Global Warming Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Global Warming, including details on causes, effects, impact, facts, myths, information.

Cleaning the air and improving health with hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

Jacobson MZ, Colella WG, Golden DM

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4020, USA. jacobson@stanford.edu

Converting all U.S. onroad vehicles to hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (HFCVs) may improve air quality, health, and climate significantly, whether the hydrogen is produced by steam reforming of natural gas, wind electrolysis, or coal gasification. Most benefits would result from eliminating current vehicle exhaust. Wind and natural gas HFCVs offer the greatest potential health benefits and could save 3700 to 6400 U.S. lives annually. Wind HFCVs should benefit climate most. An all-HFCV fleet would hardly affect tropospheric water vapor concentrations. Conversion to coal HFCVs may improve health but would damage climate more than fossil/electric hybrids. The real cost of hydrogen from wind electrolysis may be below that of U.S. gasoline.

Published 24 June 2005 in Science, 308(5730): 1901-5.
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