Water fuel car unveiled in Japan

New Fuel Cell System 'Generates Electricity with Only Water, Air'

Kouji Kariatsumari, Nikkei Electronics Genepax Co Ltd explained the technologies used in its new fuel cell system "Water Energy System (WES)," which uses water as a fuel and does not emit CO2.

The system can generate power just by supplying water and air to the fuel and air electrodes, respectively, the company said at the press conference, which took place June 12, 2008, at the Osaka Assembly Hall.

The basic power generation mechanism of the new system is similar to that of a normal fuel cell, which uses hydrogen as a fuel. According to Genepax, the main feature of the new system is that it uses the company's membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which contains a material capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction.

Though the company did not reveal the details, it "succeeded in adopting a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA," said Hirasawa Kiyoshi, the company's president. This process is allegedly similar to the mechanism that produces hydrogen by a reaction of metal hydride and water. But compared with the existing method, the new process is expected to produce hydrogen from water for longer time, the company said.

With the new process, the cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high-pressure hydrogen tank. Moreover, the MEA requires no special catalysts, and the required amount of rare metals such as platinum is almost the same as that of existing systems, Genepax said.



Unlike the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), which uses methanol as a fuel, the new system does not emit CO2. In addition, it is expected to have a longer life because catalyst degradation (poisoning) caused by CO does not occur on the fuel electrode side. As it has only been slightly more than a year since the company completed the prototype, it plans to collect more data on the product life.

At the conference, Genepax unveiled a fuel cell stack with a rated output of 120W and a fuel cell system with a rated output of 300W. In the demonstration, the 120W fuel cell stack was first supplied with water by using a dry-cell battery operated pump. After power was generated, it was operated as a passive system with the pump turned off.

This time, the voltage of the fuel cell stack was 25-30V. Because the stack is composed of 40 cells connected in series, it is expected that the output per cell is 3W or higher, the voltage is about 0.5-0.7V, and the current is about 6-7A. The power density is likely to be not less than 30mW/cm2 because the reaction area of the cell is 10 x 10 cm.

Meanwhile, the 300W fuel cell system is an active system, which supplies water and air with a pump. In the demonstration, Genepax powered the TV and the lighting equipment with a lead-acid battery charged by using the system. In addition, the 300W system was mounted in the luggage room of a compact electric vehicle "Reva" manufactured by Takeoka Mini Car Products Co Ltd, and the vehicle was actually driven by the system.

Genepax initially planned to develop a 500W system, but failed to procure the materials for MEA in time and ended up in making a 300W system.

For the future, the company intends to provide 1kw-class generation systems for use in electric vehicles and houses. Instead of driving electric vehicles with this system alone, the company expects to use it as a generator to charge the secondary battery used in electric vehicles.

Although the production cost is currently about ¥2,000,000 (US$18,522), it can be reduced to ¥500,000 or lower if Genepax succeeds in mass production. The company believes that its fuel cell system can compete with residential solar cell systems if the cost can be reduced to this level.

Reuters Video: Water fuel car unveiled in Japan

NSW feels the deepest jobs cut

MORE than 17,000 NSW workers left or lost their jobs last month in the worst labour market reading in years, fuelling fears the state will suffer the brunt of the coming economic slowdown.

Across the country the number of people in work fell for the first time since 2006, a government report published yesterday showed. Most of the job losses were in NSW.

Economists say that employment remains strong, but more people will soon be out of work as businesses buckle under the weight of interest rates, fuel prices and the credit crunch, and start laying off workers or postpone hiring new staff.

The NSW economy is dominated by sectors vulnerable to interest-rate pressures and the global credit crunch, such as finance, property and retail sales. The state unemployment rate has already jumped from 4.2 per cent to 4.7 per cent this year, the highest rise in the country except for South Australia.

"I would assume the weakness would be concentrated in retail and construction, but we don't have the industry split," the chief economist of ABN Amro, Kieran Davies, said of the state's job losses.

Employers shed 19,700 jobs nationally last month, surprising market economists who had on average punted on a 13,500 gain.

The unemployment rate remained at 4.3 per cent, because the number of people actively looking for work also fell.

