Fuel-Cell Car Racing Series Aims To Spur Green Motoring

Anonymous Cow writes "The world's first international fuel-cell powered motor racing series kicked off in Rotterdam over the weekend. The organisers hope that 'Formula Zero,' like Formula 1, can become a forum for competing technology as much as anything else, helping green consumer cars to become better."

Comments

Re:Not pompous enough

[El Yanqui]

People aren't going to take green technology seriously until it wins in rally or 24 hour le mans or somethign similarly awesome to win.

Or until Jeremy Clarkson uses one to ride over a delicate ecosystem.

The old is new again

[hcdejong]

From 1982 to about 1990, the Group C prototypes ran with regulations that basically allowed any engine as long as the fuel consumption didn't exceed ~60 l/100 km. Then the FIA fucked up and changed the rules to mandate F1-style engines, ending the series' popularity.
There were a few races that ended in drama as the leading competitor ran out of fuel, but on the whole it was rather successful, with wildly disparate cars running very close races. You saw 7-litre naturally aspirated V12s, 5-litre turbocharged V8s, 3-litre turbocharged flat-6s and Wankel engines.
It'd be interesting to see a revival of this idea. More interesting than a fuel cell-only class, I'd wager.

Re:Zero Emissions?

[vertinox]

Granted, the cars themselves should produce nothing but water, but how do we produce the hydrogen? Does that not require energy? I simply don't believe that all of the hydrogen plants are powered by nuclear or hydroelectric energy.

Well here is the deal:

1. Even if you have to use a coal power plant to produce the hydrogen, its extremely more efficient than using petroleum in terms of releasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

2. And speaking of, this also means we don't have to rely on foreign oil.

As a small time investor, one of the odd things I've noticed is that currently the Brazilian economy is booming. Most Brazilian stocks are going through the roof. Now it could be that the US and China just aren't doing as good as they used to, but it also dawned on my that Brazil has almost ceased the need to import energy from foreign sources due to its aggressive ethanol campaign.

Now, IMO ethanol isn't the solution for the US, but anything that reduces the need to pay foreign sources for energy simply keeps the money in the US rather than someone overseas.

Can't be a bad thing.

but could they carry gas anyway?

[jollyreaper]

I'm ok with them using fuel cells just so long as they also include some manner of flammable liquid in the vehicle so that they keep the wrecks interesting.