Alternative Fuel Sources - Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Advances in Transportation and Power - page 95

interior surfaces of the engine and contaminate the engine oil. This increas-
es wear and corrosion of the bearing surfaces. Since hydrogen engines pro-
duce no carbon deposits or acids, they should require far less maintenance.
Hydrogen can also be used in more efficient Stirling cycle engines.
In the 1920s, a German engineer, Rudolf Erren, began modifying in-
ternal combustion engines to use hydrogen. Erren modified many trucks
and buses and a captured German submarine in World War II had a hy-
drogen engine and hydrogen powered torpedoes that were designed and
patented by Erren.
The first hydrogen automobile in the U.S. was a Model A Ford truck,
modified in 1966 by Roger Billings while he was a high school student. A
few years later at Brigham Young University, he won a 1972 Urban Vehicle
Design Contest with a hydrogen Volkswagen. Billings started Billings
Energy Corporation in Provo, Utah where he modified a wide range of
vehicles, including a Winnebago motor home with the engine fueled by
hydrogen as well as the generator and appliances. Billings has also built a
hydrogen home where the modified appliances operate on hydrogen.
Most of these vehicles are dual fueled and run on hydrogen or gaso-
line. The driver is able to switch from hydrogen to gasoline. Billings also
adapted a Coleman Stove for hydrogen. A small hydrogen storage tank
with iron-titanium metal hydrides was used. Special burners have also
been used by the Tappan Company for hydrogen stoves. Hydrogen burns
with an invisible flame, so Tappan used a steel wool catalyst that sits on
the burner head. The stainless steel mesh glows when heated and resem-
bles an electric range surface when the burner is on.
Hydrogen research programs were started up in the U.S. Air Force,
Navy and the Army in the 1940s when fuel supplies were a concern. After
World War II and prior to the Arab oil embargo in 1973, oil was selling for
less than $3 per barrel. Fuel supply was not a concern. During the Arab oil
embargo in 1973, there were long gas lines in the U.S. and the price of oil
quadrupled. This started renewed research into alternative energy sup-
plies including solar power.
STORING HYDROGEN
Studies have indicated that large-scale storage could take place with
gaseous hydrogen underground in aquifers, depleted petroleum or natu-
ral gas reservoirs or man made caverns from mining operations. One of