Driving to a Cleaner Future

In his State of the Union address January 28, 2003, President George W. Bush announced his Freedom Fuel Initiative, proposing that the nation spend $1.2 billion in research funding for developing hydrogen-powered vehicles.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Freedom Fuel will invest $720 million in new funding over the next five years to develop the technologies and infrastructure needed to produce, store, and distribute hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles and electricity generation. Combined with the FreedomCAR (Cooperative Automotive Research) Initiative, President Bush is proposing a total of $1.7 billion over the next five years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, hydrogen infrastructure and advanced automotive technologies.

Although the government has been working with researchers and auto makers in creating and producing these and other types of cleaner vehicles over the last few years, the President's recent remarks will likely fuel an even stronger and more conscious push for their development as well as consumer acceptance and demand.

The promise of cleaner vehicles -- meaning low or zero emissions from the tailpipe -- offers advantages, such as a cleaner environment and decreased dependency on fossil fuels, along with plenty of hurdles, including initially high costs of purchasing these vehicles and providing new fuel sources, like hydrogen, to consumers nationwide.

For this week's lesson, you'll explore the world of engines -- from traditional combustion, to hybrid, to fuel cell. You'll also compare the fuel economies and air pollution ranks of different vehicles, so you can learn how to do your part as an active and future driver in the impending revolution.

The Combustion Engine

Nearly everyone who drives a vehicle relies on the gasoline-powered combustion engine, invented in 1872. To understand how our society has evolved to rely on this technology, and how engine technology is evolving, start by learning How Car Engines Work. After reading the Introduction, click Next Page to move through the site, going next to the Internal Combustion page. How does the potato cannon relate to how a car engine works? What exactly are the "four strokes" of a four-stroke engine? How is linear motion converted to rotational motion? How is this internal combustion engine different from an external one?

Click to the Parts of an Engine page and identify the engine's nine primary components. Next, go to the What Can Go Wrong page. How do the engine parts work together, and how does this relate to the different ways engines can have problems?

Read through the last few pages of this site, Engine Subsystems, How to Help an Engine Produce More Power, and Q and A. How do a car's systems work together to make it move? How do engineers use the combustion engine's basic principles to make the complex system more efficient and powerful? What do you think happens when an engine loses its efficiency for burning and converting fuel to power?

Hybrids Pave the Way to a Brighter Future

In 1997 the first modern hybrid electric car, the Toyota Prius, was sold in Japan. Two years later, the United States saw its first sale of a hybrid, the Honda Insight. These two vehicles, followed by the Honda Civic Hybrid, marked a radical change in the type of car being offered to the public: vehicles that bring some of the benefits of battery electric vehicles into the conventional gasoline powered cars and trucks. Plus, to fuel consumer acceptance of this type of car, purchasers can claim up to $2,000 as a tax deduction.

So what exactly is a "hybrid"? Your next stop on the engine tour is How Hybrid Cars Work. Read through the Introduction, then the What Makes it a "Hybrid", Hybrid Structure, Hybrid Components pages. What's the difference between a combustion and electric system, and how exactly do these combine to form a parallel or series hybrid system?

Next, read about the Evolution of the Hybrid, Hybrid Performance, and Hybrid Efficiency. How does the hybrid provide power yet fuel efficiency to satisfy drivers' needs and expectations? How does that compare to the conventional gas-powered system? How does a vehicle's other components, such as the size and weight of its body, affect the overall efficiency?

Finally at this site, check out some real examples of this technology in the What's Available Now?, The Honda Insight and The Toyota Prius pages. In what ways are these two vehicles similar? In what ways are they different?

Hydrogen Power: A Revolution in the Works

Of course, this lesson wouldn't be complete without taking a peek into the future and learning about How Fuel Cells Work. In the Introduction and What Is a Fuel Cell? page, you'll read that this system uses electrochemical processes to get its energy rather than relying on fuel combustion like the conventional and hybrid engines. The Proton Exchange Membrane page explains this in even more detail. How exactly do the materials facilitate the movement of ions?

Like every system, there are also some Problems with Fuel Cells. Can you identify a few of them?

Make sure to also check out the Efficiency of Fuel Cells, Other Types of Fuel Cells, and Applications of Fuel Cells. How do the three types of powered vehicles compare in fuel efficiency? What obstacles need to be resolved for our society to change over to fuel cell technology? Where else might fuel cells replace conventional power sources in the future?

How Efficient and Clean Are Today's Cars?

Now that you've learned how car engines work and how they are evolving to provide cleaner and more efficient models, take a few minutes to compare some by visiting the Environmental Protection Agency's Green Vehicle Guide. Explore this site in whatever way you like -- by seeing how the Emissions and Fuel Economy of this year's Small Cars or SUVs rank within their class, for example, or you can Look Up a Vehicle that was marketed between 2000 and 2003. How do vehicles within and between vehicle types compare to one another and what factors influence these ratings? How much does fuel efficiency matter to people you know who might be buying a new vehicle? Does its air pollution ranking matter?