Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) There’s a disconnect between when people want to use electricity and when solar tends to produce it. Most often, people use power during the evening or the early morning, when the Sun isn’t yet up. “There is a mismatch between solar irradiation arriving on Earth and the time […]
Enlarge / GreenGT’s prototype hydrogen-powered racer. (credit: Dhananjay Khadilkar) Around 400 meters away from the buzz of the paddock during this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans stood a tent with two racing cars and a mobile fueling station. Every now and then, people wearing blue T-shirts bearing the logo of Mission H24 would walk […]
Enlarge / Anglo American and First Mode, among others, are converting a Komatsu 930E truck like this one to be powered by hydrogen fuel cells and batteries rather than diesel engines. (credit: Anglo American) At first glance, an open-pit platinum mine in South Africa and the Baja 1000 off-road race don’t have much in common […]
A hydrogen filling station. (credit: Peter Gercke/picture alliance via Getty Images) The head of a hydrogen lobbying group has stepped down amid concerns that blue hydrogen made from natural gas would serve as a “lock-in” for fossil fuels. Oil and gas companies in recent years have been touting the purported advantages of hydrogen made from […]
Enlarge / A Hyundai Nexo patrol car at a hydrogen filling station in Lower Saxony, Germany. (credit: Friso Gentsch/picture alliance ) Gas companies and utilities are in a pickle. Their entire business model relies on the extraction, transport, and combustion of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases known to humankind. With many countries […]
Enlarge / A Coradia iLint hydrogen fuel-cell powered prototype railway train, manufactured by Alstom SA, travels in Salzgitter, Germany. (credit: Bloomberg/Getty Images ) If you were paying attention at the start of this century, you might remember the phrase “hydrogen economy, ” which was shorthand for George W. Bush’s single, abortive attempt to take climate […]
Enlarge / Using hydrogen in some of these applications probably makes more sense than building out a network of hydrogen filling stations for passenger cars. (credit: Scharfsinn86/Getty Images) In just the last week, General Motors signed agreements with not one but two companies to develop applications for its Hydrotec hydrogen fuel cell systems. At first […]
When Akio Toyoda, the president of Toyota Motor Corporation, wanted to demonstrate to Japanese customers that hydrogen power is safe, he decided to convert a Corolla to use H2 in an internal combustion engine and then entered the car in an endurance racing series. He was even one of the drivers. [credit: Toyota ] In […]
Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images) Hydrogen-powered heavy trucks capable of driving long distances are likely to reach a tipping point toward the end of the decade, according to the heads of the world’s two biggest truck makers. Martin Daum, chair of industry leader Daimler Truck, told the Financial Times that, while diesel trucks would […]
Enlarge / From May 21 to 23, Toyota will enter the Super Taikyu Series with a hydrogen-powered Corolla race car. (credit: Toyota) For some, the allure of hydrogen-powered vehicles is hard to resist. Proponents point first to long recharging times for lithium-ion batteries and then to the speed with which pressurized hydrogen can be pumped […]