Sustainable Energy: Hydrogen to End Our Fossil Fuel Addiction?

Our technology continues to expand rapidly. It wasn't all that long ago when computers found their way into homes. Also, let's not forget that it's been less than for decades since man landed on the moon. If this much has happened over the last half century, who knows what else we're capable of producing. Of course, problems come with certain technologies. Our dependence on fossil fuels has led to many problems (global warming being one of them). Because of this, we are tying to find new alternative sources of energy. There has been a lot of speculation about whether hydrogen can fuel our nation's energy needs. While many experts believe that this technology will come, there is disagreement as to how beneficial it will be to us and how long it will take to arrive.

David L. Bodde, a Clemson University professor, believes that hydrogen can satisfy our nation's energy needs. Even so, he realizes that transitioning from our current energy system to the hydrogen system is a challenge. It is, as Dodde says, a marketplace issue.

Bodde (2008) cites that there will be three different infrastructures for vehicles: The internal combustion engine, the hybrid electric vehicle, and finally, the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Bodde believes that extended time is required for meaningful change (172). Bodde says that "the road to the hydrogen economy runs smoothest through the hybrid electric vehicle" (173). Bodde says that the success of the HEV can't be assured (even though it's becoming more popular) because some consumers may believe that the amount of fuel savings doesn't make up for the higher cost of the vehicle. Because of this, Bodde believes that the desire to transition to a hydrogen economy would become much greater. Bodde cites that the transition from a HEV to an HFCV fleet depends on one major factor: the amount of hydrogen that is available (173).

Bodde cites that "large-scale production plants in a mature hydrogen economy can manufacture fuel at a cost that competes well with gasoline at current prices" (174). The problem is that people will not invest in these plants if there is no large-scale demand. According to Bodde, there will be no large scale demand until potential consumers of these HFCV's are told that hydrogen fuel is readily available (174).

Another issue is storing hydrogen on vehicles. Hydrogen is a gas that leaks easily. The high-pressure systems that are on these vehicles are specially built and maintained by professionals. The question is what will happen when these HFCV's receive the casual maintenance that cars of today receive? Containment is a very big issue when it comes to storing hydrogen. In regards to storing hydrogen, Bodde cites that an alternative could come from novel approaches to generating the hydrogen on board the vehicle (175).

Now we turn to the other side of the argument. As we saw, Bodde believes that if changes occur in the market place, we will have a hydrogen economy in the nearer future. Michael Behar, a journalist, believes that we have to overcome daunting technological, financial, and political roadblocks before we have a hydrogen economy and this, he says, could take decades.

The first issue is the availability of hydrogen. Even though it is the most common element in the universe, we cannot just dig for it like we do for oil. There are no large quantities of hydrogen for the taking. It is combined with many other molecules, and it must be separated from these molecules. The problem is that it takes a lot of energy to extract the hydrogen. Behar (2008) believes that "we'll never get more energy out of hydrogen than we put into it" (181).

Another issue is that pollution will still be released when hydrogen is extracted from natural gas. Extracting hydrogen from water using electrolysis takes a ton of energy and so it would be costly. If we used energy from fossil fuel burning plants to extract the hydrogen, we'd get clean hydrogen, but the process used to get that hydrogen would be dirty. After the hydrogen is extracted, it has to be compressed and transported (probably by machinery and vehicles that would be running on fossil fuels) (182).

Another issue is that renewable sources such as solar and wind power would "provide only a small fraction of the energy that will be required for a full-fledged hydrogen economy" (182). In order to convert all the vehicles in the U.S. to hydrogen power, it'd take about one million wind turbines. This number of turbines would take up a lot of land area.

Water use is another issue when it comes to extracting hydrogen. The U.S. would end up consuming ten percent more water if a hydrogen economy was fueled by electrolysis (183).

It may be safe to say that it may be some time before our economy switches to a completely hydrogen fueled one. As Bodde pointed out, investors would invest in hydrogen fuel producing plants if the demand was high. The fact of the matter is that demand will not be high if people aren't convinced that there is a large supply of hydrogen fuel. Mehar points out that there are no large reserves of hydrogen. Also, it'd take a lot of energy (and money) to extract hydrogen. We'd get less energy out of hydrogen than we'd put in to extract it. Bodde says that the problem could be solved if there was a balance between the supply side and demand side of the marketplace (174). This won't happen if there is not enough supply. Boddes argument is not as convincing as Mehar's. Bodde fails to point out that it'd take a lot of extra water to get hydrogen through electrolysis. This is where Mehar's argument is strong. Also, it should be noted that large areas of land would need to be put aside for wind turbines in order to provide all U.S. cars with hydrogen fuel. Many people would complain about the unsightliness of the wind turbines. As Mehar says, many major technological, financial, and political obstacles would have to be overcome before the U.S. could become a full-fledged hydrogen economy.

Source:

Easton, T. (Ed.). (2008). Taking sides: Clashing Views on Environmental Issues.
Dubuque: McGraw-Hill.