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Hydrogen Vehicles Will Change Our Lives
By Robert Stempel
Hydrogen.
In our vehicles, it will have the power to accelerate us from 0-60
miles per hour in 10 seconds or less, to carry our families and
luggage more than 300 miles on a tankful, and to supply energy for
all of the additional electronics our vehicles will enjoy in coming
years.
In our lives, hydrogen will have the power to do even bigger things.
It will make transportation available to more people globally because
it’s the most abundant element, it will drastically reduce
environmental impact, and it will provide freedom from our dependence
on others for energy. In short, it’s an almost perfect fuel.
I’ll leave it to the politicians and geopolitical experts
to debate the most sweeping aspects of the new hydrogen economy.
For now, let’s look at how hydrogen-powered vehicles will
transform the way we move.
Let’s start with what won’t change. Internal combustion
engines running on hydrogen will still sound like today’s
engines. The displacement may be adjusted to maintain performance
and feel, and it will take about the same time to refuel –
about four or five minutes.
So what’s the big deal?
The big deal is that your tailpipe becomes the equivalent of a drain
spout. In place of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and other exhaust
gases leaving the tailpipe, it will be a trickle of H2O and water
vapor. Talk about a big change. Can you imagine sitting in traffic
on a summer day and the only thing you may notice is a slight increase
in the humidity?
And when that hydrogen is stored in a solid, as we have pioneered
and are bringing to the market at ECD Ovonics, that’s a game
changer. Advantages include eliminating complicated equipment, reducing
storage space, and most importantly, improving safety. When people
think of hydrogen in mobile applications, they think of it as a
gas or liquid. Liquid hydrogen must be stored at incredibly low
temperatures of -253 C. To store hydrogen as a gas requires high
pressure of 5,000 psi or more. Stored in a solid, we’ve demonstrated
you can crush it, spill it, drive objects through it, and handle
it – with no adverse effects on the human body or to water,
air, or soil. In a solid as atomic hydrogen, it’s safer than
other motor fuels.
In the meantime, we have started down the hydrogen path with hybrid
vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, which take
us one step into the hydrogen economy with their nickel-metal-hydride
batteries. Through the hydrides, you’re already starting to
run on hydrogen. Next, we’ll see internal combustion engine
vehicles that run on hydrogen. And once our solid hydride method
of storing hydrogen is applied to mass-market fuel cell applications
– of which I’m guessing we’ll see in about 8-10
years – the transformation will be complete: zero tailpipe
emissions and dramatic reductions in noise pollution.
I’ve spent most of my life in the automobile industry. As
much as anyone, I appreciate how mobility has raised the quality
of life for people the world over. But there are costs. We can have
cleaner, quieter, safer transportation. We can reduce the impact
mobility has on Mother Earth. We can improve the quality of people’s
lives even further.
We can and we will. The Hydrogen Solution is here today. And it
has the power to change our lives forever.
Robert Stempel is former chairman of General Motors Corp. and
now the chairman of Energy Conversion
Devices (www.ovonic.com).
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