Fuel cell project shuts down after a troubled start
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Latest project in Alaska encounters problems in shipping, operation at Seward’s Exit Glacier visitor center
Patricia Liles Petroleum News Contributing Writer
The eighth and latest fuel cell test project in Alaska hasn’t mirrored recent successes logged by University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers in the emerging energy industry.
Fired by propane gas, the five-kilowatt solid oxide fuel cell housed at the National Park Service visitor center at Exit Glacier, near Seward, shut down in early June, seven days after its celebratory start-up on May 28. Internal tubes were cracked and had to be replaced, said Dennis Witmer, a leading fuel cell researcher and director of the Arctic Energy Technology Development Laboratory, an organization that manages energy research projects at the University of Alaska funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Since then, the Exit Glacier fuel cell was repaired, restarted and shut down again, Witmer said.
“The issue may be related to the increased difficulty in reforming propane (into hydrogen) and it is not clear at this time how successful the company will be in addressing this challenge,” he said on June 24. First unit delivered in September The propane-fired fuel cell was developed by a Boston-area manufacturer, Acumentrics. The first unit was delivered to the test site at Exit Glacier last September, but it was damaged during shipping, Witmer said. It was shipped back to Boston for repairs last fall.
One possible cause is the unit’s fuel source, Witmer said. The propane-fired fuel cell was built based on a similar model that is fired by natural gas. UAF researchers have successfully operated that gas-fired solid oxide fuel cell, also partially funded by DOE, for about 7,000 hours at the offices of Fairbanks Natural Gas.
Other recent fuel cell research by UAF has provided success in the emerging alternative energy arena. This spring, Fairbanks area researchers completed the first phase of testing a methanol-fired fuel cell system, successfully operating a one-kilowatt proton exchange membrane fuel cell. DOE funding was cut for the second year of operation at a remote site, so the unit was shipped back to its supplier in California this spring, Witmer said.
So far, UAF researchers have participated in eight separate fuel cell research projects, and have asked DOE for funding for a ninth, which would involve a diesel-fired solid oxide fuel cell. If approved, the proposed $822,898 fuel cell project will be part of an ongoing $11 million research effort involving a large scale diesel reformer being tested by the U.S. Navy at the Idaho Falls National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Witmer said.
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