Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
in addition to an electric grid (for home or mid-journey plug-in refills)
that is a far more extensive energy network than hydrogen could ever be.
In 2000 Bill Ford, chairman and CEO of his family car company,
famously said “I believe that fuel cells will finally end the 100-year reign
of the internal combustion engine”. But by 2008 the Ford company was
announcing that in product development “its next step is to increase over
time the volume of electrified vehicles, as the transition from hybrid to
plug-in hybrid to battery electric vehicles occurs”. Other companies were
making the same shift of emphasis from hydrogen to electric cars.
None of this, however, means the general abandonment of hydrogen
fuel-cell development. Where compact storage is not a priority - as in
houses or factories - fuel cells can play an important role. They may even
perhaps have some mobile uses in, for instance, powering urban bus fleets
which could operate from a centralized hydrogen distribution point. For
this reason, many cities - London included - are still continuing to main-
tain and run hydrogen buses.
