What is HYDROGEN VEHICLE? What does HYDROGEN VEHICLE mean? HYDROGEN VEHICLE meaning — HYDROGEN VEHICLE definition — HYDROGEN VEHICLE explanation.
Source: Wikipedia.org article, adapted under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ license.
A hydrogen vehicle is a vehicle that uses hydrogen as its onboard fuel for motive power. Hydrogen vehicles include hydrogen fueled space rockets, as well as automobiles and other transportation vehicles. The power plants of such vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy either by burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, or by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to run electric motors. Widespread use of hydrogen for fueling transportation is a key element of a proposed hydrogen economy.
As of 2014, 95% of hydrogen is made from methane. It can be produced using renewable sources, but that is an expensive process. Integrated wind-to-hydrogen (power to gas) plants, using electrolysis of water, are exploring technologies to deliver costs low enough, and quantities great enough, to compete with traditional energy sources.
Many companies are working to develop technologies that might efficiently exploit the potential of hydrogen energy for use in motor vehicles. As of November 2013 there are demonstration fleets of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles undergoing field testing including the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell, Honda FCX Clarity, Hyundai ix35 FCEV and Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell. The drawbacks of hydrogen use are high carbon emissions intensity when produced from natural gas, capital cost burden, low energy content per unit volume, low performance of fuel cell vehicles compared with gasoline vehicles, production and compression of hydrogen, and the large investment in infrastructure that would be required to fuel vehicles.
Critics claim the time frame for overcoming the technical and economic challenges to implementing wide-scale use of hydrogen cars is likely to last for at least several decades, and hydrogen vehicles may never become broadly available. They claim that the focus on the use of the hydrogen car is a dangerous detour from more readily available solutions to reducing the use of fossil fuels in vehicles. In May 2008, Wired News reported that «experts say it will be 40 years or more before hydrogen has any meaningful impact on gasoline consumption or global warming, and we can’t afford to wait that long. In the meantime, fuel cells are diverting resources from more immediate solutions.»
K. G. Duleep commented that «a strong case exists for continuing fuel-efficiency improvements from conventional technology at relatively low cost.» Critiques of hydrogen vehicles are presented in the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?. According to former U.S. Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, «A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases.» Asked when hydrogen cars will be broadly available, Romm replied: «Not in our lifetime, and very possibly never.» The Los Angeles Times wrote, in February 2009, «Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won’t work in cars. … Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars.»
The Economist magazine, in September 2008, quoted Robert Zubrin, the author of Energy Victory, as saying: «Hydrogen is ‘just about the worst possible vehicle fuel'». The magazine noted the withdrawal of California from earlier goals: «In March the California Air Resources Board, an agency of California’s state government and a bellwether for state governments across America, changed its requirement for the number of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) to be built and sold in California between 2012 and 2014. The revised mandate allows manufacturers to comply with the rules by building more battery-electric cars instead of fuel-cell vehicles.» The magazine also noted that most hydrogen is produced through steam reformation, which creates at least as much emission of carbon per mile as some of today’s gasoline cars. On the other hand, if the hydrogen could be produced using renewable energy, «it would surely be easier simply to use this energy to charge the batteries of all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles.»
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