HERC

Hydrogen-based transportation is a strategy that can yield significant reductions in air emissions of toxic substances, and thus accord significant health benefits to the residents of Southern California, the United States, and the world as a whole.  The Hydrogen Engineering Research Consortium (HERC) at UCLA aims to bring together the expertise of both academic and industrial resources to help bring about the onset of the Hydrogen economy.

     With the price of oil over $50 per barrel and the concomitant increase of gasoline prices to $2.50 per gallon in California, consumers are starting to reduce their driving and are looking for alternative transportation solutions.  Major energy providers also view the use of hydrogen powered fuel cells as the most sustainable mobility solution in the long run.  The strongest argument for the use of hydrogen as transportation fuel, however, is the inability of our cities’ current transportation systems to prevent the emission of large amounts of toxic substances.

     The situation in California is especially critical; With 36 million people, a Gross Domestic Product of $1.4 trillion, California’s economy would rank fifth among all nations.  California’s 24 million cars and trucks account for 11% of the vehicles in the United States, and consume 47 million gallons of fuel each day.  More than 60% of the state’s air pollution comes from these mobile sources; thus California’s air pollution is among the worst in the world. The state would rank as the fifth-largest producer of global warming emissions among all countries. In total, 90% of Californians live in neighborhoods that fail to meet state and federal air quality standards.  California cities (together with some cities from Texas) exhibit the worst air quality in the nation.  They dominate the list of most polluted cities in the nation for all measures; ten of the twenty-five worst cities for short-term levels of particle pollution are from California, as are seven of the worst twenty-five for year-round particle levels and nine of the worst twenty-five for ozone.  Twenty-three California counties have unhealthful short-term levels of particle pollution, while thirteen failed the year-round test.  An April 2004 study, [1], by the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CAFCP), an automotive/fuel industry consortium, reported that 60% of Californians support the state’s Hydrogen Highway Initiative. When CAFCP explained to respondents that hydrogen fuel cells would reduce America’s dependence on petroleum, be more environmentally friendly than traditional engines, and provide increased efficiency compared to today’s traditional automobiles, about 80% claimed to be More Favorable to a fuel cell vehicle for each of these reasons. At the end of the survey, 67% of Californians said that it was an excellent idea to build vehicles that were powered by fuel cells instead of traditional engines.

Literature Cited
[1] "Fuel Cell Tracking," California Fuel Cell Partnership with Charlton Research Compay, April 2004.

References