Businesses are typically reluctant to lay off staff, which means rising unemployment is usually one of the last signs that the economy is changing direction.

Mr Davies said he was increasingly of the view the labour market had started to turn down, and predicted unemployment would rise to 5 per cent this year.

If the unemployment rate had climbed to 5 per cent last month about 90,000 extra workers would have lost their jobs.

A speech today by the Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, on economic conditions could provide some hints on the outlook for interest rates. The chief economist at Lehman Brothers, Stephen Roberts, said the job losses "added materially" to the reasons why the Reserve would keep rates on hold.

The unemployment rate for men remained at 4 per cent but the rate for women inched a tenth of a percentage point higher to 4.6 per cent. The acting Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said the fall in employment was a "sober reminder of the consequence of eight interest rate rises in a little over three years and slower global economic growth".

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Petrol crisis fuels bus, train crush

Tight squeeze ... after work commuters board a train at Wynyard Station.

SOME rail passengers are being left behind on platforms and bus commuters are enduring long queues as motorists baulk at the soaring price of petrol and switch to public transport.

Morning peak-hour numbers on CityRail vastly exceed the State Government's "high-growth" predictions, and bus corridors are suffering a commuter crush.

There has even been a surge in demand for inter-city Greyhound coach services.

The rush for public transport comes as motorists begin to ration their petrol use. Sales of unleaded petrol fell by 4.4 per cent in the first three months of the year.

Garry Glazebrook, urban planning lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney, said traffic growth was beginning to slow because fewer people could afford petrol. "In Sydney, the price of petrol and the tolls combine with interest rates and inflation, and there is less room in the budget," he said. "Something has to give."

It is possible that a huge proportion are shifting to rail. In the 12 months to February, there were almost 1.2 million new passengers on the Bankstown line, a growth rate of 8.4 per cent.

In 2001, the Government's Transport Data Centre predicted a worst-case scenario in which the network was hit by 2 per cent yearly growth to 2021. In the year to February, that figure was more than 4.7 per cent.

Patronage climbed 7.4 per cent on the Inner West Line, 6.3 per cent on the Western Line and 6.2 per cent on the East Hills Line.

Trains are so full on the Bankstown and Western lines that some morning commuters are being left behind.

Meanwhile, patronage on the Hillsbus morning peak service to the city soared from 170,000-odd passengers in September 2005 to almost 300,000 in August 2007.

"We had about 65 buses in 2005 operating on the M2. It is now closer to 140 buses coming out every morning," said Hillsbus's chief executive, Owen Eckford. "We have reason to believe that growth is likely to continue."

A RailCorp spokesman, Paul Rea, said the increase in jobs was driving patronage. "This factor is so dominant that it makes it difficult to identify any correlation between movement in patronage levels and … factors such as changes in petrol prices."

But Dr Glazebrook disagreed: "There has not been a 6 per cent growth in jobs, because that would mean 15,000 more jobs."

The Government is pinning its hopes on its new underground metro lines to tackle the mounting crisis. Although it has invested in several infrastructure upgrades and the new Epping to Chatswood line, capacity improvements are still urgently needed.

Analysis released this week by the energy economics group EnergyQuest shows motorists are being squeezed by petrol prices and have resorted to self-imposed rationing. Consumption of unleaded fuel fell by 4.4 per cent in the first three months of this year. Overall, petrol sales fell by 1.2 per cent to 55.7 million litres.

Despite the reduced demand, increased importation and higher oil prices have taken the cost of petroleum imports to more than $1 billion a month, said EnergyQuest's chief executive, Graeme Bethune.

"There is no denying that record prices for petrol are causing Australian motorists to rapidly change their buying habits," Dr Bethune said. "Our research shows motorists are doing what they can to manage their fuel costs, by driving less and using the cheapest fuels they can find."

The higher petrol prices are proving a boon for Greyhound's coach services. The company's chief executive, Robert Thomas, said it experienced customer growth in the past 12 months well beyond any figures recorded over the past decade.

Greyhound garnered an extra 18 per cent of passengers in the year to April on its Sydney-Byron Bay route, and an extra 16 per cent on the Sydney-Canberra route. "Petrol is starting to really have an impact," Mr Thomas said.