The daily flood of environmental concerns emphasise the fundamental need for the education of schoolchildren to include the implications of our energy needs and the paramount role of renewable energy. The learning activities for children in science, engineering, technology and maths (STEM) are comprehensibly covered in the function of hydrogen fuel cells. Elevating the importance of fuel cells in the curriculum, teaching resources and renewable energy education will entice children to pursue the green energy initiative in adulthood.
A recent Brighton to London car rally featuring hydrogen fuel cell powered cars placed the technology in the limelight. On show, the sleek machines from the worlds leading car manufactures keen to demonstrate the quiet, clean efficiency of the fuel cell. This should attract the enquiring mind in school children to wonder on the future of renewable energy education. One huge benefit of fuel cell powered cars is they swap the carbon dioxide emission from the exhaust of the internal combustion engine for warm water – the only discharge from the fuel cell. By far the better option for the environment, especially in city centres. But before you press the Luddite button, it was only a decade ago that diesel powered cars were anathema. Sluggish, noisy and pouring out P10 particles they were more expensive and didn’t produce that many miles per gallon compared to petrol engines. Oh, and you had to refuel at the truck pumps. But times have moved on. Diesel cars now stand for quiet, powerful, clean and efficient.
Understanding the technology behind hydrogen and its potential for power applications is an ideal project in the STEM curriculum. Already a versatile fuel the potential for further development is vast. But, critically, it will fall to children now in secondary school to perfect the technology in the years to come. Certainty we have along way to go but this could be the most exciting and relevant part of the whole curriculum to excite the budding scientist and engineer.
The cars in the Brighton rally were advanced prototypes costing around £80,000. They bear disproportionate development costs compared to a car in full production. Although we have glimpse of what the future could hold, environmentally, there other significant factors embedded in hydrogen fuel cells operation. A key criticism is the need of electrical power produced in power stations required in the electrolysis process to release the hydrogen. But this argument is receding as developments in solar energy and wind energy can power the electrolysis process. Critically the conversion to hydrogen presents a huge opportunity to store energy during those sunny or windy days when the immediate consumption of electrical power produced may not be required. Ongoing developments in bio-mass reactions which release hydrogen are also becoming a further source of renewable energy.
One of the inefficiencies of heat based power production is the inability to store the energy produced. Power stations running on full load produce energy more efficiently than on light load. Being able to run at maximum capacity and store the excess energy produced is a huge opportunity. But there are no batteries that large. Using the excess energy to produce hydrogen, stored for later use in fuel cells, is therefore an industrial scale opportunity.
The western economy’s reliance on oil has given rise to wealth, political unrest and corruption in the, predominately, third world countries with oil reserves. An alternative energy source would introduce stability to the UK economy by diminishing our reliance on oil over which we have no control. Throw in the cost of a couple of wars ostensibly to remover tyrants but in reality to protect our oil supplies we suddenly realise the real cost of oil.
Children in school ultimately will inherit the opportunity to develop renewable energy. Politics, religion, history, geography and science are all involved. Virtually the whole national curriculum can be embroiled in renewable energy and the removal of our reliance on oil. And it starts with the highly practical role to be developed in the use of hydrogen fuel cells.
