Word: hydrogen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Unlike an internal combustion engine, which burns its fuel so inefficiently that only 20 percent of the energy in gasoline gets used, a fuel cell can pull off at least 30 percent efficiency by reacting its special fuels--hydrogen and oxygen gas--electrochemically...
...practice, the equation isn't so spotless. Though oxygen is plentiful in the air, pure hydrogen is much harder to come by and must be obtained artificially...
...process of extracting hydrogen from more conventional fuels such as gasoline and methanol inevitably releases some carbon dioxide--but not as much as the internal combustion engine does, and therein lies...
...pollution levels of fuel cells, while seemingly their raison d'etre, is also their most damning flaw. A fuel cell is a highly efficient reactor, but is notoriously picky about what it consumes--only pure hydrogen and oxygen...
Oxygen is readily available in the atmosphere. But hydrogen only exists in trace amounts in the air, and must be produced artificially--usually from fossil fuels, and perhaps in the future from rotting biomass and solar panels...