Go to the www dot fuelcellsworks dot com and go to companies and look up plug power, hydrogenics or east penn. those are the top companies right now in the US that have info on their web-sites on how they work.

I Used to work for a company called still and they have been using fuel cells for quite a while on a couple of test sites

could somebody send a tecnical schema to show how it works , with all the sensors , electronic controls?

Fuel Cells are hitting the market more and more every day. Major corporations in the U.S. are starting to change over their fleet. Hydrogen is getting more affordable as gas continues to go up. The gas surcharges are increasing everywhere including your electric bill. "Hydrogen going down and electric going up" This trend favors Hydrogen Fuel Cells as the primary forklift energy source of the future. For large companies, no cranes, no chargers, no battery cleaners, no waiting for battery changes, no slow lifting when battery gets low, no battery employees, no big room to store batteries and etc. Looks like a future no brainer to me.

Linde and Still run a fuel cell testing in Munchen Airport in the mid 90. I know there were not realy encouraging results at that time, but sure this depends on available at that time technology..

But they will be there.. no doubt. this is just a matter of time..

As to the cost per hour: frankly, this is a trick. Calculations mostly are based on assumptions and predictions. Most of those can be turned in any directions.. Take the same working environment and ask two parties to calculate. Both will get different results..

in simple terms, the cost of hydrogen and methanol fuel cell systems are a joke...the cost is 8 to 9 dollars per shift. This is contrast to 1.90 to 2.35 for electrical costs for charging, and remember in food distribution, almost all class 3 trucks go into cold.. that's the area where fuel cells have issues with water vapor exhaust....the fuel cell only have been in use with class 3 trucks.. limited in class 1 and 2 due to the enclosed compartment and the need for counterweight.. when companies have the onboard systems.. they lose weight and ampacity to work...in simple words..AC Power has made them a joke...

The only thing slowing the progress down is the fact that it is not economically worth the investment. Don't throw rocks at the oil companies. If there is enough money in it they will do it! ****, if there is enough money in it I will do it! Fuel cell technology has many issues but the biggest is that it is only an energy storage system. You still need to make hydrogen and deal with all the issues of containing and storing the smallest molecule on the periodic table. If you think it is clean just realize you cannot make hydrogen with solar energy in anything near the volume that will be required to run an industry. No, don't say wind.

You have to always consider the Earth's resources. The more batteries you make the more of that material it takes to make the battery is used up. Presently you can reuse the lead from the lead acid batteries. There is not a good method to recycle the Lithium - Ion batteries or Ultra-Capicitors at this time. Small Ultra-Capacitors will be used with Fuel Cells. Hydrogen mixed with air = energy. You would need to rebuild the Fuel Cell by replacing the Carbon Membrane every so often. Look for mini pop up air turbines on cars in the future for re-gen energy. Always remember the some of our resources are limited and this is one main reason why Fuel Cells are slow to kick off. They were using Platinum on the Fuel Cell membranes and Platinum is a very rare metal. They are now using other plentiful metals such as nickel for the membranes, even though its not as good as platinum for the anode and cathode conversion.

You're right! I forgot about the big conspiracy and the black helicopters.

Solar has along way to go, although with nano technology it has a chance. Solar has been around for over 30 years and is currently not cost effective. Wind power is great but less dependable.

If you have an unlimited supply of electricty to make hydrogen it makes sense? That being said, if you have an unlimited amount of eletricity why not run everything on batteries?

Solar to steam from H2O or wind to steam etc. This process separates the pure Hydrogen from the Oxygen. Pure Hydrogen at its finest. The problem is that there are too many oil companies that are trying to get hydrogen from their gas. Greed in big business is slowing down the use of clean Hydrogen. This is why you will see, Shell, BP, Exxon, Chevron attached to most hydrogen projects.

dougster,

Hydrogen is the most plentiful element on earth unfortunately it is always attached to oxygen or carbon, etc...

It takes a significant amout of power to get pure H. How are you making this energy/power?

Plug power (plug) which took over General Hydrogen and Cellex are presently using their Forlift Fuel Cells in a large Distribution Center in Ohio. They are having positive results. Deka Battery out of Penn. State is in partnership with Nuvera out of Mass. They are close to mass producing the Fuel Battery for Forklifts in North America. There are a handful of others working the bugs out on this future device that will eventually power the Lift Truck industry. Like any thing else, it will take time to set up the infrastructure for parts, service, training and of course getting hydrogen to the lift trucks. Currently their are several ways to get hydrogen. Truck it in just like propane, install a massive tank to receive liquid gas and use a cryovac system to create pressurized gas (BOC, Air Products), place a reformer in the facility by using the natural gas to make your own presurize gas and other options that our currently being developed. Go to fuelcellsworks dot com to get tons of info about Fuel Developements. Hope this helped. I have been researching Fuel Cell technology for quite some time and Hydrogen is our #1 element on this earth and we will never run out of it. As for lead, acid, fuels and other materials, you will notice that they keep going up. We are using up these resources faster than we may think and when they are gone, they are gone from this earth. Hydrogen will be the power for every machinery in the future since there may be no alternative. You will also have wind, tide, current, solar and other free sources of power mixed with hydrogen power. Cool stuff.

I think Linde and Jungheinrich have been working on alternate powered forkifts longer than any company based in Japan or the US. I worked for a Linde dealer back in 2000 and Linde had fuel cell forklifts working at customer sites in Europe already. If you are truly doing college research I would contact Linde or Jungheinrich and see how willing they are to help. The Europeans are leaps ahead of us in the realm of alternate powered forklifts.

toyota has had the most success with many units being "tested" in walmart distribution centers.