Fuel Cell Vehicle Benefits
Fuel Cell Vehicle Benefits
No Greenhouse Gases
Burning fossil fuels such as gasoline or diesel adds greenhouse gases to the earth's atmosphere. Greenhouse gases trap heat and thus warm the earth because they prevent a significant proportion of infrared radiation from escaping into space. FCVs powered by pure hydrogen emit no greenhouse gases. If the hydrogen is generated by reforming fossil fuels, some greenhouse gases are released, but much less than the amount produced by conventional vehicles.
No Air Pollutants
Highway vehicles account for a significant share of the air pollutants that contribute to smog and harmful particulates. FCVs powered by pure hydrogen emit no harmful pollutants. FCVs that use a reformer to convert fuels such as natural gas, methanol, or gasoline to hydrogen do emit small amounts of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO).
Helps Strengthen National Energy Security
FCVs have the potential to strengthen our national energy security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil. The U.S. uses about 20 million barrels of oil per day, at a cost of about $2 billion a week. In fact, half of the oil used to produce the gasoline you put in your tank is imported. Hydrogen can be derived from many sources, such as methanol, natural gas, and gasoline, as well as renewable resources such as water. This flexibility would make us less dependent upon oil from foreign countries.
More Energy Efficient
Internal combustion engines in automobiles convert less than 20% of the energy in gasoline into power that moves the vehicle. Vehicles using electric motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells are much more energy efficient, utilitizing 40-60% of the fuel's energy. Even FCVs that reform hydrogen from gasoline can use about 40% of the energy in the gasoline.
Design Flexibility
The use of fuel cell stacks and electric motors affords automobile manufacturers a great deal of flexibility in designing vehicles.Fuel cell systems can be designed to fit almost any shape or body style. For example, the prototype on the right houses all of the vehicle's drivetrain components on a skateboard-shaped chassis. Also, instead of one large electric motor, it uses four smaller motors connected directly to each wheel.
Fuel cells can provide much more electric power than the 12 volt batteries in conventional automobiles. Therefore, FCVs can be equipped with more sophisticated and powerful electronic systems than those found in conventional gasoline vehicles. For example, some vehicle manufacturers are designing vehicles that use electronic steering and braking. Eliminating the steering column and wheel may make these vehicles safer.
Quieter
Fuel cell vehicles are much quieter than internal combustion engines although wind and road noise will still be present at higher speeds.
Patrick Takahashi: What Is The Best Biofuel? (HuffingtonPost)
The European Union, opening up a new transatlantic trade spat, will investigate whether soaring imports of U.S. biodiesel break global trade rules because of subsidies, the EU's executive Commission said on Friday.'Read more
EU probes U.S. biodiesel subsidies in new trade row (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
June 13 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union threatened to impose tariffs on biodiesel from the U.S., saying EU producers may be victims of American subsidies and price undercutting.'Read more
European Union Threatens Tariffs on U.S. Biodiesel (Update1) (Bloomberg.com)
SEATTLE - When King County, Wash., Metro Transit signed a one-year contract last June to buy 2 million gallons of biodiesel made by Seattle-based Imperium Renewables, the... 'Read more
Biofuel backlash: High prices, pollution worries hit consumers (Boston Herald)
More than 20 groups, including food processors and retail, environmental, hunger and food industry organizations, launched a cooperative effort to urge Congress to revisit the nation’s food-to-fuel policies on Tuesday, called the Food Before Fuel campaign.'Read more
'Food Before Fuel' campaign kicks off (St. Joseph News-Press)
CUPERTINO, Calif.----AE Biofuels, Inc., a vertically integrated biofuels company, today announced that it has signed a joint development agreement with DS Development, a subsidiary of DS Group, to build, own and operate a 75 million gallon per year production biodiesel plant near Rosario, Argentina.'Read more
AE Biofuels Announces Plans to Construct a 75 Million Gallon Argentina Biodiesel Plant With DS Group (Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance)
It takes six days for a blend of chicken fat and soybean oil to emerge from the reactors as B100 biodiesel, but the process is such at Pinnacle Biofuels in Crossett that the company produces 29,000 gallons of diesel per day, or 20 gallons per minute.'Read more
From Chicken Fat to B100 Diesel Fuel: The Pinnacle Biofuels Plant (Ashley County Ledger)
Mark Troyer thinks his 10-acre patch of camelina looks like a bunch of weeds. But he and some other local farmers are hoping that looks are deceiving and that camelina makes good on its promise as the next big thing for the biofuel industry.'Read more
Plant fuel Farmers roll dice on camelina, which some see as biofuel's future (Erie Times-News)
Checking in on stealthy solar start-up Stion, biodiesel woes, water recycling in Israel, microbes for energy production, and the ethanol from beer waste.'Read more
Green news harvest: 500-mile fuel cell car, Linux gets 'green flag' (CNET)
Amid accusations that alternative fuel sources such as ethanol and biodiesel are responsible for high food prices, employees of Minden-based Bently Biofuels are sticking up for themselves and their industry.'Read more