49 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The real deal on the future of the hydrogen economy, April 2, 2004
This review is from: The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate (Hardcover)
Having read Jeremy Rifkin's interesting, but rose-colored and somewhat tangential take on the future of the hydrogen fuel cell: The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the World-Wide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth (2002), I was pleased to read something from a full-time energy professional.
Joseph Romm, author of this sobering volume, worked in the Department of Energy in the Clinton administration and has been involved intimately with hydrogen research and development for many years. His main point is that we must eventually have a hydrogen economy based on the hydrogen fuel cell, but that we must not expect this to happen without some major technological breakthroughs. His book is a warning that the global warming clock is ticking and ticking, and that we need to do something now if we hope to avoid a possible catastrophe.
The really scary thing about global warming is that we may pass over the point of no return without knowing it. Furthermore, a full-blown, runaway greenhouse effect would make nuclear winter look like a walk in the park. Look what happened to Venus, where on any spring day (or winter day for that matter) the surface is hot enough to melt lead. Could that happen here? The real and direct answer to that question is: we don't know.
Romm is not painting any such dire scenarios in this book, but he does state most clearly that "the primary reason why we should pursue fuel cells and a hydrogen economy is to help respond to global warming." (p. 188) He adds, "global warming is the most intractable and potentially catastrophic environmental problem facing...the planet this century." (p. 152) Romm identifies carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere as the primary cause of global warming.
What to do and how to do it? Because Romm addresses these questions in such compelling detail, this is the book I believe that will be--if it hasn't already been--read by high-ranking government officials and the CEOs of energy corporations throughout the world. I hope that Sen. John Kerry and President George W. Bush will read it. What they will find is that it will require a closely co-ordinated effort on the part of both government and the private sector to bring about a cost-effective hydrogen technology. This technology will include the building of an infrastructure for making and distributing hydrogen that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Romm makes it clear that none of this will happen until hydrogen becomes competitive with fossil fuels in terms of cost and efficiency. Right now hydrogen is most cheaply made from fossil fuels themselves, a process that does not reduce green house gases, and furthermore is much more expensive, no matter what currently-available technology is used, than gasoline itself, and will remain so for many years, probably decades, to come.
Ultimately the goal is to manufacture hydrogen from water using renewable resources such as biomass, wind, sun, downward running water, evaporation, ocean currents, etc. to split the water molecule into its component elements. Romm's immediate future scenario has us obtaining hydrogen from natural gas while using our renewable energy resources to produce electricity in an effort to begin to slow the belching of carbon dioxide into the air.
Romm believes that oil production will probably peak in the first half of this century. He adds that "Some believe this will occur by 2010." (p. 16) Given this, it is obvious that we will have to come up with some sort of fuel to replace oil. Since only "a limited number of fuels are plausible alternatives for gasoline" (p. 16), and since the one with the most going for it is hydrogen, it will be hydrogen. But transporting hydrogen the way we transport gasoline will be more expensive, perhaps prohibitively expensive since it has to be condensed and/or made into a very cold liquid under pressure. One might think we could transport water instead and make hydrogen at hydrogen stations, but the most efficient conversion methods require large scale operations at high temperatures.
There are several other very challenging problems to be faced, not the least of which is what Romm identifies as "the chicken or the egg" conundrum. That is, automakers will not make hydrogen fuel cell cars until the hydrogen infrastructure is in place, and the infrastructure will not appear until there are a sufficient number of fuel cell cars on the road.
While I think Romm maintains a cautious level of optimism in the face of these difficulties, he does on occasion let his pessimism show: "If the actions of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden and record levels of oil imports couldn't induce lawmakers, automakers, and the general public to embrace EXISTING vehicle energy efficiency technologies...I cannot imagine what fearful events must happen before the nation will be motivated to embrace hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which will cost much more to buy...to fuel, and require massive government subsidies to pay for the infrastructure." (p. 162)
If you want to know where we really are vis-vis the so-called hydrogen economy, read this book.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Read critically and good info can be had, March 15, 2005
This review is from: The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate (Hardcover)
This book does read like a series of lectures which sometimes verge on contradicting one another. It is also easy, by disagreeing with some of his theses, to dismiss the entire book. But at the core are some sound premises:
- Hydrogen is not an energy source like oil, it is an energy carrier. One must expend considerable energy in making hydrogen suitable for use, then expend more energy to transport it.
- A hydrogen automobile is the last place to begin because of conversion efficiency and infrastructure issues. Instead the author advocates near-term development of proven solutions like hybrid cars. Note: Toyota, with hybrids now and fuel cells in development, made their own study of total efficiency. It shows that a fuel cell vehicle is less efficient than the current Prius and a fuel cell hybrid would only be equal. See a summary by going to http://www.autofieldguide.com/articles/030501.html The study is near the end of the article.
- The best place to start with hydrogen is with on-site industrial power generation with cogenereated heat. The author makes a good case for this, primarily that industrial fuel cells are much more efficient than the types being developed for automobiles and that the efficiency is quite good when the waste heat is consumed as well. As well the infrastructure issues are much easier to solve. He does a nice analysis of the market conditions which have slowed the development of this application.
Unfortunately not dissected in the book is the role of the all-electric vehicle. It has been written elsewhere that generating electricity to charge an autombile battery is much more efficient than generating electricity to separate out hydrogen to transport it to fill a car to make electricity in a fuel cell. Given the recent advances in battery technology this is not so far off as it seemed a few years ago. The best part is that the electricity can be generated by any means (including hydrogen fuel cells) without hydrogen delivery infrastructure issues. It would have been nice if he had covered this angle as it has relevance in deciding where public reasearch money should be allocated.
All in all, if read carefully one will find much to think about.
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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book on energy alternatives and the CO2 issue, March 19, 2004
This review is from: The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate (Hardcover)
Hydrogen's major disadvantage as transportation fuel is it's low energy density. Compressed hydrogen requires heavy storage vessels and significant energy for compression. Liquid hydrogen suffers from evaporation losses and unacceptably high liquefaction energy. Hydrate storage of hydrogen is a long way from being practical for motor vehicles.
Fuel cells have been touted as the next big thing in transportation. However, fuel cells are extremely expensive and not durable. Especially discouraging is that automotive variety fuel cells will not be significantly more efficient than internal combustion engines.
Alternative hydrogen infrastructure systems are: 1) pipelines to fueling stations and 2) on site reforming of liquids such as methanol, ethanol of other hydrocarbons. All alternatives would require massive capital investment. Local reforming of alcohols or hydrocarbons would be inefficient (and wouldn't make sense because it would be more efficient to use them directly as fuel in internal combustion engines).
A strength of the book is that is deals with overall process efficiencies and carbon dioxide byproducts of various processes. Processes are briefly described for producing hydrogen from coal, natural gas and water + electricity, all of which are well known and energy intensive.
Electrical generation processes briefly discussed include nuclear, geothermal, combined cycle and combined heat and power. Wind and photovoltaic are mentioned but not given much coverage.
Romm makes a convincing case that hybrid diesel electric vehicles will be the logical successors to today's autos.
The concluding chapters deal with the carbon dioxide issue, which Romm finds extremely threatening.
The book is well written and easily readable. Although an engineering or scientific background is not necessary to understand it, not much is provided in the way of background.
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