Word: hydrogen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Cars like the NECAR4, housed in a lab near Stuttgart, could help make that happen. This experimental vehicle, being jointly developed by Ford, DaimlerChrysler and Canada's Ballard Power Systems, gets its energy from hydrogen--the most abundant fuel in the entire universe. Hydrogen, unlike fossil fuels, contains no carbon atoms and thus generates zero carbon dioxide. However, it could produce some pollution, since burning hydrogen taints the atmosphere by rearranging air molecules to form nitrogen oxides and ozone...
...NECAR4 doesn't burn hydrogen. Instead, it uses an onboard fuel cell, developed by Ballard, to let hydrogen combine slowly with oxygen at moderate temperatures. What comes out is plain H2O and electricity...
Ideally, the hydrogen would be produced sustainably with renewable electricity from the sun or wind. But even under the most optimistic predictions for improvements in renewable technology, the electricity required to split H2O into H and O would be prohibitively expensive. So the first large-scale plants will probably wrest hydrogen from old-fashioned fossil fuels...
...danger in pulling hydrogen from fossil fuels is that it leaves carbon dioxide behind. If the CO2 is simply vented into the atmosphere, global warming will be as big a problem as ever. There is an alternative though: pump it into the ground. In Norway, for example, the energy company Norsk Hydro is building a power plant that will be fueled with hydrogen drawn from natural gas. The CO2 that's left over will be reinjected into an oil field on the continental shelf. Not only will this take the carbon dioxide out of circulation but it will also pressurize...
...chart a new course. We know how to use oil, wood, water and other resources much more efficiently than we do now. Increased efficiency--doing more with less--will enable us to use fewer resources and produce less pollution per capita, buying us the time to bring solar power, hydrogen fuel cells and other futuristic technologies on line...