Author: Rick Chapo
Source: articleage.com
President Bush has indicated it is imperative to kick America's
oil habit. In conjunction with this goal,, hydrogen car, the Department of
Energy has just announced a $119 million dollar research
initiative.
Money for Research and Development
Obviously, automobiles are the basis of America's, hydrogen car, oil addiction.
Everyone seems to have at least one car if not more. To attack
this problem, the current administration is putting a lot of
emphasis, hydrogen car, on hydrogen fuel cell research for vehicles.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are extremely, hydrogen car, environmentally
friendly. They work by converting hydrogen and oxygen into
electricity through a chemical process. This process is
particularly attractive because it produces no pollutants, is
nearly twice as efficient as combustible gas engines and relies
on extremely plentiful resources that are not located in foreign
lands. There are, however, a few drawbacks to hydrogen fuel cell
vehicles.
Hydrogen powered cars are much more expensive than traditional
gas powered vehicles. The technology is simply not advanced
enough to make production cost effective. The vehicles
themselves are also not particularly efficient at this point in
time from both a performance and range perspective. The answer
to these problems, of course, is research and development.
To spur research on hydrogen fuel cell cars, the Department of
Energy has created a Research Roadmap that is designed to
identify and set goals for overcoming technical and
manufacturing problems related to this new energy platform. At
the Washington Auto Show, the agency also indicated it was
kicking in $119 million dollars in grants to get the ball
rolling.
The Department of Energy is focusing on a few key issues for
research. They include improving fuel cell membranes, water
movement within the fuel cell, advancing the chemical, hydrogen car, conversion
process, hydrogen car, and addressing the impact of impurities in the fuel
cells on performance and length of service of the automobiles.
Each of these subjects has proved to be a barrier to mass
production of hydrogen fuel cars.
The ultimate goal of the Department of Energy is to have
hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in mass production by 2020. To this
end, the $119 million dollar kick start represents a small part
of, hydrogen car, the over 1 billion dollars the agency will devote to research
and, hydrogen car, development on fuel cell automobiles. While, hydrogen car, 2020 may seem
far into the future, at least we are taking steps to move beyond
our reliance on foreign energy sources.
