Hydrogen Economy

Hydrogen Economy: Supply Chain, Life Cycle Analysis and Energy Transition for Sustainability, Second Edition explores the challenges for the transition into a sustainable hydrogen economy. In this book, experts from various academic backgrounds discuss the tools and methodologies for the analysis, planning, design, and optimization of hydrogen supply chains. They examine the available technologies for hydrogen production, storage, transport, distribution, and energy conversion, providing a cross cutting perspective on their sustainability.This second edition of Hydrogen Economy is fully updated with new technologies and tools for design, optimization, assessment, and decision-making, and includes twelve new chapters divided into two new sections. Section III examines advanced hydrogen routines and technologies, including fuel cells and hybrid electric vehicles, new storage technologies, and biohydrogen production from waste, allowing for a more complete life cycle assessment of the entire supply chain. Section IV provides new insights into policy and future developments, discussing the role of Grey, Blue, and Green hydrogen in the energy transition, the application of hydrogen in decarbonization of heavy industry, hydrogen safety, and more, substantially broadening the scope of the 2nd Edition.Providing a broad overview of the subject and well-recognized tools to manage hydrogen sustainability, Hydrogen Economy Second Edition is an invaluable resource for engineering researchers and PhD students in energy, environmental and industrial areas, energy economy researchers, practicing hydrogen energy engineers and technicians, energy and environmental consultants, life cycle assessment practitioners and consultants. Provides a broad perspective of the issues related to environmental, social and economic sustainability of hydrogen energy and its future perspectives Presents the current applied research and available tools for managing and assessing hydrogen energy sustainability, such as LCA, optimization, multi-criteria decision making and supply chain optimization Explores how experts in the field handle all issues related to the application of life cycle assessment for hydrogen production, storage, transport, distribution, safety, and end use

Hydrogen offers a promising alternative for supplying clean and sustainable energy to meet increasing demands worldwide. However, materials are key to transforming the technology into a viable industry. Materials for the Hydrogen Economy describes the technical challenges and the current efforts in developing materials possessing the properties required for handling each stage of the hydrogen fuel chain. Thorough coverage offers newcomers as well as experienced engineers and researchers a reliable and fully scalable foundation in this field. This book covers all seven of the current hydrogen production methods, as well as distribution, storage, and utilization technologies, particularly fuel cells. It details the chemical reactions, processes, types of feedstock, and commercial equipment involved in hydrogen production. It also covers methods, membranes, liners, and sensors used for separating, sealing, and purifying hydrogen. Several chapters examine corrosion effects in pipeline steels and other storage and transportation vessels, leading to discussions of hydrogen permeation barriers, barrier coatings, and hydrides for on-board hydrogen storage. The final chapters focus on electrolytes and component materials for solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and H2/O2 PEM fuel cells. Materials for the Hydrogen Economy provides a broad review of material requirements for handling hydrogen from production to market. It explores the development of these materials alongside essential considerations and issues associated with their deployment.

This book highlights the opportunities and the challenges of introducing hydrogen as alternative transport fuel from an economic, technical and environmental point of view. Through its multi-disciplinary approach the book provides researchers, decision makers and policy makers with a solid and wide-ranging knowledge base concerning the hydrogen economy.

The road to global security," writes Jeremy Rifkin, "lies in lessening our dependence on Middle East oil and making sure that all people on Earth have access to the energy they need to sustain life. Weaning the world off oil and turning it toward hydrogen is a promissory note for a safer world." Rifkin's international bestseller The Hydrogen Economy presents the clearest, most comprehensive case for moving ourselves away from the destructive and waning years of the oil era toward a new kind of energy regime. Hydrogen-one of the most abundant substances in the universe-holds the key, Rifkin argues, to a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable world.

The announcement of a hydrogen fuel initiative in the President's 2003 State of the Union speech substantially increased interest in the potential for hydrogen to play a major role in the nation's long-term energy future. Prior to that event, DOE asked the National Research Council to examine key technical issues about the hydrogen economy to assist in the development of its hydrogen R&D program. Included in the assessment were the current state of technology; future cost estimates; CO2 emissions; distribution, storage, and end use considerations; and the DOE RD&D program. The report provides an assessment of hydrogen as a fuel in the nation's future energy economy and describes a number of important challenges that must be overcome if it is to make a major energy contribution. Topics covered include the hydrogen end-use technologies, transportation, hydrogen production technologies, and transition issues for hydrogen in vehicles.

Lately it has become a matter of conventional wisdom that hydrogen will solve many of our energy and environmental problems. Nearly everyone -- environmentalists, mainstream media commentators, industry analysts, General Motors, and even President Bush -- seems to expect emission-free hydrogen fuel cells to ride to the rescue in a matter of years, or at most a decade or two. Not so fast, says Joseph Romm. In The Hype about Hydrogen, he explains why hydrogen isn't the quick technological fix it's cracked up to be, and why cheering for fuel cells to sweep the market is not a viable strategy for combating climate change. Buildings and factories powered by fuel cells may indeed become common after 2010, Joseph Romm argues, but when it comes to transportation, the biggest source of greenhouse-gas emissions, hydrogen is unlikely to have a significant impact before 2050. The Hype about Hydrogen offers a hype-free explanation of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, takes a hard look at the practical difficulties of transitioning to a hydrogen economy, and reveals why, given increasingly strong evidence of the gravity of climate change, neither government policy nor business investment should be based on the belief that hydrogen cars will have meaningful commercial success in the near or medium term. Romm, who helped run the federal government's program on hydrogen and fuel cells during the Clinton administration, provides a provocative primer on the politics, business, and technology of hydrogen and climate protection.

Hydrogen holds out the promise of a truly sustainable global energy future. As a clean energy carrier that can be produced from any primary energy source, hydrogen used in highly efficient fuel cells could prove to be the answer to our growing concerns about energy security, urban pollution and climate change. This prize surely warrants the attention and resources currently being directed at hydrogen even if the prospects for widespread commercialisation of hydrogen in the foreseeable future are uncertain.

The technologies of hydrogen's energetic utilization have been known for a long time. But aspects of system analysis, energy economics, and ecology that would come into play in introducing it into energy systems nave received much less attention. For those reasons, this book attempts to show the development path of a hydrogen economy, based on assured technological knowledge. One special concern has been to demonstrate, on one hand, how these developments would fit into existing energy supply structures, and, on the other, how they would contribute to further development of the energy system as a whole. With that goal in mind it is necessary to contrast the obvious advantages of hydrogen with the large efforts that would be required for its introduction. This total-systems approach led to a three-part organization of the book that also aids the reader in quickly identifying those parts that are of special interest to him. Section A essentially explains why it is necessary today to think about a new synthetic energy carrier. It also describes the irreplacable and growing role of hydrogen as a chemical raw material, and it explains technologies that al ready exist for its energetic use or that need further development. An attempt has also been made to prove that hydrogen's safety characteristics indeed per mit its handling and use as an energy carrier. Hopefully, all this will show that hydrogen, together with electricity, could be the universally employable energy carrier of a future non-fossil energy supply system.