Hydrogen for Cars and Buses Steaming Tailpipes

The participants in the project include two banks, Hamburg s transit authority, the city s electric and gas utilities, a gas distributor, a specialized moving company, and, notably, Deutsche Shell AG, the German division of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group. The van s conversion to hydrogen operation 

Otto and Schrempp were emblematic of the change of attitude among some international business leaders who came out in favor of advanced hydrogen-based energy technologies as the twentieth century drew to a 

There is no longer any real question that advanced transportation technologies employing hydrogen (directly or indirectly) as an energy medium will be essential in the twenty-first century. That is a far cry from the hesitancy, uncertainty, disbelief, ironic skepticism, and raised eyebrows that accompanied discussions about hydrogen as late as the mid 1990s. 

The case for alternative transportation fuels in general and hydrogen in particular has been argued for years in all sorts of forums. The intent here is not to plow the same ground again in great detail. Still, some numbers are pertinent. 

Hydrogen is widely regarded as the ideal or nearly ideal fuel to solve those problems. By definition, it doesn t pollute. Burned or oxidized with atmospheric oxygen, it produces water. (It also produces some nitrogen oxides if combustion occurs with a flame, as in an internal-combustion engine, but no nitrogen oxides are produced in an electrochemically reactive fuel cell.) 

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