At last weekends Lucerne Fuel Cell Conference, which is a highly
respected technical conference, Ulf Bossel, the organizer, made a
pretty signinficant announcement: the European PEMFC Forum series will
not be continued because hydrogen fuel will never contribute to a
sustainable world. Instead they will focus on phosphoric acid fuel
cells, molten carbonate fuel cells and solid oxide fuel cells which
"can meet the challenges of a sustainable future".

Here is the entire announcement which was attached to the proceedings
of the conference:
-------------------------------------------
Announcement
Lucerne Fuel Cell Forum
2-6 July 2007, Lucerne / Switzerland

Fuel cells are energy converters, not energy sources. They will be
part of a sustainable energy solution only if they can compete with
other conversion technologies. This includes system parameters, fuels
and applications. Time has come for a critical assessment.

We need fuel cells for available fuels, not synthetic fuels for new
fuel cells. Natural gas and oil-derived liquid hydrocarbons will be
around for many years. However, their use will be restricted by costs,
environmental concerns or even political reasons. Sustainable
hydrocarbons like bio-methane, bio-ethanol and bio-methanol from
organic waste, wood or farming are already replacing fuels of fossil
origin. Hydrocarbon fuels will be important forever and so will fuel
cells capable of directly converting these fuels into electricity.

The impressive performance of phosphoric acid, molten carbonate and
solid oxide fuel cells clearly indicates that these fuel cell families
can meet the challenges of a sustainable future. Some of these fuel
cells have reached 65,000 hours of operation with the first stack and
natural gas or bio-methane.

It is highly uncertain that synthetic hydrogen can ever be established
as a universal energy carries. Electricity from renewable sources will
be the source energy in a sustainably organized future. The direct
distribution of electricity to the consumer is three to four times
more efficient than its conversion to hydrogen by electrolysis of
water, packaging and transport of synthetic energy carrier to the
consumer and its conversion back to electricity with efficient fuel
cells. By laws of physics, hydrogen economy can never compete with an
"electron economy".

But the laws of physics cannot be changed with further research,
investments or political decisions. A sustainable future energy
harvested from renewable sources (nuclear energy is not sustainable!)
must be distributed and used with the highest efficiency. A wasteful
hydrogen economy does not meet the criteria of sustainability. As a
result, a viable free-market hydrogen infrastructure will never be
established and fuel cells for hydrogen may not be needed. For all
applications electricity from hydrogen fuel cells have to compete with
the source electricity used to make hydrogen.

The European Fuel Cell Forum is committed to the establishment of a
safe energy future. Therefore, it will continue to promote fuel cells
for sustainable fuels, but discontinue supporting the development of
fuel cells for hypothetical fuel supplies. Time has come for
decisions. Keeping all options open is not an adequate response to
mounting energy problems.

Therefore, the schedule of the European SOFC Forum will be continued
in 2008 with an extended conference every second year. Beginning 2007
(July 2 to 6) sustainable energy topics will be emphasized in odd
years. Despite earlier announcements the European PEFC Forum series
will not be continued.

I would like to thank all who have contributed to establish the
European PEFC Forum. You and your colleagues have developed a
magnificent technology, but the fuel needed to make it work is not
offered by nature. We cannot solve the energy problem by wasting
energy. The laws of physics speak against a hydrogen economy. Physics
cannot be replaced by wishful thinking, or changed by presidential
initiatives, research programs and venture capital.

Solutions must be implemented soon as long as resources are available
for this most challenging task. I sincerely hope that this
announcement will be accepted as a constructive contribution to the
ongoing energy debate.

Ulf Bossel, Ph.D.
-----------------------

Ben
Kingston, ON