Caption : Hydrogen-fuelled BMW
Photographer : Phillip Capper |
Its inception…Since the first major oil shortages in the early 1970s far-sighted visionaries have sought after an alternate source of fuel to meet the energy demands of the world. The most popular of these has always been the hydrogen economy.
Our next generation fuel… Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and is the fuel used in the massive explosion which is our sun. Hydrogen has many uses today. It is sometimes used in food production and chemical industries use it to make plastics and metals. So, a small market for hydrogen already exists, but it is insignificant compared with the demands for oil and fossil fuels to feed the current energy requirements.
The proton…The hydrogen economy involves burning hydrogen gas as a fuel to create electricity and other forms of energy. Its supporters argue that it has a number of distinct advantages over our current fossil fuel dependant energy systems.
Firstly, hydrogen burns with oxygen in the air releasing energy, with the only emission being water vapour. Secondly, hydrogen is a highly versatile fuel, which can be used to generate electricity, or as the new ‘petrol’ for the next generation of cars and other forms of transport. Thirdly, unlike electricity carried in wires, hydrogen gas does not lose power as it travels great distances. This allows large solar collecting fields to be set up in the Australian desert, and the coast surrounded with wind turbines to collect the ocean breeze. Lastly, with widespread hydrogen usage, every country with access to water will be able to produce their own energy.
According to supporters of a hydrogen economy, the real beauty of it lies in the possibility of creating a completely cyclical, and hence sustainable, energy system. Currently, the cheapest source of hydrogen is fossil fuels, but if hydrogen was obtained by splitting water (H2O) into hydrogen gas (H2) and oxygen gas (O2) using wind, sun and geothermal energy, or any other available form of renewable energy, the burning of hydrogen gas in a car, or a power station would recreate the water which was split initially.
The electron…There are some problems with the hydrogen economy, which would need to be overcome before the idea could be safely implemented. Hydrogen is a highly flammable substance and storage in a fuel tank of a car could be dangerous if it crashes. Supporters of a hydrogen economy point out that octane, the major constituent of petrol, is also highly flammable. Interestingly, new substances such as ammonium borate (NH3BH3) are being tested in the chemistry laboratories around the world. It isn’t flammable, and can be gently heated to release hydrogen gas, so it would be a great material for a fuel tank.
The other major problem with the hydrogen economy is a huge lack of infrastructure. Only a select few service stations carry hydrogen as a fuel and most of these are in California, and the only cars which can run off hydrogen are still only in car shows and futuristic displays. But if you look carefully at most car manufacturer’s websites, they are all in the process of designing cars of the future which will run off hydrogen.
And finally...It would take a lot of resources, which currently means energy and materials from fossil fuels, if we were to change our infrastructure to support hydrogen as the new fuel. We'd need newly fitted petrol stations, as well as more investment and support from industry and government. Solar power plants, wind power sites and other renewable energy generation systems would also need to be established to provide the base electricity required to form hydrogen gas from water.
How do I know this?Ballard,
http://www.ballard.com/Williams, J,
WTRG Economics: analysis, planning, forecast and data services for energy producers and consumers,
http://www.wtrg.com/index.html Wheeler, S 2002, ‘Hydrogen economy’,
BBC News, 21 August,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/ar...
