The Freedom CAR and Hydrogen Fuels Initiative and Magnesium

The USA’s transportation system is nearly completely dependent on petroleum. Petroleum is used to satisfy 95 percent of America’s transportation energy needs, consuming two-thirds of all the petroleum used. Since roughly 55 percent of petroleum is imported from abroad, the implications of this dependency on USA’s energy security are readily apparent. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) announced in January 2002 a new cooperative research effort known as the FreedomCAR Partnership to fund high-risk, high-payoff research into advanced automotive technologies with the potential for dramatically lowering this dependence. The new partnership replaced and built upon the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) that ran from 1993 to 2001 [1]. In January 2003, the energy-supply industry joined the FreedomCAR Partnership forming the FreedomCAR and Hydrogen Fuel Initiative (FC&HFI) to develop the technologies needed for the mass production of fuel-cell vehicles using hydrogen as fuel and the infrastructure needed to deliver the hydrogen to the consumer. The goal is to enable the automotive and energy-supply industries to make commercialization decisions in 2015 on largescale introduction of such vehicles and on developing the infrastructure beginning in 2020. The long-term transition of vehicles from gasoline to hydrogen is viewed as critical in lowering the dependence of the U.S. economy on foreign oil, and in reducing the environmental impact of the personal transportation sector. In addition to the longer-term work on fuel cells and hydrogen infrastructure, the FC&HFI conducts research on technologies with the potential for shorter-term energy efficiency and environmental benefits, such as new engine concepts, lightweight materials, and hybrid propulsion components. Magnesium is one of several lightweight materials being researched. This paper discusses the FC&HFI and its work on magnesium.