Hydrogen Gas In Cars – A Viable Alternative To Gasoline
July 17th, 2009. Published under Cars and Trucks. No Comments.
It is most likely that your car is using an ethanol-gasoline fuel blend. Ethanol, produced from corn as fuel, has been hailed as a breakthrough to reducing both American’s reliance on foreign oil and dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. This is a moot point as many people claim that growing tonnes of crops to produce a fuel that is no better than gasoline is a cul-de-sac solution. For instance, Ethanol has been used by cars to run without optimization for quite a while without significant changes in fuel prices or greenhouse emissions. A newer contender is hydrogen gas in cars for improved fuel economy.
Using hydrogen gas in cars has numerous advantages over ethanol and gasoline. It’s a much cleaner-burning fuel which leaves no carbon footprint, since the only emission is water vapor, which consists mainly of nitrogen, an element that accounts for more than 75% of the air we breathe. Hydrogen fuel also gives us about two-thirds better fuel economy at roughly half the cost.
The two major setbacks of changing over to hydrogen gas in cars are the system within the car and fuel availability. If you do not live within close proximity to a hydrogen generation plant (and who does ?), chances are there are probably no stations where you can purchase commercially produced hydrogen to fuel your car with.
The process of generating large amounts of hydrogen on board the vehicle for burning in place of gasoline is still facing some technological limitations limiting use of the technology on the open road. Some auto manufacturers that plan to offer fully hydrogen-powered vehicles are also working on producing home hydrogen gas fueling stations. The home hydrogen fueling station has the potential to not only fuel your car but also power your home as well, offering tremendous saving both financially and environmentally.
There are several viable options for converting your gasoline-powered vehicle into a hydrogen hybrid that will allow you to take advantage of both the increases in fuel economy and a large reduction in your vehicles emission. Commercially available kits produce small amounts of hydrogen using the electricity generated by your car and add it to the gasoline air/fuel mixture the car is already running on. Prices range in cost from roughly two hundred dollars for kits composed of easy to find parts, to kits requiring specialty equipment that costs several thousand dollars.
When hydrogen fuel production begins on mega scale and will be easily available in big volume, we will definitely begin to see new inventions when we start using hydrogen gas in cars. Indeed, BMW are publicizing their work on a hydrogen fuel car but it is only a one off prototype without any commercial potential to date. Before that date when this becomes commercially viable arrives, home-made kits that use readily available parts and plain water can help the mechanically-inclined to get a long up on the technology. Instructions for creating your own water to gas kits are found on the internet through sites such as Water4gas.
It’s not only do-it-yourselfers and automobile manufacturers paying attention to hydrogen gas in cars, energy companies and even governments are now exploring hydrogen fuel technology. With more interest along with financial resources to back up continuing research, the day may soon come that hydrogen gas will be the fuel of choice powering your car.