PEV/PHEV=plug in electric vehicles (typical electric cars that plug into the wall, etc.)
FCEV=fuel cell electric vehicle. Essentially converts hydrogen to electricity. Fuelling hydrogen cars works basically the same as fueling current gasoline powered vehicles— hydrogen stations, etc. However, there are safety concerns and a lack of infrastructure and production capabilities in the squo.
Sufiy is completely unqualified, but he cites studies.
Gorski and Carlson are sorta qualified—I couldn’t find their quals but they have field experience

OTEC solves and existing infrastructure is enough for a hydrogen economy
Gorski 08
(George Gorski has been working in the Instrument Engineering field for the last 35 years for various pipeline, oil refining, petrochemical and mining companies. Gorski, G. “Global Warming Up to a Hydrogen Economy,” Seeking Alpha, April 14, 2008, http://seekingalpha.com/article/72150-global-warming-up-to-a-hydrogen-economy//ghs-kw)
Hydrogen Infrastructure may look much the same as today’s, but the power plants behind the walls of those familiar looking buildings may have changed. Hydro lines and pipelines rights of way may more or less remain the same. The existing natural gas transmission system infrastructure
(for example TransCanada Pipelines, Enbridge) hydrogen resistant pipelines may be carrying hydrogen rather than natural gas and oil . Instead of natural gas and oil furnaces to heat our homes, it may be hydrogen converted by fuel cells into electrical heat energy
.
Almost simultaneously the Gasification of Coal may be used to produce hydrogen. Current coal producers (example, ARCH (NYSE:ACI),
Peabody (NYSE:BTU), Fording) may eventually surpass natural gas producers as the source of hydrogen due to the low cost of coal. Multinationals (example, GE, Sasol (NYSE:SSL)) that currently sell Coal Gasification & Natural Gas (or Syn Gas) Steam Reforming Technologies may most likely be the first commercial manufacturers of hydrogen equipment. Some of these industries may eventually fail to survive if they are unable to manufacture equipment that economically eliminates carbon dioxide generation. Existing Natural gas and coal fired power plant owners
(examples, Peabody, TransAlta (TPERF.PK), TransCanadaPipelines) may be legislated to eliminate the carbon dioxide by-product and may be forced out of business, if the technology in unavailable or uneconomical.
Microwave technology
(example, Global Research
(OTC:GBRC), Chevron (NYSE:CVX)) may become a means of hydrogen production in the future
. It may replace those processes that produce hydrogen, but are unable to eliminate carbon dioxide by-products economically or legally. Microwave technology may be used some day to convert depleted oil wells, methane, tires, plastic, oil sands, crude oil, wood chips and most all carbon hydrocarbons into a source hydrogen and carbon black. Multi-nationals (Suncor, PetroCanada) currently processing oil sands using from conventional methods may one day be legislated into using non carbon dioxide producing processes, such as microwave technology, or face extinction. Existing natural gas and coal fired power plants producing electricity may one day be replaced with multiple banks of large scale fuel cells.
Manufacturers
(examples, Siemens (SI), ABB (NYSE:ABB), GE) of a combination of HVAC and HVDC power grids may one day benefit by interfacing their hardware into the existing and new infrastructure.
HVDC may replace HVAC for those applications requiring long transmission lines because of easier control of power flow, lower losses, higher transmission capacity, and lower cost due to fewer lines. Connection of fuel cell sources to the power grid require the use of a DC-DC converter from certain manufactures (for example, American Semiconductor (NASDAQ:AMSC)) that are used to first boost the voltage to the correct level and an inverter to convert the DC power to AC for connection to the power grid.
The current sell-off of manufacturing technology licences to Middle East, Asian interests and others may provide the development funds for new hydrogen technologies and elemental compound building block nano-technology
. Conversion to Hydrogen Society
Hydrogen may emerge as the cleanest, most self generating, most abundant and pollution free of all energy sources. It has been demonstrated that vehicles can be powered with
a combination of hydrogen fuel cells
and electrical batteries. Homes and businesses may be the main centres for recharging car batteries and refuelling personal vehicles. New hydrogen fuel dispensing companies (for example Air Products (NYSE:AIR)) may replace present day multi-nationals (for example, Suncor, Petro Canada,
ExxonMobile).
Highway service centre infrastructure may look the same but modified to include battery recharge and hydrogen fuel dispensing facilities. Re-charging and re-fuelling highway vehicles may not be an issue.
The time taken may be no longer than the time to have a leisurely meal.
Hydrogen may also be produced by manufacturers of water electrolysis equipment
(example, Distributed Energy
(DESC)). Non potable sources of water and sea water shall be first purified using reverse osmosis technology equipment
(example, H2O Innovation, Consolidated Water Company (NASDAQ:CWCO)). Sources of electrical energy for electrolysis and hydrogen production may be generated by equipment made by fuel cell manufacturers (example, Ballard Power
(NASDAQ:BLDP)). Electrolysis of water taken from seawater may offer other benefits.
Ocean water
(example, San Francisco, CA) is generally cold and can be used for a heat exchange medium in commercial buildings. The seawater may be
returned clean to the sea in a location where it can be mixed and allowed to return to its original salinity after partial

separation, to be considered environmentally friendly
. Some of the water may be used for agriculture in semi-arid areas (US southwest).

Hydrogen economy is coming now, but cheap hydrogen is key to solve—economics are ready and it’s just as safe as gasoline powered vehicles
Lounsbury 10
(John Lounsbury holds a BA in Chemistry and Mathematics from the University of Vermont, a Masters in Chemistry from Columbia
University, and a PhD in Chemistry and Physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology. John Lounsbury is Managing Editor and Cofounder of Global Economic Intersection, provides comprehensive financial planning and investment advisory services to a small number of families. He has a background which includes 34 years with a major international corporation, 25 years in R&D management and corporate staff positions. More recently he was a Series 6, 7, 63 licensed representative with a major insurance company brokerage from 1992 to 2001. Since 2002 he has operated his own sole proprietorship business. Specific interests include political and economic history, econometric analysis and investment strategy analysis. He is also founding partner and managing editor of EconIntersect.com.
Lounsbury, J. “Hydrogen Fuel Economy: Not Dead Yet,” Seeking Alpha, February 1, 2010. http://seekingalpha.com/article/185871hydrogen-fuel-technology-not-dead-yet//ghs-kw)
With the furor over the potential for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars recently, one might think the hydrogen car was dead. Nothing could be further from the truth. Feasibility at an affordable price appears to be established and market availability of hydrogen powered cars may come sooner than you think
. Many issues remain to be addressed and this article will try to cover them
. The problems to be overcome are not insurmountable,
but are also not trivial.
These problems include the economics of hydrogen production, transportation
, distribution and storage systems, as well as safety issues for cars involved in collisions. Alan Ohnsman, writing for Bloomberg, reports that
GM
(GMGMQ.PK),
Toyota
(NYSE:TM) ,
Daimler
AG (DAI) and other car makers want to start supplying cars fueled by hydrogen
as soon as six years from now.
Quoting from the article: “
The advances that have been made by the automobile manufacturers are remarkable ,” said Scott Samuelsen, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine.
“Infrastructure is the Achilles’ heel.” The fuel cell center opened in 1998 and is funded mainly by the U.S. government and California Energy
Commission. It has also received grants from Toyota and Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s hydrogen unit, said Kathy Haq, a spokeswoman for the center.”
Here is a picture of a Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.B) hydrogen fueling station in New York City, discussed in a Seeking Alpha Instablog in
August. According to the Ohnsman article, the economic factors are starting to line up for hydrogen.
He quotes a Toyota objective of a $3,600 price premium for a hydrogen fuel cell powered car. This compares to the current price premium for the Synergy
Hybrid Drive system from Toyota, currently averaging around $4,000 for the Camry. This is quite a change from the $1,000,000 price tag estimated to build one of these vehicles just a few years ago. Advantages of Hydrogen Fuel Cells over Batteries To understand the significance of this topic, one must first recognize how the hydrogen fuel cell powers a vehicle. Hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles are electric vehicles.
Hydrogen is not burned like a hydrocarbon fuel. Hydrocarbons are storage media for thermal energy which is released for power in an internal combustion engine. The hydrogen fuel cell is a storage medium for electrical energy, which is released when hydrogen and oxygen are combined electrochemically to release electricity. The hydrogen fuel cell is conceptually a battery, providing electricity to power an electric car. Unlike other battery powered cars, the fuel cell uses an onboard source of energy (hydrogen “fuel”) to generate electricity and does not have to stop to be recharged.
The advantage of hydrogen powered cars is basically a long driving range, requiring only a fuel refill like internal combustion cars do today.
The hydrogen powered car has advantages for long trips, though for daily commutes under 100 miles round trip, the operational convenience of battery and fuel cell energy storage is similar. In fact, it could be argued that the convenience of plugging in within your own garage to recharge batteries is more convenient than finding a refueling station every few hundred miles. The ultimate decision for most commuters will be which power source is cheaper. Fuel Cost The most convenient metric to compare fuel costs across the ICE (internal combustion engine) – electric drive interface is the fuel cost per mile. Miles per gallon (mpg) becomes an awkward measurement. Consumers while be required to start thinking in terms of cost per mile because that will become the comparative price on the new car sticker. According to CostPerMile.org, the electricity “fuel” cost per mile
(CPM) for electric cars will be between $0.01 and $0.05.
Currently, electric utility charges per KWH (kilowatt hour) run between $0.10 an $0.15 in most of the U.S., so most of this large range in costs must be associated with the difference in engineering technology and size of the vehicle. Since I like a larger car, my example will compare to a mid-size Toyota Camry Hybrid. The assumed cpm for an equivalent electric car will be $0.05. (Disclosure: I own a Camry hybrid.)
At $2.50 per gallon (near the national average price as this is written), the Camry has a cpm of $0.07; at $3.50 per gallon, the cpm is $0.10.
I have used 35 mpg for the Camry hybrid. This is 3% higher than the sticker and 10% lower than my actual experience. For the standard Camry the cpm would be $0.08 and $0.11 (highway and city, respectively) at $2.50 per gallon and $0.11 and $0.16 at $3.50 per gallon.
The sticker mileage numbers have been used for the ICE Camry. These fuel costs are summarized in the following table. If the range available with an all-electric car is sufficient, then customer acceptance will require that purchase costs (and maintenance costs, which will be ignored here) to be such that the purchase price difference is more than recovered in, say, 100,000 miles. The cost savings for city driving at $2.50 per gallon for gasoline is $6,000 per 100,000 miles of driving, compared to an ICE car. At $3.50 per gallon the cost savings would be $11,000. If two cars are available for our commuter and the electric car purchase cost difference is less than $5,000 more, there will be a big market. If the

