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“It’s
a familiar story. Bright Canadian inventor at the helm of an emerging
Canadian company develops and loses hot product to aggressive multinational
with deep pockets that makes zillions on the venture.
Powering
The Future, the story of the Ballard fuel cell, happily for
Canadians turns that tale upside down.
Journalist
Tom Koppel traces the story of the dedicated, brilliant group headed
by Canadian Geoffrey Ballard that improved on science developed
by Italians, British, Americans and General Electric to create what
is expected to be a pollution-free alternative to the internal combustion
engine.
A
fuel cell produces electricity by introducing hydrogen and oxygen
in a special way—somewhat the reverse process of running a
current into electrodes in water to break it into its component
elements.
How
did this tiny Canadian company get in a position to become the most
likely supplier or patent-holder of portable power to the world’s
automotive and other industries in the next century?
According
to Koppel, it was Geoffrey Ballard’s vision of the need for
a better form of portable energy and his drive to carry out that
vision. He also surrounded himself with a management team who seized
on that vision and were willing to pass rewards on to the employees.
Critical
funding also came from the Canadian government through officials
who could see the potential for fuel cells.
While
Ballard had developed a strong technology company, it’s important
to note that he didn’t invent the fuel cell nor even the type
of fuel cell the company would focus on—the PEM (proton exchange
membrane).
It
wasn’t until Ballard’s management saw an RFP (request
for proposals) from the Department of National Defense for the development
of a fuel cell that the company became involved in fuel cells.
They
were so new to the game that they had never even seen a piece of
the special membrane that was at the heart of a PEM fuel cell.
The
first roll of the expensive membrane Nafion arrived while they were
meeting with the Canadian government officials who had awarded Ballard
a $500,000 contract to develop a viable fuel cell.
One
of Ballard’s scientists pulled on the roll and cut a small
piece of the material off for everyone to examine and praise.
After
the meeting was over, one of the team members went to cut off another
piece from the roll to conduct experiments.
It
was then he discovered it wasn’t Nafion that had been passed
around earlier.
It
was a piece of common polyethylene, part of the plastic wrap used
to protect the expensive membrane.
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BALLARD IS A
PLUCKY PIONEER
The Hamilton
Spectator
January 15, 2000
Reviewed
by Jay Robb
“The first
technological and environmental breakthrough of the new millennium
could happen under the hood of your car. Automakers aim to replace
internal combustion engines with fuel cells as early as the middle
of the next decade.
Fuel cells mix
hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity that, in turn, powers
a electric motor. When fuel cell cars go mainstream, look for oil
companies to add methanol to service station gas pumps.
It’s already
happening in California. Methanol can be converted to the hydrogen-rich
gas needed by fuel cells. The changeover to hydrogen will cut your
car’s carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent to 50 percent.
DaimlerChrylser
aims to sell fuel cell cars by 2004.
Other automakers,
including GM, Ford and Toyota, are also interested as they expect
tougher emission restriction in smog-choked cities.
DaimlerChrysler
has tested a 3.6-metre sedan that runs on a pair of fuel cell stacks
stored under the seat. The 60-horsepower luxury car gets 400 km
on a 38-litre tank of methanol.
Passengers are
already riding hydrogen-powered busses in Vancouver and Chicago.
Automakers are
banking on Vancouver-based Ballard Power Systems Inc. for mass market
fuel cells. The company is heralded as the Intel of the automotive
industry.
For more than
two decades, Ballard has engineered progressively smaller, cheaper
and more powerful fuel cells. Company founder Geoffrey Ballard has
no doubt that fuel cells will power the car engine of the future.
“A technology
that is going to become commercial is one where, every time you
tackle it, you get further insight and it becomes simpler.”
Pioneering fuel
cells was an uphill battle, author Tom Koppel said. “In many
ways, it was the classic story of David and Goliath.
“Against
stiff odds, the feisty little company from the back streets of B.C.
that was led by an unabashed zealot, prevailed against the doubts
and barely concealed obstructionism of the giants of modern industry.”
Ballard refused
to back down. His advice to other entrepreneurs and innovators?
“Do not
be patient. All things do not come to those who wait. Be impatient.
Challenge the normal. Question conventional wisdom. Trust yourself
and speak out on what you believe. If what you believe is different,
dare to be different. Dare to be in a hurry to change things for
the better.”
