Hydrogen/Solar

Hydrogen Cars:

       Hydrogen cars have many environmental benefits:

• These cars use oxygen from the air and hydrogen as a power source. The exhaust is simply water vapour.
• Hydrogen is produced by power stations where the by-product of burning fossil fuels can be managed more efficiently.
• Hydrogen may possibly be produced from renewable energy resources.

There are significant problems with hydrogen vehicles. these cars will not be mass produced for many years, possibly decades.

• They are very expensive to build and are still developmental.
• They have very high running costs and low energy efficiency.

These technical hurdles will take a long time to solve, and many wonder why the motor industry ignored developments in electric vehicles in favour of hydrogen: Watch the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?"   for more information on this...

However, Transport for London are trying to move forward with hydrogen technology with their fuel cell buses.

Techies might be interested in "How Stuff Works" about fuel cells

 Solar Cars:

      The solar car uses solar energy as it's power source.

Surface mounted photo cells convert sunlight into electrical energy, there are also many benefits with this technology;

• There are no exhaust gases at all.
• There is no fuel cost [sunlight] - yet...
• These vehicles are virtually silent.

The bad news:

• Solar cells are fragile and easily damaged, especially when used on vehicles.
• Efficient solar vehicles are extremely expensive.
• Only small, lightweight vehicles can function efficiently with current solar cell technology.
• When it's not sunny you lose your power source.