The Hydrogen Economy by mThink, May 23, 2005 The expression hydrogen economy is appearing more and more frequently in the headlines and on the bookstands. As recently as February 2005 the governor of Florida unveiled his Hydrogen Energy Technologies Act and broke ground on the first hydrogen energy station in Florida. The previous year he announced a statewide initiative to grow the hydrogen industry, and hes certainly not ahead of the curve. Iceland already has plans to be the worlds first hydrogen economy. Hawaii is beginning to convert its solar and geothermal resources into hydrogen for energy. California has its own hydrogen superhighway, and several years ago the governor of New York participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony opening a new manufacturing facility in New York that would build hydrogen fuel cell systems for both industry and for individual homes. To decide whats going on and whether its for real, lets look at recent newspapers and the gas pump. The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 28, 2005) carried a small story titled, Gas Prices Rise Despite Greater Supply. The article states that many analysts are predicting prices as high as $2.50 per gallon for gasoline during the coming year, and the price is expected to continue to rise. Production of energy within the United States, especially from petroleum, has not kept pace with U.S. usage, driving up imports. The United States currently imports 55 percent of its oil, a number that is expected to increase to 68 percent by 2025.[1] Demand for electricity is expected to increase by 45 percent and natural gas by greater than 50 percent.[2] Other consuming countries are also entering the picture, in particular China and India. Their demand for petroleum will complicate world demand and increase the price pressure within the United States. Nearly all Americans would agree that we need to be less dependent on fuel imports. Although nobody knows when fossil fuel will run out, everyone knows that it eventually will. So its better to begin finding an alternative now than later. We can save $100 billion per year if we find our energy sources internally (i.e., within the United States).[3] We can also reduce emissions and strengthen our economy if we select the new source wisely. Attention-Getter Renewable energy is gaining increased attention because its just that renewable. Biomass, geothermal, hydropower, ocean, solar, wind and hydrogen are all natural sources of energy. Recently hydrogen has been working its way toward the top of the list. There was little interest in 1970 when electrochemist John OM. Bockris coined the phrase hydrogen economy, but the fuel embargo in 1973 spurred an interest in hydrogen and the development of hydrogen fuel cells for conventional commercial applications.[4] In the 1980s, the Soviets flew a commercial airliner partially fueled by hydrogen and an American flew a private aircraft propelled by hydrogen.[5] In the 1990s, the transportation industry took an interest in hydrogen with the advent of fuel-cell-powered buses and automobiles. In addition, acceptance of hydrogen was improved when retired NASA engineer Addison Bain concluded that the Hindenburg accident was not actually caused by hydrogen but by static electricity and the highly flammable skin material of the airship.[4] As previously mentioned, Iceland announced that it would be the first country with a hydrogen economy. Germany has opened hydrogen fueling stations. In this decade the automobile companies have continued to produce cars based on either hydrogen or hybrid energy systems, and President Bush announced a hydrogen fuel initiative in his 2000 State of the Union Address. The federal budget in 2005 includes $225 million for hydrogen as a source of energy and the proposed 2006 budget requests $260 million. Usually we expect a debate to converge on a single optimum approach for as serious an issue as the coming energy crisis, but just the opposite is happening. It is diverging. Some say that cost is holding up the hydrogen economy, but it is more likely that either indecision (or too many independent decisions) is the culprit. Thats understandable when one examines what comprises the hydrogen economy. The only single point that has (fairly) unanimous agreement is that hydrogen is an optimum potential source of future energy. Beyond that, every other component of the future energy equation is a variable, a variable with many values. It should be no surprise that the average American is confused. Generally, for renewable hydrogen resources, 25 kilograms of hydrogen displace approximately one barrel of oil with a corresponding reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 3 kilograms of carbon dioxide for each kilogram of hydrogen.[6] Thus, one realizes a double financial benefit from reduced air pollution when one chooses clean methods of hydrogen production. So although the path is not clear, the goal of a hydrogen economy has obvious merit. Enter Hydrogen Energy must be created, delivered and used, so there must be a source, production techniques, a transportation system, methods of storage and types of consumption. The Two Primary Sources of Hydrogen We have all seen a drawing of the hydrogen atom, the first element in the chemical table: a large globe, or nucleus, being orbited by a small sphere, the single electron. But lets not be led astray by hydrogens apparent simplicity. The cliché theres good news and bad news holds. The good news is that hydrogen is incredibly abundant. It comprises 70 percent of the Earths surface,[7] 75 percent of the mass of the universe and 90 percent of the molecules.