The only fuel cells that have a future on the mass market are those that use liquid fuels - since storage is impractical for gaseous fuels like hydrogen & methane. The only company that I know of that is developing Direct Liquid Fuel Cells is Medis Technologies in New York (http://www.medistechnologies.com), they are making a fuel cell for portable electronics that runs on ethanol without the need for a reformer to extract hydrogen or a proton exchange membrane. Ethanol is a renewable liquid fuel made by hydrolyzing and fermenting plant matter such as wheat straw, corn stalks, sugar cane, sugar beats, wood pulp & sawdust, recycled newspapers & cardboard, etc.. The great thing about Medis Technologies approach is that they have a product with mass market potential, so they can earn revenue while continuing to improve their technology. In contrast, while automotive manufacturers continue to tinker with useless hydrogen-based fuel cells, they have yet to sell a single fuel cell-powered vehicle.

Now Time Magazine has featured Direct Liquid Ethanol Fuel Cell technology.

http://www.time.com/time/europe/forecast2003/html/mobile.html

What we need is a larger supply of biomass to support these innovations, and to phase out more environmentally damaging fossil fuels. Enormous quantities of biomass could come from the oceans, see my essay entitled "Benthic Energy", found near the bottom of my Starship Generations website.

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