Hydrogen can replace fossil fuels as source of power – Scientist

CANBERRA: Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel has called for hydrogen to replace fossil fuels as an everyday source of power, reported Xinhua news agency.

The United Nations’ landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC) report released on Monday called for coal-fired power generation to be phased out by 2050, and identified hydrogen as a fuel option that must be developed to mitigate global warming.

Melissa Price, Australia’s Minister for the Environment, on Tuesday rejected the key findings of the report despite not having read the whole thing.

Much of Australia’s reluctance to move away from coal stems from the nation’s economy relying on coal exports.

However, Finkel said on Wednesday that Australia had an excellent opportunity to become a world leader in hydrogen exports, saying doing so would “contribute very significantly to the global endeavour” to lower carbon emissions.

“We would be helping Japan, Korea and other countries make their contribution ... from a global point of view, it’s very significant,” he told the medi a yesterday.

Australia’s peak scientific body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), in August opened the door for hydrogen exports by producing high purity hydrogen that can be safely transported and used for mass- energy production.

CSIRO researchers developed a unique membrane that allowed hydrogen that was turned into ammonia for safe transport to be turned back into hydrogen, which was then used to fuel a car, once it reached its destination.

Up until the breakthrough, the transport of hydrogen was considered extremely dangerous because of its high inflammability.