Engines of Change (page 3 of 3)

Solving the Hydrogen Riddle

You can't see it, smell it, or taste it, but it is everywhere at once and you can't live without it. The answer to this brainteaser is hydrogen, of course. But there's much more to the riddle posed by this potential fuel.

Its advantages over oil are huge: Hydrogen is ubiquitous; the earth should theoretically never run out of it; its only fuel by-product is non-polluting water; and when released as energy in a motor, it's almost twice as efficient as a combustion engine.

To isolate hydrogen, though, researchers have to work with the element in its bonded state (such as when it's combined with oxygen to form H²O), and that's no easy matter.

The reason is that electricity is used to separate hydrogen from oxygen. Fossil fuels and coal can create electricity, yet these resources also produce the kind of pollution that hydrogen is supposed to eliminate. Nuclear power can generate electricity, and nuclear-power plants produce few carbon-based contaminants. But they also create radioactive waste -- and worries about storing it all.

Some tout hydrogen derived from renewable sources, like solar power and wind energy. However, the Energy Department expects that ten years from now, renewables will account for only 8 percent of the fuel consumed worldwide. Almost certainly, the best solution will be an innovation yet to come.

From Reader's Digest - August 2005

 

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