The Future, Hydrogen Fuel Power Suzuki bikes

What are we going to do when the oil runs out? Well Armageddon is probably first, but after that the men in Japan reckon we'll be zipping around on hydrogen-powered bikes.

The bigwigs at Suzuki have teamed up with Intelligent Energy, a company specializing in developing hydrogen fuel cells, to start work on a bike powered by these cells. Intelligent Energy introduced, back in March 2005, its own hydrogen powered motorcycle, the ENV, which was more a hydrogen fuel cell technology demonstration bike. It's longterm project, so don't expect a new hydrogen powered Hayabusa next year, but clean scooters can't be that far away.
And Suzuki isn't alone in its tinkering. Yamaha has also announced that it has developed a hydrogen fuel cell motorcycle. Called the 'Yamaha FC-AQEL' it's powered by hydrogen stored in two high-pressure tanks. The bike is currently being toured around various shows while Yamaha continues to develop the technology.

A hydrogen fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device. It produces electricity from various external quantities of fuel (on the anode side) and oxidant (on the cathode side). These react in the presence of an electrolyte.