What is Hydrogen?

Hydrogen is the H2 in H2O

Hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth, yet many people don’t know what it is. Hydrogen is the H2 in H2O – water. Hydrogen does not exist in its pure form in nature. Hydrogen can be found in fossil fuels, biomass, and coal. As we get closer to becoming a hydrogen society it is important that people understand what hydrogen is, how hydrogen works and the infrastructure issues in bringing hydrogen to the market. You can make hydrogen by putting water in a beaker, covering it with a piece of cardboard that has two tin strips coming out of the cardboard and attaching those to a battery.

There are problems with creating hydrogen in that manner;

• Water is a finite substance, just like oil.
• There is not one preferred way to produce hydrogen
• Hydrogen is difficult to store
• there is not a pipeline to distribute hydrogen
• Packaging hydrogen – Hydrogen can be compressed, but Liquid Hydrogen has to be stored in low temperatures. What is the difference between the various configurations of alternate fuel cell/hydrogen options and what are the comparative costs of the options – including fuel cell with hydrogen tanks, fuel cell with reformer, ICE with hydrogen tanks and ICE reformer, pure electric vehicles charged by power networks, pure electric vehicles charged by fuel cell power plants, etc.?