Happy Independence Day

Independence from petroleum, that is.  We’re not there yet obviously, but there’s hope.  Honda and General Motors are hoping that the fuel cell will go from being a scientific curiosity to a mass-produced item by the end of the decade.  The fuel cell takes hydrogen and oxygen from the air to create a steady current for running electric vehicles.  The fuel cell vehicle’s only exhaust is water vapor.

GM’s global director of fuel cell development is hoping this technology will bring us closer to “weaning ourselves off petroleum.”

Right now there are about 200 prototype fuel cell vehicles being tested.  The fuel cell goes back over a hundred years, but its first practical application was during space flights of the 1960s and early ‘70s.  It’s time to make fuel cell vehicles a mass-market reality.

And in a related story, renewable energy will soon replace natural gas as the world’s second largest source of electricity.  According to the International Energy Agency, renewable sources will increase by forty percent over the next five years.  At that point, they’ll be providing twenty-five percent of the world’s energy supply.

OK, so we’re not there yet.  But we’re on our way.

Happy Independence Day.