The technology is now available to begin converting from a petroleum-based economy to a hydrogen-based economy.

All three energy sectors (transportation, industry, and heating and cooling buildings) stand to benefit. Of these, the transportation sector will likely have the most profound immediate effect.

Transportation
Research is advancing on fuel cells and many other hydrogen technologies; so we need to begin building the supply and distribution systems to energize these products.

We will not immediately dispose of the 800 million vehicles that are presently in the World. Millions of new internal combustion engine vehicles will be produced before the transition to manufacturing totally clean vehicles can be completed. These new and older cars will be on our roads for at least the next 30 years. Powered with hydrogen, billions of tons of greenhouse gases and pollutants will not be thrust into the air.

Converting internal combustion engines in automobiles can be easily done, with something as simple as a kit that a trained mechanic installs. We have the technology now in place, ready to be commercially produced, for such a conversion to hydrogen for about $2000—an amount that can be rebated via local DOE Clean Cities programs.

After conversion, a control dial on the vehicle control panel can vary the mixture of hydrogen with gasoline from 0-100%, according to availability of refueling sources. This means we will have uninterrupted travel while the country builds or converts the present fueling system to include hydrogen.

Emissions tests for hydrogen-converted vehicles show that the hydrogen system can actually clean the ambient air of hydrocarbons and prevent a host of other pollutants.

Sources of Hydrogen
Currently the primary sources of hydrogen are from natural gas (methane) and petroleum products.

We will have to rely on petroleum for years to come. Converting now depends on working with petroleum companies to incorporate their existing marketing and infrastructure into needed means of producing, transporting, storing, and dispensing hydrogen.

Research is striving to improve renewable methods of generating hydrogen (from livestock waste, landfill biomass, wastewater sludge, chemical reactions, and electricity from solar, wind, and water power). Harvesting hydrogen from these sources can make it a completely renewable resource.

Series of Transitions
Converting to the hydrogen economy is a two-step process: first a transition, when both conventional fuels and hydrogen will be available and used, and second when hydrogen alone will be used. The complete transition will stretch at least a decade. It could even take 20 years before we produce hydrogen from completely renewable resources. The transition can be done in a very short period of time if all the people of the world put their collective efforts into it and demand that it be done.
 

The world’s fuel systems continue to evolve, and no single fuel will meet all mankind’s energy needs forever. Let’s start this important next step together!