purchase price is $12,000 more, the market will be limited until the cost of gasoline exceeds $3.50-$4.00 per gallon. In an August 6 press release
(here), Toyota reported the results of a one-time driving test comparing a Toyota Hybrid Highlander with a new 4th generation fuel cell equipped
Highlander Hybrid. In that test, the cpm for the production hybrid was more than double the cost for the fuel cell equipped model. I am taking this test result with a grain of salt because it was a one-time test. The remaining comparison to be made is hydrogen fuel cells to plug-in electric vehicles. Hydrogen requires power for production by electrolysis of water. If the same power is used that is available at the residential power plug, all the added costs of handling, storing, transporting and distributing hydrogen are added to the costs that one has at his own power plug.
Hydrogen is very uncompetitive on a cost basis with other sources of power
in this scenario. If the cost of gasoline goes much higher than the $3.50 we have in our examples, then hydrogen might compete there. But hydrogen can never compete with electricity for local driving (right now under 100 miles per day) if the same electricity source is used for both battery recharging and fuel cell operation. Never forget that a hydrogen fuel cell is nothing more than another form of battery, wherein a chemical reaction produces electrical current. A hydrogen fuel cell car is an electric car. Can Hydrogen be Produced with Cheap Power
? Do sources of electrical power exist that are cheaper than what we produce (or can produce in the future) for domestic consumption? The short answer: Yes.
(Well, maybe.)
One possible source of cheap electrical energy is from ocean currents that have a large temperature differential between the surface currents and those at depths of 1000 feet or so. This process is called OTEC
,
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion. (Click to enlarge) The above graphic, from The World Energy Council 2007 Survey of World Energy
Resources (here), shows that most of the areas with the largest thermal differentials occur in areas that are too far from populated shorelines to make feasible electricity generation for transmission into a power grid. Temperature differentials of 20 degrees Celsius or more are necessary for efficient power generation. The cost estimates for power from OTEC are somewhat problematic. The World Energy Council estimates that a single 10MW demonstration plant would produce electricity at a cost somewhere between $0.14 and $0.21 per KWH, depending on factors such as recovery of potable water and marketable chemicals such as ammonia and various salts. The existence of carbon tax credits could lower the costs further by as much as $0.03. It is only with the building of multiple plants of the same design that costs may come down below $0.12, the reference cost for existing electricity generation. For example, eight 10 MW plants could produce electricity at a cost between $0.098 and $0.119.
There is potential here, but the costs have to come down
more to bring electricity from OTEC to a price to make hydrogen production economically attractive. Remember, we need to transport this hydrogen from the point of generation by ocean going tanker and distribute it by truck or rail tanker (or pipeline) to retail points. Another potential source of electricity for hydrogen production is wave and tidal motion. To supply electricity for a power grid, the waves and tides must be close to populated shore lines. Wave motion can be used anywhere for hydrogen production, not just where it occurs close to populated shore lines. The same is true for tidal action in remote regions of the planet. The picture below, from New Scientist (here), shows a SeaGen tidal electricity generator, made by Sea Generation Ltd, in the tidal currents at Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland. Sea Generation is a division of privately held Marine Current Turbine Ltd. Generation costs for electricity from capital costs alone will be about $0.07 per KWH for a 25 year depreciation. There will be additional unspecified maintenance and operation costs. Wave action can also be used to generate electricity. The picture below (from New Scientist - here) shows a wave operated electrical power generator in a generation farm off the north coast of Portugal. These generators are made by privately held Pelamis Wave Power
Ltd. Each generator is a 150-meter-long steel jointed structure, which flexes to drive hydraulic generators and produce 750 kilowatts of power.
The company claims electricity generation a competitive costs, but provides no specifics. The reasons I selected these examples as potential hydrogen generation power sources are:
1. Potential for a lower electricity price point; 2. Electricity generated with plentiful raw material (water) present to produce hydrogen; and 3. With
OTEC, the potential for additional revenue from side products. Ultimately, hydrogen may have the most attractive economic scenario as an energy storage medium to level supply and demand fluctuations for alternative energy sources connected to the grid.
With more and more wind capacity being installed, there is a problem of not needing all the electricity at some times of peak production and not having enough production (the wind stops blowing) at times of high demand (a heat wave). Hydrogen is a storage medium to be considered when water is available. It has the additional advantage over other storage technologies in being an easily portable storage vehicle, including being put directly into fuel cell power transportation devices. This will be analyzed in a future article. Battery Costs vs. Fuel Cell Costs The implications from currently available information are that the costs and durability will be similar. The current objective for Toyota is to have a price premium for hybrids less than the current price premium for a hybrid. The latest generation fuel cell engine is about the same size as a typical 4-cylinder ICE engine and contains about 30 grams of platinum. This is down from the previous generation fuel cell stack which was more than twice the size and contained 80 grams of platinum. The costs just for the platinum alone have been reduced from more than $4,000 in the previous generation to less than $1,500 in the current one. The final fuel cell structure is expected to use only 10 grams of platinum, the same amount as a typical catalytic converter today. The dramatic change from the previous generation hydrogen fuel cell stack power system to the current generation is seen in the following picture from AutoBlogGreen.com (here), showing the latest fuel cell drive system on the left next to the drive system used in the past few years in the Chevy Equinox test vehicles that have been driven by volunteers in California, Washington, DC and New York. The power, range and performance of the two systems are the same. The horsepower rating is the equivalent of a current four-cylinder ICE.
Transportation of Fuel and Wholesale Distribution The technology for distribution by tanker truck and railway car exists today. You can not spend a few hours on any interstate highway near a population center without seeing several pressurized gas tank transports sharing the roadway with you. Pipeline distribution for pressurized hydrogen gas may require different features than currently use for natural gas, but there is no reason to believe that the engineering and construction would present any more challenges or costs. Currently, there is no data reflecting transportation and wholesale distribution impediments to scaling up the use of hydrogen to higher volumes. Retail Distribution The cost to build a new gasoline station has been estimated to be in the $250,000 to $450,000, with the largest variable being land cost, using estimates obtained from national average costs at RS Means Cost Works (here). Obviously, where land costs are extremely dear, near the center of major cities, for example, the cost to build a gasoline station could be much higher, up to $1,000,000 or more. The cost of building the first 32 hydrogen refueling stations in Southern California has been quoted as $32 million. As high as this cost projection is, it is less than the current cost for a hydrogen

