An evaluation of future energy conversion systems including fuel cells.

This paper presents a comparison among various vehicles when using fossil fuels and renewable energy. In the case of using fossil fuel, we compared 5 key factors among the fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV), internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle (gasoline or diesel), battery-powered and hybrid vehicles. Comparison factors are cruising range, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, waste heat rejection, air pollutants and noise. According to this comparison, hybrid, battery-powered and fuel cell electric vehicle have better potentials than ICE vehicles. In the case of utilizing renewable energy, EV will become the mainstream among various vehicles. In addition, FCEV will play an important role until that age. Moreover, we designed a high efficiency FCEV from the viewpoint of fuel effective utilization. This vehicle not only has fuel cell, but also various energy utilization and storage systems, for example, battery, flywheel and PV cell. This vehicle has excellent fuel economy more than 100km/liter. The proposed FCEV will be very promising to mitigate urban and global warming, and to conserve fossil fuel consumption. Further, the effect of the introduction of the above environment compatible vehicles into urban area will be discussed by 3-D heat island simulations. For the covering abstract see ITRD E128680.