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1st May 2008 - Day of Action Against False Solutions to Climate Change
Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Hydrogen is seen as a clean fuel of the future. There is lots of talk about switching to a new hydrogen economy. If only it was that simple.
There aren't any naturally occurring deposits of hydrogen. Hydrogen only comes bonded to other molecules, and therefore it takes energy to separate it. So basically its a glorified battery rather than a new source of energy.
Creating hydrogen requires either the splitting of methane or the electrolysis of water.
The splitting of methane requires energy to make the split and creates Hydrogen and CO2. Burning the hydrogen may only give off Water Vapour, but all the CO2 from the Methane has already been emitted.
The electrolysis of water (to produce Hydrogen and Oxygen), requires energy. Due to inefficiency this is more than the energy released when burning hydrogen (i.e. recombining it with oxygen to make water).
So burning hydrogen release more CO2 than just burning methane. But what about as a battery?
Well it still has all the energy requirements of burning it, so unless you use renewables to create the hydrogen then it still produces CO2. However fuel cells are inefficient. They produce heat which is wasted and either the hydrogen either needs to be liquidised by cooling (using 40% of its energy) or by compression (using 20% of its energy). These inefficiencies mean its better to just use the electricity in the first place.
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