Our
Philosophy
For decades
smog has been a growing problem for many parts of the
developed world. Energy Ventures philosophy and main goal
is the implementation of the hydrogen economy by the
beginning of the new millennium. Two major energy
problems facing the world today; (1), the threat of
global warming from the burning of fossil fuels and (2),
our dependence on foreign sources for these very same
fuels. At the current rate, the world population is
projected to grow from the current 6 billion to 14
billion by 2020. This will result in a critical shortage
of energy supply, and will exacerbate our dependence on
countries who have fossil fuel reserves, not to mention
the increase in pollution, especially as the third world
catches up with the rest of the world. The health costs
due to air pollution in Southern California alone is
estimated to be approximately $12-14 billion annually.
60% of the air pollution is from transportation, the
other 40% is from stationary sources, of which nearly 1/2
is energy related. The solution - Hydrogen!
Renewable hydrogen is the ultimate fuel. It is clean from
cradle to grave. Our goal is to spearhead the economical
production of renewable hydrogen fuel and establish its
infrastructure in the United States and beyond.
HYDROGEN OVERVIEW
The vision of building an energy infrastructure that uses
hydrogen as an energy carrier - a concept called the
"HYDROGEN ECONOMY"
- is considered the most likely path toward a full
commercial application of hydrogen energy technologies
according to the Department of Energy.
Hydrogen is the third most abundant element on the
earth's surface, where it is found primarily in water and
organic compounds. It is generally produced from
hydrocarbons or water; and when burned as a fuel, or
converted to electricity, it joins with oxygen to again
form water. Hydrogen is produced from sources such as
natural gas, coal, gasoline, methanol, or biogas through
the application of heat; from bacteria or algae through
photosynthesis; or by using electricity or sunlight to
split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
"The New Hydrogen
Economy Is On It's Way"
MORE ABOUT HYDROGEN
1. Why hydrogen?
2. What is hydrogen?
3. Why is it important to shift from oil to
hydrogen with wartime speed?
4. What about the other alternative fuels?
5. Isn't hydrogen especially dangerous?
6. What about the Hindenburg?
7. What about the hydrogen bomb?
8. Where does hydrogen come from?
9. Can any engine be modified to use
hydrogen fuel?
10. Where can I get my car modified to use
hydrogen?
11. What about exhaust emissions?
12. What is the cost of hydrogen compared
to gasoline?
13. How do you store hydrogen?
14. Why is hydrogen referred to as a
"universal fuel"?
15. How do the oil companies view hydrogen?
16. What does the term "hydrogen
economy" mean?
17. What does the Bush Administration think
of hydrogen?
18. How long will it take to shift from oil
to hydrogen?
19. What are the major obstacles to
implementation of a hydrogen energy system?
20. What is the passage of the Fair
Accounting Act by the U.S. Congress so important?
21. How can I learn more about hydrogen
energy?
22. What can I do to help?
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Hydrogen is the only energy option
that can permanently displace oil and other
fossil and nuclear fuels on a worldwide basis.
Moreover, hydrogen is the only zero-emission fuel
and it is the only energy option that can make
the U.S. energy independent and essentially
pollution-free.
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Hydrogen is the simplest, lightest
and most abundant element in the known universe?
It is the first element in the periodical table
of chemical elements. Hydrogen has one proton and
one electron. All other atoms are made from
combining additional numbers of hydrogen nuclei.
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Given the exponential nature of
the interrelated global energy and environmental
problems, a "transition of substance"
from fossil and nuclear fuels to renewable
hydrogen systems needs to be undertaken with
wartime speed. Few people understand the
significance of the "exponential age"
in which we live, but ultimately it is a question
of more and more people competing for fewer and
fewer resources. The entire Chapter 2 of the
Phoenix Project is dedicated to the
"exponential age" in which we live. For
example, existing oil reserves are expected to
last for 40 or 50 years, at current rates of
consumption. However, even if there were a
1000-year supply of oil, with 5% annual growth in
consumption, the 1000-year supply would be
exponentially consumed in only 79 years. Given
these realities, the focus needs to be on
manufacturing hydrogen with renewable energy
technologies that can not only make the U.S.
energy independent, but allow it to be
transformed from the worlds largest energy
importer, to the world's largest energy exporter.
