Hydrogen is the most abundant element in our universe. It is the building block to all other elements with respect to such process we know as fusion (which is the form of power that our sun uses) which by way of hydrogen would produce other such elements. But what I believe is very interesting about hydrogen is that, aside from being so basic and elementary in the list of elements, there are many ways to produce hydrogen as a fuel source. Let us take a look at some examples provided while perhaps not all possible methods concerning the production of hydrogen this would include some of the main industrial methods currently researched information furnished at site http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/h2a_analysis.html.
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"Central Production of Hydrogen (Central is defined as >50,000 kg/day of hydrogen. The production cost will stop at 300 psi hydrogen with minimal storage for production purposes only.) * Coal Gasification: Hydrogen Production, * Coal Gasification: Hydrogen and Electricity Production, * Natural Gas Hydrogen Production,* Biomass Gasification Hydrogen Production, * Next Generation Nuclear Energy High Temperature Sulfur-Iodine Thermochemical Hydrogen Production, * Next Generation Nuclear Energy High Temperature Steam Electrolysis Hydrogen Production,* Current Nuclear Energy Using Standard Electrolysis Hydrogen Production
* Wind Electrolysis Hydrogen Production, and * Wind Electrolysis Hydrogen and Electricity Production."
With such diverse array of sources, using existing infrastructure in the production of hydrogen, using, for instance, the extraction of oil which may also produce hydrocarbon compliments it seems yet that while Hydrogen terrestrially speaking is not a predominant source on Earth that we might have enough diverse array of sources to harvest such resource, nevertheless natural gas might either seem as environmentally attractive as say just going to Jupiter and rounding up the hydrogen you need...although doing that would probably require a lot more energy made by the effort of getting to there from here and conversely. Such might not be too cost effective, or environmentally friendly to inhabitants of Jupiter likewise. The generous pollution that we produce in our atmosphere is currently as a result of our present use of oil, and we could make much cleaner use provided, of course, industrial processes used to produce hydrogen are clean. We would be making changes with respect to our industries to produce hydrogen which could be tremendous benefit and boon in terms of a cleaner environment. The only rub is that we need to be able to produce hydrogen more efficiently and make it work in terms of fuel-cells more efficiently, and that is currently under research. If we can make existing hydrogen fuel work more efficiently in the context of an existing gas-powered automobile it would certainly translate into dollar cost savings to us relative to the gas automobile, we would then have a viable hydrogen economy, and a much cleaner environment with regards to unnaturally man-made high levels of CO2. While on earth the presence of hydrogen in the ready gaseous form, liquid, solid, or otherwise, is not as commonly present, there are a lot of hydrogen based compounds...there is, of course, water, which is part water and part hydrogen, so hydrogen may be yet considered another resource. The unique part about producing water and electricity from a reverse electrolysis is that we renew and neither solely lose permanently a resource, that is, it still remains captured until we, say, with a more efficient electrolysis (that I hope someday is developed) re-break the molecular bounds of the water we produced for our car to go to recycle the fuel we need to make that car go again. If we can develop an efficient electrolysis process that exceeds present industrial hydrogen production methods by way of fossil fuels, we would have a closed cycle fuel source in which we theoretically are neither dependent on complex hydrocarbons (or in other words be dependent upon oil for our energy needs with respect to something like hydrogen). Personally, I would like to see us neither use nuclear energy, coal, oil, and rather use and reuse the source that we need for our cars. Using something like wind electrolysis hydrogen production to recycle our fuel needs. Current industrial production methods for hydrogen (if by way of fossil fuels), may not help with respect to things like energy independence , but for a world economy and oil producers, if cleaner and more cost-efficient industrial methods can be developed in the production of hydrogen along such lines, then the hydrogen car could still yet be a viable reality to offset a car that we have today. In terms of efficient use of such energy, and in terms of the byproducts produced in such energy use today.
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