The Hydrogen Economy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. The Idiot's Answer To Global Warming: Hydrogen

People have been talking about using hydrogen as a fuel for a long time. G.W. Bush talked about "the hydrogen economy" in the 2003 State of the Union address. And recently, California hit upon hydrogen as the perfect fuel. But there is a problem.

So what is the fundamental flaw in the idea of a hydrogen-based energy economy? Constable puts it this way: “Being highly reactive, elemental hydrogen, H2, is found in only small quantities in nature on the earth’s surface but is present in a very wide range of compounds.” In other words, the hydrogen is not free for the taking, but rather is already combined with something else; and to separate the hydrogen so that you have free hydrogen to use, you need to add energy. Once you have added the energy and you have the free hydrogen, you can burn it. But that’s where the Second Law of Thermodynamics comes in. Due to inevitable inefficiencies in the processes, when you burn the hydrogen, you get back less energy than you expended to free it up. No matter how you approach the problem, the process of freeing up hydrogen and then burning it costs more energy than it generates.

Do you think somebody in our political leadership or bureaucracies might understand this? Don’t count on it.

I'm sure that someone is calling for Congress to repeal the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Perpetual motion would be a wonderful way to solve our energy issues.

There are other problems, such as storage and transportation, and how do you get the hydrogen separated from other elements. Industrial processes use natural gas as a source of hydrogen, but that process releases as much CO2 as if you just burned the natural gas for your energy. Click thru for more details.