Hydrogen Fueled Lawnmower Engine Expected This Summer

May 20, 2010 | By Hydro Kevin Kantola | Filed in: Hydrogen Vehicles.

H2 Technologies Group out of Reno, Nevada is betting on a hydrogen fueled lawnmower engine it is developing and which is due out this summer.

According to NNBW, “Small engines powered by hydrogen would produce no emissions. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency says one gas-powered lawnmower produces as much pollution as 11 cars. If their technology works – and that’s where the lawnmower engine test comes in – H2 Technologies Group’s founders think they can make a compelling case to small engine manufacturers who face strict emissions standards. Over the next couple of years, emissions from lawn mowers and similar equipment will need to be cut by about 35 percent.”

Now, I’ve talked about hydrogen lawnmowers in the past, but this statement above has gotten me to think about hydrogen fueled engines in general, both the internal combustion types and fuel cells. It looks like the market for hydrogen vehicles is developing all around hydrogen cars, starting from the periphery and moving inwards with H2 cars at the center.

The market will implode before it explodes with hydrogen cars, so to speak. As hydrogen forklifts, UAVs, lawnmowers, boats, motor scooters, bicycles, motorcycles, robots, military bionic enhanced legs, golf carts, wheelchairs, shuttle buses, submarines, mining vehicles, military all terrain vehicles and other such technology take off in the market, public acceptance will grow and the reasons to stall on hydrogen car infrastructure will decrease.

Proof of concept will already be there with the commercialization of other hydrogen vehicles outside of the car market. Buses, car fleets, trains, trucks at shipping ports are other examples that will be circling the wagons, so to speak, around mass marketed consumer oriented hydrogen cars.

Telecommunications power backups, residential power backups, corporate power backups, hotel power backups, utility companies using wind, solar and other renewable with hydrogen storage, home hydrogen CHP stations, manufacturing plants such as beer and candy production facilities, data centers, waste water treatment plants, police and fire stations, high schools, universities, airport baggage carts all will most likely develop ahead of a hydrogen car fueling infrastructure. And, this is Okay.

Normalizing hydrogen vehicles in everyday use will serve to mainstream this technology, which will lead to public acceptance. Just as this generation of kids has grown up with PC’s, the Internet, cell phones and Xbox’s, the next generation will grow up with hydrogen vehicles and stationary hydrogen fuel cells.

Even though I’m impatient for hydrogen cars now, I also see the signs that commercialization outside of the H2 car market is happening at a rapid pace. And this commercialization is breaking ground for thousands if not millions of hydrogen cars to follow.


4 comments on “Hydrogen Fueled Lawnmower Engine Expected This Summer

  1. Love this site. Keep it up! To run a lawn mower type gas engine ( or the same on a generator ) what impact will Hydrogen have on the engine? I want to take an off the shelve, high quality portible generator and hook up an “on demand unit” like I would use on my car, to run the engine of the generator. Is there something I don’t see or understand?

    Andrew

  2. Why is everybody concerned about the value of emissions emitted by engines such are those found in lawn and garden equipment, ATV’s, motor-cycles, snowmobiles, etc?? It’s not these small engines we should be concerned about, it’s the emission regulations you should be trying to do something about, and not the emitted emission values from small engines.

    Emission reduction technologies DO exist for small engines demonstrating unprecedented emission reductions for carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen but do to a lack of emission regulations they remain IDLE, I wonder why??

    It’s my opinion, North American emission regulations for small engines are nothing more then a COP-OUT for manufacturers of small engines, and furthermore, for our emission regulators to actually allow manufacturers of small engines an INCREASE in oxides of nitrogen levels is truly dissappointing to say the least.

    Don’t be mislead by what you read and or hear about newer small engines being lower in emissions versus older engines, it’s all depends on what emissions they’re talking about. Newer engines emit fewer values of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons versus older engines but newer engines also emit much higher values of oxides of nitrogen versus engines 20 years older.

    The bottom line is, if we soon don’t have stringent emission regulations thus requiring the use of a catalytic converter and or some type of exhaust after treatment technology, God help us all.

    Concerned

  3. To all of the over commentors. Blogs could be significantly better to read should you can maintain Your feedback simple and also to the point. For instance I think tis hydrogen lawnmower is really groovy and I will be buying one to cut my long. Was that so difficult?