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Methanol, ethanol, natural gas,
propane and butane, are some of the other common
alternative fuels, but with the exception of
ethanol, none of these alternatives are
renewable. Even in the case of ethanol, which is
grown from a renewable crop like corn, it is much
more efficient in terms of land use, fertilizers,
water and man-hours, to use wind farming
technologies to extract hydrogen from water via
electrolysis.
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No. On the contrary, because
hydrogen is the lightest element in the universe,
it is much safer than gasoline or any other
hydrocarbon fuel in the event of a leak or
accident involving the fuel storage and delivery
system.
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Any one who observes the video
tape of the Hindenburg disaster knows that the
Hindenburg did not explode. Rather, it caught
fire, either from a hidden saboteur's bomb or the
static electricity from an electrical storm. As
the fire spread through the highly combustible
aluminum paint that was used to protect the
Hindenburg's gas bags from the sun's ultraviolet
radiation, as well as the hydrogen gas that was
contained in the gas bags. What is remarkable
about the Hindenburg accident report is that most
of the passengers and crew lived to tell the
story, and remarkably, no one was burned to death
by the enormous quantities hydrogen that was used
as fuel for the airship. Of the 97 individuals on
board, only 35 people died, and 33 of the victims
died because they jumped out of the airship while
it was still more than 100 feet from the ground -
and they died from the fall. The two people who
were actually burned to death were burned not by
hydrogen that was virtually gone by the time the
Hindenburg hit the ground, by the Diesel fuel
that was carried in large fuel tanks and used to
power the Hindenburg's Mercedes Benz engines.
Diesel fuel, which is a hydrocarbon fuel like
gasoline, will stick to skin and clothing like
glue and literally burn off an individual's skin.
Most individuals do not survive this highly
painful experience. It is worth noting that the
Hindenburg was so large that a 747 jet could be
located under the tail section.
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The hydrogen bomb involves a
nuclear reaction, whereas the process of
electrolyzing water involves a simple transfer of
electrons, which also occurs when one makes a cup
of coffee or metabolizes the food they eat.
The difference being that the hydrogen
bomb involves metal such as uranium as a
catalyst.
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Hydrogen is the most abundant
element in the universe. It was formed within
seconds from the Big Bang, which occurred some 15
billion years ago. The hydrogen atom has one
positively-charged proton, and one
negatively-charged electron. All other atoms are
made up of increasing numbers of hydrogen
protons, neutrons and electrons. Hydrogen is
typically chemically attached to other atoms,
such as carbon or oxygen, and as such, energy
must be expended to separate these elements. In
the case of extracting hydrogen from water, about
2.3 gallons of water and 45 kilowatt-hours of
electricity will be needed to make an equivalent
energy content of a gallon of gasoline (i.e.,
about 120,ooo Btus). It is worth noting that
virtually every gasoline refueling station
already has electricity and water, and so does
every family home. As such, it will soon be
possible to fill-up at home.
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Internal combustion engines have
been modified to use hydrogen since the 1930's in
Germany. Roger Billings modified a Model A Ford
to use hydrogen in the 1970's when he was a high
school student in Provo, Utah. A number of
automotive vehicles have been modified to use
hydrogen in the U.S. in recent years by Los
Alamos investigators and other individuals and
university teams. Indeed, high school auto shop
students have modified dozens of engines to use
hydrogen over the past 20 years. The engine
modifications are minimal, as BMW has
demonstrated with their "bifuel"
vehicles where the same engine uses either
hydrogen and gasoline with the flip of a switch
from inside the vehicle. The engine modifications
have to do with the fuel injectors and the
electronic timing for combustion (i.e., hydrogen
has a higher flame speed).
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At present, there are no
"off-the-shelf" hydrogen conversion
kits in mass-production. However, once the U.S.
makes the decision to initiate a transition to
hydrogen, the necessary conversion kits, that are
similar to natural gas conversion kits, will be
both available and affordable. The anticipated
cost of conversion, which includes the engine
modifications, will be in the range of $1,000
once the components are mass-produced.
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Hydrogen is the only zero-carbon
fuel. As such, there are essentially no
carbon-based emissions such as carbon monoxide or
carbon dioxide when hydrogen is used as a fuel.
The primary emission product of hydrogen
combustion is pure water vapor. Oxides of
nitrogen can be formed from the nitrogen in the
air, but manufacturers like BMW have been able to
prevent the formation of nitrous oxides (NOX) by
lowering the temperature of combustion, which
does not affect the performance of the vehicle.
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The cost of hydrogen depends on a
number of factors, such as how the hydrogen is to
be manufactured, but generally speaking, the cost
of hydrogen fuel from wind and sun electric
systems will initially be in the range of $1.50
per equivalent gallon of gasoline. However, as
more and more engineers are focused on refining
the technology, the cost of hydrogen will
continue to be reduced over time, in contrast to
oil and other fossil fuels that will be expected
to increase in cost as the global supplies are
exponentially consumed.
Exxon-Mobil placed an
advertisement in The New York Times Editorial
Page that made the following conclusion: ".
. . unfortunately, all known ways of producing
hydrogen today use energy and are costly, making
it much more expensive than gasoline." In
the first place, it would be more accurate to say
that all known ways of producing energy uses
energy. Gasoline is refined from oil, which must
be found, extracted, transported and off-loaded
to a refinery. Each one of these steps requires
substantial input energy and costs, and if one
considers the external environmental and military
costs, the true costs of gasoline would be
increased at least by a factor of 2, depending on
which environmental factors are included. Health
care costs and premature deaths associated with
millions of people growing up in polluted cities
are in the hundreds of billions of dollars
annually. The record setting droughts that are
now plaguing much of the U.S. were predicted by
global warming calculations, as were the
increasing rates of the melting of the polar
icecaps. The economic impact of such events are
admittedly hard to calculate. What is it worth if
New York City and most other costal areas are
under 3-feet of water? And what is the estimated
cost of storing nuclear wastes for thousands of
centuries? While no one could accurately place an
economic value on such factors - there can be no
doubt that the numbers are going to be in the
trillions of dollars. If such external cost
considerations are excluded from the economic
calculations, sure gasoline may be less expensive
than hydrogen, but we at Energy Ventures
Organization know better that, the assumptions
need to be carefully examined.
If a serious discussion of energy
economics is going to take place, cost per unit
of heat, such as Btus (i.e. British Thermal
Units) need to be used. Btu numbers make
comparative economic analysis of different energy
systems easy because every energy resource can be
measured on a Btu basis. A Btu is the amount
of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of
a gallon of water by one degree Fahrenheit.
A kilowatt hour of electricity has 3,412 Btus,
and assuming an electrolyzer efficiency of 80%,
roughly 45 kilowatt hours of electricity and 2.3 gallons of water
will be needed to make the same energy contained
in a gallon of gasoline.
Whereas a gallon of gasoline has about 120,000
Btus, a gallon of liquid hydrogen has about
30,000 Btus, which explains why a liquid hydrogen
storage tank is about 4 times larger by volume
than a gasoline tank. As such, larger vehicles
like SUVs are ideal for hydrogen fuel, which is
completely renewable, thus it does not need to be
conserved like gasoline or oil that is highly
polluting and running out. A hydrogen
on-demand system could produce hydrogen on an
as-needed basis.
