IF YOU believe the visionaries, a world powered by hydrogen could be clean, efficient, renewable and global warming-free. US President George Bush and European Commission President Romano Prodi recently agreed, 鈥渢o accelerate the development of the hydrogen economy鈥�. Japan has been ploughing funds into hydrogen power for decades. Is the future for hydrogen bright now? And are all the players really on the same team?
The dream won鈥檛 happen without some big developments (see 鈥淭he clean green energy dream鈥�). Hydrogen power comes from combining hydrogen with oxygen in fuel cells to make electricity. Fuel cells will have to be made far cheaper and more efficient. Electric vehicles will have to excite consumers, rather than seeming worthy but sluggish. And all the hydrogen that vehicles need will have to be produced and distributed.
If you believe the optimists, it will be possible to churn out hydrogen wherever you need it by splitting water using electricity from sources such as solar cells and wind turbines. Such 鈥済reen鈥� energy is created intermittently, but hydrogen will be the perfect energy store to be turned back into electricity on demand. That might allow Third World towns to create and store their own energy, instead of relying on a huge infrastructure to distribute electricity and fuel. Add a power revolution to the ongoing information revolution and developing nations get a new chance to take off. That is one part of the vision for the renewable, bottom-up world put forward by Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation on Economic Trends and an adviser to Prodi.
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The pessimists see more business as usual. Europe and the US may have signed an accord but they are moving in different directions. With its support for the Kyoto Protocol, Europe wants to cut greenhouse emissions and exploit hydrogen as a store for green energy. Bush is worried about dependence on foreign energy so has his own plans to exploit natural gas and coal reserves that can be turned into hydrogen, even though carbon dioxide is the unfortunate by-product. The administration also wants to give nuclear power a second chance.
The different routes have generated a spate of criticism and counter-criticism. Bush stands accused of rewarding his friends in the energy business with huge subsidies that will leave them in control of a non-renewable hydrogen economy pumping out greenhouse gas. Europe is accused of chasing impractical schemes that will not provide enough hydrogen fast enough.
The good news is that the differences may not matter. Technology has a life of its own that will surprise everyone in the half-century before the hydrogen economy grows up. Successful applications will prove unstoppable. If we can make really efficient fuel cells, they will drive unexpected applications. Rising fuel prices will make local production of green hydrogen attractive. And plans for a large-scale US nuclear renaissance are unlikely to survive changes in the White House. Most important of all, the race for the hydrogen economy has begun in earnest, with some big money behind it. The future may indeed be bright.