Topic: How about Humans Mobility?

For a large number of people, mobility means overcoming of greater distances in calculable time periods in order to achieve a wide variety of objectives.

Thanks to mobility, people can enter into contact over longer distances.

Mobility by land, sea and air enables the exchange of goods and services across national borders or continents.

Thanks to mobility, previously inaccessible regions can be discovered, developed and populated.

Man-made mobility is both a "curse and a blessing" for our planet.

Despite the existence of alternative drive concepts for vehicles on land, at sea or in the air, there still dominate drive concepts of combustion engines that have been used for decades and that create significant emissions and pollutions to our environment.

In metropolitan areas of human accumulation, the impact of our mobility becomes obvious.

Results are among other smog, high concentrations of CO2, NOX and other air pollutions of our past and present mobility.

A steady increase of population associated with an increasing mobility leads to the collapse of our planet by drive concepts that are applied currently.

There is required hurry to replace existing drive concepts by alternative in order to minimize or avoid emissions and pollutions to our environment.

But - Do there exist potential alternativel drive concepts that will protect our planet and thus remain our habitats sustainable?

Electromobility would represent a potential alternative drive concept in case that required electrical power can be generated emissions-free. This includes also the production of batteries that should not create contaminations for our environment.

Unfortunately, the production of the currently produced electrical power storage systems (e.g. lithium-ion batteries mainly) creates enormous emissions for the environment associated with significant environmental pollutions, especially at the regions where lithium is mined. Thus, electromobility in its current form does not represent a real alternative when it comes to a significant reduction of environmental pollution. In this context it should be mentioned that the capacity of electric power storage systems produced to date is too less to represent an adequate alternative to mobility that can be achieved with conventional drive concepts.

Objective must be the development of environmentally friendly electrical power storage systems with high capacity. This includes also a 100% recycling of such electrical power storage systems.

Another "real" alternative to maintain the mobility represents fuel cells that generate electricity by the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen. This type of electrical power generation has the advantage that there can be achieved ranges for electric vehicles that are similar to that of conventional powered vehicles with combustion engines.

The only disadvantage of such an alternative drive concept is the provision of sufficient hydrogen, which could be produced by water electrolysis process for example.

Demineralized water would be split in Hydrogen and Oxygen in an electrolysis plant by use of electrical power.

Despite the fact that the generation of Hydrogen by electrolysis processes requires enormous amounts of electrical power (45 to 50 kW per Kilogram Hydrogen), such method of Hydrogen generation becomes economical when electrical power results from renewable sources that cannot be used for any other purpose.

This applies for coastal regions, where huge wind parks have been installed (onshore and offshore).

Additionally, there exist regions where hydropower is available that can be converted into electrical power.

Often, the amount of generated electrical power exceeds the actual required demand at those regions. Therefore, a transfer of electrical power via power transmission lines is necessary to supply electrical power to other regions. Such transmissions creates significant power losses and requires an appropriate infrastructure.

The conversion of renewable energies (wind, sun, water) into hydrogen appears to be on the long term perspective the most potential storage technology, as this allows the subsequent generation of electrical power from hydrogen with oxygen in fuel cells. Furthermore, the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell generates electrical power and water as a by-product! No emissions or pollutions for the environment will occur.

A further advantage of hydrogen production using water electrolysis technology is that such technology can be installed in a 20-foot container and thus can be installed at the locations where renewable energies (wind, water, sun) is available. This also includes equipment for storage of hydrogen in appropriate tank facilities.

The transport of such hydrogen tanks to petrol stations or to industrial complexes has been tested and successful applied for many years and represents already common practice today.

Fuel cell technology in conjunction with electromobility represents a sustainable concept for maintaining our mobility for a long term future. The efforts that are required to expand the network of existing petrol stations are manageable. The refilling procedure of hydrogen to vehicles is similar to that of vehicles consuming petrol or diesel fuels. This approach allows us to organize a smooth transition from currently used drive concepts to emissions free drive concepts.

The technology that is required for implementation is available and tested. So what are we waiting for – Let us do it?

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Another topic of this blog will investigate the production of methanol by reaction of hydrogen with carbon dioxide.

Methanol produced sustainable could further be used as an alternative fuel to maintain our mobility as well.

Carbon dioxide that will be created by burning methanol in combustion engines is climate-neutral and thus another alternative to maintain our mobility. Additionally, Methanol represents also a feedstock material for the petrochemical industry.

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