FUEL CELL®

Please join us for the 2008 FCS&E Plenary Session.  This year’s Plenary Session will discuss the status and future potential of current fuel cell program initiatives, technical, political and economic factors driving commercialization of fuel cells, as well as the role that fuel cells will play in mitigating the effects of climate change.

The following speakers will be featured:

Klaus Bonhoff
Managing Director, NOW National Organization Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Technologies

Dr.-Ing. Klaus Bonhoff, born in 1968, studied Mechanical Engineering at the RWTH Aachen, Germany and ENSTA, Paris, France. He finalized his PhD in energy process engineering at the Research Center Jülich, Germany in 1998. He then started his professional carrerr as assistent to the Board of Directors at the Reserch Center Jülich in the field of energy and materials research and became then head of Fuel Cell Project at Research Center Jülich. In 2001 he joined Ballard Power Systems GmbH as Manager for business development Europe. In 2003 he started working for DaimlerChrysler AG where he held various positions within DaimlerChrysler’s fuel cell activities including responsibilities for strategy, communications, global demonstration projects, political programs and market development. In 2007 he received a contract with the German National Government to coordinate the German National Innovation Program Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies (NIP). Since February 2008 he is managing director (chair) of NOW GmbH National Organisation Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, which was estabilshed to run the NIP as a public-private-partnership.

Byron McCormick
Executive Director, Fuel Cell Activities, GM Powertrain

Dr. McCormick is Executive Director of the Fuel Cell Activities group for General Motors Corporation.  He has been leading GM fuel cell activities since 1997.  Dr. McCormick joined GM Delco Electronics in 1986, at Delco Systems Operations in Santa Barbara, California, where he held various technical and business leadership positions.  From 1994 to 1997, Dr. McCormick was Managing Director of Delco Propulsion Systems (DPS).

Prior to joining GM (1975-1986), Dr. McCormick was a Deputy Division Leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Electronics Division. He led R&D activities that included basic fuel cell and fuel processors, as well as fuel cell propulsion system evaluation. 

Dr. McCormick earned a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona.

Ken Silverstein
Editor-in-Chief, EnergyBiz Insider

Ken Silverstein is an award-winning journalist who is the editor-in-chief of EnergyBiz Insider, an Energy Central publication. It comes out three times a week and is subscribed to by a global audience. In that role, he examines a significant issue affecting the energy sector and explains its broader implications. With a background in economics and public policy, he has spent several years writing about the issues that touch the energy and financial sectors, and his work has been published in more than 100 periodicals. He has also been sourced in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, National Public Radio and several newspapers and magazines in the United States and abroad. He is an invited speaker at a range of energy industry conferences and he has appeared on C-SPAN. He holds B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from Tulane University, and an M.A. from American University.

Lars Sjunnesson
Adjunct Professor, Lund University, Thermal Power Engineering

Professor Lars Sjunnesson, born in 1947, has been working with E.ON Sverige AB (former Sydkraft AB) in Malmö, Sweden, since 1979. Previous to that he worked with The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and Ångpanneföreningen, an energy consultant company, both located in Stockholm. E.ON Sverige is the largest private energy utility in Sweden. E.ON Sverige is nowadays a part of E.ON AG with the main market responsibility for the Nordic countries. The main business area for E.ON Sverige was for a long time to produce, distribute and sell electricity. Today also distribution and selling of natural gas represents a large business area as well as producing, distributing and selling heat. Professor Sjunnesson holds a position as director for Corporate R&D with the responsibility for all R&D-issues within the group.  Since November 1997 Prof Sjunnesson is also professor at Lund University where his task is to build up a new research area in the field of "Integration of new technologies into the energy system" covering technical and economic factors as well as all kind of non-technical issues of concern. He is also heavily involved in the work aiming at build up an “Energy Platform” at Lund University.  Professor Sjunnesson is member of the board of a number of companies where E.ON Sverige has an interest, mainly in companies aiming at introducing new technologies. He is also member of several committees linked to the Swedish Energy Agency.  Professor Sjunnesson is the president of the European Hydrogen Association. He is a member and also the vice-chair of the Advisory Council to the Technology Platform for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells set up by the European Commission as well as the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Advanced Fuel Cells implementing agreement within the IEA (International Energy Agency).

Atsushi Yamamoto
Deputy Director, FC&H2 Promotion Office
Agency of Natural Resources and Energy, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan