Energy hydrogen-powered cars

The path set by the current energy policy of the United States and the developing world will dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades, which will force sharper and more painful reductions in the future when we finally do act. In the United States, the transportation sector alone is projected to generate nearly half of the 40 percent rise in co2 emissions forecast for 2025, which is long before hydrogen-powered cars could have a positive effect on greenhouse gas emissions (see Chapter 8). 

Fuel cells can also be used for other purposes. Think about the energy used by a car or other transportation vehicles. Fuel cells could be an excellent source of electrical energy for the cars and buses of the future. In fact, some researchers think that if hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles become common, they will cost less than half of what gasoline powered-vehicles cost today. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will also be easier to take care of because there will be fewer parts to repair or replace. 

This chapter addresses the question of how the United States might create a transportation system with dramatically lower oil use and greenhouse gas emissions. It concludes that the lithium battery powered car now represents a better energy strategy to achieve an economically viable solution than hydrogen fuel cells do. 

It takes only a small amount of energy to start the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to form water. The energy released by the reaction is much greater, so the reaction is exothermic. The energy from this reaction has been used to power car and truck engines. 

Battery and fuel cell-powered cars could dramatically reduce air pollution in cities, but only if the electric power sources used to charge the batteries or create the hydrogen fuel were themselves less polluting. Energy-efficient mass transit can also reduce mobile-source emissions of NOx as well as C02. 

At HYFORUM, an international hydrogen energy conference in Munich, BMW executives said that the company planned to offer the world s first commercially available hydrogen-fueled car, a luxury sedan powered by an internal combustion engine, in 2001. 

Tegstrom also converted his Saab 900 automobile to hydrogen power. He estimated that converting both the house and the car had cost the equivalent of about 139,000 (at average 1998 exchange rates). But these outlays should be seen as a down payment for 20 years of energy costs, he said. 

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