Baku, December 15, AZERTAC

There is no denying the fact that the world runs on fossil fuels. We use them to power everything from our homes and industries...to our automobiles. Fossil fuels literally run and rule our lives. But there will come a day when we'll run out of them. The fuel we are digging from deep within our Earth is limited. Our annual consumption is estimated at over 11 billion tonnes of crude oil. It is estimated that by the year 2060, the world may run out of crude oil. In the last few decades close to its extinction, its prices will significantly spiral out of control.

A lot of time and energy is being spent to find alternatives. These alternatives are based on solar power, batteries charged from the available power grids and now, the latest entrant - Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

The basic premise of the Toyota Mirai is simple. Have a tank filled with hydrogen (H), take oxygen (O2) from the atmosphere and do some advanced chemistry between the two resulting in just 3 end products - electricity, heat and water.

In Greek, the word hydrogen means "water-former" because of its unique property that if you burn it, it produces water (H2O). In its monatomic form (H), it is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of all baryonic mass. However, hydrogen gas is very rare in the Earth's atmosphere. It has been used for transportation in the past. The famous Zeppelins air ships used Hydrogen till an unfortunate accident put an end to the service.

Hydrogen is quite easy to produce and while only limited retail systems exist at this point, it's only a matter of time before it is widely adopted. One of the most popular ways to produce hydrogen is to simply mix steam with methane in a process called as Steam Reforming. Methane gas is a major component of 'gobar gas' or biogas. This ease of producing hydrogen ensures a continuous infinite supply.

The Toyota Mirai incorporates the famed Hybrid technology that has been beautifully described by Samurai in his earlier report. But the Mirai takes a giant leap forward by abandoning the internal combustion engine and instead develops what it calls the 'Fuel Cell Vehicle' or FCV.

Sales will begin in some parts of Japan from December 15, 2014. Preparations are also under way to put the Mirai on sale in the U.S. in autumn, and in Europe by September 2015. The biggest constraint at this point is the availability of hydrogen fuel stations.