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4 - WWS Solutions for Transportation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2026

Mark Z. Jacobson
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Summary

Transportation is the conveyance of people, animals, or goods from one place to another. Types of transportation include skateboards, bicycles, motorcycles, passenger vehicles, sport-utility vehicles, small trucks, large trucks, semi-trucks, buses, forklifts, cranes, tractors, bulldozers, asphalt pavers, backhoe loaders, wheel loaders, cold planers, compactors, excavators, harvesters, graders, off-road vehicles, trains, ferries, motorboats, yachts, ships, helicopters, airplanes, battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, armored combat support vehicles, mine-protected vehicles, light armored vehicles, light utility vehicles, amphibious vehicles, and more. All of these, except skateboards and bicycles, currently move primarily by burning gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, methanol, ethanol, liquefied natural gas, bunker fuel, or jet fuel in an internal combustion engine. These fuels are all derivatives of fossil fuels or biofuels. The cleanest and most efficient method of replacing these fossil-fuel and biofuel vehicles is to convert them to battery-electric vehicles or hydrogen-fuel-cell-electric vehicles. Such vehicles emit no chemicals from the tailpipe aside from, in the case of hydrogen-fuel-cell-electric vehicles, water vapor. If the electricity going into the battery or used to produce hydrogen is from WWS, then the vehicles are emission free in their energy production as well. This chapter discusses these two WWS solutions. Hydrogen combustion is not supported because it results in chemical air pollutants containing, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Ammonia combustion is not supported because it results in similar chemicals plus unburned ammonia, which is one of the most dangerous chemicals in photochemical smog due to its propensity to dissolve in water and form particulate matter.

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