Energy Crisis of Unprecedented Proportions, Essay

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Two possible sources of hydrogen fuel are the reforming of methane and the electrolysis of water."4 Both of these foregoing techniques, though, require additional energy to complete their respective processes. For example, reforming methane to create hydrogen requires the combustion of additional methane to provide the heat require for the reformation of the methane into hydrogen.4 As Hiserodt also notes, "Ironically, after using large amounts of energy to free the hydrogen, the resultant hydrogen has a much lower energy content than the natural gas it was freed from."3 Likewise, the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen cannot be accomplished by heating alone based on the significant increase in free energy involved.4 According to Fay and Golomb, "Producing electrolytic hydrogen is very energy inefficient when the electricity is generated by burning a fossil fuel, because the heat value of the hydrogen will be less than one-third of the heating value of the fuel burned in the electric power plant.

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"4 These approaches to producing hydrogen are clearly insufficient and cost-ineffective in terms of the energy trade-offs involved to provide the world with the amount of fuel it will need to replace the existing reliance on fossil fuels, but the payoffs involved in solving these production problems are sufficiently great -- and dire -- that given enough time and resources, researchers may be able to identify superior production methods that do not require such enormous amounts of energy to produce hydrogen in the future. Time is running out, though, and it would be foolhardy and irresponsible for place all of the world's renewable energy eggs in one basket, so to speak, as has been the case with fossil fuels in the past......

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