The development of hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative fuel is no doubt good for the environment. It is easy to emphasize that we should use hydrogen fuel cell technology to save our environment and prevent global warming. But finding facts about it and embracing those facts can be two very different things.

First, consider the fact that hydrogen fuel cells are good for the environment because they are the cleanest burning fuels ever developed. Hydrogen is extracted out of water and then place into fuel cells as a gas that can power a vehicle. The only emission that comes out of a fuel cell powered vehicle is water vapor. But there are disadvantages with hydrogen fuel cells and the environment.

A hundred percent efficient system of producing, storing, and transporting hydrogen should, in theory, lead to zero unwanted gas emissions. But scientists say that such a system would be very expensive, and that in reality around 10 to 20 percent of the hydrogen would escape into the atmosphere. Such that if hydrogen fuel cells replaced all the oil and

gas-based combustion technologies, such losses would double or even triple the total hydrogen deposited into the atmosphere at the surface of the earth.

Other scientists believe that the hydrogen would be oxidized when it reaches the stratosphere, which would cool the stratosphere and create more clouds. This event would delay the break up of the polar vortex at the north and south poles, making the holes in the ozone layer larger and longer lasting. It is estimated that the extra hydrogen will lead to a 5 to 8 percent increase in ozone depletion at the North Pole and between 3 and 7 percent rise at the South Pole.

The exact extent of this further depletion of the ozone depends on a number of unknown quantities. In addition to uncertainty over the extent of hydrogen emissions in the future, little is known about how the soil absorbs hydrogen from the atmosphere. The scientists believe that this process of hydrogen absorption into the soil could compensate

for all new hydrogen emissions into the atmosphere.

The truth, however, is that using hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative fuel is actually good for the environment in the long run. This is especially the case when the only emission that comes from hydrogen fuel cells is water vapor. This is a major advantages over the toxic emissions that are released into the atmosphere when gasoline is used to power our vehicles.

The bottom line is that hydrogen fuel cells have a major positive effect on the environment. Using hydrogen fuel cells has many more advantages that disadvantages and hydrogen as an alternative fuel has the most promise over any other alternative fuel.