The Problem For Electric Alternatives

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.

Olsen, Jon. “Natural Gas Is An Energy Solution That Works Today.” Web. 9 Mar. 2016.

Because of technical improvements, nonrenewables are found, extracted, and employed more efficiently than ever. Since 2000, companies have located more natural gas sources in the United States. This occurred because of advances in exploration methods. New ways to process coal have led to fewer impurities. The energy efficiency of coal has also improved so that more energy can be created from less coal.

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

Throughout the entire modern age, mankind has used fossil fuels to meet its energy requirements. Coal, oil and natural gas have lit homes and powered machinery for centuries, driving civilization forward. But as human

Another area of technology that the automobile industry is working on is fuel cells. Even though it is predicted that automobiles using fuel cells will not be released until 2010, Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV), may be the next revolutionary idea in automobiles. FCVs reflect a completely new way of thinking about automobiles. FCVs use electric

Honda has already produced a hydrogen fuel cell concept car they claim is “overall 64% energy efficient”. To put this into perspective in the average gasoline combustion engine “only about 20 percent of the thermal-energy content of the gasoline is converted into mechanical work”, making it 20% energy efficient [5]. This new line of cars could bring about jobs in the automotive industry and all industries that branch from it. As of right now the commercial market for hydrogen gas produced from the use of fossil fuels is at about $100 billion. A majority of this hydrogen goes into producing fertilizers and petrochemicals [1]. All it would take is an inexpensive source of green hydrogen, such as the one recently discovered, to completely change this industry.Overall hydrogen has the ability to bring about jobs and continued advancements in every market and industry touched by it. This could be just about every industry when considering how important transportation and shipping are to the economy; hydrogen would give them an inexpensive fuel for transport. Hydrogen fuel could do this all the while solving our most important problem of finding a renewable energy source.

(LLNL, 2010) The difference, however, is that the world is trying to get away from high Carbon emitting fuels such as petroleum and coal. Since this is the case natural gas is currently the front runner for alternative methods with politicians and scientist agreeing that there must be a change to the old habits of achieving energy without costs. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) natural gas has edge out all other fuel sources for electricity generation in the United States with 31.7%, however, coal is still only 1.6% behind with 30.1% overall. As coal based power plants are retired or converted into natural gas based plants hopefully we can see these number start to separate in favor of natural gas as carbon emissions will drop

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

The human race is in the midst of an energy crisis. The gasoline used around the world is currently a non-renewable resource. As the title suggests, the gasoline will eventually be totally consumed in part by the gas guzzling vehicles common today. For this reason, scientists have spent decades researching and developing alternative sources of fuel in order to power daily life on Earth for many years to come. There is a wide array of renewable fuel sources in use presently. These alternatives vary in efficiency, affordability, and many other aspects. Hydrogen powered and electric powered vehicles are two comparable alternatives that have increased in popularity and functionality in recent years and will continue to do so in the near future (10 Reasons, 2015).

In today’s society fossil fuels are the primary source of energy for most of the industrialized world. Utilizing fossil fuels has been very important to the industrialization development throughout the world. Industrialization in many parts of the world, energy has been needed at a much higher density then before and fossil fuels have fulfilled that need. Coal, gas, and oil are the three major sources of fossil fuels in the world. Despite other means of energy such as wind power, hydroelectric power etc., fossil fuels are still the main source of energy across the continent. Fossils fuels are critical to the function of society. “Fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas) are the dominant source of energy today and will be for decades to come.” (Everett, B. October).

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

There are many different energy sources that I utilize and rely upon daily. Without these energy sources I would not be able to heat my house, cook food, store food, drive, or have hot water. Growing up in the United States I was raised in a country where we are all accustomed to having these luxuries in our daily life without realizing that they are a luxury. Every day I use more than a few energy sources; some of these energy sources are petroleum, gasoline, and electrical energy.

Depleting nature of the conventional energy sources and increasing cost of electrical energy are forcing mankind to look for possible modifications in the existing systems towards lower energy consumption without sacrificing the purpose for which it is used. The household refrigerator used extensively all over the world for preserving various food products is one such system which accounts for the substantial part of the house electricity bills. Refrigerator is a machine which lifts up the heat from low evaporator temperature (pressure) and pumps it against the high condenser temperatures (pressure).

Throughout the course of human history, conventional natural gas deposits have been the easiest to extract from formations below the surface. These conventional deposits cannot last forever and are declining in number, meaning that people are pushed to search for alternative sources whilst increasing the price of the natural gas that is currently available (Berman, 2016). Fortunately, the search for alternative sources for natural gas has generally been positive; recent utilisation of unconventional gas deposits in the US which have led to them becoming the US’s primary source of indigenous gas production (Korn, 2010: 5). As humans advance technologically and steadily improve their geological knowledge, the percentage of unconventional gas sources that make up power supplies continue to grow. In 2010, 47% of the UK’s electricity was produced by burning natural gas. In comparison 28% of the electricity the UK had produced in 2010 was from burning coal, 16% from nuclear reactors and 7% from