Narrow business interests and an apathetic political leadership will never allow fuel cells to take off

In which we trace where the world stands with fuel cells and some clear signals of the technology to come

Fuel cells are more important to a developing country like India than developed countries. But the corporate sector is slow.

Source: N Mattson 1998, GENIE: An energy systems model with uncertain learning, quoted in Anon 1999, A GENIE for Imperfect Foresight, IEA/OECD ETSAP News, June

A good society knows how to clean its rubbish. But instead of setting an example for the world through its traditional handling of human excreta, Japan is following unsustainable Western models of sewage treatment

Industrialisation has brought prosperity. And increasing amount of wastes, especially plastics. The answer: burn it. But there is a problem: dioxin, one of the most carcinogenic chemicals known to humankind. Japan reels under it