The Race has been in a headlong race, looking to develope our Hydrogen Resourses for most of our three hundred year Industrial History.
looking means Comparing where you have been, with where you wish to be.
Extracting Hydrogen combined with Carbon from holes in the Earth is the primary method of Development in use to date. This accomplished with little looking, as is evedenced by the accompanying, multi level destruction accomplished on our behalf.
Axiomatic: All life comes from the energy of the Sun. The oil gas and atoms we burn have their origins there.(these are all Non- Renewable Resourses)
The Universe is composed of Hydrogen and things made from Hydrogen, powered and produced by the massive Hydrogen Engines we call Stars or Suns.
That we will continue our Hydrogen Development into the Future is as logically enevitable as the apple that took Newton to such thoughts.
This "Continuation of Application" requires the only talent we seem to accel at; overcomming technical problems, we're bloody brilliant at times. witness the Piramids and the Panama Canal.
Transition from Hydrocarbon Complexes to HydrOxide Complexes runs into difficulties only when you deal with the substances ultimately rarified natural state. (Which exists only in Outer Space).
Simple, we combine H2 with other Complexes to produce Liquids; much easier to deal with. Liquids to store, liquids to upgrade the power inherant in this most excellent energy carrier.
Stop digging holes in the Earth and begin dropping Electrolizers into the Ocean Depths. Deal with the outcomeby using low energy fuels such as Bitumen, Isolated NG reserves and low grade Coal to 'Upgrade' with our Gasses, producing a base stock of Syn Fuels.
The Carbon thus liberated can be recovered and used indefinately for further Syn Fuel Production, thus greatly reducing the emissions of such 'dirty' fuels
While.... Developing Hydrgen as a Utility Electrical Energy Provider = No Polloution.
Leaving.... Our Hydrocarbons for Plastics and other Industrial Applications. (Future Generations will curse us for this flagrant mis- use of such prescious substances.)
This Hydrogen Transition will require decentrilization, thus implying the use of our other renewable resourses, Wind, Solar And Geothermal. (also all Products of the Sun and Renewable)
Coming Soon: Global Warming: We didn't Do It, we are only Contributing To It
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Less costly methods for producing oxygen from water have been developed by researchers in the U.S. and Australia, possibly setting the stage for more use of fuel cells to produce energy. Fuel cells have been touted as an important future source of energy. They combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce power without any damaging pollution. Expensive platinum has been used as a catalyst in the process of producing oxygen previously, but the new research substitutes more common chemicals. The two independent developments are reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
In one study, chemist Daniel Nocera of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology added cobalt and phosphates to neutral water and then inserted a conductive-glass electrode.
When the researchers applied an electrical current, a dark film formed on the electrode from which tiny pockets of oxygen began to appear, eventually building into a stream of bubbles. That raises the possibility of using solar energy to generate the electricity in daytime and using excess power to get oxygen from water, which could then be stored for use in producing energy when the sun wasn't shining.
"The simplicity of this process is amazing," Luis Echegoyen, director of the National Science Foundation's chemistry division, said in a statement. "Using common and affordable elements, and a glass of water, these chemists may have given us a future way to efficiently obtain oxygen by splitting water."
In the second report, researchers led by Bjorn Winther-Jensen at the Australian Centre for Electromaterials Science, developed an electrode that consists of a conducting polymer on a Goretex membrane. They report that the large surface area of the membrane allows oxygen production at rates close to those of platinum electrodes. Producing hydrogen from water still requires platinum, but Nocera said he expects that to be overcome by ongoing research.
The MIT research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The Australian Research Council supported the work there.