Hydrogen society

Mazda's engineers probably wouldn't agree, but the technology behind the company's hydrogen RX-8 and hydrogen/hybrid Premacy seems elegantly simple.

Rather than developing a fuel cell which converts hydrogen to water and draws upon the electrical charge generated by the chemical reaction, Mazda's prototypes just pump hydrogen into the rotary engine powering each vehicle, where it's burned -- much like petrol -- to run the engine.

Hydrogen is an abundant element which has already proven itself as a viable fuel for Mazda's rotary powered experimental cars. The hydrogen RX-8 is being trialled in small numbers as part of a Norwegian transport experiment (more here), aiming to evaluate the feasibility of broad-scale transport solutions based on a hydrogen scheme.

One of the principal stumbling blocks for this sort of plan is the cost of hydrogen production, storage and transport. Hydrogen in its diatomic state is highly volatile, very light and is just generally hard to keep in one place. It's also expensive to produce -- in terms of both energy expenditure and on a commercial/industrial basis.

Yet Mazda's President and CEO Hisakazu Imaki believes that these hurdles will be overcome and hydrogen will provide the answer for future generations. Not only is hydrogen a renewable resource, it doesn't contribute to the production of greenhouse gases, so there's a win for the environment on two fronts.

"If you look into the far, far future, then eventually, our society will evolve into a hydrogen-based society," says Imaki.

Mazda has already been testing the hydrogen RX-8 in Japan and the company believes that hydrogen produced by industry as a by-product could be scavenged to run a hydrogen-fuelled fleet.

There's no doubt that establishing resupply infrastructure for hydrogen cars will be virtually as slow and laborious in the 21st Century as establishing chains of petrol retailers was in the early 20th Century. Whilst Imaki feels that Mazda can assist with that, ultimately it's up to the world's governments and other commercial enterprises to take on that role.

Other than Mazda, only BMW is known to be working on hydrogen as a fuel for internal-combustion engines (more here). Would Mazda consider collaborating with the German manufacturer on perfecting the technology? Not likely, it seems. Whilst both the Mazdas and BMW's Hydrogen 7 are internal combustion cars running on hydrogen, the fuel deliver systems are quite different for both.

"To my knowledge," says Imaki, "the BMW system uses liquefied hydrogen, whereas we use compressed hydrogen."

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