refueling pump in Los Angeles, according to Phil Baxley, President of Shell Hydrogen, quoted in the Ohnsman article. He said currently the cost is from $1 million to $5 million per pump, depending on capacity. Even the lower quoted cost, averaging $1 million each for 32 stations, seems to be more costly than all but the most expensive gasoline stations. However, there are three factors related to hydrogen refueling stations that mean this apparent current cost difference may decrease or even be reversed.
These are:
1. externality cost exposures for gas stations; 2. lower costs for hydrogen stations in the future through economies of scale; and 3. lower costs to add hydrogen to existing gas stations than to build new.
There are major externality exposures for petroleum based fueling stations.
The biggest exposure pertains to future liabilities for soil and ground water contamination by petroleum products and fuel additives. When these externalities are realized, they can be more than
the original construction cost (even adjusted for inflation) and occasionally are many millions of dollars. Hydrogen refueling stations do not have these environmental cost exposures.
When the initial costs and the externalities are considered, the refueling stations for hydrogen have an original construction cost of the same order as petroleum fuel stations . Hydrogen refueling stations may decrease in construction cos ts from the estimates for the first 32 stations in Southern California when many hundreds are constructed per year.
If hydrogen were to become ubiquitous, there might be a few thousand new stations per year for a couple of years
. A more likely progression would be the modification of existing gas stations to also offer hydrogen refueling facilities at a fraction of the cost of building new stations.
Other countries have more advanced plans for infrastructure development. Both
Japan and Germany are working to build large scale distribution networks
, with over 1,000 stations on line for each county in five years.
Safety To start with, we must recognize that hydrogen would not be replacing something that did not have an extremely high fire and explosion hazard. We have managed to live with the risks of gasoline for more than a century, with the material being stored in thin walled tanks that can easily rupture. Hydrogen, a pressurized gas, would be stored in thick walled, virtually indestructible tanks. Pressurized gases are handled in such containers in a variety of industrial environments today and have been for most of the past 100 years. There are few examples of these tanks being breached.
The risks have been associated with the pressure reduction valves (regulating the controlled release of the gas) being broken by impact damage.
The major risk associated with using hydrogen will be the exposure to the fuel lines being damaged and allowing the tanks to lose pressure rapidly, turning them into jet propelled missiles. The pressurized gas tank as a missile is the major safety hazard. It is not insignificant, but should not be an insurmountable problem. Conclusion There are still a lot of questions to be answered, but one thing is clear: hydrogen powered cars are not dead. In congested metropolitan areas where electrical costs are high, hydrogen may become widely utilized.
The further advantage of much longer travel ranges may also give hydrogen an additional edge over plug in alternatives.

Not sure I recommend reading this card, but if you do make sure you read more cards on hydrogen economy infrastructure and etc. You can also read it with the fuel efficiency stuff from the desal aff.
STAR THIS CARD—it’s the best card you’ll ever hear on the hydrogen economy— assumes all their offense and none of it matters
Carlson 14
(Randy Carlson is an engineer and longtime technical consultant specializing in control and instrumentation systems for medical, industrial, vehicle and aerospace companies. Carlson, R. “Tesla’s Fuel Cell Threat,” Seeking Alpha, July 8, 2014, http://seekingalpha.com/article/2303255-teslas-fuel-cell-threat//ghs-kw)
There has been a lot of talk about fuel cells.
Several large automakers are thinking of using fuel cells instead of large Tesla style batteries to power electric cars. BMW (OTCPK:BAMXY),
Honda (NYSE:HMC), Hyundai (OTC:HYMPY), General Motors (NYSE:GM), and even
Toyota (NYSE:TM) are looking at fuel cells with a view to building cheaper, lighter, fasterto-refuel electric vehicles
. Toyota's decision to focus on fuel cell hybrids is particularly troubling because Toyota is an early Tesla investor and even purchased Tesla batteries / drivetrains for their RAV4ev. While Mr. Musk has evaluated fuel cell technology as emanating from bovine backsides, a more sober assessment may be of interest to investors at this point. Let's begin with what a fuel cell car is and how it compares with a long range BEV.
A "fuel cell car" is really a hybrid car, where the ICE is replaced with a hydrogen-to-electricity conversion system - the fuel cell
. Like an ICE based hybrid, fuel cell cars also have a small battery that stores regenerated electricity when the car slows down and provides supplementary power during acceleration
. The small battery is necessary because fuel cells can only convert hydrogen into electricity. Fuel cells cannot convert electricity from regenerative braking back into hydrogen. The conventional battery in a fuel cell car needs to be bigger than the battery in an ICE hybrid. Fuel cells respond to changing load more slowly than an ICE and fuel cells must heat up (to about 80C) before they can deliver full power, so the battery must operate the car for longer periods. Toyota's recently announced fuel cell car has a 21 kWh battery - roughly half the size of the battery in the all electric RAV4ev. Comparing Batteries to Fuel Cells -
What Matters? Fuel cells are a terrible technical solution compared to a simple, large battery for building an electric car. Fuel cells are complicated. Fuel cells require expensive
Platinum for catalyst layers. High pressure
(10,000 psi!) hydrogen storage tanks are expensive and potentially very dangerous. Refueling stations are few, very costly, difficult to maintain and potentially explosive. Distribution of high pressure hydrogen by dedicated pipelines or fleets of specialized fuel trucks will be problematic. Hydrogen fuel costs, and will continue to cost, more than electricity - very much more than electricity if it is made using electricity . No thoughtful engineer sees fuel cells as the simplest, most direct, most reliable,
"best" solution in comparison to the large battery electric car.
And what engineers think in this regard doesn't matter. At all.
What does matter is whether fuel cells will allow car makers to make more money making cars than they can using batteries. Period.
Complexity of fuel cells will not deter car manufacturers who already build high pressure fuel injection systems, computer controlled piston engines and emission control systems that already use platinum catalysts. All of the problems of making and distributing hydrogen are not problems for car makers. Oil companies have sufficient motivation to do whatever it takes to defend the "gas station" model for fueling cars, and oil companies have access to whatever amounts of money it may take to roll out hydrogen fueling infrastructure. If hydrogen costs the consumer more than electricity, or if the consumer can't get their hydrogen fuel from solar panels on their garage, well too bad for

consumers .
The simple fact is that the low cost of electric fuel has not driven consumers to BEVs so far, and there is little indication that fuel cost savings are going to drive BEV sales into the millions any time soon.
So, if fuel cell complexity, platinum use, hydrogen availability, cost and distribution don't matter, what characteristic of fuel cells makes them more attractive and batteries less attractive for powering electric cars? The simple answer is weight. If the drivetrain weighs less, the entire car will weigh less, and because of the "knock-on" effect, any weight savings in the drivetrain gets multiplied. At the end of the day, a lighter car costs less to make. This is what matters.
Toyota's view is nicely presented here. (click to enlarge) Comparison of Fuel Cell and Battery Drivetrains Both fuel cell and battery electric cars have a motor and inverter that propel the car and capture kinetic energy on braking. The size, weight and cost of these components will be essentially the same for either drivetrain approach.
The energy storage component - the fuel cell and small battery or the large battery - is where the weight difference comes in. Battery weight is of course a very important factor in electric vehicle design
. Tesla's Model S is several hundred pounds heavier than the ICE sport sedans against which it competes. But, battery specific energy (Wh/kg) is improving, and the weight of electric car batteries will go down over time
. In fact, improvements in Li-ion battery specific energy will be the key to making electric cars disruptive to the ICE car business
. The question is whether the fuel cell solution will be lighter than the battery solution in the future.
Improved batteries will make both the fuel cell solution and the big battery solutions lighter,
but this will have a greater impact on the big battery approach because the battery in the fuel cell solution is much smaller.
The issue hinges on what the fuel cell system - the cell stack, hydrogen storage tanks, plumbing, pumps... - will weigh as this technology continues to develop
. To understand why many car makers are interested in fuel cells, I built a model that compares the weight of fuel cell and battery energy storage components for a future electric car roughly the size of Tesla's proposed Gen III. Specifically, I compared a 50 kWh battery pack with a fuel cell system delivering 30 kW and storing 4 kg of hydrogen. More detail about this model later. An Interesting Result The following chart shows quite an interesting result.
Using battery cells storing 250 - 260 Wh/kg, the big battery weighs more than the fuel cell plus small battery by 80 kg.
This is where the storage component of a Tesla Gen III size car would be today using the battery technology in the current Model S. Remember too that this weight penalty will be multiplied by the knock-on effect so the difference in vehicle weight would likely be 120 kg or more in favor of the fuel cell solution. This is precisely the kind of difference between fuel cells and batteries that car makers understand and that can drive their decision process. And this is exactly the difference that could see fuel cells make roadkill out of Tesla and their shareholders.

