TPS '08 Follow-up: PolyFuel Readies Prototype
Jul 17, 2008
If you attended Tech Policy Summit '08 in Hollywood earlier this year, hopefully you had a chance to hear PolyFuel CEO Jim Balcom discuss his company's portable fuel cell membrane technology. We invited Mr. Balcom to participate in the program because of his firsthand experience as an entrepreneur working with the federal government to advance innovation in an emerging market -- in this case the quest for better alternative energy sources.
As he recounted during his Tech Policy Summit talk, PolyFuel had sought assistance from the Department of Energy in order to fund his startup's R&D work on a prototype of a fuel-cell-based laptop power module. Despite the red tape and challenges associated with such funding, he made a compelling case for why federal funding is sometimes necessary to advance certain technologies.
So we were excited to learn today that PolyFuel has developed a functioning prototype laptop that it plans to demonstrate to manufacturers in the next several weeks. According to News.com, the prototype relies on a direct methanol fuel cell to convert methanol to electricity in order to power the computer without relying on lithium-ion batteries.
For more info, check out News.com. You can also listen to a complete podcast of Mr. Balcom's talk at Tech Policy Summit in the Media Vault.
Tags:
fuel cell, green tech, innovation, Jim Balcom, podcast, PolyFuel, R&D, Tech Policy Summit
