1. Why hydrogen?
2. What is hydrogen?
3. Why is it important to shift from oil to hydrogen with wartime speed?
4. What about the other alternative fuels?
5. Isn't hydrogen especially dangerous?
6. What about the Hindenburg?
7. What about the hydrogen bomb?
8. Where does hydrogen come from?
9. Can any engine be modified to use hydrogen fuel?
10. Where can I get my car modified to use hydrogen?
11. What about exhaust emissions?
12. What is the cost of hydrogen compared to gasoline?
13. How do you store hydrogen?
14. Why is hydrogen referred to as a "universal fuel"?
15. How do the oil companies view hydrogen?
16. What does the term "hydrogen economy" mean?
17. What does the Bush Administration think of hydrogen?
18. How long will it take to shift from oil to hydrogen?
19. What are the major obstacles to implementation of a hydrogen energy system?
20. What is the passage of the Fair Accounting Act by the U.S. Congress so important?
21. How can I learn more about hydrogen energy?
22. What can I do to help?

1. Why hydrogen?

   Hydrogen is the only energy option that can permanently displace oil and other fossil and nuclear fuels on a worldwide basis. Moreover, hydrogen is the only zero-emission fuel and it is the only energy option that can make the U.S. energy independent and essentially pollution-free.

2. What is hydrogen?

   Hydrogen is the simplest, lightest and most abundant element in the known universe? It is the first element in the periodical table of chemical elements. Hydrogen has one proton and one electron. All other atoms are made from combining additional numbers of hydrogen nuclei.

3. Why is it important to shift from oil to hydrogen with wartime speed?

   Given the exponential nature of the interrelated global energy and environmental problems, a "transition of substance" from fossil and nuclear fuels to renewable hydrogen systems needs to be undertaken with wartime speed. Few people understand the significance of the "exponential age" in which we live, but ultimately it is a question of more and more people competing for fewer and fewer resources. The entire Chapter 2 of the Phoenix Project is dedicated to the "exponential age" in which we live. For example, existing oil reserves are expected to last for 40 or 50 years, at current rates of consumption. However, even if there were a 1000-year supply of oil, with 5% annual growth in consumption, the 1000-year supply would be exponentially consumed in only 79 years. Given these realities, the focus needs to be on manufacturing hydrogen with renewable energy technologies that can not only make the U.S. energy independent, but allow it to be transformed from the worlds largest energy importer, to the world's largest energy exporter.

4. What about the other alternative fuels?

   Methanol, ethanol, natural gas, propane and butane, are some of the other common alternative fuels, but with the exception of ethanol, none of these alternatives are renewable. Even in the case of ethanol, which is grown from a renewable crop like corn, it is much more efficient in terms of land use, fertilizers, water and man-hours, to use wind farming technologies to extract hydrogen from water via electrolysis.

5. Isn't hydrogen especially dangerous?

   No. On the contrary, because hydrogen is the lightest element in the universe, it is much safer than gasoline or any other hydrocarbon fuel in the event of a leak or accident involving the fuel storage and delivery system. Hydrogen rises in the atmosphere at approximately 20 meters per second. It escapes into the atmosphere without the localized fume concentration risks that gasoline or natural gas pose.

6. What about the Hindenburg?

   Any one who observes the video tape of the Hindenburg disaster knows that the Hindenburg did not explode. Rather, it caught fire, either from a hidden saboteur's bomb or the static electricity from an electrical storm. As the fire spread through the highly combustible aluminum paint that was used to protect the Hindenburg's gas bags from the sun's ultraviolet radiation, as well as the hydrogen gas that was contained in the gas bags. What is remarkable about the Hindenburg accident report is that most of the passengers and crew lived to tell the story, and remarkably, no one was burned to death by the enormous quantities hydrogen that was used as fuel for the airship. Of the 97 individuals on board, only 35 people died, and 33 of the victims died because they jumped out of the airship while it was still more than 100 feet from the ground - and they died from the fall. The two people who were actually burned to death were burned not by hydrogen that was virtually gone by the time the Hindenburg hit the ground, by the Diesel fuel that was carried in large fuel tanks and used to power the Hindenburg's Mercedes Benz engines. Diesel fuel, which is a hydrocarbon fuel like gasoline, will stick to skin and clothing like glue and literally burn off an individual's skin. Most individuals do not survive this highly painful experience. It is worth noting that the Hindenburg was so large that a 747 jet could be located under the tail section.

