Did you know that the Hydrogen Economy is about 50 years old?
For those who think that this is an environmentalist thing…
For those who think that this is an invention of climate change advocates…
Many times we meet people who think that hydrogen is a modern invention to keep big business in power and further subjugate the people. Note that these are not our words but the words of, let’s call them, ignorant daredevils.
Well, we would like to make an entry in which we talk about how old the Hydrogen Economy is. The Hydrogen Economy is from the 70’s, yes, from the 70’s, basically from the oil crisis. We were not even born then and many of you would have been very young. Some textbooks place the defossilization and vectorization of hydrogen in the 1920s with John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, a British geneticist and evolutionary biologist, who even then talked about harnessing surplus wind power through electrolysis of water. Here, we would like to stop and think that these statements are 100 years old.
If we turn the clock forward 50 years to the 1970s, we enter the oil crisis, when people began to become aware of the problems of air pollution and dependence on third parties for the economic development of countries. This lost momentum in the 80s when the risk of lack of supply ended and prices returned to pre-established values. In any case, the seventies left gems of Hydrogen Economics such as: “Toward a Liquid Hydrogen Fuel Economy” by Larence W. Jones of the University of Michigan. The concept presented by W. Jones talked about using nuclear energy to generate hydrogen and eventually replacing it with solar energy.
In 1972, John Bockris published an article titled “A Hydrogen Economy” where he proposed solutions that are once again being discussed today, such as:
- The distribution through pipelines and conversion back into electricity via fuel cells.
- The hybrid use of fuel cells and batteries for the mobility of trains, trucks, ships, and automobiles.
- The use of liquid hydrogen in aviation.
- Iron ore reduction using hydrogen.
It’s incredible to read this and realize that it was written 50 years ago. Half a century. In 1975, Bockris wrote a book titled “Energy: The Solar-Hydrogen Alternative.”
As we’ve explained, hydrogen as an energy vector is not a new concept. In fact, it’s an old concept that, no matter how much we discard it, always returns because there’s really nothing like it. There’s nothing as massive as electrolytic hydrogen, which can also be complemented with bio-hydrogen. Moreover, now, supporting and complementing the weaknesses of this light molecule, we have hydrogen carriers like methanol, ammonia, or LOHCs.
So, in summary, don’t be fooled, this is not a “modern eco-friendly nonsense” nor “the new order of big corporations.” This is a serious solution to an even more serious problem.
If you’ve made it this far (we didn’t make it too hard, it was a short article), we want you to know that at Lean Hydrogen we can help you with your hydrogen project. We are a consulting and hydrogen engineering firm specialized in projects such as:
- Production via electrolysis,
- Transport and road distribution,
- Injection into natural gas (blending), and
- Mobility (hydrogen stations and refueling stations).
Visit our blog “Lean Hydrogen” for more interesting content about this gas: https://leanhydrogen.whdev.es/blog/
Source: Hydrogen Production by Water Electrolysis. Edited by T.Smolinka and J. Garche. 2022. Elsevier