[8] Although hydrogen is plentiful, the bad news is that hydrogen is it seldom remains in its pure state, preferring to combine with other elements to form, for example, water and hydrocarbons (such as methane), the two primary sources for hydrogen today. The 11 Hydrogen Production Techniques To use hydrogen as an energy source, it has to be separated from the other elements. That is, oxygen has to be removed from the water molecule, or carbon must be removed from methane. Complexity arises from the fact that there are at least 11 technologies available to do this[9]: Steam methane reformation (SMR) (50 percent of hydrogen worldwide production); Partial oxidation (POX); Coal gasification (CG) (about 18 percent of hydrogen worldwide production); Electrolysis (4 percent of hydrogen worldwide production); Biomass; Thermal cracking; Photochemical; Photo-electrochemical; Thermochemical (there are six solar versions of these: thermolysis, thermochemical cycles, reforming, solar cracking, solar gasification and solar carbothermic reduction[10]; Thermal decomposition (high-temperature systems using solar thermal, geothermal, biomass and nuclear energy); and Pyrolysis. The first three are the most technologically ready but are not renewable and depend on some form of natural gas, which means that they will eventually become more expensive. They also produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct. (Remember that hydrogen use is only a clean form of energy if the process to produce it is also clean.) The fourth technology, electrolysis, is the production of chemical changes by passage of an electric current through an electrolyte. This can be accomplished by various means such as solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal, and since these are renewable, they should not increase in cost over the coming decades. When water is the electrolyte, the result is hydrogen and oxygen. Wind generation of electricity, as one example, has averaged a growth of 32 percent per year from 1995 through 2002. Some European countries are already obtaining significant amounts of their electricity from wind, and as the available energy produced in this manner has increased, so has public support. Its largest obstacle is the lack of accessibility. If wind were our only energy provider, hydrogen pipelines or electric transmission lines would have to carry the energy from, for example, the Great Plains to the remainder of the United States. Biomass (plant-derived materials) has been the largest renewable energy source in the United States since 2000, providing 47 percent of all renewable energy and 4 percent of the total energy in 2003.[11] It consumes agricultural and forest residues along with other organic byproducts. Ethanol and bio-diesel fuel derived primarily from plant matter and agricultural products such as corn are becoming of increasing importance in the transportation industry. The United States has the capability of supporting more than one of these techniques for hydrogen energy production. The eastern half of the United States, for example, has great potential for biomass and the western half for solar and wind energy.[10] Any of the remaining six are also possible, especially if there are breakthroughs. Transportation Once hydrogen has been produced, it must be safely delivered to various parts of the country in individual containers such as small cylinders for decentralized use or through pipelines for centralized distribution. Regardless of the type of distribution, the technical problems for both liquid (cryogenic) and gaseous hydrogen containment are extensive. The hydrogen molecule is small, which makes compressing and sealing its container difficult. Liquefaction requires reducing the temperature and maintaining it at near absolute zero, a formidable task but already done. Other methods[12] of hydrogen distribution include chemical compounds, absorptive metallic alloys, carbon or substrates. These may be more easily transported than pure liquid or gas, but the technologies still need significant development. Hydrogen can also be used to generate electricity directly for transmission over an electric grid. At this time, the costs for the hydrogen pipelines and the additional electric lines needed are comparable.[13] Regardless, additional electric lines will inevitably be needed since transmission line saturation is already occurring.