A couple of news headlines in the last few days have once again brought into focus two of the most pressing problems facing every nation on this earth today.They are the price of crude oil touching $84 a barrel and that the arctic ice is vanishing at an alarming rate.The former threatens to derail economic growth worldwide and the latter is a warning that we are on the brink of an environmental catastrophe with yet unforeseen consequences.This is exactly why hydrogen powered vehicles become so important.
Most people think that US automakers have surrendered technological leadership to their Japanese rivals for good.If one were to consider sales of conventional vehicles and the latest hybrids then nobody would have a choice but to agree.But fortunately things are not so bleak for the US auto industry as they may appear at first sight.
People tend to overlook the fact that one of the major reasons why US automakers have lagged behind in the development of hybrid technology is that they have concentrated on developing electric and hydrogen powered vehicles.
So how do hydrogen powered vehicles work?They work in two different ways.The first is that hydrogen is burnt in internal combustion engines in the same way as in conventional autos.The second is to use hydrogen to power fuel cells.Here hydrogen is reacted with oxygen to produce electricity which is used to power an electric motor through a battery.
Hydrogen can be produced from a multiplicity of sources such as natural gas ,converting coal into gas,biomass and other waste products apart from water.It is estimated that supplies of hydrogen are unlimited.
Presently there are about 200 hydrogen powered vehicles on the road in the US mainly in California.Companies have started offering hydrogen powered cars to customers but there are a couple of problems.For one the cost of the vehicle is very high and secondly the fuel is not easily available.However it is expected that mass production will lead to significant reduction in costs.
Although hybrid cars cut down emissions significantly, only hydrogen cars offer zero emission, the only emission being water vapor.Moreover these cars will drastically reduce the nation's dependence on imported oil.The US government is actively supporting this initiative and President Bush has allocated almost $2 billion to this program.Since one fifth of the nation's cars are sold in California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying hard to put in place an infrastructure which would ensure easy availability of hydrogen.Once costs come down and fuel is easily available there is no reason why hydrogen cars will not replace gasoline cars very quickly because performance wise hydrogen cars are a match for their gasoline counterparts.Moreover they are more efficient and give two to three times the mileage of gasoline vehicles per equivalent measure of hydrogen.
Hopefully it won't be very long before hydrogen vehicles are a common sight on the highway.