Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Hydrogen
The fuel fervour that faded
The hydrogen story is a salutary reminder of how alternative ener-
gies can come in and out of fashion, especially if they are over-
hyped. In his 2003 State of the Union address, president George W.
Bush proposed funding so that “the first car driven by a child born
today could be powered by hydrogen and pollution-free”. He went
on to oversee more than $1bn spent on hydrogen fuel-cell research
and development during his two-term presidency.
In 2009 Steven Chu, President Barack Obama's Nobel Prize-winning
energy secretary, abandoned funding for hydrogen fuel cells in cars. “We
asked ourselves”, said Mr Chu, “if it is likely in 10, 15, 20 years that we will
convert into a hydrogen car economy. The answer we felt was no”. Chu did
state that hydrogen fuel cell research would be maintained in stationary
applications such as back-up for power stations.
The decision was denounced by the US National Hydrogen Association.
It complained that the Obama administration was throwing away the
fruits of past research and protested that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were
“not a science experiment, but real vehicles with real marketability and
real benefits”. But by 2009 a number of big car companies were already
seeing more marketability and benefit in electric cars. (The ditching of
research into hydrogen cars in favour of electric cars and hybrids will
doubtlessly produce a conspiracy theory, in the same vein as the theory
that the hydrogen lobby was one of many groups who conspired to get
General Motors to pull its electric car, EV1, in the 1990s.)
Hydrogen is a very appealing prospect on paper. It is the simplest
element, having only one proton, and is the most universal gas in the
universe. It also has the highest energy content of any common fuel by
weight - three times more than petrol - because it is so light. But it is
found only in compound form with other elements, from which it must
be separated (either chemically or by electrolysis) to be useable. As a car-
rier of energy that must be produced from another substance, hydrogen