Maybe this can be a k link or something but for now I guess it’s a no solvency card for warming…
No solvency—global agreements are key but no nation will jump onto the train even if
America takes the lead—trying to solve warming kills their economies
Palmer 07
(Felix Palmer received a Master of Physics from Oxford University. He is currently working freelance as a full stack developer. He has worked for Metaswitch Networks. Palmer, F. “Physics:
Saviour of the Planet?” Physics Education, Volume 42, No. 6, November 1, 2007. https://www.iop.org/activity/groups/subject/env/prize/file_40767.pdf//ghs-kw) lthough this is quite low, the amount of energy available is so huge that capturing even a small proportion is extremely useful. Unlike a lot of
'green' technologies, once running, OTEC can produce energy continuously. It is potentially (for our current needs anyway) an infinite source of energy. It is not dependent on the availability of oil, it produces no emissions and there is no waste-product at the end of the process - in contrast with nuclear power. There are other uses for the cool water obtained from the ocean: it can be used to air-condition buildings (directly or using a heat-exchanger) or for mineral extraction. OTEC has been tested and does work and there are several systems running profitably such as NELHA
2 , an
OTEC
facility in Hawaii.
Thus it may seem at first sight that science has all the answers , but in fact the situation is more complex. We need to examine why it is that we do not have new green power plants appearing around the globe, alongside or better still replacing their carbon-producing relatives.
The ideas have been laid down; now we have to occupy ourselves with their implementation. We are not being held back by lack of scientific knowledge but by political and economic constraints.
Essentially, at the heart of the problem is the reluctance of any individual nation to lead the way into a new, greener future. Every government, at least in principle, will agree that a greener, less polluted world is better for us all . But no government is currently prepared to make the environment the focus of its political endeavours.
What we have here - on a global scale - is similar to a famous game theory thought experiment: the prisoner's dilemma
. The prisoner's dilemma 3 is as follows:
Two convicts, A and B, are arrested by the police. Because the police do not have enough evidence to convict either of them, they offer each of the prisoners a deal: if one testifies for the prosecution of the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer walks free and the other prisoner receives the full sentence in jail for the crime. If neither admits to the crime, they both receive a short sentence for a minor charge. If both betray each other, they both receive a medium-length sentence. Each prisoner must make his decision in isolation.
Prisoner B remains silent Prisoner B betrays Prisoner A remains silent
Both get 6 months in jail B walks free, whereas A spends 10 years in jail Prisoner A betrays A walks free, whereas B spends 10 years in jail Both receive 2 years in jail
In this problem a dilemma arises because although cooperation is beneficial for the group, betrayal benefits one prisoner at the expense of the other. Of course, if they both get greedy and betray each other they are both dealt a substantial punishment. This can be compared to the global situation at the moment by replacing prisoners with countries.
If we only consider (for simplicity) two countries we have: Country B acts to prevent climate change Country B ignores climate change Country A acts to prevent climate change Both spend money but also both profit from end result A has to spend more money and so its economy falls behind B Country A ignores climate change B has to spend more money and so its economy falls behind A Problem slowly gets worse, until eventually both suffer This idea works no matter how many countries are involved, in fact the more there are the worse the problem is
. It illustrates how if a lone country tries to tackle the

problem (properly) on its own it will cost itself a lot of money and put its future at risk.
More importantly, as climate change is a global issue, the work one isolated nation does will help not just itself but the entire planet, meaning that everybody gains whereas only one nation has to pay.
For example, if Russia stopped producing emissions completely it would cut the total emissions worldwide by 5.9% 4 , but instead of stabilising its own environment, it would probably ruin its economy and globally its sacrifice would amount to almost nothing. It is clear that the only possible solution is global cooperation.
But world governments are unwilling to commit themselves to this; the rich and therefore dominant nations do not want to threaten their position, whilst the poor have little control and aside from this produce such a negligible fraction of world emissions that their effect on climate change is minimal. This reluctance to cut emissions stems from the same cause as the lack of real investment into new technologies: there is a global unwillingness to risk political and economic power for the sake of the environment.
This lack of co-operative action is inherently counter-productive and very damaging to the environment. In order to develop a realistic and effective approach to climate change, we must go beyond the simplistic assumption that technology alone has the key.
Saving the environment and realistic economics are not polar opposites; they can be made to work alongside each other. Erasing our carbon footprints and repairing the damage done should not be viewed as a menacing cost but as a joint economic and scientific challenge with the goal of improving the standard of living for future generations.
There have been several ideas on how to utilise our capitalist economic system to help cut emissions.
For example, carbon trading schemes have been introduced: countries are allocated a certain level of permissible emissions and when they emit more they must buy 'carbon credits' from countries which emit less.
Such schemes are excellent in theory, creating a cap on global emissions and giving an economic incentive to go green. But they are utterly useless if not implemented globally because they will hurt the economies of those who stick to the scheme as they will be unable to compete with the countries which have no ecological obligation. We have arrived back at the prisoner's dilemma and illustrated how lack of compromise and co-operation between nations is the true problem behind the escalation of climate change. Economics is often cited as an obstruction to environmentally-friendly development. For example, a frequently-heard excuse not to build greener power plants is their cost. We are told that until their cost becomes comparable to existing alternatives they are not economically viable.
The answer here is not to expect science to lower costs miraculously but to tax the polluting technologies heavily, thus making the green alternative cheaper and so more profitable.
The money generated from this tax can be used in subsidising green technology, making it possible to operate profitably. Recently the Stern report estimated the cost of not tackling climate change to be £3.68 trillion 5 .
The need to justify action on climate change by means of quantifying it financially may be a sad reflection on our capitalist society, but if this is what it takes to bring about change then we should be prepared to look at environmental problems in terms of economics. It has been suggested that the price of effectively tackling climate change could be paid by sacrificing a year's worth of global economic growth 6 .It is clear that physics must play an important role in safe-guarding our planet against the potentially disastrous effects of climate change. But it is unlikely to succeed unless politicians and governments adopt policies which encourage change.
Heavy taxation must be imposed on environmentally unsustainable forms of energy production, thus allowing new, greener alternatives to compete economically.
But above all, global co-operation is essential in guaranteeing a sustainable future for us all. The next chapter in world history is not about whether physics can protect the earth, but whether it is allowed to do so.

Tech is viable—just need hydrogen fuel
Chuck Squatriglia , Wired, 4/22/ 11 , Discovery Could Make Fuel Cells Much Cheaper, www.wired.com/autopia/2011/04/discovery-makes-fuel-cells-orders-of-magnitude-cheaper/
One of the biggest issues with hydrogen fuel cells
, aside from the lack of fueling infrastructure
, is the high cost
of the technology. Fuel cells use a lot of platinum, which is frightfully expensive and one reason we’ll pay $50,000 or so for the hydrogen cars automakers say we’ll see in 2015. That might soon change
.
Researchers at
Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a platinum-free catalyst in the cathode of a hydrogen fuel cell
that uses carbon, iron and cobalt.
That could make the catalysts
“two to three orders of magnitude cheaper ,” the lab says, thereby significantly reducing the cost of fuel cells.
Although the discovery means we could see hydrogen fuel cells in a wide variety of applications
, it could have the biggest implications for automobiles. Despite the auto industry’s focus on hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles — driven in part by the Obama administration’s love of cars with cords — several automakers remain convinced hydrogen fuel cells are the best alternative to internal combustion. Hydrogen offers the benefits of battery-electric vehicles — namely zero tailpipe emissions — without the drawbacks of short range and long recharge times. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are electric vehicles; they use a fuel cell instead of a battery to provide juice. You can fill a car with hydrogen in minutes, it’ll go about
250 miles or so and the technology is easily adapted to everything from forklifts to automobiles to buses. Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and Honda are among the automakers promising to deliver hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2015. Toyota has said it has cut the cost of fuel cell vehicles more than 90 percent by using less platinum — which currently goes for around $1,800 an ounce — and other expensive materials. It plans to sell its first hydrogen vehicle for around $50,000, a figure Daimler has cited as a viable price for the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell (pictured above in
Australia). Fifty grand is a lot of money, especially something like the F-Cell — which is based on the B-Class compact — or the Honda FCX Clarity. Zelenay and Wu in the lab. In a paper published Friday in Science, Los Alamos researchers Gang Wu, Christina Johnston and Piotr Zelenay, joined by Karren More of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, outline their platinum-free cathode catalyst. The catalysts use carbon, iron and cobalt. The researchers say the fuel cell provided high power with
reasonable efficiency and promising durability
. It provided currents comparable to conventional fuel cells, and showed favorable durability when cycled on and off — a condition that quickly damages inferior catalysts. The researchers say the carbon-iron-cobalt catalyst completed the conversion of hydrogen and oxygen into water, rather than producing large amounts of hydrogen peroxide. They claim the catalyst created minimal amounts of hydrogen peroxide — a substance that cuts power output and can damage the fuel cell — even when compared to the best platinum-based fuel cells. In fact, the fuel cell works so well the researchers have filed a patent for it. The researchers did not directly quantify the cost savings their cathode catalyst offers, which would be difficult because platinum surely would become more expensive if fuel cells became more prevalent. But the lab notes that iron and cobalt are cheap and abundant, and so the cost of fuel cell catalysts is “definitely two to three orders of magnitude cheaper.” “The encouraging point is that we have found a catalyst with a good durability and life cycle relative to platinum-based catalysts ,” Zelenay said in a statement.
“For all intents and purposes, this is a zero-cost catalyst
in comparison to platinum, so it directly addresses
one of the main barriers to hydrogen fuel cells .”

