Rosie
Saving the environment is a great concern of mine, so any optimistic news about future clean, efficient technology is of great interest. For this reason I was delighted when I heard about the development of hydrogen fuel cells to be used in future cars and other machines. Cars are so useful and yet unfortunately cannot function without pumping immeasurable amounts of filth into the atmosphere. Proof of global warming is quite evident these days, and long lines of stagnant traffic creating hazes over the road are extremely depressing. But recently while reading Time Magazine, I learned about the development of a new type of vehicle that runs on hydrogen and releases only water. Right away I wanted to find out more, so was glad to be able to do so for a chemistry project.
The first thing I did was to go to the library in search of books on the subject. However, I could find none on that particular subject, probably because of the relative newness of the technology. I had much more success with various periodicals and on the Internet. Ford, Daimler Chrysler, and Ballard Power Systems in Canada have teamed up to work on new hydrogen fuel cell cars, and they all have web sites. Some of them explain how a fuel cell works, but none go into great detail. I had to pick up bits of information at lots of different web sites before I got enough of it. Probably the reason the car companies are reluctant to display their detailed engineering plan is that they fear someone else will copy them. I think all of them know they have something really big going, and to let just anyone learn the technology would destroy their potential monopoly.
What I learned about hydrogen fuel cells seems very promising for the future. The car itself runs beautifully to date and is in many ways safer and more efficient than a gasoline powered car. They work by splitting hydrogen molecules into protons and electrons, using the electrons to run the motor, and then recombining everything with oxygen to form water. Cost barriers are the main obstacles in the way of mass production. Hydrogen is difficult to separate from larger molecules and even harder to filter out of the air. Electrolysis and other expensive techniques can be used, but even these usually require electricity that ends up being provided by fossil fuels, defeating the purpose of cleaner technology. But wind or solar power can also be used to do the job. The hydrogen fuel cell car in general has a very good design and only needs to be mass-produced to bypass cost restraints.
I fully support the manufacture of hydrogen fuel cell cars to replace the gasoline ones we use today. Cost barriers will eventually be overcome, as they always are. I feel confident that they will eventually be mass-produced and available to all types of customers. People love their cars too much to leave them for the sake of the environment, but they could be convinced to switch to a cleaner type of car. More research should also be done about hydrogens potential use in other types of machinery. If we can clean up our technological advances, the word progress will lose its smoggy aura.
