The Honda FCX Concept Hydrogen Car

It is the seventh year of the second millennia Anno Domini. To most this is simply the year 2007. The human species has been, and is still on a rise in technological advancement. Our very lives have now become very dependent on the technology that surrounds us. As a result, we constantly push ourselves to the extreme limit, desperately trying to improve that technology. However, for this technology to grow it requires that humans constantly take resources from the Earth. These resources then go into various sectors which build the very world that we live in. To that end, man must find a way to balance his take from the Earth. For what he takes now, the future will lack. Sustainable Development, according to the United Kingdom’s government website “sustainable-development.gov.uk”, is; 'Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. This is a very widely accepted meaning on sustainable development and from it a meaning of Sustainable Technology can be made, which is basically; ‘Sustainable Technology - Engineering means by which Sustainable Development is made possible.’

Transportation is one such sector that constantly gets pushed to the extremes of human engineering, as technology now brings us to the brink of the most advanced automobiles ever created by man. The automobile, namely the car has evolved over the years to become one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology man has ever made. But how far has the car really come? “I believe that water will someday be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it... will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light.” This was said by Jules Verne in his book The Mysterious Island in 1874. It is now the year 2007, and while saying that hydrogen as a source replacement for gasoline is non-existent would be woefully untrue and unjust, as the hydrogen car has made significant advancement since it was first introduced, hydrogen is still not anywhere near the predictions scientist have made in the past 50 years. The majority of cars on the roads around the world still run on hydrogen. Figures from independent researchers show that hydrogen is still only the struggling minority percentage of the total cars on the road. Hybrid cars and hydrogen burning cars are among higher numbers. Then the question of why scientist and other people think that hydrogen is a viable sustainable technology. The answer is rather simple. Hydrogen meets the most pressing needs that other sources of energy can’t meet. First lets’ see why hydrogen can run a family car. Hydrogen can be used as a fuel in two ways for cars. One way is to burn it like conventional gasoline. However burning hydrogen like this still produces CO2 emissions that are harmful to the Earth’s Ozone layer, though fewer when compared to gasoline. The other method is to combine hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity with the only by-products being water vapour. Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on Earth making it sustainable as it is very much re-new able. These two reasons make hydrogen the most sustainable contender. The problem is that almost all of the hydrogen on Earth is already bonded to other elements forming other substances, as hydrogen does not exist naturally on its own. As a result, hydrogen must be split from these substances, the largest of which is water. This at the moment is however highly expensive and the cost of converting the planet to completely run on hydrogen also is. The process by which hydrogen produces electricity in fuel cells, at the moment, is not very efficient, and the fact that hydrogen is hard to store are other reasons why hydrogen has not yet made the fuel of today. But it is possible.

This essay is concerned with the FCX Hydrogen Car made by car manufacturing company Honda. The FCX uses new technology that allows much greater efficiency over other fuel cells at is allows for the greater production of electricity from the fuel cell. I chose this car to demonstrate sustainable technology because in my home country, Jamaica, Hondas are the most widely used cars on the road. In a third world country such as my home, where greenhouse gasses and global warming mean little if anything to the majority of people who drive, I as a scientist would like to see that changed. I believe that if a third world country like Jamaica were to invest in such technology, it would bring us as a country, to a cleaner and brighter country, making the future one step closer.

My plan of inquiry will allow me to continue research on this project throughout my time at university and onwards. As I now live in a first world country, the United Kingdom, I can follow up on these technologies in a much more in-depth manner. By using primary research sources, such as visiting the Honda factory in Swindon, and attaining first hand views and insights into the development of the FCX, I will have gathered information on this technology that I was unable to back home. Also, by using secondary sources such as articles printed by the car company which are readily available in a technological country such as the United Kingdom, and speaking to various persons in the scientific community, I will be able to follow the course of this technology while pursuing my studies.

The future must be sustainable if humans are to ensure the survival of future generations. Hydrogen can make this a reality.