Australia Plans to Privatise Electricity Production

November 2, 2008 by Dagpotter · Comment
Filed under: Australia, logistics 

The Australian Government still owns three electrical power generators; as well as three electricity retail companies. Now the The Australian is saying that the government plans to sell these companies to private bidders. This had been proposed previously by the government but the terms were considered so bad that the Minister in charge, Mr. Iemma, was forced to resign. Now his successor, Mr. Rees, is trying to follow through with the idea. Read more

DARPA invests in fuel cell technology

The DARPA and US Army awarded a follow-on contract to UltraCell for continued work on hydrogen fuel cell systems to power military hardware. See an article here. The UltraCell process utilizes methanol and converts it into hydrogen to provide electricity. The current system is used to provide power for laptops, but UltraCell is working on scaling it for use with larger fixed installations. The advantage this offers is that for comparable power the fuel cell is smaller and lighter then existing batteries. There is also no requirement for a separate electrical system to charge the batteries as is currently done.