Fuel Cells have been producing electricity for many years. Our space program has been using fuel cells to produce electricity for space flights since August of 1962.  The United States Department of Energy produced a Federal Technology Alert regarding installations of natural gas installed Fuel Cells in November 1995 (Federal Technology Alert, 1995).  These natural gas fuel cells have been operating for over 15 years and were funded by Federal dollars. The United States has an abundant Natural Gas supply to power individual fuel cells. Our natural gas supply is estimated to be between 100 and 200 years worth of energy based on current consumption rates. This sort of energy reserve with the technology to turn this into electricity efficiently should be a very high priority for the country.

Fuel cell interest recently has been increasing, primarily to a small company called Bloom Energy as featured on the 60 Minuets News program below:

If we are to believe what Bloom Energy offers, and it does not seem out of reach, then within 10 to 15 years  we should not be using the Electric Grid at all.  NoGridUSA.org would like to help bring this to fruition. Bloom Energy is not the only Fuel Cell producer in the country, United Technologies as a government sponsored research institute in the early space program, has been making fuel cells for years. A company by the name of Clear Edge Power currently sells a fuel cell for homes and businesses that is slightly less size than a refrigerator and provides electricity and heat from natural gas. General Electric, Siemins, Panasonic and others also have fuel cell research centers. So there are companies that can make fuel cells competitively for the US market.

So why aren’t fuel cells in every ones home already? It was not until just a few years ago that we found extensive sources of natural gas in our country. We went from a country that was running out of natural gas to a country with one of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world. Also, our ever changing government priorities switched from natural gas powered fuel cells, to a mandated Hydrogen Fuel Cell Initiative in 2003. The furor has died down over Hydrogen Fuel Cells although the Initiative does not end until 2015. The big problems with the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Initiative are 1) where do you get hydrogen? and 2) no Hydrogen infrastructure.  Department of Energy was working on getting the Hydrogen from Natural Gas initially and the costs for Hydrogen Infrastructure were looking high.

Fuel Cells right now look to be a great alternative to the Grid, possibly the best alternative, however, there are still some kinks in the system. Based on our general knowledge of fuel cells, to be the most efficient they need to run pretty much most of the time. This means that the production of electricity never stops. Also, the types of fuel cells that meet the cost criteria for homes, produce a great amount of heat. The heat must be used as energy in order to make the fuel cell cost effective and efficient. The heat could be used to make hot water, heat the home in winter or even used to produce electricity by another method such as steam turbine or Stirling Engine. We are confident that energy experts could put together a cost effective system for home use if given the proper parameters to work with.

We recently saw this  latest information from the CEO of  Bloom Energy.

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