06-09-2017, 11:19 AM
As we plan the fleet of clean and non-oil trucks and trucks of the future, we visualize a portfolio of propulsion technology that includes biofuel, electric drive, and hydrogen fuel cell (FCV) vehicles.
The latter of these is perhaps the most technically difficult technology, but also the most attractive in terms of its ability to drastically reduce oil consumption, CO2 greenhouse gas emissions and tail pipe pollution. However, hydrogen is not a source of energy - it is a carrier of energy. And to realize its benefits, we must produce it not from fossil sources, but from renewable energy.
The world produces huge amounts of hydrogen today for industrial and commercial purposes, probably more than 50 million tons / year. But most of that production is fossil energy, either from the reform of natural gas, or electrolysis with electricity produced from coal, natural gas, oil or nuclear.
On the other hand, renewable energies are a desired energy source for hydrogen production because of their diversity, regionality, abundance and potential for sustainability. That said, there are many challenges to producing hydrogen from renewable energy - and perhaps the main thing is to reduce the cost to be competitive with gasoline and diesel.
Renewable hydrogen can be produced in several ways:
o Electrolysis: dividing water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from one of many renewable sources;
o Conversion of biomass - via thermo-chemical or biochemical conversion to intermediate products which can then be separated or reformed into hydrogen; or fermentation techniques that produce hydrogen directly;
o Solar conversion - using thermolysis, using heat generated by solar energy for the production of hydrogen or high temperature chemical cycle photolysis, in which the solar photons are used in biological or electrochemical systems to produce hydrogen directly.
The above order is, in general, also representative of the technological maturity of these routes, and therefore roughly the chronological order in which we might expect to see them commercially available.
The latter of these is perhaps the most technically difficult technology, but also the most attractive in terms of its ability to drastically reduce oil consumption, CO2 greenhouse gas emissions and tail pipe pollution. However, hydrogen is not a source of energy - it is a carrier of energy. And to realize its benefits, we must produce it not from fossil sources, but from renewable energy.
The world produces huge amounts of hydrogen today for industrial and commercial purposes, probably more than 50 million tons / year. But most of that production is fossil energy, either from the reform of natural gas, or electrolysis with electricity produced from coal, natural gas, oil or nuclear.
On the other hand, renewable energies are a desired energy source for hydrogen production because of their diversity, regionality, abundance and potential for sustainability. That said, there are many challenges to producing hydrogen from renewable energy - and perhaps the main thing is to reduce the cost to be competitive with gasoline and diesel.
Renewable hydrogen can be produced in several ways:
o Electrolysis: dividing water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from one of many renewable sources;
o Conversion of biomass - via thermo-chemical or biochemical conversion to intermediate products which can then be separated or reformed into hydrogen; or fermentation techniques that produce hydrogen directly;
o Solar conversion - using thermolysis, using heat generated by solar energy for the production of hydrogen or high temperature chemical cycle photolysis, in which the solar photons are used in biological or electrochemical systems to produce hydrogen directly.
The above order is, in general, also representative of the technological maturity of these routes, and therefore roughly the chronological order in which we might expect to see them commercially available.