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Simply put, hydrogen can be burnt in combustion engines in place of traditional fuels, or used in fuel cells, to generate clean power.
Hydrogen is not without its problems though. It is highly flammable, difficult to store, and although it is the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen gas does not occur naturally on Earth. This means that before it can be used as a fuel, hydrogen must first be produced, which is currently both cost and energy intensive.
CSIRO’s Dr Ian Plumb says that scientists have already been working for decades, trying to make the hydrogen economy a reality.
“The hydrogen economy is nothing new,” says Dr Plumb. “It was actually proposed back in the earlier oil shocks back in the early 1980’s, and so people have been working on these problems now for nearly 30 years.
“To be honest we’re still quite a long way away from where these would become economically viable, certainly in the current economic environment. If we had a price on carbon, things might be different but right here and now for example fuel cells are probably a factor of between 10 and a hundred (times) too expensive at the moment, not just a little bit, but a long way, and that’s true also for production and for storage.”
Dr Plumb says that the sheer length of time it is taking to research and develop the technologies necessary to make hydrogen a viable energy source, is in itself a problem.
“The problem then is that when you come to asking an investor to invest in this, you can’t really promise anything on a short timescale, and in general investors want a return on their investment, preferable soon.
“So I think a lot of this investment has got to come from government and a lot of government’s are reluctant to invest on that sort of timescale, just as private companies are – they want to see a return as well these days. So they’re the difficulties we face.”
Dr Plumb’s recent research work at CSIRO concentrated on using solar energy to split water into its component elements, in order to produce a completely clean and renewable energy source.
“The technique was demonstrated by Japanese workers back in the early 70’s,” Dr Plumb says.
“It involves a catalyst which absorbs sunlight, and this catalyst is put into an electrochemical cell. And the result is that water is split into its two components; oxygen and hydrogen.
“So the vision I suppose is that we could make these panels to generate hydrogen, put them out in the desert with a solution in the electrochemical cell – and form hydrogen.
“The challenge is to get the efficiency of the process up so that you don’t need too big an area - that’s fundamentally the problem - although the sunlight is free, you’ve still got to capture it, and if you need an enormous great collector that’s going to be half the size of Australia, it’s never going to be economically viable.
Dr Plumb says that when his research work began, the best efficiencies were down in the one or two per cent efficiency range, of converting sunlight into chemical energy in the form of hydrogen.
“The best figure now is probably up around three per cent, but we probably need something like 10 so we’ve got a long way to go still. And it needs a lot of very clever science to make it work,” he says.
However a major blow came to Dr Plumb’s research efforts recently, when funding for his project was cut. Dr Plumb believes this lack of research investment must be addressed if the hydrogen economy is one day to become a reality.
“A lot of people think that we need a research effort comparable to the Manhattan scheme (which developed the first atomic bomb), to get where we want to get on the timescale we want to get,” Dr Plumb says.
“I don’t know whether it’s quite that bad, but it’s certainly true that not much work is going into these areas worldwide compared to the return that we could get in the long term.
“I think the good thing is that people in general are much more aware of these things, and are probably much more prepared to make sacrifices than they were even five years ago. So there’s a community ground swell I think, and that’s what we really need to make it happen because the politicians ultimately will respond to that.”
Hydrogen is not without its problems though. It is highly flammable, difficult to store, and although it is the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen gas does not occur naturally on Earth. This means that before it can be used as a fuel, hydrogen must first be produced, which is currently both cost and energy intensive.
CSIRO’s Dr Ian Plumb says that scientists have already been working for decades, trying to make the hydrogen economy a reality.
“The hydrogen economy is nothing new,” says Dr Plumb. “It was actually proposed back in the earlier oil shocks back in the early 1980’s, and so people have been working on these problems now for nearly 30 years.
“To be honest we’re still quite a long way away from where these would become economically viable, certainly in the current economic environment. If we had a price on carbon, things might be different but right here and now for example fuel cells are probably a factor of between 10 and a hundred (times) too expensive at the moment, not just a little bit, but a long way, and that’s true also for production and for storage.”
Dr Plumb says that the sheer length of time it is taking to research and develop the technologies necessary to make hydrogen a viable energy source, is in itself a problem.
“The problem then is that when you come to asking an investor to invest in this, you can’t really promise anything on a short timescale, and in general investors want a return on their investment, preferable soon.
“So I think a lot of this investment has got to come from government and a lot of government’s are reluctant to invest on that sort of timescale, just as private companies are – they want to see a return as well these days. So they’re the difficulties we face.”
Dr Plumb’s recent research work at CSIRO concentrated on using solar energy to split water into its component elements, in order to produce a completely clean and renewable energy source.
“The technique was demonstrated by Japanese workers back in the early 70’s,” Dr Plumb says.
“It involves a catalyst which absorbs sunlight, and this catalyst is put into an electrochemical cell. And the result is that water is split into its two components; oxygen and hydrogen.
“So the vision I suppose is that we could make these panels to generate hydrogen, put them out in the desert with a solution in the electrochemical cell – and form hydrogen.
“The challenge is to get the efficiency of the process up so that you don’t need too big an area - that’s fundamentally the problem - although the sunlight is free, you’ve still got to capture it, and if you need an enormous great collector that’s going to be half the size of Australia, it’s never going to be economically viable.
Dr Plumb says that when his research work began, the best efficiencies were down in the one or two per cent efficiency range, of converting sunlight into chemical energy in the form of hydrogen.
“The best figure now is probably up around three per cent, but we probably need something like 10 so we’ve got a long way to go still. And it needs a lot of very clever science to make it work,” he says.
However a major blow came to Dr Plumb’s research efforts recently, when funding for his project was cut. Dr Plumb believes this lack of research investment must be addressed if the hydrogen economy is one day to become a reality.
“A lot of people think that we need a research effort comparable to the Manhattan scheme (which developed the first atomic bomb), to get where we want to get on the timescale we want to get,” Dr Plumb says.
“I don’t know whether it’s quite that bad, but it’s certainly true that not much work is going into these areas worldwide compared to the return that we could get in the long term.
“I think the good thing is that people in general are much more aware of these things, and are probably much more prepared to make sacrifices than they were even five years ago. So there’s a community ground swell I think, and that’s what we really need to make it happen because the politicians ultimately will respond to that.”