Extinction
Wittner 11
(Lawrence S. Wittner, Emeritus Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany, Wittner is the author of eight books, the editor or co-editor of another four, and the author of over 250 published articles and book reviews. From 1984 to 1987, he edited Peace & Change, a journal of peace research., 11/28/2011, "Is a Nuclear War With China Possible?", www.huntingtonnews.net/14446)
While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used
. After all, for centuries national conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest weapons
. The current deterioration of U.S. relations with China might end up providing us with yet another example of this phenomenon .
The gathering tension between the United States and China is clear enough. Disturbed by China’s growing economic and military strength, the U.S
. government recently challenged China’s claims in the South China Sea, increased
the U.S. military presence
in Australia, and deepened U.S. military ties with other nations in the Pacific region
. According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United
States was “asserting our own position as a Pacific power.” But need this lead to nuclear war ?
Not necessarily
. And yet
, there are signs that it could.
After all, both the United States and China possess large numbers of nuclear weapons.
The U.S. government threatened to attack China with nuclear weapons during the
Korean War and, later, during the conflict over the future of China’s offshore islands,
Quemoy and Matsu
. In the midst of the latter confrontation, President Dwight Eisenhower declared publicly, and chillingly, that U.S. nuclear weapons would “be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else.” Of course, China didn’t have nuclear weapons then.
Now that it does, perhaps the behavior of national leaders will be more temperate. But the loose nuclear threats of U.S. and Soviet government officials during the Cold War, when both nations had vast nuclear arsenals, should convince us that, even as the military ante is raised, nuclear saber-rattling persists.
Some pundits argue that nuclear weapons prevent wars between nucleararmed nations ; and, admittedly, there haven’t been very many—at least not yet. But the Kargil War
of 1999, between nuclear-armed
India and
nuclear-armed
Pakistan
, should convince us that such wars can occur
. Indeed, in that case, the conflict almost slipped into a nuclear war.
Pakistan’s foreign secretary threatened that, if the war escalated, his country felt free to use “any weapon” in its arsenal. During the conflict, Pakistan did move nuclear weapons toward its border, while India, it is claimed, readied its own nuclear missiles for an attack on Pakistan. At the least, though, don’t nuclear weapons deter a nuclear attack
? Do they?
Obviously
,
NATO leaders didn’t feel deterred
, for, throughout the Cold War, NATO’s strategy was to respond to a Soviet conventional military attack on
Western Europe by launching a Western nuclear attack on the nuclear-armed Soviet
Union
. Furthermore, if U.S. government officials really believed that nuclear deterrence worked, they would not have resorted to championing “Star Wars ” and its modern variant, national missile defense.
Why are these vastly expensive —and probably unworkable— military defense systems needed if other nuclear powers are deterred from attacking by U.S. nuclear might
? Of course, the bottom line for those Americans convinced that nuclear weapons safeguard them from a Chinese nuclear attack might be that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far greater than its Chinese counterpart.
Today, it is estimated that the U.S. government possesses over five thousand nuclear warheads, while the Chinese government has a total inventory of roughly three hundred. Moreover, only about forty of these Chinese nuclear weapons can reach the United
States. Surely the United States would “win” any nuclear war with China. But what would that “victory” entail? A nuclear attack by
China would immediately slaughter at least 10 million Americans in a great storm of blast and fire, while leaving many more dying horribly of sickness and radiation poisoning.
The Chinese death toll in a nuclear war would be far higher
. Both nations would be reduced to smoldering, radioactive wastelands . Also, radioactive debris sent aloft by the nuclear explosions would blot out the sun and bring on a “nuclear winter” around the globe—destroying agriculture, creating worldwide famine, and generating chaos and destruction.

Goes nuclear
Zahoor ‘11
(Musharaf, is researcher at Department of Nuclear Politics, National Defence University, Islamabad, “Water crisis can trigger nuclear war in South Asia,” http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?77008-Water-
Crisis-can-Trigger-Nuclear-War-in-South-Asia)
South Asia is among one of those regions where water needs are growing disproportionately to its availability . The high increase in population besides large-scale cultivation has turned South Asia into a water scarce region.
The two nuclear neighbors Pakistan and India share the waters of Indus Basin . All the major rivers stem from the Himalyan region and pass through Kashmir down to the planes of Punjab and Sindh empty into Arabic ocean. It is pertinent that the strategic importance of Kashmir , a source of all major rivers, for Pakistan and symbolic importance of Kashmir for India are maximum list positions. Both
the countries have fought two major wars in 1948, 1965 and a limited war in Kargil specifically on the Kashmir dispute. Among other issues, the newly born states fell into water sharing dispute right after their partition .
Initially under an agreed formula, Pakistan paid for the river waters to India, which is an upper riparian state. After a decade long negotiations, both the states signed Indus Water Treaty in 1960. Under the treaty, India was given an exclusive right of three eastern rivers Sutlej, Bias and Ravi while Pakistan was given the right of three Western
Rivers, Indus, Chenab and Jhelum. The tributaries of these rivers are also considered their part under the treaty. It was assumed that the treaty had permanently resolved the water issue, which proved a nightmare in the latter course.
India by exploiting the provisions of IWT started wanton construction of dams on Pakistani rivers thus scaling down the water availability to Pakistan (a lower riparian state). The treaty only allows run of the river hydropower projects and does not permit to construct such water reservoirs on Pakistani rivers, which may affect the water flow to the low lying areas. According to the statistics of Hydel power Development Corporation of Indian
Occupied Kashmir, India has a plan to construct 310 small, medium and large dams in the territory . India has already started work on 62 dams in the first phase. The cumulative dead and live storage of these dams will be so great that India can easily manipulate the water of
Pakistani rivers
.
India has set up a department called the Chenab Valley Power Projects to construct power plants on the Chenab River in occupied Kashmir . India is also constructing three major hydro-power projects on Indus River which include Nimoo Bazgo power project, Dumkhar project and Chutak project. On the other hand, it has started Kishan Ganga hydropower project by diverting the waters of Neelum River, a tributary of the Jhelum, in sheer violation of the IWT. The gratuitous construction of dams by India has created serious water shortages in Pakistan .
The construction of
Kishan Ganga dam will turn the Neelum valley, which is located in Azad Kashmir into a barren land . The water shortage will not only affect the cultivation but it has serious social, political and economic ramifications for Pakistan
. The farmer associations have already started protests in Southern Punjab and
Sindh against the non-availability of water. These protests are so far limited and under control. The reports of international organizations suggest that the water availability in Pakistan will reduce further in the coming years . If the situation remains unchanged , the violent mobs of villagers across the country will be a major law and order challenge for the government. The water shortage has also created mistrust among the federative units , which is evident from the fact that the President and the Prime Minister had to intervene for convincing Sindh and Punjab provinces on water sharing formula. The
Indus River System Authority (IRSA) is responsible for distribution of water among the provinces but in the current situation it has also lost its credibility. The provinces often accuse each other of water theft.
In the given circumstances, Pakistan desperately wants to talk on water issue with India. The meetings between
Indus Water Commissioners of Pakistan and India have so far yielded no tangible results .

