August 25, 2010

Early adopter Sprint Nextel first began testing hydrogen fuel cells… [More]

August 2, 2010

Carbon Free Girl Leilani Münter is not your usual NASCAR driver. An avid environmentalist, Münter's goal is to spread an energy efficiency and green message to NASCAR's 75 million race fans.

Münter is currently racing in the ARCA series, a development league of NASCAR, which runs from late February through October. She was named of the top ten female race car drivers in the world by Sports Illustrated. [More]

July 12, 2010

Food service distribution company Sysco celebrated the grand opening of its highly efficient distribution center in June in Houston. As part of Sysco's efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, the company deployed almost 100 pallet trucks powered by fuel cells that create only water and heat as by-products. [More]

June 9, 2010

Gills Onions had a problem: Too much onion waste.

As one of the largest US onion processors, the Oxnard, Calif. company produces chopped and sliced onions for retail, bulk and foodservice sale. This creates up to 1.5 million pounds of onion trimmings a week. Until last year, the company simply spread the onion byproduct on fields. Unfortunately, this waste disposal system cost a lot of money, required storage and created odors, pests and potential groundwater contamination. At the same time, Gills Onions anticipated growing electricity costs. [More]

May 14, 2010

A member of the Energy Empowers team test drove the Honda FCX Clarity at the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. [More]

April 30, 2010

While outstanding performances in film were being honored at this year’s Academy Awards, some engineers and businesses were focused on a different performance — that of a lighting system illuminating the famed red carpet.

The innovative mobile lighting unit used a hydrogen fuel cell and energy-efficient plasma lighting technology to generate light and electricity for the show with zero on-site emissions or technical problems. The unit’s designers at Sandia National Laboratories, and its industry partners, believe the lighting could significantly improve the way events such as the Oscars are lit. [More]

April 9, 2010

Customers of AT&T Wireless and Pacific Gas & Electric Company will enjoy service that’s both cleaner and more reliable, thanks to backup power provided by about 200 hydrogen fuel cells. The two companies are becoming early adopters of hydrogen fuel cells as backups for the main power grid.

Both projects are funded by an $8.5 million Recovery Act grant to ReliOn, Inc. of Spokane, Wash., which specializes in hydrogen fuel-cell backups for businesses that need to stay functional during power failures. For utilities like PG&E, which serves about 15 million people in California, backup power is critical because it helps them locate problems at substations, allowing them to get the infrastructure back online quickly. Telecom companies like AT&T need backup power to keep cellular towers working in an outage.

This project will help meet those goals, reinforcing America’s infrastructure and creating about 14 jobs. But Sandra Saathoff, of ReliOn, says it’s also an attempt to transform the market by speeding up businesses’ acceptance of fuel cells.

“Fuel cells are a new technology to most of our customers,” she says. “Because it’s new and it’s really important to keep equipment functioning, they’re really cautious about introducing new technology to their networks.” [More]

March 19, 2010

FedEx Freight has a special delivery for America’s clean energy economy: a fleet of hydrogen powered forklifts.

All 35 electric forklifts at FedEx Freight’s Springfield, Mo. service center will be converted to hydrogen fuel cell power. The $2.8 million project will be completed in a few weeks and was partially funded through a grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The energy makeover is “the best of both worlds,” says Dennis Beal, vice president of physical assets at FedEx Freight. “The vehicles will be emission-free and will provide the benefits of electrical power forklifts without having to plug them in to recharge the battery,” Dennis says.

The forklifts will be quieter, easier to operate and cleaner than ones with internal combustion engines. Dennis says the switch to hydrogen power is expected to result in lower maintenance and downtime, increasing productivity at the service center. [More]

January 21, 2010

You might wear a platinum wedding band, but tucked away in the guts of a car probably isn’t where Americans prefer this pricey, precious metallic element to be. [More]

January 7, 2010

An innovative company in Billerica, Mass., is taking steps to equip a major supermarket chain in the Southwest with high-performance, clean-energy fuel cells for its hundreds-strong forklift fleet. [More]

December 7, 2009

Many Americans across the country rely on handheld devices each day to get their jobs done or stay in touch with friends and family, and now some companies are pushing technologies that power that hardware from concept to reality faster than ever. One such firm in Albany, N.Y., has developed a clean source of energy for portable electronics designed for anybody who’s tired of the nightly ritual of recharging a portable electronic device. It will allow for longer battery life for handheld devices than typical PDA batteries. [More]