for a full gasoline tank. Mazda plans for the future are to bring a serial-produced vehicle with either hybrid or only hydrogen-powered engine to the world market before 2010. According to Mrs. A Martiniskova, only Japan government now supports this courageous idea, with a plan of building hydrogen filling stations (May 6, 2000 personal communication). Bockris and Wass (1998, WWW) estimate that assuming $0,05 per kWh of electricity from a nuclear power plant during low demand, hydrogen would cost $ 0,09 per kWh. This is the equivalent of $0,67 per liter of gasoline. Gasoline sells at the pump in the United States for about $0.30 per liter. "However estimates of real cost of burning a liter of gasoline range from $1.06 to $1.32, when production, pollution and other external cost are included" (1998, Worldwatch institute, WWW). Therefore based on these calculations hydrogen fuel may eventually become competitive. Although this statement seems to me to be somewhat biased, because taxes seem to be included in gasoline prices and in hydrogen prices not. Significant change to hydrogen as a power source could be the development of a so-called FUEL CELL. "Fuel cell is an electric cell in which chemical energy from the oxidation of a gas fuel is converted directly to electrical energy in a continuous process" (2000, CD-ROM). Here, hydrogen again is used as the source of power and identical reaction occurs but the engine principle is completely different, instead of using the combustion to power a rotary engine fuel cell turns hydrogen and oxygen in a very special device, that outputs electric energy to power the vehicle. According to U.S. governmental web page Fuelcellworld (2000, WWW) this device converts hydrogen gas into negatively charged electrons (e-) and positively charged ions (H+). The electrons (e-) flow through an external load to the cathode. The Hydrogen ions (H+) flow through migrate through the electrolyte to the cathode where th...
