Chapter III, Section D: A Role for Hydrogen (even without
transportation fuel cells)
Hydrogen is an energy carrier, providing a way to store energy as a
clean fuel from an energy resource, ideally, but not necessarily,
alternative energy. That is hydrogen’s role. A hydrogen fuel cell
provides a means to re-emit the stored energy electrically, without
the emission of NOx that comes from combustion. That is its role.
The use of hydrogen is not restricted to the use of hydrogen fuel
cells. Likewise, the use of hydrogen fuel cells is not restricted to
transportation, with all of the associated problems for hydrogen,
such as hydrogen storage and a lack of vehicle-refueling
infrastructure. Unfortunately in the eyes of politicians and the
marketplace, the associations of hydrogen, fuel cells, and
transportation are perceived entwined, and are assumed as such. A
recent DOE decision to suspend research on transportation fuel
cells, specifically, has unfortunately dampened enthusiasm for other
uses of hydrogen fuel cells in general, as well as for other ways of
using hydrogen.
After considerable money was spent on fuel cell research, Energy
Secretary Steven Chu recently nixed DOE 2010 funding of
transportation fuel cell research. But he did not cut funding for
the continued research and development of stationary fuel cells, “…
when [science advisor Chu] announced DOE’s fiscal year 2010 budget,
Chu said the department is not giving up on fuel cells altogether.
In addition to continuing to support stationary fuel cells, DOE will
back basic research to improve catalysts and other components of the
systems.” [Science, News Focus: Hydrogen Cars: Fad or the Future?,
Volume 324, June 5, 2009] Even without transportation, an energy
carrier role for hydrogen exists, and thus a market for stationary
fuel cells which are already used in distributed generation.
Distributed generation (DG) is the decentralization of power
production toward local, small energy producers, ideally
interconnected on a network, as in Al Gore's vision of an
internet-like power grid.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-10402229-248.html
The key to such a structure is to avoid a corresponding
decentralization of power production’s pollution by using energy
generation that is clean, at least locally. Locally clean energy
generation includes continuously-sourced (“renewable”) energy, as
well as energy from hydrogen fuels that are produced elsewhere,
cleanly or not. DG already provides an immediate market for hydrogen
that will only grow with time. As Rifken alludes in The Hydrogen
Economy, DG stands to comprise at least half of any hydrogen
economy.
Hydrogen’s role as an energy carrier is not restricted to its use in
fuel cells. An exciting power project already in development
underscores the fact that you don’t need to use fuel cells to use
hydrogen fuel. In this plant in New Mexico, wind generated hydrogen
will subsequently be burned to produce electrical power
conventionally from a steam-driven turbine.
http://jetstreamwind.com/content/hydrogen-power-generation
Combustion (burning) releases the hydrogen energy in the form of
heat and light, as opposed to the electrical energy form that is
output from a fuel cell. Hydrogen combustion could also be a
technique used in distributed generation.
But combustion is not ideal. At a Penn State hydrogen conference in
2003, as scientists and engineers were queuing up to receive some of
the 2003 State of the Union largesse, a GM spokesperson
demonstrating GM’s hydrogen fuel cell / electric car prototype was
asked by a research engineer why the new technologies of fuel cells
and electric engines were necessary. “Why can’t the hydrogen just be
burned in an ICE (internal combustion engine), technology we have
with over 100 years of engineering improvements?” The answer is that
the heat of combustion of any fuel creates NOx from atmospheric
nitrogen. Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) are acid-forming, ozone-forming,
greenhouse gases that contribute to acid precipitation, smog, and
climate change.
Even if it is assumed that “environmentally friendly” sources of
energy will ultimately be used for the production of hydrogen, and
even if it is further assumed that the hydrogen will be used cleanly
in a fuel cell, the touted hydrogen solution runs headlong into
another pressing environmental issue: water.