The Hydrogen Economy
Hydrogen is being promoted as the perfect environmentally friendly fuel of the future.
It will still be available when fossil fuels are exhausted.
It is the earth's tenth most abundant element and is the most abundant element in the universe.
It is generated from water and returns to water when it is burnt.
It is available in vast quantities from the World's oceans.
It can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity
It can be used as the fuel in internal combustion engines to replace petrol or diesel.
Pound for pound it contains more than three times the energy of most hydrocarbon fuels.
It is Invisible, odourless, and non-toxic.
What many "Hydrogen economists" don't make clear is - Where will the energy come from to extract the hydrogen from the water?
Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source, so the energy it delivers would ultimately have to be provided by a conventional power plant.
This page considers some of the issues.
Fuel Cells
The fuel cell was invented in 1839 by Welsh lawyer Sir William Robert Grove. It takes in Hydrogen and Oxygen from the air and puts out electricity, heat, and water. It doesn't use fossil fuels and it doesn't produce greenhouse gases and so it should be the ideal solution to providing distributed or portable electrical power. Despite its obvious advantages it was not until the 1950s in response to the needs of the US space programme that practical devices were developed. Even today, although there are many variants of fuel cells working in development labs throughout the world and small scale deployment of demonstration units in some countries, there is still no volume production.
What is holding back the commercialisation of fuel cells?
The following diagram shows the key system components for providing AC or DC power.