×

UPSC Courses

DNA banner

DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

GS-III :
  • 27 April, 2020

  • 8 Min Read

NTPC launches Hydrogen Fuel bus and car project for Leh and New Delhi

Context:

NTPC Ltd, India's largest power producer and a central PSU under Ministry of Power, has invited Global Expression of Interest (EoI) to provide 10 Hydrogen Fuel Cell (FC) based electric buses and an equal number of Hydrogen Fuel Cell based electric cars in Leh and Delhi. The EoI has been issued by NTPC's wholly owned subsidiary, NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN) Limited.

The move to procure Hydrogen Fuel Cell based vehicles is first of its kind project in the country, wherein a complete solution from green energy to the fuel cell vehicle would be developed.

Fuel cell Technology

A fuel cell uses the chemical energy of hydrogen or another fuel to cleanly and efficiently produce electricity. If hydrogen is the fuel, electricity, water, and heat are the only products. Fuel cells are unique in terms of the variety of their potential applications; they can provide power for systems as large as a utility power station and as small as a laptop computer.

Benefits of fuel cell:

  • Fuel cells can be used in a wide range of applications, including transportation, material handling, stationary, portable, and emergency backup power applications.
  • Fuel cells can operate at higher efficiencies than combustion engines, and can convert the chemical energy in the fuel to electrical energy with efficiencies of up to 60%.
  • Fuel cells have lower emissions than combustion engines.
  • Hydrogen fuel cells emit only water, so there are no carbon dioxide emissions and no air pollutants that create smog and cause health problems at the point of operation.
  • Also, fuel cells are quiet during operation as they have fewer moving parts.

How Fuel Cells Work

  • Fuel cells work like batteries, but they do not run down or need recharging.
  • They produce electricity and heat as long as fuel is supplied. A fuel cell consists of two electrodes—a negative electrode (or anode) and a positive electrode (or cathode)—sandwiched around an electrolyte.
  • A fuel, such as hydrogen, is fed to the anode, and air is fed to the cathode. In a hydrogen fuel cell, a catalyst at the anode separates hydrogen molecules into protons and electrons, which take different paths to the cathode.
  • The electrons go through an external circuit, creating a flow of electricity. The protons migrate through the electrolyte to the cathode, where they unite with oxygen and the electrons to produce water and heat.

Source: PIB


Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (Ions) – 2023

The 8th edition of Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) Conclave of Chiefs (CoC) was conducted by Royal Thai Navy at Bangkok, Thailand. The inaugural edition of IONS was held in Feb 2008 at New Delhi, with the Indian Navy as the Chair for two years. IONS is a voluntary initiative that seeks to increase maritime co-operation among navies of t

JN.1 variant COVID

India recently reported a case of JN.1 from Kerala, as part of routine surveillance and genome sequencing by INSACOG. INSACOG is an Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium, a network of genomic laboratories. JN.1 - It is a descendant of the Pirola variant (BA.2.86), which itself stems from the Omicron sub-variant. It ca

Pappathi Chola

There is an urgent need to protect Pappathi Chola, a biodiversity hotspot. Pappathi Chola, known for its high butterfly population, derived its name from the Tamil word Pappathi meaning butterflies. While Pappathi means butterfly, Chola means shola land. Many butterflies reach the area during their migratory course from the rain shadow fo

Flying Squirrel

Missing for 42 years, flying squirrel resurfaces in Arunachal Pradesh. Flying Squirrel are one of the 50 species of gliding squirrels. Habitat - Northern flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus) and southern flying squirrels (Glaucomys volans) are the flying squirrel species found in North America. The third type, Namdap

Watsonx.ai

At the recent COP28, NASA and IBM announced that an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool called watsonx.ai would be available on the open-source AI platform Hugging Space. Watsonx.ai is built on a foundation model; it is trained on a broad set of uncategorized data allowing the model to apply information about one situation to another. The pla

DNA

01 Feb,2024

Toppers

Search By Date

Post Feed

Newsletter Subscription
SMS Alerts

Important Links