Fuel cell cars a fresh, air-friendly alternative

A new fascinating piece of technology, previously thought to be light years in the future,… A new fascinating piece of technology, previously thought to be light years in the future, may be available very soon. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles may be on the roads and highly common before you know it.

Granted, types of fuel cells have been used for many years to provide power to various high-tech devices, but mainstream, workable hydrogen fuel cell automobiles are a brand new thing, and provide some hope to the liberal, environmentally friendly minds in all of us.

A few months back, Honda announced the release of a limited concept car, called the FCX.

Powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, the car is slated as being zero emissions – that is, if you ignore the pure water byproduct of using hydrogen to produce electricity.

The car, slated to arrive on the automotive scene in 2008, will be sold to customers willing to pay its near-$500-a-month lease – Honda is not selling the car to own.

Also, because Hydrogen fuelling stations are rare, except in select large cities, the Honda FCX will only be released to residents of large metropolitan areas, like New York.

Honda wants potential buyers to know that the FCX is not just a fuel cell concept vehicle. It is designed to be exceedingly advanced in its styling, giving it a large “street imprint,” as it were. When driving an FCX down the road, you are sure to be noticed.

Fuel cells have long been a proposed alternative to fossil fuels, because they are, in fact, zero emissions.

If hydrogen can be extracted and stored, a car can combine a supply of hydrogen with oxygen from the air. The reaction produces both an electrical current – used to power a series of high-torque electrical motors – and pure water, which is simply discarded out of the car’s tailpipe.

Not to be outdone by the foreign manufacturer Honda, General Motors recently announced the release of a limited fuel cell version of its Chevrolet Equinox mid-sized SUV.

GM claims that the new car combines both the flexibility and power of the gas-thirsty standard version of the Equinox with the environmentally friendly propulsion system of the hydrogen fuel cell.

General Motors is planning on releasing only 100 Fuel Cell Equinoxes to residents of New York City.

The lucky few who are able to get them can only lease them for large amounts of money per month. As of right now, the money required to build a hydrogen fuel cell car makes them prohibitively expensive to buy outright.

There is, as with most new technology, a rather troubling problem with the hydrogen fuel cell concept. Hydrogen does not simply appear in large pockets around the world. At least, it doesn’t appear readily in places we’ve discovered.

Most of the hydrogen in Earth exists as part of a larger compound, such as water or hydrocarbons. In order to extract it, therefore, large amounts of energy must be invested.

At our present stage of energy production technology, most of the required energy will come from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal or oil.

Therefore, although the cars do not directly burn petroleum products, the hydrogen used to propel the cars will be harvested, for the most part, by burning some quantity of a pollution-producing fuel.

This problem does not prevent automobile makers from remaining optimistic. Many believe that surely, if a demand for environmentally friendly hydrogen is created, the power industry will shift its interests from the acquisition and use of fossil fuels to the creation of electricity using hydroelectric plants, windmills or nuclear power.

Once our oil-driven economy overturns itself and is replaced with more environmentally friendly means of power production, hydrogen fuel cells will become a more and more viable alternative to fossil fuels.

If you live in the New York City area and are interested in test-driving a Chevrolet Equinox hybrid, visit http://www.chevrolet.com/fuelcell.