Word: hydrogenate
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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...
...universe is destined to collapse, ultimately dissolving into a fireball--a Big Crunch that amounts to the Big Bang run in reverse. If it's not, and expansion wins out, then the universe will eventually grow unpleasantly dark and cold. Stars produce energy by fusing light atomic nuclei, mainly hydrogen and helium, into heavier ones. When the hydrogen and helium run low, old stars will sputter out without any new ones to take their place, and the universe will gradually fade to black. Such were the gloomy alternatives that Robert Frost wrote about after being briefed on the theory...