Primary Energy Using Solar and Other Power to Make Hydrogen

Primary Energy Using Solar and Other Power to Make Hydrogen 

The link between solar power in its various manifestations (wind, wave, and hydroelectric power, photovoltaic energy, and even energy from plant matter) and hydrogen energy is fuzzy in many people s minds. A common mistake, made even by some fairly knowledgeable people, is the belief that hydrogen is a source of energy all by itself. It is not. 

To be sure, hydrogen does exist in minuscule percentages in natural gas and therefore could, theoretically at least, be regarded as a source, but that s useless in practical terms. 

Electricity is difficult to store in large enough amounts to meet the needs of a city, a region, or an industry. (Here we leave aside for the moment techniques such as pumped storage —big reservoirs into which water is pumped when the demand for electricity is low so that it can be used to run turbine generators when the demand is high. Typically, electricity has to be consumed the instant it is generated.) 

It is also useful to remember that usable electric power does not exist raw in nature but must be manufactured with complicated machinery drawing on primary sources (oil, coal, uranium, and, preferably now, solar radiation). Usable is the key word here obviously there is electricity in nature, but it is hard to capture the power of a lightning bolt and make it run some piece of machinery. Similarly, hydrogen must be manufactured 

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