SingularityFlow

New news in the race for an alternative energy source for cars was announced today. Israeli startup Engineuity (founded by scientist Amnon Yogev) is exploring the possibility of storing water and boron in fuel tanks, and then combining the two to produce hydrogen fuel.

The past several years with gasoline prices climbing, hydrogen has been a widely talked about replacement; there are even hydrogen fueling stations popping up, albeit infrequently. One of the main issues holding back this technology is safety concerns about transporting hydrogen safely in fuel tanks. Even recently, there has been talk that hydrogen cars would be unsafe to drive through underground tunnels due to potential fire hazards.

Although BMW has noted that their hydrogen fuel tank has never been punctured in all their safety tests, I’m sure many people would feel safer driving around with water in their fuel tank rather than an immensely flammable gas.

This technology still has hurdles to clear and seems to be at least a decade away, but Engineuity hopes to have a working model in under three years.

While I am probably getting way ahead of myself here, the ramifications could be enormous if this technology does pan out. Adopting similar technology in a number of other fields could lead to a new a massive, sustainable energy source for everyday life.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Innovation, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.