Essay on Hydrogen Fuel Cells Vs. Gasoline

It has been estimated that there will be approximately 1200 million motor vehicles by the year 2020. That is almost twice the number of cars that are already traveling on our busy roads. Due to this ever increasing vehicle population, the demand for fuel will continue to increase as well. With the depleting supply of oil already an issue for the U.S. especially, there is a growing interest in alternative energy fuels that can be used to power motor vehicles.

The Hydrogen Fuel Cell could revolutionize the world. This ingenious technology, which creates electricity from the chemical reactions of hydrogen and oxygen has, in its 150-year history, passed many of the critical tests along the path from invention to innovation. Recent developments in fuel cell technology and concurrent developments within the energy and automotive industries have brought the world to brink of the fuel cell age and the hydrogen economy.

First, the article claims that the fuel cell engines utilize easily available , renewable resources. However, the professor refutes that by saying that the resources are not easily available. Although, hydrogen is available in water, but it's not usable. She said it must be in apurified liquid state and it's highly artificial, so the process of produce and stor the liquid hydrogen is not easy because

So what is this mysterious black gold substance that everyone refers to as crude oil? Basically, crude oil is a petroleum based substance that is naturally formed from plants and animals that roamed the Earth millions of years ago. These microorganisms settled deep within our Earth’s crust and comprises of numerous minerals, hydrocarbons, organic compounds and inconsequential traces of metals. Crude oil cannot just be drawn up from the ground and shoved into someone’s gas tank without first being refined

However, some pundits are concerned that adopting hydrogen energy as the sole strategy for the issues facing the automobile’s future is problematic because of the lengthy time frame in which they are projected to become ubiquitous. Furthermore, the present infrastructure for the distribution of hydrogen fuel sources or the production of hydrogen fuel cells is not only insufficient, but slow to develop. As such, fossil fuels are presently the main source for hydrogen production, which means that hydrogen vehicles do not successfully decouple the automobile from a fossil fuel economy. This is also widely inefficient because it will generate four times the carbon dioxide emissions generated by gasoline efficient automobiles. Furthermore, compressing hydrogen for the purposes of

It is insoluble in water, and usually is found in the form of a salt like substance.

“The cars we drive say a lot about us.” –Alexandra Paul Transportation is a large concern in todays modern world. Most individuals have opted to buy vehicles for their personal use. Most of these vehicles consume gasoline and a smaller proportion is hybrid based. These two types of vehicles have many similarities.

Some of the concerns regarding hydrogen that are currently limiting its widespread throughout the world is hydrogen gas is very time consumer which requires a lot of time to free up from its elements even though it is less expensive than regular gas. Hydrogen gas cannot be moved through pipelines like oil due to it is a very light gas. Hydrogen gas require energy such as oil, coal, and natural gas to separate it from oxygen which will not just have logistical issues but also environmental issues.

99.9% pure or better, not decompose under ordinary storage, stable when dried by heat or vacuum (should not be a hydrate), of high molecular weight

Gasoline is a flammable liquid that is made from the refinement of petroleum or better known as crude oil. It helps fuel cars, farm machinery, planes and other type of engines. What is petroleum? It’s a fossil fuel that supplies energy around the world than any other source out there. Petroleum, including gasoline is primarily a mixture between hydrocarbons and small amounts of other substances. In 1994, its known that the United States used up to 7,587,00 barrels of oil a day which concludes that America is the worlds largest consumer in oil. The majority of today’s crude oil is located along side the Persian Gulf Basin with some amounts in Alaska and in

Even though hydrogen as a fuel seems to answer every problem we want it to; it also has setbacks. Although we have the technology now to bring us an endless supply of hydrogen fuel we do not have the storage or infrastructure capabilities for it. “Hydrogen

Petroleum is the name given to the black liquid composed of several molecules consisted of hydrocarbons with different weights combined with organic compounds. It is found in the deep formations underneath the Earth derived from the heat and high pressures upon dead organisms such as zooplankton and algae in sedimentary rocks and can be refined into different components such as fossil fuel to generate power.

small, positively-charged proton with a negatively-charged electron orbiting very fast, a model analogous to the earth orbiting the sun, or the moon orbiting the earth. Fuel cells take advantage of this structure. Using a membrane and a catalyst, hydrogen is broken up into a proton and an electron. While there are many different membrane models for fuel cells, the most appropriate one for car travel is the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM, also called the Proton Exchange Membrane). It is called this because protons are able to easily pass through the membrane. However, because the membrane does not allow electrons to pass through it, the electrons take a detour through an electrical circuit to the other side of the cell. If hydrogen is supplied into the cell at a steady rate, the stream of electrons in the electrical circuit creates electric power. However, like all batteries, you need a positive end (cathode) and a negative end (anode); in other words, the hydrogen atoms must have a “reason” to make this electrical circuit. And what is this reason? Oxygen. With oxygen at the other end, hydrogen is more than willing to create this current so that it can bind and form H2O, or water on the other end.

The world is currently in an energy crisis with no end in sight. Many technologies

For the past three decades Oil dominates the agenda of political discussion. With scares over price volatility, sizes of reserves, international imports and least of which are the environmental impacts due to carbon dioxide and other emissions. Various speculations and educated guesses place our total depletion of crude oil within the next 50 years and there is a general consensus between environmentalists that we steer toward a hydrogen transportation system given the projected work and nonexistent carbon dioxide emissions (Environmental Technologies class lecture, Santa Clara University). However many barriers stand in the way of attaining such a goal, most of which pertaining