Since a gallon of gasoline has
about 120,000 Btus, if its production cost is $1
dollar a gallon, it is equivalent to $8.33 per
million Btus (i.e., 1 million divided by 120,000
= 8.33). That means at $2.00 per gallon, the cost
on a Btu basis is $16.60. By contrast, current
natural gas prices are in the range of $3.70 per
million Btus, although gas prices have surged as
high as $10.00 during the California energy
crisis last year. Mass-produced wind machines
will be able to generate electricity for about 2
cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) or less, which
means that the gaseous hydrogen could be produced
for about $8.00 to $10.00 per million Btus. If
the hydrogen is to be liquefied, an additional $3
dollars per million Btus is required. These
numbers suggest that even without factoring in
the external energy costs of fossil and nuclear
fuels, hydrogen generated by wind systems is
already closely competitive with the current
prices of gasoline. Moreover, unlike wind
hydrogen systems, which will always be less
expensive in the future, gasoline will only get
more expensive as the global oil reserves are
exponentially exhausted. At present, the world is
exponentially consuming four barrels of oil for
each new barrel that is discovered, and the U.S.
only has about 2 percent of the remaining global
reserves. Given these fundamental economic and
environmental considerations, the U.S. should be
shifting from oil to hydrogen with wartime speed.
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Hydrogen can be stored as gas, a
cryogenic (i.e., low temperature) liquid or as a
solid in metal hydrides. Liquid hydrogen most
closely resembles gasoline from a standpoint of
vehicle's weight and volume and range.
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Because it can power virtually
any engine or appliance.
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Oil companies are already the
largest manufacturers of hydrogen in the world.
This is because they need large amounts of
hydrogen (currently extracted from natural gas)
in order to turn crude oil into gasoline and
other hydrocarbon fuels. To better understand how
the major oil companies view hydrogen , please
review the advertisements from Gulf, BP,
ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil on hydrogen on their
websites.
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It means that hydrogen will serve
as the foundation of a new economy that will no
longer be dependent on oil and other fossil
fuels. Indeed, hydrogen is the only energy option
that can effectively displace oil and other
fossil and nuclear fuels on a worldwide basis -
forever.
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On the positive side, the Bush
Administration has initiated a number of
high-level hydrogen industrial road mapping
sessions at the U.S. Department of Energy and has
launched a hydrogen-fueled "Freedom
Car" program (below) to replace the Clinton
Administration's fuel efficiency improvement
efforts.
Freedom Car
Program To Accelerate Stationary Fuel Cell
Development
North
American Stationary Fuel Cell Shipment Forecast
sees government spending will accelerate the
stationary fuel cell market to achieve
significant growth through 2005. Source:
Business Wire Jan 15, 2002]
NATICK,
Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 15, 2002-- On
January 8 the Secretary of Energy, Spencer
Abraham, announced that $1.5 billion in U.S.
government subsidies will be re-allocated to
further develop fuel cell technologies for
automotive applications. The program, called
Freedom CAR (Cooperative Automotive Research),
was developed by DaimlerChrysler Corporation
(NYSE:DCX), Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), General
Motors Corporation (NYSE:GM), the U.S. Department
of Energy and the U.S. Council for Automotive
Research. Freedom CAR will replace a $1.5
billion, eight-year project aimed at developing
high mileage per gallon engine powered vehicles.
What does this
$1.5 billion in government funding mean to the
stationary fuel cell marketplace? For the fuel
cell companies pursuing automotive applications
such as Ballard (NasdaqNM:BLDP) and United
Technologies Fuel Cells (NYSE:UTX), this will
probably result in considerable government
subsidized R&D funding. For the rest of the
fuel cell world, the answer is not as simple.
For the
automotive fuel cell market to directly impact
the stationary fuel cell market, fuel cell
vehicles must achieve commercial success. A
number of requirements are necessary for these
vehicles to effectively commercialize:
- The
vehicle must have lower emissions than an
internal combustion engine
- Its
driving performance must be at least
equal to that of an internal combustion
engine
- It must
provide profits for automotive
manufacturers and fuel cell companies
- It must
provide profits for energy companies by
means of its fuel supply
To meet these
requirements, automotive fuel cells must overcome
a number of technical barriers. Most important is
the need to further develop hydrogen-reforming
technologies, which are used to convert hydrogen
rich fuels (gasoline, natural gas, methanol,
etc.) to pure hydrogen. Without this technology,
a hydrogen infrastructure will need to be
constructed at a very high cost. There are also
significant size, weight, and noise requirements
placed on automotive fuel cells.
