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Hydrogen is the most plentiful element on Earth and is found in combination with oxygen in water, and in organic matter including living plants, petroleum, coal, natural gas and other hydrocarbon compounds. The great attraction of hydrogen is that, once isolated, it is a clean burning fuel that produces neither carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) nor toxic emissions and can be used for electricity production, transportation, and other energy needs.
Many see a movement to a hydrogen economy as the long-run solution to the environmental and security problems associated with fossil fuels. However, before hydrogen can be used as fuel it must first be extracted from hydrogen-bearing compounds either through electrolysis or high temperature reformation of organic compounds like coal. Many of the extraction processes can create substantial pollution and so for hydrogen to be truly pollution free the extraction process must be pollution free.
If the problems of extracting hydrogen can be solved in a pollution free, cost effective manner and if technologies such as fuel cells can be made cost effective, then hydrogen has the potential to provide clean, alternative energy for a number of uses, including lighting, heating, cooling, and transportation. |
| California Hydrogen Highway: Provider of technology education and research in the areas of biotechnology, chemistry, biochemistry, computer science, electric and computer engineering and mechanical engineering. Services are provided to multiple industries. |
| Cleaner Energy, Greener Profits: This Hydrogen Powered World site is run by The Clean Energy Educational Trust to promote the concept of a hydrogen-powered world. The aim is to raise general awareness of the possibility of changing the source of the world’s energy supplies from fossil fuels and nuclear power to a pollution-free energy system based on renewable energy sources and hydrogen. Has news, views and articles about hydrogen and its role in a sustainable future. |
| Inflating Hydrogen Needs: Provider of energy industry consulting services. Parent/Holding company with high-tech operating units which manufacture industrial gas generation systems and fuel cells. Products and services are sold to the fuel and industrial industries. |
| The University Of Calgary Hydrogen Program: E04-05, In an unpublished letter to Science, Amory Lovins points out that CalTech researchers overstated by about tenfold the amount of hydrogen that would be needed to run the U.S. economy. This continues a series of technical errors by the same group, including its famous two-order-of-magnitude overestimate of how much hydrogen might leak from a hydrogen-based energy system, ostensibly endangering the ozone layer. See E03-02 (02 February 2004). |
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