Hydrogen, everyone has heard of it. It is the first element on the periodic table of elements, our chemistry teaches blew up balloons filled with it and we know that when you combine two atoms of hydrogen with one atom of oxygen you get water. But what else can you do with Hydrogen? How about power your car with it.
My friend Greg Hughes posted about BMW testing their first 7-series hybrid car that runs on hydrogen or gasoline. With gas prices on the rise and consumers clamoring for more efficient vehicles that won't sacrifice the performance we have grown accustomed to, alternative power sources for vehicles has been a hot topic for the past few years. This has led to advances in battery technology for hybrid gas/electric vehicles such as the Toyota Prius. A favorite alternative of mine is vehicles that run on alcohol, partially because of friends of mine that raced alcohol powered go-karts, but I digress. GM has been leading the push for a technology they call FlexFuel, which is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.
But what about hydrogen, where does it fit into this picture. Although, not as popular as electric cars or ethanol hybrids, there is a strong force behind the user of hydrogen for fuel simple because of the ease of creating it. Unlike ethanol, which requires vegetable waste (mainly corn) to produce or electric hybrids which store the energy from gas vehicles that is normally wasted, hydrogen can be produced for almost no cost from the most abundant substance on earth, water using solar or wind energy. There companies working to produce kits to convert your strictly gasoline burning car, truck or SUV to be a hybrid vehicle that can burn either gasoline or hydrogen. This is really cool stuff. United Nuclear is advertising a kit that allows your vehicle to run on hydrogen, and when the computer senses that the hydrogen is running out it switches back to running on gasoline. Tell me thats not cool!
One catch that United Nuclear does bring up is about the combustibility of hydrogen compared to gasoline may damage engines running greater than 9.5:1 compression ratios, e.g. turbocharged, supercharged or high performance naturally aspirated engines. |