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)
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Because it burns clean and is the most abundant element in the universe. “Of the future” because we haven’t yet figured out a cost effective way of storing it or producing it for a mass volume market.
Because wherever you read this was heavily invested in hydrogen? Electricity is the “fuel” of the future.
Note that Hydrogen in this use case isn’t so much a “fuel” as an “energy storage mechanism”.
By this I mean that most things we think of as fuels (oil, gas, coal, wood/charcoal, peat, even nuclear) we go and take the fuel, maybe purify it depending on use case, and then burn that fuel.
This isn’t what we do with Hydrogen. There are no hydrogen mines. We have to make hydrogen. The way we make this (in a hydrogen fuel of the future scenario) is typically to take some other energy source and then use it to do electrolysis on water to separate the hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then basically storing the energy from the original power source and can then be used in the end application in a way that has little or no pollution at the end use location (if you burn hydrogen you get water).
Hydrogen’s potential here on earth is that we could have large scale centralized clean power (hydro, wind, solar, nuclear – albeit most have some issue in other costs) to generate the energy without churning out all this carbon, and then store that energy in hydrogen so it can be distributed for use where needed where it results in virtually zero pollution.
Hydrogen also has potential for Space exploration where we have little/no ability to mine fuels – if you have a solar power system and water you can use the Solar to turn water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, that you can then store and burn when needed, to get energy and water. Capture the water produced and you can redo the process, which is very useful in a highly resource-scarce environment like space or on barren worlds.
Abundance. While Hydrogen must be extracted from water here on earth, in space it is the most abundant element. Stars are made of it, nebula contain a lot of it, and there are interstellar gas clouds that are mostly hydrogen. Combine that with how energetic a fuel it is, and the reason it’s used is obvious.
An example: in the game Elite Dangerous, the primary energy source on your ship is a fusion reactor. Naturally, the fuel for the fusion reaction is hydrogen, and so to refuel your ship, you fly through a stars corona and collect the hydrogen gas from it. And yes, overheating your ship is a concern during these refueling operations, especially if they take too long.
Hydrogen is not the fuel of the future. You get less energy from burning hydrogen than it took to extract it from water.
And that’s a hard rule, as in the conservation of energy. There is no possible way of getting around this unless there’s an exception to the laws of thermodynamics.
Hydrogen reacts readily with oxygen and releases lots of energy.
The product of the reaction is water, a pretty harmless substance.
Other substances have either more dangerous products or a lower amount of energy per mass reacted (energy density).
As well as the fuel cell applications for driving vehicles remember that hydrogen is the fuel for a fusion reactions too. That could help provide the electricity required to extract the hydrogen from water.
Hydrogen is very simple, and extremely abundant. It’s the most common element in the universe by far. In its most common form, it’s just a proton and an electron. It can be used as fuel without producing byproducts that have to be dealt with.
Hydrogen is only regarded as the fuel of the future by people who don’t understand how math works. Most people who actually have a deep understanding of physics and economics *do not* regard hydrogen as the fuel of the future. They understand that, absent economy-bankrupting government subsidies, hydrogen cannot replace fossil fuels.
However, they hydrogen myth is persistent because it’s people who benefit from the status quo lobby hard for hydrogen. Why? Because it’s a way to delay the transition to clean energy. Every dollar and research hour spent on H2, is a dollar that’s not going into something that actually can work.
Rant aside, your question is probably aimed at understanding why hydrogen in particular has the focus. Well, it’s because hydrogen, *by mass,* is the densest energy carrier around. Hydrogen can, theoretically, be created by running renewable electricity through water and splitting off the oxygen, creating a carbon neutral energy source. This hydrogen can then, theoretically, be distributed through pipelines and trucks just like oil and natural gas. It can, theoretically, be recombined with oxygen in a chemical reaction which creates heat and electricity in a fuel cell.
So, the promise is that it’s a drop-in replacement for everything we do today with natural gas and other fossil fuels. It’s sold to the rubes by telling them that “nothing has to change, except you’ll be putting liquid hydrogen into your F150 instead of gasoline.”
Notice, however, the heavy use of “theoretically”. Just because something is technically possible, *doesn’t mean it’s remotely practical*. I could theoretically replace my half hour car commute back and forth from work by spending and extra 6 hours per day walking, but it’s just not practical. Same with hydrogen. We *could* do all that with clean hydrogen, but we won’t because of how gosh darn inefficient (and thus expensive) each and every step along the way is.
This is where the greenwashers make their money. They deliberately muddy the waters. When carbon pollution is the topic, they talk about green hydrogen. When cost is the topic, they refer to fossil derived hydrogen. The general public doesn’t have the background or the interest to access follow along.
Hydrogen is an element; it contains no carbon. Therefore, it has zero carbon emission. Every other common fuel is some kind of carbon compound and has non-zero carbon emission. Also, hydrogen can be made from water using any zero-emission energy source (nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, you name it). Well, it can also be made from water using a coal burning power plant, but it kinda defeats hydrogen’s purpose.
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