The Conversion Of Solar ( Pv ) Energy Into Hydrogen Gas For Fuel Cells Essay

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.

This source mainly concentrates on the use of hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative to the United States dependency on foreign oil. It elaborates on the negatives of our countries reliance upon external sources for the vast majority of our power production needs, and suggests that hydrogen fuel cells are the answer to a sustainable energy future. The author is a writer for CQ Researcher who concentrates on energy, environmental, and defense issues. While the article is mainly geared toward individuals interested in the automotive industry and the applications of hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles, it does an excellent job of contrasting oil based

Proponents of a world-scale hydrogen economy argue that hydrogen can be an environmentally cleaner source of energy to end-users, particularly in transportation applications, without the release of pollutants like particulate matter and carbon dioxide. However hydrogen continues to have technical obstacles associated with it, including storage issues, due to the fact that hydrogen has a high energy density by weight, but has a low energy density by volume when not highly compressed or liquefied.

The search for a renewable energy source has been a top priority to us a human race in the past decade. Many ideas have come in the form of wind, solar, and nuclear power, all having their own drawbacks. But, the one that will be focused upon in this analysis is hydrogen as a source of fuel, and the technology leading the way to making it a reality. This technology would affect everyone in one way or another if correctly used. So we must ask if this technology is beneficial to us, how it might hurt us, and whether it is worth pursuing from an ethical stance.

Hydrogen and fuel cells are not technically renewable energy although they are everywhere and don't cause much pollution. With hydrogen, it can be used as fuel and the only emission is water. By using hydrogen there can be a large reduction in green house gases and air pollution. Plus the hydrogen can be used in the fuels cells to power electric motors or batteries for electricity. If your wondering what fuel cells is, there pretty much batteries, or what you would power an electric car with. The only thing about hydrogen is that it is hard to obtain, or it takes more energy to make it than it gives off. Hydrogen is an element on the periodic table and is in the gas family. Hydrogen’s atomic number is 1and it was discovered by a man by the name of Henry Cavendish in the year of 1766. Hydrogen has no color, taste, and smell, is slightly soluble in water and is highly explosive. Hydrogen can be found anywhere in the universe and is used as the fuel for many solar reactions. The hydrogen that is in our atmosphere has three different isotopes and they are called protium, which has one proton, then deuterium, which has one proton and one neutron. Then the third is tritium, which has one proton and two neutrons. Now if your wondering what protons and neutrons are, then you came to the right place. A proton is sub atomic particle with a positive charge found in the nucleus of an atom. A neutron is a sub atomic particle with a negative

Although Americans make up only 5% of the world’s population, the US burns up nearly 25% of the coal, 26% of the oil, and 27% of the world’s natural gas (“The State…”). In an era where humans are using up more resources than we possess, they’re actively seeking out the most quintessential form of resource usage. Since doing this however, our abundance of fossil fuels is severely diminishing. Although many people are aware of this dangerous issue, whether a scientific professional or everyday citizen, they tend to overlook the importance of the issue. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are an optimal solution to this issue, despite the costs and labor issues due to the vehicles being in an early stage of manufacturing. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are much more beneficial and environmentally safe than regular conventional vehicles.

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

type of refilling station, which would cost a lot of money. The gaseous hydrogen cannot be

It is no new news that Hydrogen can be used as a fuel, since it has been on rockets as they are pushed out of orbit. Now all we have to do is figure out a way to be able to use it in our everyday lives. The good thing about Hydrogen is that it can be used in internal combustion engines like the ones we use today with our gasoline-powered cars. Hydrogen has a high amount of energy in its chemical bond, liquid Hydrogen boils at –252.77 degrees Celsius, and has a density of 70.99 g/l. Because of these

Sustainable hydrogen Energy remains fundamental to economic development and welfare of society. To reach levels similar to those of developed countries being, many countries will need, and try to, increase their energy consumption. In addition, there is still a large number of people (more than a billion, according to estimates from the IEA) without access to advanced forms of energy, and will also contribute to increased overall consumption when achieved, hopefully, this access (Agbossou, et al., 2001).

The development of industrialisation and advanced technology has played an important role in increasing energy consumption in the world. This increasing use of energy pattern has also brought a number of both environmental and human health problems such as greenhouse emissions. Despite this fact, most of the world’s energy is produced using fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas. For example, in 2008, Australian energy production was 302.13 million tonnes of equivalent oils (Mtoe) while the consumption of energy was 240.40 terawatt hours (TWh) and these amounts of energy consumption and production caused 397.54 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (Mt CO2) emissions to the world’s atmosphere (Drachman & Richard, 2010, p. 48). In

The United States consumes an average 128 billion gallons of gasoline per year. [13] According to a study by Levene et al. [14], 1110 billion kg of hydrogen can be produced using solar and wind energy. Assuming 1 kg of hydrogen is equal to 1 gallon of gasoline in energy content, hydrogen potential is 8.7 times the

In addition, solar energy operational costs are manageable. It is free from monthly charges compared to conventional sources of energy. Solar energy does not require raw materials such as oil and coal, and once the panels are built, there will be no monthly charges. In addition, the prices of fossil fuels are increasing day by day, and this means conventional energy will be very expensive. Solar energy will remain the most capable world’s future power supply because, it is cost effective once the plants are built, and there will be no transport costs like for conventional energy sources. Therefore, solar energy is cost-effective, and will help in future energy supply, as the maintenance cost is affordable, as long as they are installed properly, and are working efficiently ( Hans, 2012). Furthermore, with the improvement and advancement of technology, it will increase its efficiency, and cost of production thus, making it more cost effective and the world’s best

The world’s largest source of emission-free energy is nuclear energy. Energy sources like solar power, wind power, and hydro electric power are also good ways to produce clean energy; however, when it comes down to it they can’t produce the capacity of energy the world needs. The two largest problems with fossil fuels are that they are running out and produce greenhouse gases when burned. Greenhouse gases are gases that absorb and emit radiation inside the atmosphere. The main greenhouse gases in earth’s atmosphere are carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, methane, and ozone. Ultimately greenhouse gases are a good thing because they keep the earth warm enough to have a wide variety of climates; however, when our energy sources put

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