The Hydrogen Economy: Point-counterpoint
This weekend I stumbled upon (thanks to Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Investor) an interesting debate being carried out in the editorial pages of the Vancouver Sun, discussing the overall potential of the "hydrogen economy."
On the one hand, Jon Hykawy (the Director of Technology Research at Fraser Mackenzie, a Canadian investment bank) argues that "hydrogen is too expensive to become a useful fuel in our modern world". He even goes so far as to make a strongly-implied suggestion that government funding for hydrogen-focused technologies be directed elsewhere.
This was followed a week later by a response from Dennis Campbell, the CEO of Ballard Power, who shoots back that "investing in hydrogen and fuel cell commercialization is a 'no brainer'..." (note: opens a PDF from the Ballard website).
For those interested in the ongoing debate about the hydrogen economy and hydrogen-fueled fuel cells, these two short opinion pieces are a great resource, simply and clearly laying out the arguments that both sides of the debate tend to use.
...It's also interesting to take note of a couple of sub-plots. First of all, as a research analyst with Fraser Mackenzie, Hykawy covers Ballard. Here's a pdf of one of his recent research reports. Ouch. Secondly, while assailing PEM fuel cells as having a long way to go before broad commercialization, and PEM-based companies like Ballard for not having strong financial returns (a criterion he cites for government funding), it's interesting to see that Hykawy seems to feel just as strongly -- but in this case, positively -- about solid oxide fuel cell companies (see here a pdf of one of his recent research reports on Fuel Cell Technologies... interested readers might want to dig into his economic analysis, it's enlightening).
On the one hand, Jon Hykawy (the Director of Technology Research at Fraser Mackenzie, a Canadian investment bank) argues that "hydrogen is too expensive to become a useful fuel in our modern world". He even goes so far as to make a strongly-implied suggestion that government funding for hydrogen-focused technologies be directed elsewhere.
This was followed a week later by a response from Dennis Campbell, the CEO of Ballard Power, who shoots back that "investing in hydrogen and fuel cell commercialization is a 'no brainer'..." (note: opens a PDF from the Ballard website).
For those interested in the ongoing debate about the hydrogen economy and hydrogen-fueled fuel cells, these two short opinion pieces are a great resource, simply and clearly laying out the arguments that both sides of the debate tend to use.
...It's also interesting to take note of a couple of sub-plots. First of all, as a research analyst with Fraser Mackenzie, Hykawy covers Ballard. Here's a pdf of one of his recent research reports. Ouch. Secondly, while assailing PEM fuel cells as having a long way to go before broad commercialization, and PEM-based companies like Ballard for not having strong financial returns (a criterion he cites for government funding), it's interesting to see that Hykawy seems to feel just as strongly -- but in this case, positively -- about solid oxide fuel cell companies (see here a pdf of one of his recent research reports on Fuel Cell Technologies... interested readers might want to dig into his economic analysis, it's enlightening).
posted by Rob Day at 7:10 PM
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