China’s clean-air revolution is poised to stand South Africa in good stead. When China chooses, scale results, and scale is just what fuel cells need to lower costs. Fuel cell electric vehicles use compressed hydrogen gas that, when combined with oxygen and drawn through an electrolyte, creates electricity, which powers an electric motor that emits only water vapour. “Chinese people breathe some of the most foul air in the world. India has that problem as well. The solution lies in fuel cell automobiles,” Ivanhoe Mines head Robert Friedland told last week’s Investing in African Mining Indaba, adding that China is poised to be the world’s largest producer of fuel cell cars and was well aware that it was in their national security interest to cooperate with Africa to make sure there was a sustainable way to lead the clean-air revolution.