Abstract
Fuel cell vehicle (FCV), which is powered by hydrogen-fueled polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC), has been developed and successfully demonstrated the operation. It is estimated that FCV will be introduced into the market in the near future. In this study, comparative assessments have been carried out for FCV and gasoline vehicle (GV) to evaluate the environmental impacts during the life cycle (LC) of these vehicles. This study consists of the following investigations: 1) Life cycle assessment (LCA) case study for PEFC, 2) Life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis for hydrogen, 3) LCA case studies for FCV and GV. It was found that the amount of LC-CO2, LC-NOx, and LC-HC of FCV were smaller than those of GV. It was suggested that introduction of FCV would have a large potential to reduce atmospheric emissions.
