Why only hydrogen is regarded as fuel of future and not other elements?

Question

I have basic idea of working of hydrogen fuel cell but why just hydrogen? Isn’t there any better or maybe cheaper alternative?
(I know it’s bit complex for but I would appreciate your answers)

In: 346

Answer 1

You asked for an alternative to Hydrogen. Carbon fit’s that bill, and we’ve using it in one form or another for millenia. It’s cheaper and easier to produce than hydrogen, but as you know has a lot of downsides.

Burning carbon produces CO^(2), Hydrogen produces H^(2)O (Water)

There are some other things we can burn, for example Sodium which produces very caustic waste product, much worse than CO^(2.)

The goal is to find something where the waste product is not worse than what we are already doing.