Affordable fuel cell-powered cars and trucks are still some 15 years away and they represent the fuel cell industry’s greatest challenge, said experts at a Calgary conference.

Other fuel cell applications will likely be commercialized before mass-produced fuel cell vehicles are available in auto showrooms, speakers told the 2003 Canadian Fuel Cell Systems Symposium, held at the University of Calgary.

They said that within the next one to five years, consumers can expect to see fuel cells in applications ranging from portable electronics and generators to residential furnaces and industrial power plants. But widespread use of fuel cells in vehicles now appears unlikely until at least 2010 to 2020, said Viola Birss, a symposium organizer, fuel cells researcher and U of C chemistry professor.

“There are still some really serious barriers, in terms of costs and materials and how long they will last,” she said in an interview.

“It’s going to happen,” Birss added. “It’s just going to take a little longer than we thought.”

The fuel cell industry will be worth $46 billion worldwide by 2011, and create 140,000 direct and indirect jobs in the North American industry alone, according to a study last year by Fuel Cells Canada and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

However, “transportation is really the biggest hurdle to climb,” especially in terms of reducing the technology’s costs, Charles Stone, vice-president of research and development at Vancouver-based Ballard Power Systems, told the symposium.

Using current technologies, a mass-produced fuel cell propulsion system for a family car would cost more than $37,000, or about 10 times more than an internal combustion engine, according to a recent General Motors estimate.

Stone noted that Ballard aims to cut in half the costs of its technology, which will require huge technological advances over the next decade. “But I think it is doable,” he said.

Speakers identified several barriers to faster and cheaper commercialization of fuel cell technologies.

They include:

* technological hurdles * high R&D costs
* a depressed market discouraging potential investors
* lack of co-operation and co-ordination of R&D efforts among companies, governments and countries
* strong competition from continuously improving conventional and alternative technologies, from diesel engines to wind turbines.

Lack of planning for commercialization means a lot of ideas that look good in the laboratory die before they reach the market, said Kenneth Browall, chief technologist for General Electric Global Research. Commercial prototypes, Browall said, “are built almost as an afterthought and kind of late in the game.”

Steve Holdcroft, professor at the National Research Council Innovation Centre at Simon Fraser University, said long-term funding for fundamental fuel cell research at universities is difficult to obtain from either governments or companies. Major government granting agencies, under increasing pressure to quickly turn concepts into products, “are forgetting the long-term research (required) for the out-of-the-box thinking,” Holdcroft said.

Fierce competition among fuel cell companies, including a frenzy to secure patent protection for their developments, also stymies co-operation on solving big technological challenges – such as getting more hydrogen fuel onboard vehicles.

Ballard has decided to cross-license some of its core technologies to help speed development, Stone said. Hydrogen fuel for fuel cells can be produced from natural gas carried aboard vehicles or from pure hydrogen. The latter route would require development of a hydrogen-refueling infrastructure costing multi-billions of dollars.

Compressed-gas technology, utilized by more than 500,000 natural gas-powered vehicles in the world, will be a safe, reliable way to supply hydrogen fuel for vehicles, Don Fraser, business manager of Dynetek Industries Ltd., told the symposium.

The Calgary company is supplying its lightweight compressed-hydrogen fuel storage cylinders to Ford Motor Co. for its prototype Focus Fuel Cell Vehicles.

Dynetek is also testing hydrogen refuelling station systems that can fill a car in 70 seconds and is developing large tanks that can be filled in two to three minutes – comparable with conventional gasoline-based technology, Fraser said.

Challenges include getting enough compressed hydrogen onboard vehicles, preventing the gas from leaking through tanks, and developing manufacturing codes and safety standards.

In April, governments and industry plan to release a “road map” towards commercializing Canada’s fuel cell technologies. The map, developed over the past year, will link Canada’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gases under the Kyoto accord with putting the country’s fuel cell technologies on a faster track to market.

The document will recommend ways to stimulate early market demand for fuel cell products, improve quality while reducing costs, encourage more financing and create supporting infrastructure for the industry.

“We want all governments to put their money where their mouth is,” said Annie Desgagne, senior commerce officer with Industry Canada who helped draw up the road map.

Alberta, whose fuel cell players also include Global Thermoelectric Inc. and the Alberta Research Council, is well positioned to capitalize on society’s desire use more environmentally friendly technology, Desgagne said. “I think we see a growing fuel cell cluster here, and a critical one in Canada.”

The three-day Calgary symposium, held at the end of February, attracted more than 200 delegates from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.