7. What about the hydrogen bomb?

   The hydrogen bomb involves a nuclear reaction, whereas the process of electrolyzing water involves a simple transfer of electrons, which also occurs when one makes a cup of coffee or metabolizes the food they eat. The difference being that the hydrogen bomb involves metal such as uranium as a catalyst.

8. Where does hydrogen come from?

   Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. The hydrogen atom has one positively-charged proton, and one negatively-charged electron. All other atoms are made up of increasing numbers of hydrogen protons, neutrons and electrons. Hydrogen is typically chemically attached to other atoms, such as carbon or oxygen, and as such, energy must be expended to separate these elements.

9. Can any engine be modified to use hydrogen fuel?

   Internal combustion engines have been modified to use hydrogen since the 1930's in Germany. Roger Billings modified a Model A Ford to use hydrogen in the 1970's when he was a high school student in Provo, Utah. A number of automotive vehicles have been modified to use hydrogen in the U.S. in recent years by Los Alamos investigators and other individuals and university teams. Indeed, high school auto shop students have modified dozens of engines to use hydrogen over the past 20 years. The engine modifications are minimal, as BMW has demonstrated with their "bi-fuel" vehicles where the same engine uses either hydrogen and gasoline with the flip of a switch from inside the vehicle. The engine modifications have to do with the fuel injectors and the electronic timing for combustion (i.e., hydrogen has a higher flame speed).

10. Where can I get my car modified to use hydrogen?

    At present, there are no "off-the-shelf" hydrogen conversion kits in mass-production. However, once the U.S. makes the decision to initiate a transition to hydrogen, the necessary conversion kits, that are similar to natural gas conversion kits, will be both available and affordable. The anticipated cost of conversion, which includes the engine modifications, will be in the range of $1,000 once the components are mass-produced.

11. What about exhaust emissions?

    Hydrogen is the only zero-carbon fuel. As such, there are essentially no carbon-based emissions such as carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide when hydrogen is used as a fuel. The primary emission product of hydrogen combustion is pure water vapor. Oxides of nitrogen can be formed from the nitrogen in the air, but manufacturers like BMW have been able to prevent the formation of nitrous oxides (NOX) by lowering the temperature of combustion, which does not affect the performance of the vehicle.

12. What is the cost of hydrogen compared to gasoline?

    The cost of hydrogen depends on a number of factors, such as how the hydrogen is to be manufactured, but generally speaking, the cost of hydrogen fuel from wind and sun electric systems will initially be in the range of $1.50 per equivalent gallon of gasoline. However, as more and more engineers are focused on refining the technology, the cost of hydrogen will continue to be reduced over time, in contrast to oil and other fossil fuels that will be expected to increase in cost as the global supplies are exponentially consumed.

    Exxon-Mobil placed an advertisement in The New York Times Editorial Page that made the following conclusion: ". . . unfortunately, all known ways of producing hydrogen today use energy and are costly, making it much more expensive than gasoline." In the first place, it would be more accurate to say that all known ways of producing energy uses energy. Gasoline is refined from oil, which must be found, extracted, transported and offloaded to a refinery. Each one of these steps requires substantial input energy and costs, and if one considers the external environmental and military costs, the true costs of gasoline would be increased at least by a factor of 2, depending on which environmental factors are included. Health care costs and premature deaths associated with millions of people growing up in polluted cities are in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. The record setting droughts that are now plaguing much of the U.S. were predicted by global warming calculations, as were the increasing rates of the melting of the polar ice caps The economic impact of such events are admittedly hard to calculate. What is it worth if New York City and most other coastal areas are under 3-feet of water? And what is the estimated cost of storing nuclear wastes for thousands of centuries? While no one could accurately place an economic value on such factors - there can be no doubt that the numbers are going to be in the trillions of dollars. If such external cost considerations are excluded from the economic calculations, sure gasoline may be less expensive than hydrogen, but we at Energy Ventures Organization know better that, the assumptions need to be carefully examined.