[14] Storage Storage is currently considered the biggest challenge to the future of the hydrogen economy. The problems associated with the storage of gaseous or liquid hydrogen are similar to those associated with its transport, thereby raising serious questions: Does the average American want a 10,000-pounds-per-square-inch gas bottle in their vehicle? Is a hydrogen pipeline a security risk? Other possibilities include chemical compounds, which offer a large variety of mediums for storage. They are receiving considerable research attention. Various metal and liquid hydrides, nanoparticles and carbon compounds are also being investigated. Unfortunately, in many cases the advantage of the storage medium is negated by the considerable energy that must be expended to extract the stored hydrogen. Uses Hydrogen can be burned to produce energy in the form of heat or transformed directly into electrical current. Using transportation (which consumes almost two-thirds of our oil) as an example, vehicles can be powered by combustors, hydrogen internal combustion engines (heat) or hydrogen fuel cells (electricity) or a combination of any of those and a battery. Thus begins the classic game of chicken and egg. The fuel supply method will have a strong influence on the type of energy conversion system (combustion, electric motor/generator) and vice versa. If automobile manufacturers knew for sure which type of hydrogen fuel would be available for the consumer then they could produce the vehicle. If energy providers knew what type of automobile engine they were to service, they could supply the fuel. Which goes first? Which is it, heat or electricity? No one wants to drive a vehicle without readily available fuel. And no one wants to have a refueling station for nonexistent vehicles. The Future Its highly probable that if we were to tour a home in the year 2040, we would never realize that we had entered the hydrogen era. When we turn on the light switch, electrons will produce light and power the stove and cooling/heating system. Except for the cleaner air, we might not even notice any difference when we drive through the countryside. During our stop for coffee at the local service station we would purchase fuel in our accustomed fashion before continuing our journey. In 35 years, it will all seem very simple and straightforward. But at the other end of the power lines and at the beginning of the fuel line, very sophisticated technology will be operating. Just what that technology will be needs to be determined soon if it is to be available in 2040. When the light switch is turned on, the electrons could be generated by a localized hydrogen combustor or from a fuel cell in the homes basement. They might also come from an external electric grid. If its external, the grid could involve a fuel cell, solar or wind unit that provides energy only for that home or for the housing area or industrial complex, or it could be connected to a regional electric grid much as we have today. If the hydrogen economy seems confusing, all one has to do is review the numbers to understand why. Mathematically, using just the technologies mentioned here, there are more than 3,000 possible combinations of means for providing those electrons at your switch. And it is undetermined how many technological barriers are associated with those combinations. These are far too many even for a country with the scientific resources of the United States. Are these barriers hurdles or roadblocks? One generally goes over hurdles and around roadblocks. Doing either is just engineering, but before the engineers can go over or around, they have to identify and understand the barrier. Any choices made, for example, between centralized or decentralized electric grids, or gaseous versus liquid hydrogen combustors, or internal combustion engines and fuel cells reduces the number of technical barriers. Americans agree that something must be done to free us from dependency on foreign oil and natural gas. Right now, with over three thousand possible solutions, the number of potential barriers seems insurmountable. Decisions, commitments and unbiased judgments need to come to bear to reduce those barriers to a reasonable and solvable number before we run out of energy. What a shame it would be to have our grandchildren sit in darkness, surrounded by something that comprises 75 percent of the worlds surface and be helpless to use it. Endnotes Presidents Hydrogen Initiative: A Clean and Secure Energy Future, www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/presidents_initiative.html. Report of the National Energy Policy Development Group, May 2001, U.S. Government Printing Office, ISBN 0-16-050814-2. Renewable Hydrogen Forum, A Summary of Expert Opinion and Policy Recommendations, National Press Club, Washington, D.C., Oct. 1, 2003, Presented by American Solar Energy Society p. 10. The History of Hydrogen Fact Sheet Series, Facts H 1.008. www.hydrogenus.com/History-of-H2-Fact-Sheet.pdf The Hydrogen Economy The Next Great Economic Revolution, Jeremy Rifkin, Tarcher/Penguin, New York, NY, 2003. Renewable Hydrogen Forum, A Summary of Expert Opinion and Policy Recommendations, National Press Club, Washington, DC, Oct. 1, 2003, Presented by American Solar Energy Society p. 42. Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel (HTAP) U.S. DOE, Fuel Choice for Fuel Cell Vehicles. Hydrogen. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press, 2001. Renewable Hydrogen Forum, A Summary of Expert Opinion and Policy Recommendations, National Press Club, Washington, D.C., Oct. 1, 2003, Presented by American Solar Energy Society p. 42. Ibid. p.22. The Hydrogen Economy, Opportunities, Costs, Barriers and R&D Needs, National Research Council and National Academy of Engineering of the National Academies, The National Academies Press, Washington D.C., 2004. Ibid. p. 41. Renewable Hydrogen Forum, A Summary of Expert Opinion and Policy Recommendations, National Press Club, Washington, D.C., Oct. 1, 2003, Presented by American Solar Energy Society p. 16. Ibid. p. 59. Filed under: White Papers Tagged under: Utilities