Opportunity exists even within the current energy industry. In order to produce hydrogen, at least initially, the use of fossil fuels will still need to be used by direct consumption to produce electricity and ultimately hydrogen or by chemical reformation to harvest hydrogen. The United States on the whole will benefit from such a switch thereby relieving ourselves from the dependence upon foreign oil and OPEC.

Regardless of the feasibility of such an initiative, the Bush administration can only benefit from its endorsement for in fact this initiative is the perfect political weapon in winning special interest group support when everyone stands to gain from the hydrogen based economy. With little public debate, such policy as the Bush “Roadmap to the Hydrogen Economy” and 1.2 billion dollar funding as suggested in the 2002 State of the Union address glides through congress and is never heard from again until long past the Bush years and in the hands of a current administration.

Unfortunately, our policy makers and most of the general public understand very little of the prophetic hydrogen economy; its unprecedented technical challenges or its real benefits. This paper will summarize the technical challenges and benefits associated with the hydrogen economy as well as identify its evolution into our current political situation.

Hydrogen Technology
The hydrogen economy is no new subject. As a matter of fact it was first envisioned by the French writer Jules Vernes in his book, “L’Ile Mysterieuse,” in 1875 where he spoke of water being broken into hydrogen and oxygen to supply endless electricity and heat [8]. Also, in a report by the Club of Rome in 1976, it was considered that, “at the eve of the 21st century, we should consider the juxtaposition of two networks of equal importance: electricity and hydrogen which is cheap and available in huge quantities from nuclear or solar energy [8].”

Hydrogen is the most abundant element on the earth, yet it does not exist in nature as the diatomic hydrogen gas that everyone wants to burn/oxidize in the presence of oxygen or air to form water as the only byproduct. In fact, that is just how you will find most hydrogen in nature; the already oxidized form as water (hydrogen oxide). As any earth science person or engineer that has studied thermodynamics will tell you, according to the second law of thermodynamics, everything in the universe is heading towards increasing entropy. Entropy is defined as the degree of disorder. The greater the entropy of a system, the greater the degree of disorder. It is this principle that we draw all of our energy from the existing fossil fuels by taking a nice orderly molecule like a hydrocarbon and blowing it to smithereens to make gases of carbon dioxide and water. This huge change in entropy to the positive or greater disorder is the only reason we are able to light our homes and power our cars. Hydrogen is not a fuel and can only be created at the expense of other fuels. The only purpose of hydrogen is a means to store energy in a form that we can handle much like our gasoline based infrastructure.

Hydrogen Production
Initially, hydrogen will be produced by our existing base of fossil fuels and nuclear. Renewable energy such as wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal currently comprises a mere 1% of our energy supply. Hydrogen that is produced today is a product of thermal decomposition of natural gas to carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas. As much as 90% of the hydrogen produced today originates from natural gas. The other production capacity is by electrolysis of water by electricity (which comes from coal, gas or nuclear) and by the thermal decomposition of coal. Unfortunately, coal is as much as 85% carbon content and requires other processing to produce methyl alcohol or carbon dioxide which must be sequestered.

Many critics argue that there is little benefit to adding the extra step of hydrogen production which has its inherent efficiency losses to produce when you could just produce electricity or burn the fuels directly in the case of the internal combustion engine. Initially this is a questionable conversion, yet the possibility of producing increasing amounts of hydrogen at the expense of renewable sources is favorable. In several decades it may be possible to increase the proportion of renewable sources by the development of better technologies. More noteworthy is the fact that the major downfall of renewable energy sources is the lack of predictability and reliability of the source. Electricity that is generated if not immediately used is wasted. Storage batteries are capable of storing some electricity but are grossly limited in capacity and high cost. However, if the electricity that is generated were converted to hydrogen the storage capacity limited only by how big a hydrogen tank you build and has no shelf-life. Hydrogen could be harvested and stockpiled during the unpredictable wind and solar sources.

Hydrogen Infrastructure
Other difficulties associated with a hydrogen based economy exist than the source of hydrogen production. Hydrogen storage as it relates to transportation and distribution is not easily attained. Hydrogen is the lightest gas that exists besides helium and requires more compression in order to pack enough mass of hydrogen gas into a unit of volume. Thus, hydrogen fuel tanks on an automobile would need to be at extremely high pressure in order to have enough fuel to last as long as a typical tank of gasoline; 700 atmospheres or 10,000psi to be exact. Typical pressures of natural gas vehicle storage tanks are in the range of 250 atmospheres or 4,000psi. Pressures in this range require very heavy walled steel tanks to be safe where the mass of hydrogen only accounts several percent of the total weight of the tank, not to mention the expense of energy in order to drive compressors for achieving such high pressure. To liquefy hydrogen for distribution would require very low temperatures around -253°C, absolute zero is -273°C, and requires the input of massive amounts of energy to run refrigeration equipment.

The current petroleum based economy has a massive existing infrastructure that would need to be phased out of existence and the introduction of entirely new refueling stations; all costs unsubsidized by the government that ultimately are absorbed by the consumer. One other major concern over the storage of hydrogen is that it is quite explosive and in the hands of the consumer each hydrogen fuel tank can lead to disaster either at the refueling station or in the event of an accident. These challenges are only a sample of the enormous tasks in the development of such a revolutionary system.

Conclusions
Properly implemented, the hydrogen economy stands to revolutionize the world as we know it. The production of hydrogen will and its ultimate usage in fuel cell vehicles will liberate the U.S. economy as well as other industrialized nations from the grips of foreign oil and OPEC. Yet, we must question how seriously our government supports such an undertaking. In the 2002 State of the Union address George W. Bush committed $1.2 billion to the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Unfortunately, this figure doled out over five years might only pay the electric bill for a R&D operation. The scale of such a development would easily require a price tag of $1 trillion dollars.

The “National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap” much like the “Roadmap to Peace” may be more hot air than a legitimate effort at changing our national energy policy. The hydrogen smokescreen might be a diversion to what this administration truly intends to do about securing our future in energy.

Bibliography

1. United States Dept. of Energy, “National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap,” National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap Workshop, Washington, D.C. April 2-3, 2003.

    

2. United States Dept. of Energy, “Fuel Cell Report to Congress,” United States Dept. of Energy, ESECS EE-1973, February 2003.

    

3. D. Morris, “A Hydrogen Economy is a Bad Idea,” AlterNet, February 2003.

    

4. G. Bush, “State of the Union,” State of the Union Address 2002.

    

5. K. Mieszkowski, “The White House’s Hydrogen Hype,” Salon Media Group, February 2003.
6. G. Bush, Hydrogen Fuel Initiative Can Make "Fundamental Difference," Remarks by the President on Energy Independence, The National Building Museum, Washington, D.C.

    

7. P. Schwartz and D. Randall, “How Hydrogen Can Save America,” Wired Magazine, April 2003.

    

8. International Energy Agency, “Moving to a Hydrogen Economy: Dreams and Realities,” Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, January 2003.