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TRIUMPHS OF
THE CREATIVE SPIRIT
The Globe
and Mail
October 20, 1999
Reviewed
by Harvey Schachter
“Tom Koppel
does an excellent job in Powering The Future tracing the
history of Ballard Power and detailing the scientific search that
let it build what so many people thought was impossible: an alternative
to the internal combustion engine that runs on hydrogen.
Mr. Ballard
was always preparing for succession—he saw it as a duty of
a leader—and initially approved of the outsider who replaced
him as chief executive officer, Firoz Rasul.
At one point,
Mr. Rasul and the board of rejected his efforts to develop a demonstration
project, a bus powered by the fuel cell, and the strong-willed Mr.
Ballard went ahead anyway in a skunkworks project. Its success proved
crucial to persuading potential partners that the fuel cell was
workable.
In the end,
Mr. Rasul will have the satisfaction of knowing he put together
the key partnership with DaimlerChrysler and Ford that ensured the
fuel cell would become reality.
But Mr. Ballard
has something more powerful, as he acknowledged to the author, in
discussing the bad blood between founder and successor: “With
my name on the door, every time the premier of the province came,
or the prime minister of Canada came, he’d always walk over to the
Ballard of Ballard Power. And Firoz would turn green. He’d literally
turn green. He couldn’t stomach it.” ”
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WILL CANADIAN
IDEA POWER THE WORLD?
The Toronto
Star
December 13, 1999
Review by
Peter O’Brien
“Powering
The Future, by freelance writer Tom Koppel, traces the constant
search for research and development dollars, the role of government
and research universities and the fights with big auto makers that
pushed a fledgling collection of a few work-obsessed engineers into
becoming an international story now known as Ballard Power Systems
Inc.
Led until recently
by the inpatient, visionary Geoffrey Ballard, the company is indeed
out to change the world.
The company’s
core business is providing the Ballard fuel cell, a zero-emission
power source for cars and almost anything else that you can imagine
that could run on electricity, from golf carts to submarines to
space shuttles.
The fuel cell
combines oxygen from the air with hydrogen from methanol or natural
gas to create electricity. No combustion, no noise and no moving
parts to wear out.
The only emission
is water so clean you can drink it. That’s a big change from
the toxic power generated by the internal combustion engine and
its plume of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Koppel’s
book is a curious hybrid.
Although unauthorized
by Ballard Power Systems, Koppel did talk to many people associated
with the company for an earlier article her wrote for Reader’s
Digest. The result is the liberating pasting together of interviews
that Koppel had done for a much shorter, earlier version of his
story.
The stops and
stars along the Ballard way include a host of fascinating nuggets.
There was the eureka experience of seeing an early battery able
to power a tiny flashlight bulb, and the time that a few dumb-founded
researchers, not sure what they were going to see, stood around
a finger-thick electric cable, becoming ecstatic when the cable
go so hot it melted through.
One of the most
memorable events was the January evening in 1993 when a Ballard
fuel cell actually powered a modified city bus in Vancouver.
Along the way
we also get the intricate uphill climb of securing federal government
contracts and venture capital that sustained the company (involving
the “politics of technology” as it’s called here);
moves by the big auto makers, oil companies and utilities intent
on protecting their interests; and changes in company leadership
as the three founders pursued other interests.”
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Endorsements
“Ballard’s
rise from its humble beginnings in a makeshift lab in Arizona in
the 1970s to its pivotal position today-DaimlerChrysler and Ford
both hold stakes in it-makes compelling reading. And Mr. Koppel
explains the technology in a way that the average reader can understand.”
—Fred
Brock, New York Times
"Exciting--a
story of dreams come true….Tom Koppel does an excellent job…tracing
the history of Ballard Power…Well-researched, fair-minded…[a] stirring
tribute…to the creative spirit."
—Harvey
Schachter, The Globe and Mail
"…a
great yarn of adventure, discovery and ambition. Koppel's account
covers all the bases, from personal to technological, presented
with a veteran…journalist's even-handed perspective. With most of
the world's automakers now looking closely at fuel-cell technology,
this great tale has a lot of relevance to what we may see on our
roads within the next decade or two."
—John
Terauds, Toronto Star
"This
book tells the fascinating story of the development of the Ballard
fuel cell and how a small Canadian company grew to world-class stature
and went on to form partnerships with some of the largest companies
in the world….This book will appeal to a wide audience,…is entertaining
and generally nontechnical….I strongly recommend it."
—Timothy
E. Lipman, Amer
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