The recent meeting in Lahore has also ended without concrete results. India is continuously using delaying tactics to under pressure Pakistan. The Indus Water Commissioners are supposed to resolve the issues bilaterally through talks. The success of their meetings can be measured from the fact that Pakistan has to knock at international court of arbitration for the settlement of Kishan Ganga hydropower project. The recently held foreign minister level talks between both the countries ended inconclusively in Islamabad , which only resulted in heightening the mistrust and suspicions. The water stress in Pakistan is increasing day by day . The construction of dams will not only cause damage to the agriculture sector but India can manipulate the river water to create inundations in Pakistan. The rivers in Pakistan are also vital for defense during wartime .
The control over the water will provide an edge to India during war with Pakistan. The failure of diplomacy, manipulation of IWT provisions by India and growing water scarcity in Pakistan and its social, political and economic repercussions for the country can lead both the countries toward a war . The existent A-symmetry between the conventional forces of both the countries will compel the weaker side to use nuclear weapons to prevent the opponent from taking any advantage of the situation . Pakistan's nuclear programme is aimed at to create minimum credible deterrence. India has a declared nuclear doctrine which intends to retaliate massively in case of first strike by its' enemy . In 2003, India expanded the operational parameters for its nuclear doctrine. Under the new parameters, it will not only use nuclear weapons against a nuclear strike but will also use nuclear weapons against a nuclear strike on Indian forces anywhere. Pakistan has a draft nuclear doctrine , which consists on the statements of high ups. Describing the nuclear thresh-hold in January 2002, General Khalid Kidwai , the head of Pakistan's
Strategic Plans Division, in an interview to Landau Network, said that Pakistan will use nuclear weapons in case India occupies large parts of its territory, economic strangling by India , political disruption and if India destroys Pakistan's forces.
The analysis of the ambitious nuclear doctrines of both the countries clearly points out that any military confrontation in the region can result in a nuclear catastrophe . The rivers flowing from Kashmir are Pakistan's lifeline , which are essential for the livelihood of 170 million people of the country and the cohesion of federative units.
The failure of dialogue will leave no option but to achieve the ends through military means.

Sea surface temperature solves warming—empirics prove
NOAA 13
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraiton, “Why did Earth’s Surface Temperature Stop
Rising in the Past Decade?” November 8, 2013. http://www.climate.gov/news-features/climateqa/why-did-earth%E2%80%99s-surface-temperature-stop-rising-past-decade//ghs-kw)
The most likely explanation for the lack of significant warming at the Earth’s surface in the past decade or so is that natural climate cycles—a series of La Niña events and a negative phase of the lesser-known Pacific Decadal Oscillation—caused shifts in ocean circulation patterns that moved some excess heat into the deep ocean .
Even so, recent years have been some of the warmest on record, and scientists expect temperatures will swing back up soon. Yearly surface temperatures since 1880 compared to the twentieth-century (1901-2000) average (dashed line at zero). Since 2000, temperatures have been warmer than average, but they did not increase significantly
. Data courtesy of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The
“pause” in global warming observed since 2000 followed a period of rapid acceleration in the late 20th century. Starting in the mid-1970s, global temperatures rose 0.5 °C over a period of 25 years. Since the turn of the century, however, the change in
Earth’s global mean surface temperature has been close to zero.
Yet despite the halt in acceleration, each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. Surface temperature each decade since 1880 compard to the twentieth-century (1901-2000) average (dashed line at zero). Each of the last three decades was the warmest on record at the time, and each was warmer than the last. Data courtesy of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The long-term trend—change over the course of a century or more—is what defines “global warming,” not the change from year to year or even decade to decade. Rising emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution explain most of the overall warming trend over the past century, and the rate of emissions has not slowed significantly in the recent past. So what else has been going on in the climate system over the past decade that could account for the pause in Earth’s surface warming trend? During the last decade, a longer than usual solar minimum cycle, several volcanic eruptions, and relatively low amounts of water vapor in the stratosphere may have helped cool the atmosphere temporarily. But recent research suggests that the Earth’s natural climate variability —natural, short-term fluctuations in the climate system that occur on a year-to-year basis or longer—may have played the most pivotal role of all by transferring excess heat from the Earth’s surface into the deep ocean
. One of the most well-known natural climate oscillations—the El Niño-
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle—causes swings in sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific.
Although ENSO originates in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, a strong El Niño or La Niña event is capable of bumping global temperatures upward or downward for a year or two. Since the last major El Niño event in 1997-1998, a series of La Niña events have dominated the tropical Pacific, resulting in a prolonged cooling of sea surface temperatures that has also likely stalled the rise in global temperatures. Graph showing the
Oceanic Niño Index (difference from average sea surface temperatures in a key region of the tropical Pacific Ocean) from 1980-2012. Cooling La
Niña events (blue shading) in the past decade have outnumbered warming El Niño events (red shading). Data courtesy of the NOAA Climate
Prediction Center. Evidence for the global influence of these La Niñas comes from an innovative model experiment by a team of scientists from
Scripps Institution of Oceanography. When they forced a climate model to closely follow observed temperatures in the tropical Pacific— mirroring the repeated La Niña events—the model simulated no significant trend in global warming since 2000. This led the group to believe that global temperatures would have continued to rise throughout the last decade if not for the prolonged cooling in the Pacific.
Just because the global surface temperature has not risen significantly in the past decade doesn't mean the Earth's heat energy imbalance has vanished, though. Excess heat energy trapped by greenhouses gases can have more than one fate in the Earth system; among other things, it can cause water to evaporate, it can melt ice, and it can be mixed into the deep ocean by overturning currents. That mixing coupled with water's naturally large heat capacity makes the global ocean the Earth’s biggest absorber of heat; scientists estimate the ocean absorbs more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere
by greenhouse gases. When analyzing temperature patterns at different depths of the ocean, scientists observed that deep ocean temperatures—measured more than a half-mile down from the surface—began to rise significantly around 2000, while shallower waters warmed more slowly. This divergence took place at the same time that a natural climate cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO, was shifting to a negative phase. Yearly global ocean heat content compared to the 1958-65 average (dashed line at zero) for the past four decades for different layers of the ocean: from the surface to depths of 300 meters (grey) and 700 meters (blue), and total depth down to 2,000 meters (purple). Surface waters warmed more slowly (line is nearly flat since the mid-2000s) than deeper waters (steep increase). Image adapted from Figure 1 of Balmaseda et al., 2013 (pdf).

OTEC provides infinite free energy —tested and proven to work
Palmer 07
(Felix Palmer received a Master of Physics from Oxford University. He is currently working freelance as a full stack developer. He has worked for Metaswitch Networks. Palmer, F. “Physics:
Saviour of the Planet?” Physics Education, Volume 42, No. 6, November 1, 2007. https://www.iop.org/activity/groups/subject/env/prize/file_40767.pdf//ghs-kw)
Felix Palmer, Oxford University Physics: saviour of the planet? In recent years climate change has had a great deal of media coverage. Yet despite this, the people of the earth and their governments seem to be taking very little action.
There is a global consensus that as time passes technology and science will help us rectify the damage we have done. The planet is relying on the next generation of scientists to clear up the mess. So the question is: Is their trust misplaced - have they set an unachievable goal - or is technology the best way forward?
At first sight it seems that science is the only way to tackle the environmental problems that have arisen from the technological revolution of the past 150 years. After all, the carbon-producing elements of our modern society are products of science so it would seem logical that by further application of our scientific knowledge we can secure ourselves a sustainable future.
There are many different emission-free ways of producing energy and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. The vast majority of these technologies are household names: wind power, solar power and the hydrogen fuel cell are just a few. It is clear that all these methods are cleaner than fossil fuels but normally the argument against their wide-spread use is their higher cost relative to their existing fossil fuel based counterparts. Of course these technologies are not without their problems, for example their source of energy is not always present – without wind, a wind power farm is useless, as is a solar power plant on a cloudy day – normally a fossil-fuels based backup system is required. But it is clear that there is a lot of 'free' energy around us which, if correctly utilised, could supply us with a substantial amount of carbon- neutral energy. A good example of a method which utilises energy which is already available to us is ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC
).
Some energy experts believe that this relatively unheard-of technology could become a major source of energy if it were to become costcompetitive with existing modes of energy production. As with solar power, it makes use of the energy radiated onto the earth by the sun, most of which is captured by the sea. The earth's tropical oceans absorb 1600 times as much energy as we need to supply the entire planet 1 . Most of this heat is concentrated at the surface of the ocean, falling off exponentially with depth. By pumping the deep sea water to the surface, OTEC exploits this difference in temperature (about 15°C) to power a heat engine. A heat engine is a general term for a device which uses the difference in temperature between two bodies to generate electricity. A turbine is an example, where thermal energy is used to heat water and the resulting steam is used to turn the turbine. Some OTEC systems use a liquid with a low boiling point like ammonia to turn the turbines, while others place the warm sea-water in a low pressure container causing the water to boil (the boiling point is dependent on pressure) and so turning the turbines.
Because the temperature difference between the waters in the ocean is relatively small, the process of extracting energy is quite difficult. By applying Carnot's theorem it can be shown that the maximum possible efficiency achievable of converting heat into work is as follows:
Carnot formula: efficiency = 1 – Tc/Th = 1 – 283/298 = 0.05 = 5
% Tc is the cold water temperature in Kelvin,
Th is the warm water temperature
Although this is quite low, the amount of energy available is so huge that capturing even a small proportion is extremely useful.
Unlike a lot of 'green' technologies, once running,
OTEC can produce energy continuously. It is
potentially (for our current needs anyway) an infinite source of energy . It is not dependent on the availability of oil, it produces no emissions and there is no waste-product at the end of the process - in contrast with nuclear power. There are other uses for the cool water obtained from the ocean: it can be used to air-condition buildings (directly or using a heat-exchanger) or for mineral extraction. OTEC has been tested and does work and there are several systems running profitably such as NELHA 2 , an OTEC facility in Hawaii.