    If a serious discussion of energy economics is going to take place, cost per unit of heat, such as BTUs (i.e. British Thermal Units) need to be used. Btu numbers make comparative economic analysis of different energy systems easy because every energy resource can be measured on a Btu basis. A Btu is the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of a gallon of water by one degree Fahrenheit. A kilowatt hour of electricity has 3,412 BTUs, and assuming an electrolyzer efficiency of 80%, roughly 45 kilowatt hours of electricity and 2.3 gallons of water will be needed to make the same energy contained in a gallon of gasoline. Whereas a gallon of gasoline has about 120,000 BTUs, a gallon of liquid hydrogen has about 30,000 BTUs, which explains why a liquid hydrogen storage tank is about 4 times larger by volume than a gasoline tank. As such, larger vehicles like SUVs are ideal for hydrogen fuel, which is completely renewable, thus it does not need to be conserved like gasoline or oil that is highly polluting and running out. A hydrogen on-demand system could produce hydrogen on an as-needed basis.

    Since a gallon of gasoline has about 120,000 BTUs, if its production cost is $1 dollar a gallon, it is equivalent to $8.33 per million BTUs (i.e., 1 million divided by 120,000 = 8.33). That means at $2.00 per gallon, the cost on a Btu basis is $16.60. By contrast, current natural gas prices are in the range of $3.70 per million BTUs, although gas prices have surged as high as $10.00 during the California energy crisis last year. Mass-produced wind machines will be able to generate electricity for about 2 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) or less, which means that the gaseous hydrogen could be produced for about $8.00 to $10.00 per million BTUs. If the hydrogen is to be liquefied, an additional $3 dollars per million BTUs is required. These numbers suggest that even without factoring in the external energy costs of fossil and nuclear fuels, hydrogen generated by wind systems is already closely competitive with the current prices of gasoline. Moreover, unlike wind hydrogen systems, which will always be less expensive in the future, gasoline will only get more expensive as the global oil reserves are exponentially exhausted. At present, the world is exponentially consuming four barrels of oil for each new barrel that is discovered, and the U.S. only has about 2 percent of the remaining global reserves. Given these fundamental economic and environmental considerations, the U.S. should be shifting from oil to hydrogen with wartime speed.

13. How do you store hydrogen?

    Hydrogen can be stored as gas, a cryogenic (i.e., low temperature) liquid or as a solid in metal hydrides. Liquid hydrogen most closely resembles gasoline from a standpoint of vehicle's weight and volume and range.

14. Why is hydrogen referred to as a "universal fuel?"

    Because it can power virtually any engine or appliance.

15. How do the oil companies view hydrogen?

    Oil companies are already the largest manufacturers of hydrogen in the world. This is because they need large amounts of hydrogen (currently extracted from natural gas) in order to turn crude oil into gasoline and other hydrocarbon fuels. To better understand how the major oil companies view hydrogen , please review the advertisements from Gulf, BP, ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil on hydrogen on their websites.

16. What does the term "hydrogen economy" mean?

    It means that hydrogen will serve as the foundation of a new economy that will no longer be dependent on oil and other fossil fuels. Indeed, hydrogen is the only energy option that can effectively displace oil and other fossil and nuclear fuels on a worldwide basis - forever.

17. What did the former Bush Administration think of hydrogen?

    On the positive side, the Bush Administration initiated a number of high-level hydrogen industrial road mapping sessions at the U.S. Department of Energy and launched a hydrogen-fueled "Freedom Car" program (below) to replace the Clinton Administration's fuel efficiency improvement efforts.

    Freedom Car Program To Accelerate Stationary Fuel Cell Development

    North American Stationary Fuel Cell Shipment Forecast sees government spending will accelerate the stationary fuel cell market to achieve significant growth through 2005. Source: Business Wire Jan 15, 2002]

    NATICK, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 15, 2002-- On January 8 the Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, announced that $1.5 billion in U.S. Government subsidies will be reallocated to further develop fuel cell technologies for automotive applications. The program, called Freedom CAR (Cooperative Automotive Research), was developed by DaimlerChrysler Corporation (NYSE:DCX), Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), General Motors Corporation (NYSE:GM), the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Council for Automotive Research. Freedom CAR will replace a $1.5 billion, eight-year project aimed at developing high mileage per gallon engine powered vehicles.

    What does this $1.5 billion in government funding mean to the stationary fuel cell marketplace? For the fuel cell companies pursuing automotive applications such as Ballard (NasdaqNM:BLDP) and United Technologies Fuel Cells (NYSE:UTX), this will probably result in considerable government subsidized R&D funding. For the rest of the fuel cell world, the answer is not as simple.

