Autonomy & Fuel Cells

Autonomy & Fuel Cells

            If you looked up the word “autonomy” in the dictionary you’ll probably find some sort of definition like “independence or freedom, as of the will or one's actions: the autonomy of the individual” or “the condition of being autonomous; self-government, or the right of self-government; independence” (Dictionary). And that’s what scientists have done as a fuel source. Well almost anyway. And if you try to Wikipedia this subject, make sure you aren’t confusing it was autotomy because that could cause some major confusion.

            Since I left you in the cold in the last paragraph I figure now would be a good time to tell you what I mean. Fuel cells are the next big thing in our daily lives. Using common fuel this energy device is going places, literally. They have already been used to power a lot of vehicles including: buses, automobiles/cars, forklifts motorcycles, boats, and even submarines.

            Okay, okay, let’s slow down and re-wind to talk about where this came from. The idea for the fuel cell came from way back in 1838 when a man named Christian Friedrich Schönbein had some of his work published. Just a year later a hot-shot lawyer and scientist, Sir William Robert Grove, demonstrated then sketched a picture of a fuel cell. His sketch looked something like this below:

(Wiki)

Let’s give props to that guy. Now just skip a couple years and in 1955 W. Thomas Grubb (and a little later Leonard Niedrach) expounded on the idea that Schönbein and Grove had worked on so diligently. In the future, their work would lead to the use in Project Gemini (Wiki)

            Through more revisions of the fuel cell, Roger Billings finally developed the first hydrogen fuel cell automobile in 1991. And might I add: good on him. These fuel cell cars are so much more efficient then the most commonly used gasoline needing cars.

 I wouldn’t be surprised if most models of cars have the fuel cells within the next twenty years or 

so. What scientists have done to create such a thing is quite amazing. With all the dedication we 

might be able to stop (or at least slow down) our dependency on gasoline, especially from foreign 

countries.