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Article: Opportunities and challenges.(editorial)(Editorial)
- Article from:
- Mechanical Engineering-CIME
- Article date:
- August 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 American Society of Mechanical Engineers. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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If physics professor-turned-lawyer Sir William Robert Grove is recognized as the "father of the fuel cell," then Francis Thomas Bacon, a century later, in the mid-1900s, became the technology's guru. Bacon shepherded the first practical application of the highly efficient, pollution-free technology into Apollo space vehicles, which used alkaline fuel cells to provide in-flight power, heat, and clean drinking water.
For a few years following their successful role in the Apollo program, fuel cells took a hiatus from the limelight. Then, about 10 years ago, the technology again was poised to be the next big thing. But in the 1990s, fossil fuel was cheap and there ...