Hydrogen vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hydrogen vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Sequel, a fuel cell powered vehicle from General Motors
A hydrogen vehicle is a vehicle, such as an automobile or aircraft, which uses hydrogen as its primary source of power for locomotion. These vehicles generally use the hydrogen in one of two methods: combustion or fuel-cell conversion:
In combustion, the hydrogen is "burned" in engines in fundamentally the same method as traditional gasoline cars.
In fuel-cell conversion, the hydrogen is turned into electricity through fuel cells which then power electric motors.
Hydrogen can be obtained through various thermochemical methods utilizing natural gas, coal (by a process known as coal gasification), liquefied petroleum gas, biomass (biomass gasification), or from water by electrolysis or by a process called thermolysis. A primary benefit of using pure hydrogen as a power source would be that it uses oxygen from the air to produce water vapor as exhaust. Another benefit is that, theoretically, the source of pollution created today by burning fossil fuels could be moved to centralized power plants, where the byproducts of burning fossil fuels can be better controlled. Hydrogen could also be produced from renewable energy sources with (in principle) no net carbon dioxide emissions. There are both technical and economic challenges to implementing wide-scale use of hydrogen vehicles; the timeframes in which such challenges may be overcome is unclear and a point of controversy.[citation needed]