Green Hydrogen VS. Other Energy Sources

The world population along with the invention of new electronics constantly increases. In fact, each household has an average of 25 electrical devices, more than doubling in the past 5 years. This number doesn’t just count phones, tablets, or anything with screens. This includes anything that requires an outlet to function. Additionally, almost every part of our lives have started to move to electricity, like cars for example. Many car manufacturing companies have started to make electric cars so therefore, more electricity is being needed. The leading countries in energy consumption include Qater, Iceland, Singapore, UAE, and Trinidad. The United States comes 11th in this list. Well, how do people get the needed amount of energy? The most popular energy sources are listed below:

Fossil Fuels:

Fossil fuels have been the main source of energy on Earth for over 150 years, being the source of 80% of the world’s energy. But as shown above, it is not good for the environment and there isn’t enough fossil fuels left to last much longer. The burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gasses that trap radiation from the sun within the atmosphere. This process is called the greenhouse effect, essentially warming up the temperatures on Earth’s surface. Temperatures are rising at a rate of 0.15-2 degrees fahrenheit per decade. This may seem like a small number but it isn’t. This means that after 100 years, the temperature would have risen 1.2 - 1.6 degrees fahrenheit. Another major issue with fossil fuels is that it is a limited resource. It is predicted that there will be a shortage of fossil fuels on Earth in a century. Worldwide, about 100 million barrels of oil are used per day. If this continues, people will only have enough oil left on Earth to last about 50 more years.

Nuclear Energy:

Next, we have nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is created from the combining or splitting of atoms, also called fusion or fission respectively. Around the world, there are roughly 440 nuclear power plants. A nuclear power plant has around five major components, the first being the nuclear reactor. The nuclear reactor creates and controls the nuclear reaction within atoms. Next is the steam generator. Steam generators convert water into steam from the core. There is also the pressurizer which controls the amount of pressure in the powerplant. The reactor coolant pumps control the amount of heat in the power plant, and lastly there are safety systems that can shut down the full power plant in case something goes wrong. But the problem with this is that things happen to go wrong a lot more frequently than people think, and the consequences are huge. In total, there have been around 100 nuclear power plant disasters, some of the worst being Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island. Fukushima, the most recent of the three, occurring on March 11, 2011, is estimated to take 30-40 years to clean up. Currently, buildings in the area are still abandoned as they are still dangerous to return to. It is predicted that the area surrounding Fukushima won’t be inhabited for at least another 100 years or so.

Renewable Energy:

Renewable energy is very good for the environment and is currently being used in many households and organizations around the world. The only significant issue amongst these energy sources is that it doesn’t provide enough energy to meet the demand. The types of renewable energy sources that I have mentioned are Geothermal energy, Solar Energy, Wind energy, and Hydropower. There are some other minor types of renewable energy sources but these are the most common ones. A lot of countries like Sweden and Costa Rica are aiming for renewable energy as their only energy source and they are close to this goal as well. But these countries are small countries that don’t need much energy due to their low populations. Powering larger countries with renewable energy sources can be much more difficult.

Green Hydrogen:

You may be wondering, what can green hydrogen do that other energy sources can’t? In my opinion, the four main advantages of using hydrogen as an energy source are that it’s clean, it’s renewable, it’s versatile, and it’s easy to store.

First, hydrogen is a clean source of energy. The process of creating hydrogen doesn’t release any harmful chemicals and gasses into the air. However, fossil fuels, the leading energy producer around the world, releases greenhouse gasses into the air. Additionally, the only waste produced by creating hydrogen is water. On the contrary, nuclear energy produces a lot of waste that cannot be disposed of, like uranium mill tailings and other radioactive materials that are dangerous for our health for many years after.

Second, hydrogen is a renewable source of energy. The main way to create green hydrogen is by extracting it from water. As a matter of fact, 71% of our globe is made of water so the amount of water that can be used to make hydrogen is almost limitless. Surprisingly, a team in the University of Adelaide has found a way to extract hydrogen directly from sea water, without needing the process of desalination. Some groups of scientists are researching how to extract hydrogen from air and they are making some surprising breakthroughs.

Third, hydrogen is a very versatile energy source and has a variety of different uses. These different uses of hydrogen can be helpful in anyone’s daily life. One use for hydrogen is to power cars, these cars going by the name of fuel cell cars. Many car manufacturing companies like Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and BMW are all trying to make fuel cell cars for the future. Hydrogen to power cars is proven to be 30% more efficient than regular gasoline used today. Another use of hydrogen is to create electricity. Hydrogen can power anything in our households from the lights in our room to the phone charger. Hydrogen can be used to power factories as well. Some iron companies are using hydrogen to purify iron ore in order to make steel, this process earlier done by fossil fuels.

Lastly, hydrogen is relatively easy to store. The storing of hydrogen isn’t a very complicated process as it can be stored as a gas or a liquid. Hydrogen can be stored in high pressure tanks and they can be kept in these tanks for hundreds of years.