Top industry experts will converge in Reading on Wednesday to debate the future of alternative cars and ask if the Government’s drive for consumers to buy electric is 'pushing hydrogen vehicles off the road'. The event takes place on Wednesday (29 April), from 6pm – 9pm at Foster Wheeler House, Shinfield Park, Reading.
Gasoline cars will one day be phased out; perhaps the replacement will be hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles or electric vehicles. Both have pros, as well as many cons, quite a few of which are simply due to the early stages they are in.
Let’s look at hydrogen fuel cells first. When burned in an engine, the only emissions giving off is water, so a hydrogen powered vehicle is a zero emission vehicle. Hydrogen is also a better fuel than gasoline, it actually has the highest energy content per unit of weight of any known fuel. Hydrogen is also a very abundant element, though currently made by using fossil fuels, such as natural gas, coal, and oil. Also, hydrogen can be extracted from water, and we all know there’s a lot of water on this planet. Also, the technology to store hydrogen efficiently is still not ready yet.
One of the biggest disadvantages to a hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle is the difficulty in refilling the hydrogen. Were these cars to become extremely popular, it would be possible to replace modern gas stations with hydrogen stations, but this would cost billions to do. As it is right now, hydrogen refills would be almost impossible to find outside of a few major cities.
In recent years, electric cars have been coming back on the scene in force. There are many hybrid models that have been available for a few years, and this year the first fully electric cars were released to consumers. Modern fully electric vehicles have a lot going for them. They are considered Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV), since when they are running they give off no emissions. However, they are powered from the modern power grid, most of which is fossil fuel and gives off emissions. Modern electric vehicles have a range of about 250 miles. They can also store power during the day when it can be less in demand.
The main disadvantage electric vehicles have is that we are used to filling up, a recharge is not as simple as stopping at a gas station. A full recharge can take anywhere from five to eight hours – that’s just fine if you are commuting, but not practical for a long road trip. GM has proposed an answer to the distance difficulty by introducing the Volt – an electric vehicle equipped with an auxiliary motor designed to recharge the battery and extend the potential driving distance to as far as 600 miles. The auxiliary motor could be powered by gasoline, diesel, ethanol, or hydrogen.
Ethanol from corn or sugar cane(or soy biodiesel) requires land that puts pressure on the food supply, and it also requires petroleum to be grown and harvested. Ethanol from biomass decreases the need for fossil fuels and can be made from waste agriculture, but it is still requires vast land to fuel even a small percentage of vehicles, the technology is still in the laboratory phase, and it requires building out a distribution infrastructure.
Hydrogen fuel cell technology currently requires three to four times more energy to produce than it later generates, while plug-in critics maintain that battery technology is not advanced enough for long distance driving, and that the electricity grid would be overstretched if an entire nation attempted to recharge its cars.
The technology for mainstream electric cars is also not quite ready for all the major manufacturers to stop making gasoline powered cars, but it’s much closer than hydrogen currently.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2007/03/hydrogen_vs_bat
http://ezinearticles.com/?Hydrogen-Fuel-Cell-Cars-vs-Electric-Cars---Which-Is-Really-The-Car-Of-The-Future?&id=555594
http://www.mindsinmotion.net/index.php/mim/themes/hydrogen_for_mobility/opinion/hydrogen_vs_electric_the_battle_continues
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 0207 304 6888 or email media@imeche.org.
