Fuel Cells and their uses

Advantages
1. Fuel cells produce no CO2, or greenhouse gases
2. They are compact and lightweight
3. Produce water as a waste product (handy as astronauts can drink it
USES
1. Cars
  1. Why are they used?
    1. No greenhouse gases are produced, unlike with fossil fuels
      1. Slows global warming
      2. Fossil fuels are non-renewable
    2. Earth has a lot of of water
2. Spacecraft
Pollution
1. Although they produce no greenhouse gases, they have extremely poisonous catalysts, which have to be disposed of
2. The production of hydrogen gas requires a lot of energy itself - it is mostly manufactured using fossil fuels, which ruins the point of making a car emission-free in the first place!
  1. Although hydrogen can be made through the electrolysis of water, this requires electricity which is still mostly obtained through the use of fossil fuels
My opinion
1. I think that fuel cells are certainly a step towards ending the problem of global warming, but at the moment they are almost pointless as their production contributes just as much to global warming as they would if they were petrol engines.

Resource summary

	Created by m00072 almost 9 years ago