Is hydrogen fuel the key to our energy crisis?

ALEX BRUMMER says hydrogenpowered cars will make fossil fuel obsolete (Mail). In your dreams! Hydrogen is an energy carrier and the only economical method of producing hydrogen is by steam reformation of natural gas. This process is already used to make the huge quantity of hydrogen needed to clean petroleum spirit to the EU and American standard. Battery and hydrogen-based vehicles are emission-free at point of use only because emissions such as CO2 are emitted at the point of manufacture. If fossil fuels such as oil are to be made obsolete, then how exactly will Japan export vehicles and cameras across the planet. Or does Brummer believe you can power 200,000-ton container ships on hydrogen as well? Hydrogen and battery electric vehicles are just another green scam. Like wind turbines, they cannot exist without the infrastructure provided by fossil fuel. Being green is a myth that defies, not defines, the laws of physics.

David Wells, address supplied. The same people who promoted intermittent energy (wind and solar) have trumped that with their latest green energy fad — hydrogen fuel. hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it is so reactive that it is seldom found in its elemental state — it combines strongly with other elements such as oxygen to form water or with carbon to form methane. It is an essential component in all acids, alkalis, hydro-carbons and organic materials. To extract hydrogen from natural compounds such as water, methane or coal requires huge inputs of energy. Most commonly, hydrogen is produced from methane gas using heat and steam, or by electrolysis of water using large quantities of electricity. hydrogen can be used to power rockets, cars and engines of all types. however, the energy used to produce hydrogen can never be fully recovered from the energy in the hydrogen. It is, thus, not a source of energy, merely a storehouse — a battery. But hydrogen is a very dangerous gas, difficult to compress, contain and store. It also forms an explosive mixture with air. To provide a network of hydrogen car-fuelling stations, or to suggest hydrogen as a domestic gas, is inviting explosive disasters in the suburbs. To suggest hydrogen can provide base-load power tops all green energy idiocy.

viv Forbes, rosewood, Queensland.