Speaker 1: On the West coast of the United States. Enormous trucks
Speaker 1: with an eighty thousand pound weight capacity are moving cargo
Speaker 1: between Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles, enough
Speaker 1: times to rack up two hundred miles of travel per day.
Speaker 1: The kicker these trucks produce no local emissions. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: and this is tech stuff daily. The trucks are part
Speaker 1: of Toyota's fuel cell initiative. Fuel cells rely upon a
Speaker 1: chemical reaction between different elements that produces, among other things, electricity.
Speaker 1: In this way, it's similar to a chemical battery, but
Speaker 1: with fuel cells, you fill up or refuel the cell
Speaker 1: with more of the elements to generate more electricity. It's
Speaker 1: a system you can open up, rather than a battery
Speaker 1: that is supposed to remain a closed system. The ingredients
Speaker 1: that give the trucks their own are hydrogen and oxygen.
Speaker 1: Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe. Oxygen,
Speaker 1: as you may recall, is one of those gases that's
Speaker 1: really important to organic critters such as ourselves. Putting the
Speaker 1: two together in the right combination creates good old H
Speaker 1: two O water in other words, and so here we
Speaker 1: have a power system that takes hydrogen and oxygen and
Speaker 1: produces electricity, water, and heat. So what's actually going on
Speaker 1: inside a fuel cell? You have a permeable membrane that
Speaker 1: will allow hydrogen ions to pass through, but not electrons.
Speaker 1: And ion is an atom that has either gained or
Speaker 1: lost an electron, changing the net charge of the atom.
Speaker 1: A special catalyst on the membrane facilitates this process with hydrogen,
Speaker 1: stripping it of its electron and preventing it from passing
Speaker 1: through this membrane. Since the hydrogen atom consists of only
Speaker 1: one proton and one electron, that means we're left with
Speaker 1: a proton, the positively charged subatomic particle. This particle can
Speaker 1: pass through the membrane. On the other side of the
Speaker 1: fuel cells are sygen atoms. Meanwhile, those electrons and the
Speaker 1: hydrogen side of the fuel cell want to get away
Speaker 1: from each other. This is Coolom's law. Like charges repel
Speaker 1: one another and opposite charges attract, opening up a pathway
Speaker 1: for the electrons to follow where they can reunite with
Speaker 1: their proton buddies. Allows you to create a circuit put
Speaker 1: an electrical load on that circuit, such as a motor
Speaker 1: capable of providing enough force to move a big cargo truck,
Speaker 1: and you can put those electrons to work. When they
Speaker 1: reach the other side, you end up with water molecules,
Speaker 1: two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen per molecule. Sounds great, right,
Speaker 1: You have these big trucks hauling cargo around without generating
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide or methane emissions or any other greenhouse gases
Speaker 1: with the exception of water vapor. You're using what is
Speaker 1: literally the most abundant source of fuel in the universe,
Speaker 1: And unlike gasoline, you're not burning anything to produce power.
Speaker 1: You're facilitating a chemical reaction. So if fuel cells can
Speaker 1: generate all trical energy powering a motor, just like a
Speaker 1: battery would, why aren't we all driving around in fuel
Speaker 1: cell vehicles right now? What's the hold up? There are
Speaker 1: actually several big challenges. Perhaps the biggest challenge is getting
Speaker 1: hold of hydrogen. Yes, I said it's the most plentiful
Speaker 1: element in the universe, and it's true, but it's also
Speaker 1: really a friendly atom. Hydrogen just wants to buddy up
Speaker 1: with all sorts of stuff, particularly carbon. You've probably heard
Speaker 1: of hydrocarbons. What that means for us is that most
Speaker 1: of the hydrogen we can get our hands on is
Speaker 1: already locked up molecularly with other stuff. Now we can
Speaker 1: free up that hydrogen so we can use it for
Speaker 1: something else. But breaking molecular bonds requires energy. You could
Speaker 1: easily end up spending more energy trying to create hydrogen
Speaker 1: fuel than you'd be able to take advantage of once
Speaker 1: you've fueled up your fuel cells. Would be a net
Speaker 1: loss from an energy perspective, which means it would make
Speaker 1: more sense to pursue some other form or means of
Speaker 1: generating power. Another issue is economical. Let's say we found
Speaker 1: a really efficient way to get hold of hydrogen, so
Speaker 1: that energy issue isn't a problem, we'd still need to
Speaker 1: build out an infrastructure that could support fleets of fuel
Speaker 1: cell vehicles. We need hydrogen refueling stations, and those wouldn't
Speaker 1: come cheap. The most efficient way to store hydrogen in
Speaker 1: terms of space is in liquid form. You'd have to
Speaker 1: get it down to minus four twenty three degrees fahrenheit
Speaker 1: or minus two hundred fifty three degrees celsius for hydrogen
Speaker 1: to turn into a liquid. That's just twenty kelvin over
Speaker 1: absolute zero. You wouldn't just pour liquid hydrogen into your car, though,
Speaker 1: for one thing, as soon as the hydrogen left its pressurized,
Speaker 1: temperature controlled storage tank, it would boil and turn back
Speaker 1: into gas. You'd fill up your fuel cell with a
Speaker 1: special pump that could put the gas form of hydrogen
Speaker 1: into the right pressure. A special connector between the fuel
Speaker 1: cell vehicle and the pump would monitor the fuel needs precisely.
Speaker 1: All of this would cost more money. Ultimately, we're talking
Speaker 1: about an investment in the billions of dollars. There are
Speaker 1: other considerations to make too. For example, while the cars
Speaker 1: themselves would produce no local emissions, the process of harvesting
Speaker 1: and transporting hydrogen might be a different story. Some of
Speaker 1: the elements of fuel cells, such as the platinum catalysts,
Speaker 1: are themselves rare and expensive. It's a big picture problem.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, Toyota is testing these vehicles out in California,
Speaker 1: and it may turn out that fuel cell vehicles are
Speaker 1: the way to go in certain specialized applications such as shipping.
Speaker 1: Other companies like Tesla are exploring electric vehicles that run
Speaker 1: on battery power. No matter which strategy wins out, in
Speaker 1: the end will see fewer local greenhouse gas emissions coming
Speaker 1: from vehicles on the road. That's all for today. To
Speaker 1: learn more about fuel cells and all other things tech,
Speaker 1: subscribe to The Tech Stuff podcast. It's a long form
Speaker 1: show that publishes twice a week and looks at all
Speaker 1: sorts of tech topics. I'll see you against it really
Speaker 1: won