Social Impact Analysis (Hydrogen Fuel)

The Hydrogen Fuel Cell could revolutionize the world. This ingenious technology, which creates electricity from the chemical reactions of hydrogen and oxygen has, in its 150-year history, passed many of the critical tests along the path from invention to innovation. Recent developments in fuel cell technology and concurrent developments within the energy and automotive industries have brought the world to brink of the fuel cell age and the hydrogen economy.

Solar energy can be turned into electricity through solar cells 15%=cheap, 40% efficiency=expensive. Caloric theory of heat=caloric fluid flows from hot object to cold. Heat engine=

First, the article claims that the fuel cell engines utilize easily available , renewable resources. However, the professor refutes that by saying that the resources are not easily available. Although, hydrogen is available in water, but it's not usable. She said it must be in apurified liquid state and it's highly artificial, so the process of produce and stor the liquid hydrogen is not easy because

As you go throughout your day, you use energy many times. Turning on the lights, using the toaster, taking the bus to school, all examples of using energy. Slowly, the fossil fuels that we are burning to get this energy are harming the environment. Hydrogen energy and biofuels would bring many benefits to Long Beach,

However, some pundits are concerned that adopting hydrogen energy as the sole strategy for the issues facing the automobile’s future is problematic because of the lengthy time frame in which they are projected to become ubiquitous. Furthermore, the present infrastructure for the distribution of hydrogen fuel sources or the production of hydrogen fuel cells is not only insufficient, but slow to develop. As such, fossil fuels are presently the main source for hydrogen production, which means that hydrogen vehicles do not successfully decouple the automobile from a fossil fuel economy. This is also widely inefficient because it will generate four times the carbon dioxide emissions generated by gasoline efficient automobiles. Furthermore, compressing hydrogen for the purposes of

In recent years our country has had many debates over what must be done to lessen the amount of oil that our country consumes. It is well known that we need to make some type of change to help not only the environment, but also lessen our reliance on imported oil. President Bush recently announced his new plan that could someday greatly reduce that amount of oil that Americans use by replacing oil with hydrogen fuel cells. Although this plan is a step in the right direction, it is not the answer. There are far too many downsides that could actually hurt our country in the long run. One problem is that the plan proposed by Bush will take far too long before any changes will be seen.

The automotive industry is one of the largest industries in the entire world. As the world’s population grows and economic development occurs, the auto industry also expands. Unfortunately the growth in car numbers has had a negative environmenta, impact due to carbon dioxide and particulate emissions generated and released from the combustion process. Technology has developed a solution by utilizing the concept of hydrogen fuel cells. As the years have passed, there has been continuous development on automotive fuel cells and now it has come close to mass production of these vehicles. The main problem is the continued development of hydrogen fuel cells and their infrastructure may not be worth the cost.

Some of the concerns regarding hydrogen that are currently limiting its widespread throughout the world is hydrogen gas is very time consumer which requires a lot of time to free up from its elements even though it is less expensive than regular gas. Hydrogen gas cannot be moved through pipelines like oil due to it is a very light gas. Hydrogen gas require energy such as oil, coal, and natural gas to separate it from oxygen which will not just have logistical issues but also environmental issues.

Though the hydrogen is found abundantly in the nature but due to some of its properties has made difficulties to handle it for the industrial use. Due to it lightest it is stored under pressure as a liquid hydrogen. It has a fast burning rate as compared to the other fuels so any hot spots or sources of ignition should be avoided. May 6, 1937 Hindenburg tragedy, report from the intelligence suggested a static friction between the metal (duralumin) and the fabric was the cause of the tragedy. This means hydrogen needs to handle very carefully.

It derives energy from spinning water turbines. Hydroelectric power is a low-cost, renewable, air pollution-free energy source. Unfortunately there is not much room for this source left in the US and building large dams, flooding valuable river valleys, and eliminating free-flowing rivers are the negative externalities of this alternative. Electrolysis of water could be used to convert biomass (plants or plant-based materials) into methane or electricity to generate hydrogen gas. Current technology with little improvement could lead to these fuels being used more abundantly. Moreover, the storage, use, and transportation of these fuels would be

Recent years have shown an increasingly large need for a practical renewable energy source for such reasons as diminishing fossil fuels and increases in greenhouse gasses. Hydrogen appears to be a way out of this gasoline-dug hole, or at least, a way out in the future. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are being engineered as we speak as the technologies to refuel them cleanly are being proposed. Unfortunately, most of the technologies associated with hydrogen are still in the prototype/pre-production stages and require better enhancements before becoming mainstream. This paper assesses the practicality of hydrogen power in cars both now and in the future while explicating the actual process of how a

In the modern society, energy is considered one of our most valuable resources. Humanity has managed to tap several sources of energy and utilize it for their daily activities. Almost everything in the society is dependent on energy; otherwise, humanity would cease to exist. The sources of energy vary from firewood, solar energy, geothermal energy and nuclear energy. The sources vary depending on the amount of energy that can be harnessed. Nuclear energy is a controversial subject when it comes to energy matters. Theorists argue that the world’s sources of energy are being depleted at such high rates, that the future will not favor humanity. Richard Watson establishes this ethical argument in his work known as Anti-Anthropocentric Ethics: he argues that any ethics should be based on the survival of humanity (Watson 245). Therefore, an inquiry that should be made in line with energy and ethics should consider the question; is modernization worth killing humanity? Nuclear power sources provide such high energy that can power industries and sustain industrial processes for longer times. The problem with the nuclear power energy is the danger it poses to the society and humanity as a whole (Ingram 37). The Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Russia is a good example relative to the effects of nuclear power and the environment. This essay seeks to analyze and evaluate the ethical issues raised by the Chernobyl nuclear plant as source of energy

As explored in this report, nuclear energy brings both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to producing energy. On one hand, it is an alternative source of

For the past three decades Oil dominates the agenda of political discussion. With scares over price volatility, sizes of reserves, international imports and least of which are the environmental impacts due to carbon dioxide and other emissions. Various speculations and educated guesses place our total depletion of crude oil within the next 50 years and there is a general consensus between environmentalists that we steer toward a hydrogen transportation system given the projected work and nonexistent carbon dioxide emissions (Environmental Technologies class lecture, Santa Clara University). However many barriers stand in the way of attaining such a goal, most of which pertaining

In order to understand the why behind the need to change from fossil fuels to hydrogen power, it is necessary to understand what that power is and how it works. Hydrogen is the most abundant and simplest element on earth. It is most commonly found as part of water. In its pure gaseous form it is extremely light, but when ignited in this state releases a large amount of energy in an explosion. In this violent reaction the hydrogen combines with free oxygen molecules in the atmosphere and creates water vapor. This is similar to the way gasoline is combined with air and ignited in an internal combustion engine in the cars used today and like with gasoline, the combustion of hydrogen has risks. In addition to the risk, some of the energy released in the reaction is lost in the form of sound and heat. As an alternative to burning, these same gases can be combined with the use of catalysts to extract the free electrons produced as liquid water is formed(Popovici and Hoble Dorel). Using cables connected to a fuel cell such as this, those electrons go through a circuit, generating electricity. This is more efficient than combustion because less energy is wasted in the form of sound and heat. Going further, greater efficiency for this reaction can be had the lower the temperature it is allowed to take place at, with 83% power at 25◦C(77◦ F)(Popovici and Hoble Dorel). As fuel cells are created with better heat management and