourage power users to buy hydrogen fuel cells. "It's important for this country to support this technology," Mr. Wilson said. "We've gone a long way with good support from the government and now as we move into the commercialization phase, we need an overall strategy for hydrogen in Canada." ... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071113.wrhydrogen13/BNStory/energy/

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