Can Water Fuel Cells Help To Save Gas?
Although they are not expected to reach the mass market before 2010, fuel cell vehicles may someday revolutionize on-road transportation. This emerging technology has the potential to significantly reduce energy use and harmful emissions, as well as our dependence on foreign oil. Fuel cell vehicles will have other benefits as well.
Vehicles that use fuel cells are far different from the internal combustion engines used today. The electric motors used by fuel cells are similar to the ones used in battery-electric vehicles, but those use electricity from an outside source and store it in a battery, while fuel cell vehicles create their own electricity. Having this capability allows creation of electricity through a chemical process which turns air into hydrogen fuel and oxygen.
The pure hydrogen gas the vehicles use is stored in high-pressure tanks right on the vehicle itself. Hydrogen rich fuels used by fuel cell vehicles includes methanol, natural gas and even gasoline, but first they are converted to hydrogen gas with a device on the vehicle called a “reformer.”
Fuel cell vehicles fueled with pure hydrogen emit no pollutants; only water and heat; while those using hydrogen-rich fuels and a reformer produce only small amounts of air pollutants. In addition, fuel cell vehicles can be twice as efficient as similarly sized conventional vehicles and may also incorporate other advanced technologies to increase efficiency.
There are some industry related requirements for fuel cell vehicles to become part of everyday life at local auto dealers. First, we need a lot of research and development to reduce the cost and improve performance of these vehicles. The second consideration is that we need cheap and effective ways to store hydrogen and alternative fuels.
The Department of Energy is forming partnerships like the FredomCAR intiative and the California Fuel Cell Partnership, to encourage private companies and government agencies to work towards making fuel cell vehicles part of our every day lives. Everybody is working together - automakers, fuel cell developers, parts suppliers, government agencies - to get this done as quickly as possible.
Fuel cell vehicles aren’t readily available because technology is still in the process of creating the ideal one. It’s simply a matter of time, however. Soon advertisers will flood us with pleas to forsake our gas guzzling vehicles and make the switch to the ‘greener’ option.
It is possible for each one of us to help heal our planet by simply using a fuel cell vehicle. Our planet has been bombarded with the effects of transportation, and now global warning and ozone depletion are realities that must be confronted. When we switch to fuel cell vehicles and alternative fueled vehicles, we become part of the social and economic trend of the future.