AUTOMOBILES & ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
by SANTAN SANTIVIMOLNAT found at bangkokpost.com
Water4Gas
The concept car has a 900-litre hydrogen tank that will enable the car to go
nearly 50 kilometres per fill-up and reach a top speed of 90 km/h.
The local development of fuel cell-powered cars has moved a step closer to
reality with the introduction of a prototype hydrogen car.
The car was designed by a group of researchers led by Air Marshal Morakod
Chansumruard, a retired military official.
He is also the president of Clean Fuel Energy Enterprise Co, the inventor and
producer of electric-powered vehicles used in golf courses, villages, public
parks, resorts, hotels and factories.
Run
Your Car On Water
Under the hood, a radically different look.
The research was funded by National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) for
14 million baht.
AM Morakod started working on the research in 2003 and sped up the work in
the four months after receiving financial support from the NRCT.
The concept car, which arrives at a time when fuel prices are setting records
all over the world, ran smoothly during a demonstration last Friday.
If the fuel cell car went into commercial production in Thailand, it could
help reduce heavy dependence on imported oil. More importantly, cars that run on
hydrogen and electricity emit water and not gases that cause global warming.
AM Morakod said the concept car, believed to be the first in Asia except
Japan, was run on a fuel cell stack of 8-10 kilowatts that also left enough to
power the air-conditioning and audio-visual systems.
The hydrogen tank has a capacity of 900 litres that will enable the car to go
nearly 50 kilometres per fill-up and reach a top speed of 90 kilometres per
hour.
Hydrogen fuel cells create electricity to run a vehicle in the same way as a
battery-powered vehicle. However, fuel cells need to have their
electricity-generating substance such as hydrogen constantly replenished.
AM Morakod said the local supply of hydrogen was abundant as it was produced
by many petrochemical plants in the Eastern Seaboard provinces as a byproduct
but was released unused. It is estimated that each plant released about eight
million litres per hour of hydrogen.
Tapping the supply for just 24 hours from these plants would yield enough
hydrogen for 120,000 cars. The plants offer the hydrogen free but filling the
containers would cost money.
Many investors have approached AM Morakod to venture into fuel cell-powered
car production.
He estimated that a fuel cell car produced commercially in Thailand would
cost a few million baht, but that would be about one-tenth the cost seen in some
countries.
As well, he said, some petrol station operators planned to talk to him about
the possibility of investing in hydrogen facilities.
read also: water powered car & use water as fuel
