"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
Steve wrote:

Well, the real point is that fuel cells will become a universal power
source - the military already use them in numbers,

You missed out the word "small" that should be inserted before
"numbers".

and there will be fuelcell laptops on the market almost certainly by the
end of this year

Almost certainly not.

(Toshiba and NEC have devices close to market) with cell phones close
behind.

One of my clients is *the* leader in the development of small fuel
cells. Even they are not so stupid as to claim that they will be on the
market by the end of this year.

Would that be AEA Technology, Hitachi Industries, Siemens, Mercedes, BMW,
NASA. Maybe General Motors, Toyota, Ford, (plus a couple of very impressive
East European companies who I will not try and spell!)
I'm sure they have all put all those millions in just to see it wasted but
of course you know better than them. The money going into clean fuel
production and cheaper catalytic processes isn't small either. Fuel cell
technology has a future, development is continually assessed and both
private and public money is funding the research. One of the funding
companies being my employer. Several Universities on this side of the pond
benefiting from the research funding being made available. We like our
researchers to have open minds and receptive to fresh thinking. There are an
awful lot of very bright researchers out there and all the above companies
are putting money into University coffers. The results are very encouraging,
as are the future prospects for those researchers who get the results. But
all reserach has to start somewhere and that is what we are doing with our
fuel cell buses. There are even some fuel cell powered locomotives beginning
trials across the pond. All of which is being followed closely over here.