According to
VDC analyst Nathan Andrews, "Once these
requirements are met and fuel cell vehicles
commercialize, the increases in fuel cell
production will help to significantly drop
prices. The research to meet these requirements
will also assist in the development of stationary
fuel cell systems." VDC anticipates that
this government spending will accelerate the
stationary fuel cell market to achieve
significant growth through 2005. Beyond 2005 the
possibilities for both stationary and automotive
fuel cells are tremendous. The Freedom CAR
program will go a long way in assisting fuel cell
development, but for these markets to reach their
true potentials, industry participants will need
to take matters into their own hands.
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Most analysts do not foresee a
hydrogen economy in the near future. It is
something that is generally thought to be at
least 50 to 100 years into the future. This is
especially true if the hydrogen is manufactured
from coal or nuclear sources. By contrast, if
wind machines (which are similar to automobiles
from a manufacturing perspective) are
mass-produced for large-scale hydrogen
production, the U.S. could obtain virtually all
of its energy (i.e. 100 quads) within a 5-year
period. Moreover, virtually all of the existing
cars, trucks and aircraft could also be modified
to use the hydrogen fuel within the 5-year
period. It is worth noting that in World War II,
every major industry was retooled in the U.S. in
about 12 months.
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The primary obstacle is a lack of
public, media and Congressional awareness of the
hydrogen energy option. We live at a time when
most well-educated individuals are highly-trained
specialists who know a great deal about very
little. As such, the shift to hydrogen is not a
technical problem, but a political problem.
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The Fair Accounting Act is the
"trigger mechanism" because it will
factor in the military, environmental and
health-care costs into the taxes paid for fossil
and nuclear fuels. The tax revenue can then be
returned to vehicle owners in the form of a tax
credit to encourage them to get their car
modified to use hydrogen fuel.
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Refer to the information on this
web-site and also try searching the World Wide
Web.
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To help initiate political change
Join the Hydrogen Political Action Committee
(h2pac.org) and/or write to your elected
representatives and tell them that your mad as
hell and you aren't going to take it anymore.
Tell them that you and your family want Hydrogen
Hearings to be initiated in the U.S. Congress as
soon as possible so that the shift to hydrogen
can occur with wartime speed. If they do not
respond, vote for someone who will.
Generating
Hydrogen
HYDROGEN'S
ROLE IN ENERGY SECURITY.
In every century, America has depended on a single
dominant source of energy for transportation. But only in
the last century has this become a threat to national
security. Until the age of oil, America could produce all
the energy it needed from domestic sources. Now, with
demand for oil far outstripping domestic supply, the
nation is ever more dependent on foreign oil. With this
dependence comes a great threat to the nation’s
security--all because of our dependence on a single
source of energy.
Hydrogen is the pathway out of energy dependency. It can
be made from any number of energy sources—coal, oil,
natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric and all of the
emerging renewables. So for the first time we can depend
on a dominant form of energy without depending on a
single source. And it’s a form of energy our
children can live with, because it is as clean as energy
gets.
Fossil
Fuel Based Hydrogen Production
Water
Based Hydrogen Production
Other
Methods of Hydrogen Generation
Fossil Fuel Based Hydrogen
Production
A closer look at the chemical formula for any fossil fuel
reveals that hydrogen is present in all of the formulas.
The trick is to remove the hydrogen safely, efficiently
and without any of the other elements present in the
original compound. Hydrogen has been produced from coal,
gasoline, methanol, natural gas and any other fossil fuel
currently available. Some fossil fuels have a high
hydrogen to oxygen ratio making them better candidates
for the reforming process. The more hydrogen present and
the fewer extraneous compounds make the reforming process
simpler and more efficient. The fossil fuel that has the
best hydrogen to carbon ratio is natural gas or
methane(CH4).
