VANCOUVER -- A B.C. company thinks it has the answer to one of the most challenging problems facing the world's fledgling fuel cell industry. The world's largest producer of methanol, Vancouver-based Methanex, believes the bumpy road to a hydrogen-based economy can be smoothed out by using its product as the source of energy to run everything from laptop computers to automobiles.

Methanol cartridges to feed fuel cell-powered laptops will hit the market next year, while the high-energy fuel has already proven reliable to power a series of DaimlerChrysler and Nissan fuel cell-powered vehicles in California.

The bigger challenge, noted Dominique Kluyskens, Methanex's emerging markets director, is setting up the infrastructure for a broad-based conversion of the world's automotive fleet.

Kluyskens said methanol can meet that challenge as well, with only minor conversions at existing gas stations, even if it's only for a few years to assist a transition from internal combustion to a new hydrogen economy.

He made his comments at a conference in Vancouver on hydrogen and fuel cell technology.

Dozens of nations are wrestling with the challenge of setting up the necessary infrastructure to sustain widespread adoption of fuel cell technology. Methanex is also a member of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, which in 2002 established the world's first methanol fuelling station for fuel cell vehicles.

The station supplies methanol to the fuel cell test vehicles test vehicles operating on methanol in the area with liquid fuel.

"I have to be very blunt with you, the car market is still 10 years away," Kluyskens said. "The car market has to compete with the internal combustion engine, which is still very cheap.

"Whereas the batteries for a laptop are very expensive and very cumbersome for the user."

There's also a perceived safety issue with hydrogen. A tank of hydrogen is five times larger than what's required for a comparable volume of energy in the form of methanol.