Using Hydrogen For Cars
As gas prices continue to rise to unprecedented levels, every available resource is being investigated to replace fossil fuels by august official bodies like the energy commission to the average Joe and Josephine in the street. Hydrogen fuel cells seem to be a possible alternative. Hydrogen for cars will not only provide the chance to explore new energy sources; it will also open up better potential for us to improve how we travel overall.
Among the many candidates to replace fossil fuels, hydrogen is showing great promise. It ocurs naturally in many everyday items, including water, coal and the compost heap in the back garden. Its natural abundance makes it all the more attractive in terms of developing this resource for widespread consumption.
Methods for producing hydrogen fuel for cars can vary, but they are all quite efficient and much cleaner than is fossil fuel production. For instance, a gasoline production refinery requires 300 billion gallons of water to produce that fuel, but if it produced the same amount of hydrogen, it would only need one million gallons of water.
The gallon of gasoline equivalent to hydrogen costs about half as much as gasoline but improves fuel economy by over two-thirds more. Hydrogen fuel also decreases engine operating temperatures, all but eliminating emissions as well as the unwanted carbon footprint.
A big problem hindering the production of hydrogen-fueled vehicles is the lack of available hydrogen fuel. In the future, home hydrogen refueling stations may become a realistic possibility, but they are not currently affordable for most people.
An explosion of new vehicle designs will emerge when hydrogen fuel powered cars become the standard in the automobile industry. The electricity to power these vehicles would be generated within a much smaller engine from the hydrogen fuel, thereby eliminating many of the limitations imposed not only by the size of gasoline engines, but also those restrictions based on the heat produced by a gasoline engine. Limitations from designing around current driveline equipment would also be eliminated by the new hydrogen-fueled vehicles.
Hydrogen for cars will become more cost effective as hydrogen production increases, creating a new era of energy consumption. Using hydrogen will decrease society’s dependence on fossil fuels, an added benefit for the environment. The reality is that gas prices will not retreat much from this current high mark, which will only increase the pace at which hydrogen fueled cars and the equipment needed to make them a reality develops.