STAR THIS CARD—thesis of the DA is massively incorrect—literally every oil producing country has incentives to keep prices high—assumes US energy dependence
Oppdyke 14
(Jeff Opdyke is the Executive Editor and Investment Director at The Sovereign Society. Jeff has been investing directly in the international markets since 1995, making him one of the true pioneers of foreign trading. Today, he operates with brokerage accounts in
New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa, Egypt and elsewhere. Jeff is the editor of Jeff Opdyke’s Sovereign Investor newsletter. He is also the editor of the Profit Seeker. Prior to The Sovereign Society, Jeff spent 17 years with The Wall Street Journal, writing about investing and personal finance, including the Journal’s nationally syndicated “Love & Money” column. His work has been published in upward of 80 newspapers nationwide, and he is also the author of six books. He holds a BA in Journalism from Louisiana
State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. Opdyke, J. “The Hidden Cost of Oil,” The Sovereign Investor Daily, July 10,
2014, http://seekingalpha.com/article/2307925-the-hidden-cost-of-oil//ghs-kw)
In the early spring of 2011
, events unfolded 6,400 miles east of New York City that I am confident most Americans missed. It had the effect of robbing the wallet of everyone reading these words. During a televised speech to a tense nation,
King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced to his rapt audience that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, by royal decree, would give to all civil servants and military personnel two months of salary. University students would receive a two-month stipend. Job seekers would receive the equivalent of $533 a month while hunting for work. Minimum wages were increased; 60,000 law enforcement jobs were created; and 500,000 new houses were to be built across the kingdom at a cost of nearly $70 billion. And that was just the beginning of a $130 billion spending program… It was all part of a well-orchestrated - and exceedingly expensive - effort by Saudi Arabia to quell months of protests that had roiled the already-anxious kingdom and which were tied to much-broader clashes across the Middle East and North Africa. King Abdullah had, in effect, bought the peace
- for the time being, at least. For most Americans, the king's speech seems entirely irrelevant. But it impacts every single one us every day. For you see, the costs that King Abdullah imposed on Saudi Arabia that March day suddenly changed the dynamics of the oil market. A new cost structure was added to each barrel of oil pulled from beneath the desert sands - a social cost. And so long as tensions exist across the region between Arabic leaders and local populations that feel oppressed, that social cost is going nowhere but up . It's why those who call for lower oil price are overlooking a crucial piece of the oil market. Keeping the Locals Happy
I've read a lot of jibber-jabber recently about the miniscule costs countries like Saudi Arabia have for lifting oil out of the ground.
Some Saudi fields purportedly have lifting costs of just $2 a barrel. Russia's lifting costs in some instances are said to top no more than $15. That may be true. But only the addle-brained believe that either of those countries can profitably sell oil anywhere near those levels. They can't sell oil profitably at
$50 a barrel. And it's because of the social costs. Buying the peace is how oppressive governments bribe their people and maintain social order - no easy task in parts of the world where religious minorities often rule over very angry majorities comprised of the religious opposition . In many of those countries, human misery is rife and poverty rates range as high as 60% … and hungry, impoverished people are the foot-soldiers of revolution, as Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan leaders have learned. Saudi Arabia and
Russia are the world's #1 and #2 oil-producing countries. They're also political economies that generate lots of animosity and, on occasion, anti-government protests. To assuage the anger that bubbles up - or to keep it below a boil in the first place - both countries throw

around huge sums of riyals and rubles. And the question is: Where does the money come from? In Russia, oil generates more than 45% of government revenues. In Saudi Arabia, it's up near 75%. Leaders in both countries have no choice but to rely heavily on oil to fund the civic largess … which means they have every incentive to manipulate oil prices through production. Prior to its $130 billion social-spending spree, Saudi Arabia needed oil prices somewhere north of $70 to balance the kingdom's budget, according to the
International Monetary Fund. Now the per-barrel cost is reportedly approaching $100.
Russia needs something close to $120.
To be clear, I am picking on the Saudis and the Russians simply because of the size of their oil industries and the political issues with which those countries struggle. But the reality is that social costs also play a similarly large role in Bahrain, Kuwait, Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere, where oil revenue accounts for up to 90% of domestic income. The United Arab Emirates, for instance, needs oil prices in the
$85 range to balance a budget larded with social programs.
Tiny Bahrain needs about $119.
$100 a Barrel is Middle-of-the-Road (click to enlarge)
This is where the argument goes astray that American energy independence - still a giant question mark - will drop oil prices to $50 or below.
Unless America is going to produce enough oil for the world - and, honestly, we will never even produce enough for ourselves - it won't control prices. Oil prices sustained at $50 a barrel would crimp the ability of oppressive governments to quiet the angry masses. That would lead to potential revolt or overthrow, which would have the perverse effect of pushing oil prices back up, since the risk exists that a regime intolerant of the West would take power and drastically reduce oil supplies to undermine Western economies. Thus, any time oil prices get so low that they begin to cause societal tinges wherever governments lean on oil to cover their social costs, those countries will naturally rely on the power of the spigot. All they need do is clamp off production until prices reach a more-adequate level.
Take a look at the graph. It's oil as priced in the Middle East. I've highlighted
$100 to make the point that it's clear where the floor for oil rests . It's not a coincidence that oil is bouncing around the range that leading oil nations need to balance budgets that are overloaded with social costs.
Over the last two years, in fact,
Middle Eastern oil has traded below $80 a barrel for just 16 days, and that was largely during the overreaction to European debt woes this past summer. More impressive is the fact that these sustained prices above $100 have occurred even as the top three oil nations have been producing barrels at record levels. Yes; it's true that U.S. benchmark crude - West Texas Intermediate - will often trade at cheaper prices, and sometimes down into the $80 or $90 range. But oil is priced regionally all over the world . And if oil in the
Middle East were to push continually higher from here as nations pay for their social programs, and then U.S. prices would march higher too.
The Future of Oil I listen to what the disbelievers write when they say oil prices are headed lower.
I think about their rationale for oil at $50 or below. But ultimately, their arguments are simplistic and too often built on the nationalistic hoopla about America's nascent oil renaissance
(and there are so many misconceptions about American oil that even their rationale is seriously flawed).
Even if some fields in America can produce oil at a sub-$50 cost, that oil is still subject to global pricing. And when you have oppressive nations spending money furiously to maintain social order, there's simply no way oil prices spend any time near $50 a barrel outside of a major, global financial upset.
If you recognize that, and if, in turn, you litter your portfolio with energy-related stocks - oil-field servicers, drillers, rig owners, exploration companies and the energy majors - you will protect your standard-of-living as oil prices inexorably rise over time. Until next time, stay Sovereign…

