Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon has proposed to replace police buses parked near the U.S. embassy and key government buildings in central Seoul with hydrogen (H2)-powered buses.
About a dozen diesel-power buses carrying riot police and their equipment are usually parked on the Gwanghwamun road in central Seoul to guard the U.S. embassy, government buildings and the presidential Blue House. Police let their bus engines idle around the clock, emitting exhaust gas.
Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said, “As one of the measures to boost demand for H2 vehicles in Korea, I publicly propose that we begin to replace police buses that mostly sit idly at Gwanghwamun with H2 buses.”
“Like other countries, we must become more active in engaging eco-friendly vehicles. We have world-class technologies in the H2 vehicle and fuel cell fields,” Lee said.
Advantages of H2 fuel cells:
- By converting chemical potential energy directly into electrical energy, fuel cells avoid the “thermal bottleneck” (a consequence of the 2nd law of thermodynamics) and are thus inherently more efficient than combustion engines, which must first convert chemical potential energy into heat, and then mechanical work.
- Direct emissions from a fuel cell vehicle are just water and a little heat. This is a huge improvement over the internal combustion engine’s litany of greenhouse gases.
- Fuel cells have no moving parts. They are thus much more reliable than traditional engines.
- H2 can be produced in an environmentally friendly manner, while oil extraction and refining is very damaging.
