FUTURE TECH HYDROGEN POWER MODULES
The yacht industry may still be gingerly getting to grips with battery-powered craft, and us leisure sailors are still wedded to our dirty diesels, but the hydrogen revolution is coming to boating.
In fact it may be here already, according to Tom Sperrey of Fuel Cell Systems in Berkshire.
‘We could do it today,’ he tells me. ‘I could have your boat in the water with a fuel cell by the spring for £100k plus the cost of the boat!’
Hydrogen fuel has the potential to be entirely carbon-free, producing just water as a by-product of its use.
A decade or more ago, it was assumed that hydrogen combustion would provide a useful stepping-stone to the use of hydrogen fuel cells, because it allowed manufacturers to use existing engine blocks and design.
But burning hydrogen in a thermal engine is up to
