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Hydrogen as a Clean Energy Carrier

Abstract In this chapter, the role of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier is discussed. In the first part of the chapter, a historical perspective on hydrogen exploration, production, and use is presented. It appears that the modern world evolved from a mechanization period (when heat engines were developed to generate motive force from fossil fuels) to an electrification era (when the motive power developed by power plants is converted to electricity to supply large national or regional grids) and to a hydrogenation era (when the energy from primary sources is converted by clean processes to hydrogen as an energy carrier). It is argued that the hydrogenation era just started and will be implemented during the first century of the current millennium. Furthermore, this section reviews the main national/regional research programs deployed in the last 20 years on hydrogen research. Various uses of hydrogen including as energy carrier in transportation sector, energy storage medium, and greenhouse gas reduction agent are discussed in detail. It is shown for a case study of comprehensive life cycle analysis that among six vehicle types hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles show the greatest potential. Also, the use of ammonia as synthetic fuel produced from clean hydrogen and nitrogen represents an attractive alternative to conventional fuels for vehicles.

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Historical Perspective

Modern society requires many types of services to maintain a good standard of living: electricity, hot water, space heating, air-conditioning, fuels, various chemicals and materials, etc. Traditional methods of producing these commodities are primarily driven by combustion of fossil fuels which is a major contributor to air pollution. The global population and its demand for these services are rapidly increasing, so the rising use of fossil fuels has a major impact on climate change.

G.F. Naterer et al., Hydrogen Production from Nuclear Energy, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-4938-5_1, # Springer-Verlag London 2013

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1 Hydrogen as a Clean Energy Carrier

This scenario explains the worldwide motivation to develop cleaner, more efficient production methods, which will be eventually able to replace or supplement traditional processes by incorporating sustainable energy sources and hydrogen technologies. Hydrogen is a clean energy carrier because it can be generated by low- or zero-carbon sources (e.g., nuclear, water, biomass, solar). Subsequently hydrogen can be converted to electricity, synthetic fuels, or heat with little or no environmental pollution. Additionally, hydrogen is an important chemical that enters the constituency of many materials used in industry and society: plastics, foods, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, metallic materials, construction materials, etc. For cleaner generation of hydrogen, there is less pollution from the production of such hydrogencontaining materials. Therefore, hydrogen itself can be viewed as a critical commodity for future society, which can replace or at least complement fos