Is Hydrogen the future fuel?

When I was in school, I used to hate Chemistry just because of periodic table. We cannot learn each element of periodic table, but we all know first element of periodic table, Hydrogen. Do we really know the power of first element? Hydrogen having just one electron can power thousands of electrons. Having atomic number one and molecular mass of one gram it has the power to become the number one fuel in future.

Hydrogen, an abundant source is present around us in form of hydrocarbon and water but still it’s difficult to extract hydrogen. According to the United States Department of Energy Office of Power, the most difficult problem in hydrogen production is the energy needed to produce it, “Hydrogen requires at least twice as much energy as electricity twice the tonnage of coal, twice the number of nuclear plants, or twice the field of PV panels to perform an equivalent unit of work”. This means to produce the hydrogen we need more energy for which is using conventional sources. There are many technologies to produce hydrogen; most famous is electrolysis process in which hydrogen is produced from water molecule; some others are natural gas reforming also known as Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), coal gasification etc. Now, we are also using solar energy to produce hydrogen which can be a better and an alternative source to produce hydrogen. Known as photolytic process in which we use sun energy to break water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen but it is in early stage and can be used in future as it has low environmental impact.

NASA was first to use the liquid nitrogen as fuel in spacecraft in 1950s; they also use hydrogen fuel cell to power the spacecraft electrical system. Most common use of hydrogen is fuel cell in which hydrogen and oxygen are combined together to generate electricity and most important is it’s by product which is H2O i.e. water. Hydrogen, the cleanest fuel is now going to be an alternative fuel for transportation and world is looking to transform the transportation again. It provides three times of energy as an equivalent quantity of petrol, so, we can judge easily that how powerful is hydrogen. But these fuel cells are expensive and the efficiency is low, it is just 40 per cent. So using these cells for small cars will increase the cost and affordability will again come in picture just like EVs. Another issue is storage,  hydrogen stored in high pressurised tank now suppose if a vehicle met with an accident then there is a high chance of blast due to hydrogen as it is highly volatile and inflammable gas, this can lead to mass destruction.

But still we are progressing towards more sustainable use of hydrogen for future. Last year Germany started world’s first ever hydrogen powered train which can run around 1000 km with full hydrogen tank. In 2014 Toyota launches first ever hydrogen car “Mirai” with a range of 502 km with full tank. Other companies like BMW, Hyundai have hydrogen car projects in pipeline. So may be hydrogen cannot be an  alternative source till 2030 but in future it is going to be an alternative for many energy sources.

About Author

Vijay Kumar is currently pursuing PGDM in Energy Management from NTPC School of Business.  He has completed his graduation in electrical engineering from ABES Engineering College. He has an experience of 10 months in automobile industry and has interest in electric vehicles and renewable energy.

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely author’s own and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha