Rationale

Fossil fuels are presently the major source of the energy required for industrial civilizations. The use of these fuels in combustion-based mobile or stationary power plants is accompanied by the generation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, the emission of photochemical gases such as NO_x , and the release of waste heat from the power cycle to the atmosphere.

The fuel cell is a chemical battery which directly combines a fuel and an oxidizer to produce a reaction product (water) and electrical energy. Because it does not involve a
heat/work cycle, efficiencies greater than that of a non-ideal heat engine can be obtained with the fuel cell. Less fuel will, therefore, be consumed for a given electrical output. If only the cell is considered, local pollution is minimized, however, in an environmental evaluation of the system the overall pollution, including that associated with fuel production, must be considered.