Can Hydrogen Save America?
Replacing Hydrocarbons with Hydrogen
Dhananjay Manthripragada
dam3@duke.edu
Kathleen Cook
khc2@duke.edu
"What will they burn instead of coal?" he asked. "Water," exclaimed the engineer, "water will be the coal of the future."
- Jules Verne, excerpt from "Mysterious Island" (1874)
"The information revolution and the coming energy revolution are similar in that we are using human ingenuity to replace energy and raw materials. We can use information technology to avoid travel and transportation, and we can use energy technology to reduce energy consumption, pollution, and our use of natural resources. Both revolutions represent a fundamental transition to a world in which we are not resource constrained, yet we have a higher standard of living."
- Joseph J. Romm, assisant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the US Department of Energy
It is difficult to imagine a world without fossil fuels, given the many advantages this energy resource confers. At the same time it is difficult to deny the disadvantages, including their concentration in politically unstable regions of the world, their contribution to pollution, and the fact that they are non-renewable and thus non-sustainable as a resource. The carbon dioxide-induced componenet of climate change is an energy problem (Hoffert et. al., 2002). It is paramount that we find a substitute fuel, preferably without these drawbacks.
Hydrogen, aside from being the most plentiful substance in the universe, is highly reactive, combining readily with a number of elements and compounds. In particular the combustion reaction, i.e. 2H + O = H2O produces a great deal of energy as a byproduct thus making hydrogen a true competitor with fossil fuels as a source of power.