Environmental Impacts of Hydrogen

Abstract

Today the world is facing three critical problems: (1) high fuel prices, (2) climatic changes, and (3) air pollution. Research suggests that current oil and gas reserves are sufficient for only a few more decades. It is well-known that transport is almost totally dependent on fossil fuels, particularly petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline, diesel fuel, liquefied petroleum gas, and compressed natural gas. Petroleumbased fuels are well-established products that have served industry and consumers for more than one hundred years. For the foreseeable future automotive fuels will still be largely based on liquid biorenewables and gaseous biohydrogen. However the time is running out and petroleum, once considered inexhaustible, is now being depleted at a rapid rate. As the amount of available petroleum decreases, the need increases for alternate technologies to produce liquid biorenewables and gaseous biohydrogen fuels that could potentially help prolong the liquid fuels culture and mitigate the forthcoming effects of the shortage of transportation fuels.