The hydrogen fuel cell: the future of mobility

I still remember the comment made by Danni de Vito – the memorable actor from *Behind the Green Heart* – at the start of this century during a visit to Madrid: “I hope you find the treasure soon”. Back then, the streets of the country’s major cities were being dug up, not in search of any treasure, but to lay the fibre-optic cables that today allow us to watch television or access the internet.

Well, if we seriously consider that the plug-in electric car is the future, we must realise that it will be necessary to rebuild the roads – not just in Spain’s major cities or across the whole country, but across the entire planet – and quickly, because the day global oil consumption falls by more than 40 per cent from current levels, the oil industry will die out, simply because the oil companies will have gone bankrupt.

But how can we achieve cleaner air without this happening? We already have the solution, and the EU has even set itself the goal of leading the way in this race for the mobility energy of the future: the hydrogen fuel cell. The EU is the world’s leading investor in R&D for this energy source.

The hydrogen fuel cell closes the sustainability loop. The primary source of H2 is the most abundant element on the planet: water. The waste product – that is, what is expelled through the ‘exhaust pipe’ of an H2-powered vehicle – is water. As H2 is a liquid, it can be transported without loss, meaning it can be produced in places where renewable energy sources, such as wind or solar power, are abundant. The refuelling time for an H2-powered vehicle is the same as for current vehicles, and the performance of H2 vehicles is on a par with that of current models.

So why don’t our leaders talk about this? Quite simply because of the trait that is so prevalent amongst our political class: ignorance.