Why doesn't the world have a economy based on hydrogen instead of petroleum?

Question

Well hydrogen seems to be the better choice because of the cheapness to produce since only electricity and water is needed for electrolysis. Wealthy individuals and large companies ( especially Exxon,the largest company in the world<>)http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=XOM&d=t>) fork out bundles of money for oil excavations in the ground, which aren't always successful; why can't they just create factories to produce hydrogen because it cheap? I realize that hydrogen is flammable and is in a gas form but people on the discovery channel say otherwise. Hydrogen is lighter than air causing it to dissipate.

So in the end why don't be have a economy based on hydrogen? Is it because we don't have a sufficient way to make hydrogen or to store it in cars or because people are scared of the fact that hydrogen is highly flammable or some other reason?

Answer 1

The amount of energy needed to release hydrogen from the molecules that it loves to get attached to is greater than the energy held by hydrogen.

Hydrogen is such a simple atom that it will seep out of most enclosures and seals.

Have you considered the effect of turning all that water into hydrogen? Water is the most common reason for wars. A meandering river changes course and the borders of a country changes. One country is suddenly larger and the other smaller. Result? More likely than not, a war. If one country has a sea port and the other not, a war is at hand. And with drinking water more expensive than gasoline how much would hydrogen cost?

Most industrial hydrogen is cracked from natural gas and the unfortunate by product is co2, the very greenhouse gas we are trying to avoid.

And yes there is the Hindenburg Disaster to remember isn&#039;t there?

Answer 2

History

Answer 3

Corporations can&#039;t make as big a profit on something people can get for free.

Answer 4

the electric car has been killed

the hydrogen car was invented over a century ago and the inventer was assasinated

why d you think

the people who own petroleum are still making money with it

when the cant anymore alternative energies will come to the surface ,

And when they have figured our a way to charge for the Sun .Wind and water.

Answer 5

Hydrogen is an excellent fuel.  But it is expensive. It&#039;s cheaper to get fuel out of the ground than it is to make it out of water.

Hydrolisis requires a very large amount of power to generate a very small amount of Hydrogen. Where do you get the electricity to generate hydrogen? Hydroelectric or Nuclear are the only two power sources used to make electricity that don&#039;t generate green house gases that would be marginally effectice.

Wind and solar can also generate electricity used to make hydrogen but to be used are very expensive to construct and maintain.

Answer 6

All thoughts are logical but ill-informed, sorry. It&#039;s a logistical nightmare at this stage (I work in the industry as an engineer), is it metal hydride, very high pressure gaseous state, or hydrocarbon reformer that will be the primary means of storage.  There are solutions for all aspects at this point but the bean counters of the world are trying to devise a standard.  It&#039;s not really about the money, BP, Shell, and some of the other major energy companies are already dedicating millions of dollars into the research and development of the technology. But since it is one of many options investors are reluctant to put up the money when in the hydrogen community we cannot make up our mind when other ideas are finding standards.

I think we should devise a multi-faceted approach because H2 isn&#039;t the end all for all industries. For transportation it&#039;s amazing, but for bulk power it&#039;s not cost effective.  

There is presently stations being built that use a PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cell powered by solar panels to produce the gaseous hydrogen to be stored in a metal hydride form, while the connections at the pump and for new vehicles such as the Honda FCX (which goes into production in &#039;08) and Toyota FCHV are being standardized by the SAE.  It&#039;s on the horizon and we&#039;re working on it, it&#039;s just difficult to convince pseudo educated americans that the solutions exist and that they will be available soon and safe.

In addition, Honda and a few small companies are developing systems that allow you to produce hydrogen at home from solar and wind power for use in your auto or Vectrix scooter, and as far as sealing the lines, tanks and fittings, that&#039;s what thermoplastic seals are for. As far as safety, they are presently safer than your gasoline tanks, and can generally be run over by a train and survive.  

The cost of these assemblies with any new technology (gas plasma screen at $25000 on their debut) is high for now.

Answer 7

It would be great to do this as it is readily available, but the problem exists in how to harness the Hydrogen alone, especially since it&#039;s commonly found in the water molecule.  It would be hard to separate out the Oxygen molecules.  Plus Hydrogen is a light element, with a low atomic mass.

Also, if we use Hydrogen instead, the oil production would be slowed down, and the oil producers would be out of a job.  I can see companies and countries keeping this technology disclosed as to not disturb the oil production and their million and billion dollar profits from regular, average consumers.  It&#039;s sad, but many countries and companies would do that, especially politicians if their major contributor would be an oil company.

