Originally published January 31 2005
BMW creates race car that runs on both gas and hydrogen
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
It looks like hydrogen may just be the wave of the future, now that BMW has created a car that can go 187 mph with an internal combustion engine running on hydrogen. The H2R can be switched from gasoline to hydrogen and back again with just a flick of the switch, allowing it to drive anywhere. As well, with California moving to create more hydrogen stations, it looks like the infrastructure is on the way, too.
BMW's H2R race car, powered by the most plentiful element in the universe that can be combined with air and ignited to create three times the energy generated by gasoline, leaving only water vapor as an exhaust, has already broken nine speed records.
The biggest drawback, the availability of hydrogen filling stations, is being similarly remapped by Air Products & Chemicals, which has a contract to build two dozens stations in California, and Shell Oil and General Motors, that have just opened the first of a chain of stations in the nation's capital that is planned between New York and Washington, DC.
Unlike those prototypes needing an expensive fuel-cell system, the H2R boasts a regular internal combustion engine just like in BMW's 760i luxury cars, except it burns hydrogen, developing 286 horsepoweer and going from 0 mph to 60 mph in less than six seconds.
The hydrogen burned in a combustion engine does produce some nitrogen oxides, that are polluting, but they are well below California's nation-leading standards, and it's a start until fuel cells get sophisticated enough and cheap enough to replace the combustion engine.
California Governor Schwarzenegger plans at least 150 hydrogen stations on the state's major highways, and the state already has 13.
The biggest problem with pollution could soon very well be China, which so far has shown very few tendencies to do anything about the substances it is putting into the air.
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