Ford and Israeli researchers continue to dream of fueling vehicles with nearly-pollution free hydrogen vehicles, but the reality remains elusive.
Earlier in July Ford announced it started production of a hydrogen internal combustion engine that would be installed in a fleet of shuttle buses. According to Ford, the 6.8-liter V-10 hydrogen ICE will be used in Ford's E-450 buses, which arere scheduled to be delivered to fleet customers later this year.
Ford has been showing off hydrogen ICE concept vehicles since 2001, and is one of several companies touting the technology as a necessary step towards hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Hydrogen ICEs emit much less pollution than petroleum vehicles, but they aren't as energy efficient as fuel cells.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel and Tareq Abu-Hamed, now at the University of Minnesota, have teamed up to create hydrogen on demand from water and the element boron. This process produces electricity and boron oxide that would be collected and converted back to boron using electricity, according to a New Scientist article (per FuelCellWorks).
However, a similar technology was developed by Millennium Cell (using sodium borohydride) and crashed and burned after 10 years of research because the process of emptying a vehicle and recycling the materials was thought logistically impossible.
The more I learn about hydrogen powered vehicles, the less faith I have that the technology will ever materialize into something cost effective. Maybe, but the challenges remain formidable.
