Can Water Fuel Cells Help To Save Gas?
Even though they aren’t anticipated to be available for sale until 2010, fuel cell vehicles could change the way we live and think about transportation. This innovative new technology has the ability to slash our consumption of energy use, clean up the environment, and make us less dependent on foreign oil. Fuel cell cars are advantageous in other ways, too.
Fuel cell vehicles represent a radical departure from vehicles with conventional internal combustion engines. Like battery-electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles are propelled by electric motors. But while battery electric vehicles use electricity from an external source (and store it in a battery), fuel cell vehicles create their own electricity. Fuel cells onboard the vehicle creates electricity through a chemical process using hydrogen fuel and oxygen from the air.
They can be fueled with pure hydrogen gas stored onboard in high-pressure tanks. Fuel cell vehicles also can be fueled with hydrogen-rich fuels; such as methanol, natural gas, or even gasoline; but these fuels must first be converted into hydrogen gas by an onboard device called a “reformer.”
Many people do not realize that there is no pollution when you use fuel cell vehicles powered by pure hydrogen, since the only byproducts are water and heat. Even those vehicles powered by hydrogen-rich fuels only emit small amounts of air pollutants. Plus, fuel cell vehicles, while being more fuel efficient than conventional vehicles, can offer advanced technology which increases efficiency even more.
Fuel cell vehicles, as great as they are, still have some fixing and tweaking to do before they can be commercially sold at your local dealer. Not only do they need to lower prices and enhance performance of the vehicles, they also need to figure out how to best store hydrogen fuels.
Automakers, fuel cell developers, component suppliers, government agencies, and others are working hard to accelerate the introduction of fuel cell vehicles. Partnerships such as the DOE-led FreedomCAR initiative and the California Fuel Cell Partnership have been formed to encourage private companies and government agencies to work together to move these vehicles toward commercialization.
Since technology is still trying to develop the perfect fuel cell vehicle, they are not yet readily available. However, that’s just a matter of time. Before long, we will be inundated with advertisements and pleas to switch over to ‘green’ cars and abandon our gas guzzlers.
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.
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