Lack of Platinum Stunting Growth of Fuel Cell Industry

Bloomberg reported that according to General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE), fuel cells’ dependency on platinum means they will never be more than a niche product.

As quoted in the market news:

‘It’s almost impossible to do a good fuel cell without platinum as a catalyst,’ Vlatko Vlatkovic, chief engineering officer of GE’s Power Conversion division, said in an interview in London. ‘Very little goes in, but if you scale it up, there’s not enough platinum in the world.’

GE’s comments reveal constraints that may keep fuel cells from penetrating the energy market as a mainstream technology. Fuel cells use hydrogen or natural gas to generate power through a chemical reaction, and the most common technology needs the scarce element as a catalyst

Click here to read the full Bloomberg report.