Wayne asks:
> How many equal units are required to put one unit of hydrogen to work
> in the entire range of its applications, including those required for
> distribution, storage, etc.?
I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but I suspect that most of your
questions can be answered by reading this authoritative article that appeared
in
Physics Today a few years ago:
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-12/p39.html
Hydrogen can be produced by any number of means: by heat distillation of
organics, such as methane, coal, natural gas, methanol, biogas, etc; from
bacteria
or algae through photosynthesis; or by using electricity or sunlight to split
water into hydrogen and oxygen.
It's the last method, photoelectrolysis, that is considered to be the holy
grail of the hydrogen economy; it requires no intermediate step involving
electricity. In the article referenced above, the authors strongly suggest that
photoelectrolysis can be conducted as a nanoscale process, in a semiconductor.
If
so, we're likely to have all of the hydrogen we will need in a very readily
usable form.
A stored fuel is necessary for transportation needs, especially airplanes,
but it's also extremely useful as a stored energy buffer when electricity
produced by wind or solar is not available. Hydrogen is nearly the ideal match
for
hybrid vehicles. It can either be used as a fuel in fuel cells directly
producing electricity or consumed in on-board internal combustion engines, when
needed.
But beyond these needs, we're not likely to consume anywhere near as much
hydrogen in the future as we do fossil petroleum fuels today. Much of our
energy
use will undoubtedly be converted to use electricity directly, including
plug-in hybrid cars. While the majority of that electricity will likely remain
produced at centralized power plants, it will also begin to produced at ever
greater proportions "on-site," at homes and businesses.
We're not so much short of energy (or even ideas) as we are the cost
structure to make all of this come to fruitition, but it will happen.
Wirt Atmar