Answer 8

firstly u cannot have a change overnight due to large amount of money involved in the petroleum n related indutry..

example of petroleum based industry..

1.automobiles.

2.power plants

3.home cooking

3.health care products...so we need a phased change..other wise world economy will come to a stand still..

and to produce hydrogen u need energy...to store it in safe liquified manner u need energy...to transport it over long distances again u need energy...and this energy is related to petroleum industry in one way or another...

so technically petroleum will be used here in our world for a much more longer time though transition to other types may occur..

Answer 9

You are right, we need more power stations and factories. So the discovery channel guys are hydrogen heads; and here I thought they were air heads.

Safety aside, the energy used to generate the power and then to compress the gas (it doesn&#039;t liquefy) would produce more CO2 than burning the petroleum and cost more. The high pressure cylinders don&#039;t come cheap either.

Answer 10

The biggest problem with hydrogen is that is is an energy conversion technique verses being a simple source of energy.  

Oil, for example, is pumped from the ground and simply refined and burned to make energy.

Hydrogen, however, has to be created by a process which coverts one kind of energy into the energy contained in the hydrogen gas.  Electrolysis for example requires electricity to break the water molecule creating hydrogen gas.  Electrolysis is about 80% efficient as an energy conversion. In other words 80% of the energy you put into the electrolisis comes out as energy in the hydrogen gas, 20% is lost.  The energy for the production of the gas must come from Coal, Gas, Nuclear or perhaps renewable sources.  The problem with renewable sources is that we are talking about tremendous amounts of energy being required  and renewable sources do not generate much.

Answer 11

What it all boils down to people are just to afraid of change . God forbid they would rather die first then to give up there way of life.

Answer 12

It takes a lower level of technology to use petroleum.  So when we were developing our enrgy based systems during the early industrial age and into the modern age, industry used the most cost effective source at the time.  Petrolem based products like oil, kerosene, gas and coal.  Yes coal is a petroleum base product, it&#039;s just not easy to convert ot a liquid form.

Answer 13

Exon-Mobil

Answer 14

Well the economy is actually based on money.

Whatever can be supplied cheapest wins out. Unfortunately there are ways to mask the real costs involved. 100 years ago nobody counted the cost of pollution. If it made money we used it. Oil (and coal) were cheap to dig up and burn. So that is what became the dominant fuel.

Nobody considered that this stuff was not being replaced or that it polluted and caused global warming. You could dig it up and sell it. That simple. It made money (lots of money)

Hydrogen and nuclear energy are being touted as our environmental saviours. Hydrogen at least is renewable. It is only that it stores large amounts of energy in a small volume that give it the appearence of being a viable replacement for oil based fuel. Hydrogen formed by electrolysis can only be produced theoretically at around 66% energy efficiency (two H&#039;s one O). The energy to do this is electricity. Even given high efficiencies for hydrogen powered vehicles it is doubtful that energy efficiencies could exceed 50% all up.

By comparison battery electric vehicles (bev) are about 80% efficient  They loss power converting electricity to chemical energy then back to electricity again. Battery exchange stations could resolve the range issues.

Better still an electric vehicle powered from a grid pick up can run over 90% efficient and does not need to carry the weight of the stored energy. Generators, Batteries, solar panel etc can be stationary (or hydrogen motors if you insist).

It is very wastful of energy to use a vehicle that weights over a tonne to move a single person around. (mostly just to pick up a few Kilos (lbs) of produce).

There are better things to build economys on than hydrogen or Petroleum. (or money for that matter.)

Answer 15

Yeah, where are you going to get all that electricity?  You think that will be cheaper than gasoline?

We use gasoline because it is by far the cheapest way to power our cars and will continue to be unless they tax the absolute h**l out of it.  Period.  They subsidize ethanol 50 cents per gallon and it is still more expensive (and less efficient per volume).  Hydrogen is a gas at room temperature and atmospheric pressure.  The &quot;gas&quot; tank for a hydrogen car is very cold (and therefore very insulated) and at a very high pressure.  They say it is safe, but I&#039;ll take gasoline over driving around with a hydrogen bomb in the gas tank.

But the reason is simply cost.  Gasoline and the vehicles that burn it are CHEAP.  The only way you will change human behavior is MONEY.  If this wasn&#039;t true, people would be conserving in the country (US), but they aren&#039;t.