The "Hydrogen Economy" is a Myth

Hydrogen is a clean fuel but it's not an alternate energy source, so it's not going to save the planet, improve our health or protect us from foreigners any time soon.

(PRWEB) March 9, 2004 --I'm not sure how this myth got started but the belief seems to be that running our vehicles with hydrogen will stop air pollution, reduce global warming and remove our dependence on foreign nations for fossil fuels.

It won't - in fact, it will do the opposite.

Here's the speed reader version of why:

1. Hydrogen is not an alternate energy source - it's a mechanism for storing and transferring energy from a source to where it's needed. While hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe, it's not just hanging around - it's all tied up in other matter.

2. Separating it out so it can be used as a fuel takes a lot of energy, much more than is used to run our cars and trucks now.

3. All the extraction methods generate huge, make that horrendous, amounts of carbon dioxide, far more than we're generating now, so there goes global warming.

4. And once you've got the hydrogen, you have a storage problem: it's explosive, reactive and leaks through containments at a rate of several per cent a day (perhaps a tank a month just vanishing into thin air - make that thickening air).

5. Even assuming you can solve all those problems, changing the infrastructure to handle a hydrogen transportation economy would cost about $5,000 per car, with filling stations running $250,000 to $500,000 each.

The National Academy of Sciences summed it up last week:

"In the best-case scenario, the transition to a hydrogen economy would take many decades, and any reductions in oil imports and carbon dioxide emissions are likely to be minor during the next 25 years," said the academy, an independent group that makes scientific recommendations to Congress. [Reuters 2/4/2004]

Hydrogen is not a silver bullet, so let's not put all our resources there.

Instead, let's actually spend some money (rather than bottling it up in committee) on research on alternative, renewable energy sources, because you never know what you'll find.

For additional information contact:

Hal Pawluk
Got Tude
http://www.tude.com/