That dream might not that be so distant, judging by an exhibit attracting lots of attention outside the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg: BMW’s ‘0 litre car.’
Powered by liquid hydrogen, 15 of these swanky BMW 750hL test vehicles have already covered a distance of 170,000 kilometres since 2000.
According to BMW’s Director for Environmental Protection, Manfred Heller, the test vehicles are comparable to other models of the popular 7 Series.
“However, instead of harmful carbon dioxide, water is emitted. Our objective to preserve fossil fuels and reduce carbon dioxide emissions can be achieved with Clean Energy if the hydrogen fuel is produced by means of renewable resources,” he said.
The hydrogen fuel can be produced by using natural gas like steam or by electrolysis. In electrolysis water comes into contact with energy and the water is split into its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen created is stored, forming hydrogen energy.
The challenge to find an energy supplier, which is renewable, was right under their noses – or should I say above their heads?
The sun’s energy answered this problem. The sun sends as much energy to the earth in an hour as mankind uses in a year. The sun’s energy could be harnessed in solar power plants, for example.
BMW engineer Albrecht Jungk warned it was unlikely that the process of getting hydrogen enabled cars on the road would be any earlier than a decade from now.
“Ten years is the earliest estimation but because there is still a long way to go with discussions between other parties like Shell and BP it shouldn’t be anytime soon.”
Jungk added that since hydrogen was so expensive it was making people opt between ‘clean or cheap’.
“At the moment hydrogen is about 4 times more expensive than petrol. We cannot estimate whether the price will decrease in time since no one can predict the price of fuel.”
Perhaps the question we should be asking though is should there be a price attached to our future generations’ well being?
In all probability the closest the youth of today will get to sampling one of these futuristic models will be on the backseat of one of our grandchildren’s cars.
© Global Youth Reporters Programme
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