DeanEnergyWaterWiki

Alexander Dean Daniel Pye = = Water and Energy Wiki 2011 =**Hydrogen Fuel**=

The current situation in world is a shocking one at that, we have a finite amount of natural resources available to the earths population. What makes matters worse is that these resources are necessary for every facet of modern living. The problem is also no matter what direction we go in renewable energy the transition will be extremely difficult. Imagine try to stop the entire world from burning fossil fuels, it is a tremendous task. There is also our planet to consider, we as humans are killing the planet day by day.
 * 1. What is the problem at hand?**

The main driving force of the problem is money. Money is the motivation behind everything in our world, saving the enviroment is not very efficient way of making money. Most of the corporations of the globe have reluctantly joined the green movement. The problem is people will not back things that dont produce
 * 2. What is the driving force of the problem?**


 * 3. What are people currently doing or not doing to solve the problem?**

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Hydrogen is a promising energy carrier for mobile uses, since it does not produce carbon dioxide it has been highly researched. There is two schools of thought on the hydrogen power. The internal combustion hydrogen car is one and then there is the hydrogen fuel cell. The internal combustion hydrogen car the first forementioned way, any car can be converted to using hydroegn as a fuel and can be fitted with a fuel cell on board to produce your own hydroegn. The latter of the two is the hydrogen fuel cell which produces electricity by means of chemical reaction, this electrictiy will turn motors.
 * 4. Hydrogen Power!**

The hydrogen fuel cell is like a battery that has an unlimited source of energy. The Hydrogen fuel cells work by converting Hydrogen and Oxygen into water which produces electricity. Fuel cells generate electricity from a simple electrochemical reaction in which an oxidizer, typically oxygen from air, and a fuel, typically hydrogen, combine to form a product, which is water for the typical fuel cell. Oxygen continuously passes over the cathode and hydrogen passes over the anode to generate electricity. The electrolyte that separates the anode and cathode is an ion-conducting material. At the anode, hydrogen and its electrons are separated so that the hydrogen ions pass through the electrolyte while the electrons pass through an external electrical circuit as a Direct Current that can power useful devices. The hydrogen ions combine with the oxygen at the cathode and are recombined with the electrons to form water. The reactions are shown below. Anode Reaction: 2H2 => 4H+ + 4e- Cathode Reaction: O2 + 4H+ + 4e- => 2H2O Overall Cell Reaction: 2H2 + O2 => 2H2O
 * 5. How it works.**


 * 6. CO2 Production** When the fuel cell completes the react[[image:fuelcell.jpg width="324" height="321" align="right"]]on the only byproduct is heat and water. So there is no carbon dioxide produced in the process!


 * 7. Relationship with Water** Hydrogen fuel cells produce water by combining oxygen and hydrogen. Why waste that water when we could instead save it and use it for other purposes. That water could be reused for a cooling medium for the fuel cell or maybe turned into drinking water. The possibilities are endless. The water could also be sent to another system onboard the vehicle to extract the hydrogen from the water produced furthing the effiency of the vehicle.

There are many exiciting things going for Hydrogen fuel.
 * 8. Highlights**[[image:54292_f520.jpg width="364" height="329" align="right"]]
 * Dr. Reich may be able to drive a hydrogen feul cell bike soon!
 * Zero Carbon Dioxide produced
 * Fuel cells are quiet and smooth
 * Hydrogen has more stored energy then gasoline


 * 9. Drawbacks**
 * Dr. Reich may have to wait a while before his hydrogen fuel cell bike comes out.
 * To produce hydrogen currently involves fossil fuels because it does not occur naturally
 * Currently the costs of fuel cells are expensive.
 * An effiecent storage method has yet to be found
 * Cheapest source of hydrogen is fossil fuel based


 * 10. Does it already make up a lot of the world's fuel/energy supply.** Not at all besides the fractional amount of hydrogen test cars and [[image:World_Primary_Fuel_Mix_2008-EIA-dw.jpg width="345" height="357" align="right"]]homebrew projects.


 * 11. What Hydrogen can do to solve the leading problems.** If all vehicles in the world used hydrogen right now carbon dioxide emissions would decrease by a minimum of 35%.


 * 12. How to make Hydrogen available on the global scale.** The biggest hurdle in the hydrogen fuel cell is the production and storage of it. Currently hydrogen is produced using fossil fuels, this could be replaced by other renewable energy sources. Storing hydrogen is difficult because needs to be compressed under high pressure in tanks and does not condense into a liquid under easily attainable pressures. The entire infrastructure of oil would be replace by hydrogen. Replacing gas stations with hydrogen stations, researching new storage methods and improving hydrogen production.

Here are some opinions of various people
 * 13. What do other people think?**
 * [|U.S. Department of Energy] official [|Samuel W. Bodman], "A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases."
 * [|Dan Lipinski], " As we explore ways to bring price relief and bolster our country's energy independence, one significant energy source has emerged as a potential solution, hydrogen fuel cells. "
 * [|Charlie Dent], "Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and has the potential to become an inexpensive source of energy for neighborhoods, light and heavy duty vehicles, and industry."
 * [|Dennis Weaver], "If we were driving pure hydrogen automobiles, that automobile would actually help clean up the air because the air coming out of the exhaust would be cleaner than the air going into the engine intake."
 * [|Albert Wynn], " We must move away from our dependency on fossil fuels, and I am glad that GM has invested over $1 billion in hydrogen fuel cells cars to meet this goal."


 * 14. How is Hydrogen currently being utilized?** Currently many companies and groups around the world are working on hydrogen fuel cell technology. Automotive companies are developing vehicles to run on hydrogen and investing in the technology. Many people have already begun retrofitting their vehicles to run on hydrogen in their combustion engines.


 * 15. What direction I believe Hydrogen should be taken?** I believe that more effort and investment should be put into hydrogen fuel cell technology, the critics argue that this technology is not suitable for vehicles because there is no existing infrastructue to support hydrogen cars. I believe if as much effort is put into hydrogen as there is in fossil fuel technology we could be driving hydrogen cars in the next decade. In a picture perfect world all of our energy would be renewable. We can utilize the wind, sun, oceans and earth to power our planet. All these sources could be used to produce the hydrogen to power our vehicles.

http://www.ecochauffeur.co.uk/a/i/bmw-hydrogen-7-car.jpg http://www.fctec.com/fctec_basics.asp http://scienceprep.org/images/Fuelcell.jpg http://hubpages.com/hub/Suzuki-ENV_Hydrogen_Fuel_Cell_Motorcycle http://www.getreallist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/World_Primary_Fuel_Mix_2008-EIA-dw.jpg http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/hydrogen.html
 * Sources**