    For the automotive fuel cell market to directly impact the stationary fuel cell market, fuel cell vehicles must achieve commercial success. A number of requirements are necessary for these vehicles to effectively commercialize:

    • The vehicle must have lower emissions than an internal combustion engine
    • Its driving performance must be at least equal to that of an internal combustion engine
    • It must provide profits for automotive manufacturers and fuel cell companies
    • It must provide profits for energy companies by means of its fuel supply

    To meet these requirements, automotive fuel cells must overcome a number of technical barriers. Most important is the need to further develop hydrogen-reforming technologies, which are used to convert hydrogen rich fuels (gasoline, natural gas, methanol, etc.) to pure hydrogen. Without this technology, a hydrogen infrastructure will need to be constructed at a very high cost. There are also significant size, weight, and noise requirements placed on automotive fuel cells.

    According to VDC analyst Nathan Andrews, "Once these requirements are met and fuel cell vehicles commercialize, the increases in fuel cell production will help to significantly drop prices. The research to meet these requirements will also assist in the development of stationary fuel cell systems." VDC anticipates that this government spending will accelerate the stationary fuel cell market to achieve significant growth through 2005. Beyond 2005 the possibilities for both stationary and automotive fuel cells are tremendous. The Freedom CAR program will go a long way in assisting fuel cell development, but for these markets to reach their true potentials, industry participants will need to take matters into their own hands.

18. How long will it take to shift from oil to hydrogen?

    Most analysts do not foresee a hydrogen economy in the near future. It is something that is generally thought to be at least 50 to 100 years into the future. This is especially true if the hydrogen is manufactured from coal or nuclear sources. By contrast, if wind machines (which are similar to automobiles from a manufacturing perspective) are mass-produced for large-scale hydrogen production, the U.S. could obtain virtually all of its energy (i.e. 100 quads) within a 5-year period. Moreover, virtually all of the existing cars, trucks and aircraft could also be modified to use the hydrogen fuel within the 5-year period. It is worth noting that in World War II, every major industry was retooled in the U.S. in about 12 months.

19. What are the major obstacles to implementation of a hydrogen energy system?

    The primary obstacle is a lack of public, media and Congressional awareness of the hydrogen energy option. We live at a time when most well-educated individuals are highly-trained specialists who know a great deal about very little. As such, the shift to hydrogen is not a technical problem, but a political problem.

20. Why is the passage of the Fair Accounting Act by the U.S. Congress so important?

    The Fair Accounting Act is the "trigger mechanism" because it will factor in the military, environmental and health-care costs into the taxes paid for fossil and nuclear fuels. The tax revenue can then be returned to vehicle owners in the form of a tax credit to encourage them to get their car modified to use hydrogen fuel.

21. How can I learn more about hydrogen energy?

    Refer to the information on this website and also try searching the World Wide Web.

22. What can I do to help?

    To help initiate political change Join the Hydrogen Political Action Committee (h2pac.org) and/or write to your elected representatives and tell them that your mad as hell and you aren't going to take it anymore. Tell them that you and your family want Hydrogen Hearings to be initiated in the U.S. Congress as soon as possible so that the shift to hydrogen can occur with wartime speed. If they do not respond, vote for someone who will.

Generating Hydrogen

HYDROGEN'S ROLE IN ENERGY SECURITY.

In every century, America has depended on a single dominant source of energy for transportation. But only in the last century has this become a threat to national security. Until the age of oil, America could produce all the energy it needed from domestic sources. Now, with demand for oil far outstripping domestic supply, the nation is ever more dependent on foreign oil. With this dependence comes a great threat to the nation’s security, all because of our dependence on a single source of energy.

Hydrogen is the pathway out of energy dependency. It can be made from any number of energy sources—coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric and all of the emerging renewables. So for the first time we can depend on a dominant form of energy without depending on a single source. And it’s a form of energy our children can live with, because it is as clean as energy gets.

Fossil Fuel Based Hydrogen Production

Water Based Hydrogen Production

Other Methods of Hydrogen Generation

Fossil Fuel Based Hydrogen Production
A closer look at the chemical formula for any fossil fuel reveals that hydrogen is present in all of the formulas. The trick is to remove the hydrogen safely, efficiently and without any of the other elements present in the original compound. Hydrogen has been produced from coal, gasoline, methanol, natural gas and any other fossil fuel currently available. Some fossil fuels have a high hydrogen to oxygen ratio making them better candidates for the reforming process. The more hydrogen present and the fewer extraneous compounds make the reforming process simpler and more efficient. The fossil fuel that has the best hydrogen to carbon ratio is natural gas or methane(CH₄).

