Hydrogen Trucks

Hydrogen trucks combine the utilitarian with the utopian when it comes to future travel. While some a busy doing vast research on the hydrogen car, others know that, based on today's consumer trends, trucks of the future will also be an important part of the hydrogen highway.

Convert Your Car To Burn WATER Boost Mileage 60% and laugh at high gasoline costs while reducing emissions. Alternative Energy Secrets A step-by-step guide to creating alternative fuels for your car. Renewable Energy Solutions Find free solar panels, wind turbines and batteries for off-grid living.

Sure, there have been plenty of experimental hydrogen trucks that have been developed with a university setting. There have even been a few within a high school setting such as the one developed by Central High School in Phoenix, Arizona. This light pickup truck uses solar power to create hydrogen via electrolysis to feed the truck's internal combustion engine. An onboard computer shuts down the gasoline feed and switches over to hydrogen as needed making this vehicle a hybrid truck as well.

But, what about the more commercial hydrogen trucks? The U. S. Army has accepted shipment of its first military-issue hydrogen truck. General Motors presented Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Brig. Gen. Roger Nadeau, commanding general of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command with a modified Chevy Silverado pickup truck (GMT 800) containing two 94-killowat fuel-cell stacks, capable of generating 188 kw and 317 foot-pounds of torque. This is roughly the equivalent power generated by the GM 5.3 liter V-8 engine.

The GMT 800 carrying three tanks (carrying 10,000-lbs-per-square-inch of hydrogen), which provide a range of 125 miles. According to Nadeau, "The relationship between the U.S. government and private industry is a tremendous win-win scenario, because together this technology will come in better and faster, and will have an incredible impact on us in our civilian lives. And I know what it will do to our U.S. military forces."

Besides the military-issue hydrogen truck, there is also the famous civilian issue Hydrogen Hummer or H2H as they like to call it, that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger introduced at Los Angeles International Airport on October 23, 2004. General Motors build the SUT (Sport Utility Truck) Hydrogen Hummer and loaned it out to raise public awareness about the advantages of hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Not to be left out, the Danish have built a small vehicle the size of a golf cart and called it a hydrogen truck. This so-called H2 Truck is a small utility vehicle useful to transport relatively light items around hospitals and airports. The Danish H2 Truck is based upon a battery-driven truck from A. Flensborg, Herning Maskinfabrik A/S, but adds a hydrogen tank and fuel cell to supply the power.

No matter whether they're large vehicles the size of a military truck or smaller vehicles the size of a hand truck, the important part is that companies are going hydrogen for their hauling needs. It good to know that so many companies worldwide are getting their hands wet in the cleanest burning technology on the earth, hydrogen. And if the hydrogen highway is going to work at all, it has to be filled with hydrogen trucks. Enough said.