New Fuel Cells Seen in Near Future
Sept. 27 -- Scientists and engineers around the world are making significant progress in harnessing an energy source that could significantly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
That's a little bit of good news at a time when the United States is gearing up for what could be a decades-long war against international terrorism Battles will likely be fought in some of the troubled regions of the globe that now supply oil to fuel the industrial world, and it's not unlikely that supplies will become limited and prices will skyrocket.
That doesn't rank up there with worries about the loss of lives, of course, but the time has never been better for the country to redouble its efforts to reduce its dependence on petroleum.
Inexhaustible, Versatile, Powerful
Now would be a good time for someone to come up with a gadget that could turn out electricity without polluting the air, use an inexhaustible energy source, and be versatile enough to power everything from our cell phones to our automobiles to our factories.
It sounds too good to be true, and it maybe it is, but fuel cells that convert hydrogen — the most abundant element in the universe — directly to electricity with no pollution could fit the bill. Such devices have been around for awhile. Since the 1960s, they have provided the electricity to power the instruments aboard various spacecraft, but they've been too expensive and too weak to do much for the rest of us.
Yet just about every major automobile manufacturer, and numerous companies involved in supplying energy, plus a wide range of research institutions, and the U.S. Defense Department, are betting that's going to change. They are spending billions on research.
Here's why hydrogen is so promising as an energy source: It really packs a wallop, with about three times as much energy by weight as gasoline. When used in a fuel cell to produce electricity, its byproducts are water that is pure enough to drink, and heat that can be used for other purposes.
