Tuesday 9th October 2007: "The hydrogen economy and fuel cells"

Café Scientifique's alternative energy season continues with a look at the most popular reality/sci-fi idea of all: hydrogen power. Alternative fuel cells are an easy concept to grasp, but have become more difficult to translate into solid engineering, particularly in a way which allows efficient competition against the current pack leaders, petrol and diesel.

Finding a way to run motor vehicles on renewable energy sources, and without adding to the planet's pollution, is a holy grail of current chemical engineering. What happened to the car running on hydrogen and giving out just water as a byproduct? Rumours that the multinational lobbies and interested companies are stifling such research, are rampant.

Chris Blanford reports on the scientific situation so far, and discusses where this science might end up.

Come along and join us at 7pm in Blackwells Main Bookshop, Broad Street, Oxford.
No ticket, no booking, no scientific background required.