Fronk, the chief engineer, and O'Connell, staff engineer, are part of General Motors Corp.'s development team at the company's Honeoye Falls Fuel Cell Activities Center.
"I always had a gut feeling this can make it," says Fronk, who started his GM career as a college student. "This is a chance to change the world."
"This" is a commercial (i.e., affordable, durable and reliable) fuel cell that would revolutionize auto travel and spin off cheap power sources for all kinds of activities and products.
The GM Honeoye center is not the only fuel cell research and development operation. In Rochester alone, Delphi Corp. is working on fuel cell technology, as are the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology.
But GM recently cemented an $88 million deal with the U.S Department of Energy for 40 hydrogen cell trucks, which will be tested extensively by the military. GM is committed to manufacturing commercially viable hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2010, O'Connell says.
The technology is way over my head, but O'Connell describes it simply: The cell's outer plate "is a labyrinth that brings hydrogen to one side of the membrane and oxygen to the other." Together they produce electrons that power the vehicle. The more cells you can "stack," the more power.
How do you produce the hydrogen? "It depends on where you are and what you have," Fronk says. You can use natural gas, or petroleum with a chemical reforming process, or electrolysis through hydroelectric or nuclear power. But even if you are using a fossil fuel, you are producing a lot more power with a lot less fuel, which could make the country much less dependent on foreign oil, if not totally independent. And the vehicles produce no harmful emissions, only water.
Just a few years ago, GM was experimenting with technology to reform, or convert, methanol to hydrogen onboard the vehicle. The equipment needed to do that would essentially fill the bed of a pickup truck. GM has moved away from methanol reform, and today's fuel cell stacks can fit under the vehicle's hood.
Performance-wise, fuel cell vehicles match up well against traditional cars. The challenge, Fronk says, is to make cars that are just as durable (100,000 or more miles with very little maintenance) and priced right to be competitive.
They are confident that can be done. At the Honeoye plant, a team of 300 chemists, engineers and scientists is working under pressure (an exhilarating pressure, Fronk says) to do what no one has done before.
How will this technology change the world? I asked. "You have nuclear power plants all around the country," he says. "During off-peak hours, they are producing very little power." It's possible, he says, to generate a steady flow of power and use the off-peak power to generate hydrogen, lots of hydrogen, through electrolysis. (Don't ask me to explain.) "Off-peak power would be very cheap," he says.
Or how about this? Imagine you're facing a brownout and could plug your car into your home power box and provide all the electricity you need.
Dan O'Connell's passion is personal. "I want the first car my daughter drives to be a fuel cell vehicle," he says. His daughter Kelly is 7. He has nine years to make it so. And why not?