Category Archives: FAQs
Would batteries still have a place in this brave new hydrogen world? And what about fuel cells? We always see in the media the yoking together of hydrogen and fuel cells – is there a reason for this?
As for batteries, yes, we will always need them in some form or another, but only on a comparatively small scale – they simply don’t “scale up” to the capacity which our society needs for town supply or for … Continue reading
How do you store it?
Good and necessary question! Certainly, hydrogen will never be able to compete with the way natural gas is stored in nature, dumbly waiting for human technology to access it. However, the supply of water is not in doubt, so … Continue reading
What are the costs of using hydrogen: how will the bills compare with current fuel prices?
It will not be cheap! But neither are our present fuel bills – and we must not forget that we are preventing enormous future expense for those coming after us, if we cut right down on the planet-heating emissions … Continue reading
Are there examples of where hydrogen has been used successfully?
Yes! There are lots of hydrogen success stories, many of these are within transport, for example public buses in various cities. Visit our “Links” page for more specific examples.
If it is such an obvious and doable alternative, why hasn’t it been done already?
The key reason is commercial rather than scientific: it is the power of incumbency, whereby those who acquire the dominant position in a given market are able to hold off all challengers, and have been able to gain the … Continue reading
How does it work, where do we get the hydrogen from?
Hydrogen is a component of water, so we must separate it from water using electrolysis. This is a well understood technology, using the passage of an electric current through specially treated water. For example, it has been done on … Continue reading
Isn’t hydrogen much less efficient than carbon?
It depends what you mean by “efficient”. You need a lot less by weight for the same energy output via oil or natural gas or coal, but hydrogen is a highly voluminous gas, so you need a lot more … Continue reading
Isn’t hydrogen quite a dangerous gas to be using in our homes and other close proximities? Isn’t there a hydrogen bomb?!
All fuels are dangerous: the gas in our stoves and the petrol in our cars are equally explosive and flammable. The key is to prevent leaks, just as with current fuels. And the H-Bomb is a very different matter, … Continue reading