Powering the Future: The Ballard Fuel Cell and the Race to Change the World - Hardcover

Koppel, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471644218 ISBN 13: 9780471644217

Verlag: John Wiley & Sons, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

Dies ist die Geschichte eines Mannes, der mit seinem Idealismus die Welt veränderte. Ballard Power Systems, ein kleines kanadisches Unternehmen, das von einem hartnäckigen Wissenschaftler geführt wurde, nahm eine exotische Erfindung des Raumzeitalters, verbesserte diese enorm und verkaufte sie an die größten Automobilkonzerne weltweit. Schon bald darauf waren Ballard-betriebene Fahrzeuge keine Seltenheit mehr, und das Zeitalter umweltfreundlicher Fahrzeuge, die nur Wasser "ausstießen", konnte beginnen. Basis dieser revolutionären Technologie ist die Brennstoffzelle, wie sie seit 1960 von der NASA benutzt wird. Ballard fand eine Möglichkeit, diese kostengünstiger herzustellen und ihre Leistungsfähigkeit in nur 10 Jahren um das Fünfzigfache zu steigern. Heute fahren Ballard Linienbusse in Vancouver und Chicago und Daimler-Chrysler und Ford sind mit 35% an Ballard Power Systems beteiligt. Dieses Buch ermöglicht Ihnen einen einzigartigen Blick hinter die Kulissen und erzählt unterhaltsam, verständlich und spannend, wie alles begann. (11/99)

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tom Koppel is an award-winning freelance writer. He has contributed feature articles on business, science, history, and travel to national magazines in Canada and the U.S. for nearly twenty years. He has been following the story of the Ballard fuel cell for over ten years, and first wrote about it for the Financial Post Magazine and Reader's Digest. He lives on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Powering the Future is his second book.

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Advance Praise for Powering the Future "One day in the future-and sooner than you may think!-fuel-cell power will be commonplace and people will wonder how it all came to be. Koppel's book describes the important role Ballard Power Systems is playing in this revolutionary technology." -Dennis Simanaitis, Engineering Editor, Road & Track magazine "The Ballard fuel cell is a powerful example of a Canadian enterprise that could transform the world of energy and help save the environment. It's a story that needs to be told." -David Crane, Economics Editor, The Toronto Star "The Ballard fuel cell holds great promise as an energy source for the ecological millennium. It's a fascinating and inspiring story." -Dr. David Suzuki, Biologist, Author, and Host

Aus dem Klappentext

"A great story about how a tiny Canadian company-for the first few years little more than 'three guys and a prayer'-brought such a revolutionary and beneficial technology to the world." The Ballard fuel cell holds nothing less than the promise of clean, quiet power for the new millennium. Fuel cells could, one day soon, replace the internal combustion engine and solve some of the world's worst air pollution problems. Powering the Future is the story of Ballard Power Systems, a small company at the forefront of this revolutionary technology, and on the brink of changing the way the world thinks about power. Fuel cells work by mixing hydrogen with oxygen from the air to produce electricity; the only by-product is water so clean you can drink it. The technology itself has been around for over 150 years, but-except for exotic applications such as space flight-remained obscure because of its expense. Powering the Future tells the intriguing story of how Geoffrey Ballard and a handful of colleagues brought this neglected technology to the world, on gritty determination and a shoestring budget. From their humble beginnings in their make-shift lab in an old Arizona motel, and on to the formation of Ballard Power Systems in British Columbia, this small company drastically improved and commercialized the fuel cell. They made it smaller, cheaper, and vastly more powerful over an astonishingly short time, actually melting down cables as they realized a fifty-fold increase in power output. Beyond the technical achievements, Ballard's story is also an amazing business success. Achieving a delicate balance between fiscal caution and technological daring, they brought fuel cells out of the lab and into the mainstream of business. Today, Ballard Power Systems is the acknowledged world leader in the fuel-cell race, and a runaway stock market success, its share price surging more than ten-fold in just three years. Powering the Future not only chronicles the company's impressive rise against stiff odds and intense competition; it also teaches valuable lessons about vision and inspiration, creating a culture of loyalty and dedication, attracting and keeping talented people, and marketing and selling an underdog technology to the biggest corporate giants. When Ballard decided to go for broke and enter the huge markets of transportation and stationary power, they took on some of the most formidable adversaries in the corporate world-car manufacturers and oil companies. You'll learn how the new generation of management excelled at not only improving the technology, but also marketing it, ultimately forging impressive alliances with some of the biggest players in the auto world. Powering the Future tells how it all happened through the unlikely mix of a driven visionary; a small, agile company; a culture of teamwork and dedication; government funding at the right time; the legislative urgency for cleaner power; and smart management. Powering the Future is the entertaining and inspirational account of how a tiny high-tech research company grew, and became poised to literally change the way we live.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1999
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0471644218
• ISBN 13: 9780471644217
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar