Written by: fordmaverick
10/14/2008 8:49 PM

Hydrogen fuel cells are the route of the future but one of the biggest factors surrounding these cars is the availability of hydrogen. For starters, hydrogen may be one of the most abundant elements on the planet but is always found attached to another element. The separation of the two elements requires vast amounts of electricity and therefore reduces the cost effectiveness of the fuel. On the other hand, the cheapest means of getting the hydrogen also results in the release of greenhouse gases.

It is important to remember that once the hydrogen is obtained, it is in fact a clean burning fuel. There has been a large amount of research going into ways of making the hydrogen electrolysis cheaper such as a recent discover from MIT which uses a catalyst of Cobalt Phosphate to help the process be an easier one. This will allow for one to pull the hydrogen from water rather than methane and therefore leaves no greenhouse gases as an after effect. However more research needs to be performed to determine the viability of this process.

Hydrogen fuel cells are extremely efficient in that they take oxygen and hydrogen and through a film the two elements get excited and release electricity which in turn can be used to power the car’s electric motors. However it is also important to keep in mind that when hydrogen is in its liquid form, it takes four times the liters to produce the same amount of power output. Now with that in mind, in order to keep hydrogen in liquid form it requires a cryogenic cooling unit. Most fuel cells use compressed hydrogen which means that it takes a substantial more to create the same power. This is much like the effect of LPG in a car in which you need to use more even though it cost less just to get the same output.

While in a fuel cell versus an internal combustion hydrogen powered vehicle, this power difference may not be as noticeable, the fact still remains that hydrogen is none the less far more efficient as a fuel source than any other chemical on this planet.

Fuel cells make no vibrations at all nor do they create any form of noise. There in no combustion of the hydrogen but rather a chemical reaction between the oxygen and the hydrogen which results in the manufacture of pure water along with the release of the electrons needed to power the vehicle; most of all though, fuel cells are highly reliable in which some estimates have shown upwards of the 99% range for reliability. This means that in comparison to many other alternative energy sources, the fuel cell is considered by many to be the absolute best.

The fuel cell is easily responsive to increased loads and by supplying more of the gasses to the cell, more power can be obtained. While in some cases this response speed may not seem satisfactory to say that of fossil fuels, it is in fact more than sufficient for uses in many different applications including boats as well as cars. Best of all is the fact that the power output in DC from the fuel cell is of high quality. What this means is that when fluctuations in the AC power grid can wreak havoc on specialized and highly sensitive medical equipment, the fuel cell can deliver that power without the issues of fluctuations.

Unfortunately as of currently fuel cells are in no way considered to be cheap. But like with many other new innovations this is only a matter of time before the cost of production is lower. Remember, there use to be a time when unless you were a fortune 500 company or a government entity, the costs associated with the purchase of a solar cell was considered to be too great and now everyone can afford them.

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