Energy efficiency

Are vehicles running on hydrogen a solution to protect our environment? Will private cars and public buses soon be powered by hydrogen? This is what the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) sought to discover at a test-drive in Brussels, on 18 October 2009.

 

The vehicle in which you are now is running on hydrogen. It is 100% clean, explained the representative of New Energy World Grouping, the private industrial partner of the European Commission for the proposed Joint Technology Initiative for fuel cell and hydrogen. Hydrogen is a clean energy carrier. When used as fuel either in combustion motors or in fuel-cell systems, it does not produce any carbon emissions

 

A number of barriers must still be addressed before these technologies can become widely commercially available. They include, for example, durability of fuel cells, sustainable production of hydrogen, and safe and efficient distribution and storage of hydrogen, particularly for mobile applications.

 

The European Commission hopes the initiative will accelerate the development of hydrogen technologies to the point of commercial take-off between 2010 and 2020.

 

This test-drive is part of a project of the European Commission that brings together public and private sectors. It aims to promote research, technological development and demonstration in the field of fuel cells in Europe.