Steam
Reforming of Natural Gas
Hydrogen production from natural gas commonly employs a
process known as steam reforming. Steam reforming of
natural gas involves two steps. The initial phase
involves rendering the natural gas into hydrogen, carbon
dioxide and carbon monoxide. This breakdown of the
natural gas is accomplished by exposing the natural gas
to high temperature steam. The second phase of steam
reforming consists of creating additional hydrogen and
carbon dioxide by utilizing the carbon monoxide created
in the first phase. The carbon monoxide is treated with
high temperature steam and the resulting hydrogen and
carbon dioxide is sequestered and stored in tanks. Most
of the hydrogen utilized by the chemical and petroleum
industries is generated with steam reforming. Steam
reforming reaches efficiencies of 70% - 90%. The reformer
component on a complete fuel cell system is usually a
smaller variation of the process described above.
Component reformers operate under varying operating
conditions and the chemical path that the hydrogen
generation follows will vary from manufacturer to
manufacturer, but the resulting hydrogen reformate is
essentially the same.
Water Based Hydrogen Production
Electrolysis
Electrolysis is the technical name for using electricity
to split water into its constituent elements, hydrogen
and oxygen. The splitting of water is accomplished by
passing an electric current through water. The
electricity enters the water at the cathode, a negatively
charged terminal, passes through the water and exists via
the anode, the positively charged terminal. The hydrogen
is collected at the cathode and the oxygen is collected
at the anode. Electrolysis produces very pure hydrogen
for use in the electronics, pharmaceutical and food
industries. Relative to steam reforming, electrolysis is
very expensive. The electrical inputs required to split
the water into hydrogen and oxygen account for about 80%
of the cost of hydrogen generation. Potentially,
electrolysis, when coupled with a renewable energy
source, can provide a completely clean and renewable
source of energy. In other circumstances, electrolysis
can couple with hydroelectric or off-peak electricity to
reduce the cost of electrolysis.
Photoelectrolysis
Photoelectrolysis, known as the hydrogen holy grail
in some circles, is the direct conversion of sunlight
into electricity. Photovoltaics, semiconductors and
an electrolyzer are combined to create a device that
generates hydrogen. The photoelectrolyzer is placed
in water and when exposed to sunlight begins to
generate hydrogen. The photovoltaics and the
semiconductor combine to generate enough electricity
from the sunlight to power the electrolyzer. The
hydrogen is then collected and stored. Much of the
research in this field takes place in Golden,
Colorado at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Photobiological
Photobiological production of hydrogen involves using
sunlight, a biological component, catalysts and an
engineered system. Specific organisms, algae and
bacteria, produce hydrogen as a byproduct of their
metabolic processes. These organisms generally live
in water and therefore are biologically splitting the
water into its component elements. Currently, this
technology is still in the research and development
stage and the theoretical sunlight conversion
efficiencies have been estimated up to 24%. Over 400
strains of primitive plants capable of producing
hydrogen have been identified, with 25 impressively
achieving carbon monoxide to hydrogen conversion
efficiencies of 100%.
In one
example, researchers have discovered that the alga,
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, possesses an enzyme called
hydrogenase that is capable of splitting water into
its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen. The
researchers have determined the mechanism for
starting and stopping this process, which could lead
to an almost limitless method for producing clean,
renewable hydrogen. The algae need sulfur to grow and
photosynthesize. Scientists found that when they
starved the algae of sulfur, in an oxygen-free
environment, the algae reverted to a
hydrogenase-utilizing mode. This mechanism was
developed over millions of years of evolution for
survival in oxygen-rich and oxygen-free environments.
Once in this cycle, the algae released hydrogen, not
oxygen. Further research is necessary to improve the
efficiencies of the engineered plant systems,
collection methods and the costs of hydrogen
generation.
Other Methods of Hydrogen Generation
Biomass Gasification and Pyrolysis
Biomass can be utilized to produce hydrogen. The biomass
is first converted into a gas through high-temperature
gasifying, which produces a vapor. The hydrogen rich
vapor is condensed in pyrolysis oils and then can be
steam reformed to generate hydrogen. This process has
resulted in hydrogen yields of 12% - 17% hydrogen by
weight of the dry biomass. The feedstock for this method
can consist of wood chips, plant material, agricultural
and municipal wastes, etc… When biological waste
material is used as a feedstock, this method of hydrogen
production becomes a completely renewable, sustainable
method of hydrogen generation.
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