Hydrogen – The Alternative Fuel

Hydrogen is the simplest element and one of the most abundant on earth! Hydrogen is also one of the primary constituents of the sun, the star that drives all life processes here on earth.

Hydrogen as a gas (H2) is much lighter than air and therefore rises up and quickly escapes the earth’s atmosphere. It exists only in compound form with other elements on earth. For e.g. water and fossil fuels. 

Hydrogen is NOT an energy source

Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas), solar, wind, nuclear are all energy sources. Hydrogen on the other hand is an energy carrier like electricity. What energy carriers do is move energy from one place to another in a useable form. For e.g. electricity and hydrogen can be used to move the energy of fossil fuels from power plants to homes and businesses.

Like electricity, hydrogen must also be produced from something else. The two most common methods are through steam reforming of fossil fuels and through electrolysis of water. Hydrogen produced through steam reforming results in high emissions of greenhouse gases and electrolysis of water is quite costly at present.

Hydrogen as a fuel

Here of course hydrogen gains several points over many other alternatives since hydrogen burns cleanly producing almost no harmful emissions or CO2.

Some of the features that characterize hydrogen as an alternative fuel include,

1)      Highest energy content by weight of any known fuel (approximately three times more than gasoline)

2)      Burns cleanly in an engine producing almost no emissions. In a fuel cell only waste product generated is water

3)      Can be produced from common domestic sources such as biomass, natural gas and even water

Hydrogen is currently NOT a renewable fuel

For hydrogen to be renewable it should be produced from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. However at present it is generated mostly from fossil fuels and as such it is neither renewable nor carbon neutral.