Steam Reforming of Natural Gas
Hydrogen production from natural gas commonly employs a process known as steam reforming. Steam reforming of natural gas involves two steps. The initial phase involves rendering the natural gas into hydrogen, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. This breakdown of the natural gas is accomplished by exposing the natural gas to high temperature steam. The second phase of steam reforming consists of creating additional hydrogen and carbon dioxide by utilizing the carbon monoxide created in the first phase. The carbon monoxide is treated with high temperature steam and the resulting hydrogen and carbon dioxide is sequestered and stored in tanks. Most of the hydrogen utilized by the chemical and petroleum industries is generated with steam reforming. Steam reforming reaches efficiencies of 70% - 90%. The reformer component on a complete fuel cell system is usually a smaller variation of the process described above. Component reformers operate under varying operating conditions and the chemical path that the hydrogen generation follows will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but the resulting hydrogen reformate is essentially the same.

Water Based Hydrogen Production

Electrolysis
Electrolysis is the technical name for using electricity to split water into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen. The splitting of water is accomplished by passing an electric current through water. The electricity enters the water at the cathode, a negatively charged terminal, passes through the water and exists via the anode, the positively charged terminal. The hydrogen is collected at the cathode and the oxygen is collected at the anode. Electrolysis produces very pure hydrogen for use in the electronics, pharmaceutical and food industries. Relative to steam reforming, electrolysis is very expensive. The electrical inputs required to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen account for about 80% of the cost of hydrogen generation. Potentially, electrolysis, when coupled with a renewable energy source, can provide a completely clean and renewable source of energy. In other circumstances, electrolysis can couple with hydroelectric or off-peak electricity to reduce the cost of electrolysis.

Photoelectrolysis
Photoelectrolysis, known as the hydrogen holy grail in some circles, is the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity. Photovoltaics, semiconductors and an electrolyzer are combined to create a device that generates hydrogen. The photoelectrolyzer is placed in water and when exposed to sunlight begins to generate hydrogen. The photovoltaics and the semiconductor combine to generate enough electricity from the sunlight to power the electrolyzer. The hydrogen is then collected and stored. Much of the research in this field takes place in Golden, Colorado at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Photobiological
Photobiological production of hydrogen involves using sunlight, a biological component, catalysts and an engineered system. Specific organisms, algae and bacteria, produce hydrogen as a byproduct of their metabolic processes. These organisms generally live in water and therefore are biologically splitting the water into its component elements. Currently, this technology is still in the research and development stage and the theoretical sunlight conversion efficiencies have been estimated up to 24%. Over 400 strains of primitive plants capable of producing hydrogen have been identified, with 25 impressively achieving carbon monoxide to hydrogen conversion efficiencies of 100%.

In one example, researchers have discovered that the algae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, possesses an enzyme called hydrogenase that is capable of splitting water into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen. The researchers have determined the mechanism for starting and stopping this process, which could lead to an almost limitless method for producing clean, renewable hydrogen. The algae need sulfur to grow and photosynthesize. Scientists found that when they starved the algae of sulfur, in an oxygen-free environment, the algae reverted to a hydrogenase-utilizing mode. This mechanism was developed over millions of years of evolution for survival in oxygen-rich and oxygen-free environments. Once in this cycle, the algae released hydrogen, not oxygen. Further research is necessary to improve the efficiencies of the engineered plant systems, collection methods and the costs of hydrogen generation.

Other Methods of Hydrogen Generation

Biomass Gasification and Pyrolysis
Biomass can be utilized to produce hydrogen. The biomass is first converted into a gas through high-temperature gasifying, which produces a vapor. The hydrogen rich vapor is condensed in pyrolysis oils and then can be steam reformed to generate hydrogen. This process has resulted in hydrogen yields of 12% - 17% hydrogen by weight of the dry biomass. The feedstock for this method can consist of wood chips, plant material, agricultural and municipal wastes, etc… When biological waste material is used as a feedstock, this method of hydrogen production becomes a completely renewable, sustainable method of hydrogen generation.