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Hydrogen Hydrogen can be produced domestically through electrolysis (the process of splitting the hydrogen and oxygen particles apart in a water molecule). When used in automobiles, a hydrogen-powered car will emit only water vapor from its tailpipe. Hydrogen vehicles use fuel cells as their source of power, and currently this technology is too expensive for most consumers. If the costs of fuel cell technology and hydrogen production can decrease, hydrogen may become one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable sources of energy available.

Price projections vary among fuel cell developers, but most are targeting costs below $1,500/kW

Maintenance costs of a fuel cell are expected to be comparable to that of a microturbine, ranging from $0.005-$0.010/kWh (based on an annual inspection visit to the unit).

At the current price, units are only used in high value, "niche" markets where reliability is premium, and in areas where electricity prices are very high and natural gas prices are low.

Fuel cell system costs have decreased significantly over the past several years but are still nearly twice as high as those for internal combustion engines. Likewise, onboard hydrogen storage costs are currently $15–$18/kWh for high-pressure gaseous storage, while the commercialization target is $2/kWh. There is potential to reduce this cost using lower-cost carbon fiber tanks or materials-based storage technologies, such as metal hydrides.

FCVs will have to offer consumers a viable alternative, especially in terms of performance, durability, and cost, to survive in this ultra-competitive market.

a fuel cell power plant using natural gas as a hydrogen source would create less than one ounce of pollution (other than CO2) for every 1,000 kW produced, compared to 25 pounds of pollutants generated by conventional combustion systems

Fuel Cells also produce 97% less nitrogen oxide emissions then conventional coal-fired power plants.

With low emissions of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), and particulate matter as well as dramatically lower emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2),

Because they don’t go through the combustion process, there’s none of the pollution that’s associated with pollution, there’s no nox, there’s no particulate formation.

rather than burning hydrogen in place of gasoline as BMW has done with its internal combustion hydrogen cars. Either way, the only emission is water vapor.

Technological developments are continually lowering the material and component cost of fuel cells and production is being ramped up and automated, allowing economies of scale to be realised.

The sun delivers about 7000 times more energy than we currently consume globally. However, we cannot cover the whole surface of the Earth with solar energy collectors. How much of this energy can we collect? Will it be enough to replace fossil fuels?

Our global consumption of electricity in 2005 was 15,182 TWh/y (see The Little Green Handbook). However, 9,541 TWh/y of electricity was produced by fossil fuels and 2,555 TWh/y by nuclear power, or the total 12,096 TWh/y. Assuming the lowest solar potential and the lowest efficiency of solar cells we can calculate that we could produce 35 times more electricity than produced by fossil fuels and nuclear power. The additional advantage is that solar power is clean and last practically forever.

Even if we used only 1% of unused land area we could produce nearly 4 times more electricity than we produce using fossil fuels and nuclear power.