University of Notre Dame professor George Howard has written a book about Stan Ovshinsky, the man he says has inventions that will pull together the coming hydrogen-power based economy.

University of Notre Dame professor George Howard's book, "Stan Ovshinsky and the Hydrogen Economy" will be published by Academic Publications in about a month.

It will cost $19.95 and will be available at the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore.

George Howard isn't as concerned about the rising prices of gasoline, natural gas and electricity as the rest of us.

He thinks the answer is already here.

And it's not the coal gasification plant that Tondu Corp. wanted to build near New Carlisle.

To Howard, that concept is old-fashioned.

He said a hydrogen power system that will replace the need to burn hydrocarbons, coal, gasoline, and so on, already has been invented.

And many of the components of it are already in production.

He tells the story in a new book titled "Stan Ovshinsky and the Hydrogen Economy."

He writes of Ovshinsky as the motivator, creator, genius and guru of Energy Conversion Devices, the company founded by Ovshinsky and his wife, Iris.

"I don't gush that easily," Howard said. "I gush about this."

A professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, Howard came seeking an article more on Ovshinsky and his inventions than on himself.

He said he first became interested in things environmental when he started recycling.

He said he "looked into what psychology had to offer (on environmental problems)."

"After five years I realized we (psychology) have absolutely nothing to offer," he continued.

He found what he believes is the answer with Ovshinsky and ECD in suburban Detroit.

Since then he has taken Notre Dame sophomores in the seminar that introduces them to the College of Arts and Letters to ECD to introduce them to the future.

Ovshinsky and scientists working with him have developed photovoltaics that produce electricity from sunlight, batteries, solid hydrogen storage, fuel cells and other technology of the modern era.

According to Howard, what is different about Ovshinsky's work is that he uses disordered and amorphous materials.

Briefly, those are materials whose atoms are not arranged in a regular, orderly fashion.

Howard writes that while there are many companies that make things that are part of the coming hydrogen economy, only ECD has developed all parts of what he calls "the hydrogen loop."

He writes that the sun is the sole energy source for the loop.

Photovoltaic cells convert the sun's rays into electricity.

The electricity is used immediately, stored in batteries or used to generate hydrogen that is stored in another kind of battery.

You can take the photovoltaic cells and use them to cover your roof.

Howard wrote that ECD owns United Solar, a business that has six months of back orders for the cells, and broke ground for a second production plant this summer.

Or you can just use the batteries.

Howard wrote, "All the hybrid electric, pure electric and fuel cell automobiles in production, (as of this writing) employ NiMH propulsion batteries."

NiMH batteries are nickel-metal hydride batteries developed by ECD that can power a car.

And both Howard and Ovshinsky see it all coming together in the near future.

"Any internal combustion engine can be modified to operate with hydrogen as the fuel and clean water as the only byproduct," Howard wrote.

He says one of the unique things about Ovshinsky is that instead of simply inventing or developing something, he intends to create a whole new industry devoted to the hydrogen economy.

But, Howard writes, oil companies, natural gas companies, coal companies and electric companies fight the hydrogen economy because "After all, they are fighting for their business-lives."

Ovshinsky has a high school and a trade school diploma but no college or graduate experience.

His wife, Iris, has a bachelor's degree in zoology from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, a master's in biology from the University of Michigan and a doctorate in biochemistry from Boston University.

And the two work with a laundry list of distinguished academics and industry researchers.

Time Magazine apparently agrees in part with Howard's "gushing" about Ovshinsky.

He was named a "Hero for the Planet" by the magazine in 1999.

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