Rare earth elements are key to all missile guidance systems for first-strike capabilities
Kennedy 10
(J. Kennedy, President of Wings Enterprises, March 2010, “Critical and Strategic Failure of Rare
Earth Resources,” online: http://www.smenet.org/rareEarthsProject/TMS-NMAB-paperV-3.pdf)
The national defense issues are equally important.
Rare earths are critical componentsfor
military jet engines, guided missiles and bombs
, electrical countermeasures, anti-missile systems, satellite communication systems and armor, yet the U.S. has no domestic sources.
Innovation Drives Industry – Industry Carries the Economy
Advances in
Materials Science are a result of tireless innovation
; innovation seeking improvements in the performance and characteristics of material properties or a change in their form or function. Much of this work must eventually translate into commercial and military applications.
Today many advances in material science are achieved through the application of rare earth oxides
, elements and alloys. This group of elements, also known as the lanthanide series, represents the only known bridge to the next level of improved performance in the material properties for many metallurgical alloys, electrical conductivity, and instrument sensitivity and in some cases a mechanical or physical change in function.
These lanthanides hold unique chemical, magnetic, electrical, luminescence and radioactive shielding characteristics. Combined with other elements they can help maintain or alter physical and structural characteristics under changing conditions.
Today, these rare earth elements are essential to
every computer hard drive, cell phone, energy efficient light bulb, many automotive pollution control devices and catalysts, hybrid automobiles and most, if not all, military guidance systems and advanced armor.
Tomorrow, they will be used in ultra capacity wind turbines, magnetic refrigeration, zero emission automobiles, superconductors, sublight-speed computer processors, nano-particle technologies for material and metallurgical applications, structurally amorphous metals, next generation military armor and TERFENOL-D Radar.
America must lead in these developments
.
The entire U.S. defense system is completely interdependent upon REO enhanced technologiesfor our most advanced weapons guidance systems
, advanced armor, secure communications, radar, advanced radar systems, weapons triggering systems
and un-manned Drones.
REO dependent weapons technologies are predominantly represented in our ‘first strike’
and un-manned capabilities
. This national defense issue is not a case of limited exposure for first-strike capabilities.
This first-strike vulnerability translates into risk exposure
in every level of our national defense system
, as the system is built around
ourpresumptive technological and firststrike superiority
. Yet the DoD has abandon its traditional procurement protocols for “strategic and critical” materials and components for weapons systems in favor of “the principles of free trade.”
Loss of U.S. nuclear primacy causes global nuclear war
Caves 10
(John P. Caves Jr., Senior Research Fellow in the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass
Destruction at the National Defense University, January 2010, “Avoiding a Crisis of Confidence in the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent,” Strategic Forum, No. 252)
Perceptions of a compromised U.S. nuclear deterrent as described above would have profound policy implications , particularly if they emerge at a time when a nuclear-armed great power is pursuing a more aggressive strategytoward U.S. allies and partners in its region in a bid to enhance its regional and global clout.
A dangerous period of vulnerability would open for the United States and those nations that depend on U.S. protection while the United States attempted to rectify the problems with its nuclear forces. As it would take more than a decade for the United States to produce new nuclear weapons, ensuing events could preclude a return to anything like the status quo ante.
The assertive, nuclear-armed great power
, and other major adversaries
, could be willing to challenge U.S. interests more directlyin the expectation that the U nited
S tates would be less prepared to threaten or deliver a military

response that could lead to direct conflict
.
They will want to keep the U nited
S tates from reclaiming its earlier power position
.
Allies and partnerswho have relied upon
explicit or implicit assurances of
U.S. nuclear protection
as a foundation of their security could lose faith in those assurances
.
They could compensate by accommodating U.S. rivals
, especially in the short term
, or acquiring their own nuclear deterrents
, which in most cases could be accomplished only over the mid- to long term. A more nuclear world would likely ensue over a period of years.
Important U.S. interests could be compromised or abandoned
, or a major war could occur
as adversaries and/or the
U nited S tates miscalculate new boundaries of deterrence and provocation . At worst, war could lead to state-on-state employment of weapons of mass destruction ( WMD) on a scale far more catastrophic than
what nuclear
-armed terrorists
alone could inflict.

Konstantiov 12
(Mihail Konstantiov, 2-11-2012, Professor of Mathematics with the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy (UACEG),
Bulgaria, Vice-Chancellor of UACEG, Member of scientific councils and commissions, Member of the Board of IICREST, authored 30 books and over 500 scientific papers. He has participated in international scientific projects of EU and NATO and realized research and lecturing visits in British, German and French universities, been Member and Vice Chair of the Central Election Commission of
Bulgaria and Voting coordinator of OSCE as well as the Bulgarian representative at the Council of Europe on electronic voting, in addition to his scientific publications, he has authored more than 300 articles in Bulgarian editions devoted to social and political issues with emphasis on election practice and legislation., “Uranium time bomb ticking,” Europost, http://www.europost.bg/article?id=3763)
In 1945, the US had three nucle­ar bombs - two plu­to­ni­um-based devi­ces and a ura­ni­um-based one. The first one was det­o­nat­ed on a test site in New Mex­i­co, and the sec­ond and third ones over Jap­a­nese ter­ri­to­ry. On 6 August 1945, the then-only ura­ni­um-based bomb was thrown over the Jap­a­nese city of
Hiro­shi­ma. What hap­pened is well known and I will not re-tell it. More­over, this sto­ry deals with nucle­ar weap­ons but they are not the main char­ac­ters.
Almost 20 years ago, an agree­ment was inked under which the US under­took to help dis­man­tle Rus­sian nucle­ar war­heads and con­vert the ura­ni­um
from them into fuel
for nucle­ar reac­tors. The rea­son is sim­ple - the pro­ce­dure is expen­sive, Rus­sia was weak and poor at the time, and in addi­tion, Amer­i­can tech­nol­o­gy back then was sig­nif­i­cant­ly ahead of the Rus­sian one.
The amounts of con­vert­ed ura­ni­um are mas­sive
- more than 500 ton­nes.
Thus
Rus­sian ura­ni­um turns into fuel for US nucle­ar pow­er plants
. At present, this fuel is used to pro­duce
10% of the elec­tri­cal pow­er in the US. This is more than the ener­gy pro­duced from renew­a­ble sour­ces, such as sun, wind and water, there. This idyll, how­e­ver, is com­ing to its end. First, the US-Rus­sia agree­ment for Rus­sian war­heads con­ver­sion expires next year and Rus­sia is high­ly unlike­ly to extend it.
More­over, Rus­sians now have good tech­nol­o­gy for that pur­pose and will prob­a­bly want to leave their ura­ni­um for them­selves. And sec­ond, if the agree­ment is extend­ed, the amounts of war­heads sub­ject to dis­man­tling will soon be exhaust­ed any­way as the agreed lim­its are reached.
Global mar­kets have already start­ed sus­pect­ing what is going to hap­pen with the expir­ing US-
Rus­sia agree­ment for war­head ura­ni­um. And not only with it. Indeed, ura­ni­um oxide pri­ces have gone wild sur­ging to almost $70/lb (1lb is 454 gr.) in Jan­u­ary this year from $40/lb in Sep­tem­ber 2011. Such a 70% ral­ly in ura­ni­um price over just 3-4- months is not sus­tain­a­ble and even a cer­tain edg­ing down can be expect­ed. Still, the trend is clear - ura­ni­um dearth is loom­ing,
as well as dearth of oth­er stra­te­gic nat­u­ral resour­ces. We have repeat­ed­ly stat­ed this but let us under­score it again. The glob­al cri­sis is most of all a resource cri­sis. It is finan­cial inso­far as it has become clear that the sys­tem allow­ing some peo­ple to print mon­ey while oth­ers work and bring them oil and oth­er goods will not last for good.
The antic­i­pat­ed ura­ni­um short­age
in the com­ing dec­ade is
tru­ly strik­ing
and is esti­mat­ed at 500m lb! One of the rea­sons is the fast devel­op­ing econ­o­mies of Chi­na and India, along with oth­er coun­tries like Bra­zil and Tur­key. It is where the bulk of the 147 reac­tors expect­ed to become oper­a­tion­al in these 10 years will be locat­ed. A major con­sum­er of ura­ni­um, the US cur­rent­ly has a demand for 60m lb a year but pro­du­ces only 3m lb. Still, this is the way things are at present. And what will hap­pen aft­er the US Nucle­ar Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion reviews and poten­tial­ly approves new nucle­ar reac­tor pro­pos­als? They are 26 or so. And more are in the pipe­line. The sit­u­a­tion in India is even more dra­mat­ic - an increase in the share of nucle­ar ener­gy in elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion is expect­ed from 2.5% at present to 25%. In oth­er words, India will need 10 times as much ura­ni­um as it does now if the far-reach­ing plan is put to prac­tice. Chi­na has more hum­ble aspi­ra­tions and is gear­ing to raise the share of nucle­ar facil­i­ties in elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion only ...three times. And Chi­na, much like the US, does not have suf­fi­cient domes­tic sup­ply. We can con­tin­ue with sta­tis­tics, but things are evi­dent any­way.
A war is around the cor­ner.
In the best-case sce­nar­io, this will be a price war over ura­ni­um and in par­tic­u­lar ura­ni­um oxide. Pri­ces in the order of $100 or even $200/lb no longer seem far-fetched. Price lev­els of $500-$1000-$2000/lb have even been men­tioned and this will have its swift and dras­tic impli­ca­tions. Still, if a reac­tor costs $4bn, why not pay $1000/lb of ura­ni­um? Or else, the 4-bil­lion invest­ment will go down the drain. Anoth­er explod­ing glob­al mar­ket is the one for rare earth ele­ments with hard-to-pro­nounce Lat­in names such as Neo­dym­i­um, Ceri­um, Lan­tha­num,
Gal­li­um, Gado­lin­i­um, Thu­li­um… If we have a look at Men­de­leev's peri­od­ic table, they are squeezed some­where at the bot­tom. But then, all the elec­tron­ics around us, all com­put­ers, fibre optics, all sat­el­lites and in gen­er­al every­thing under­ly­ing our high-tech civ­il­i­za­tion would be utter­ly impos­si­ble but for these exot­ic hard-to-extract ele­ments. The price of each of them has dou­bled and tri­pled in a year alone. And the pri­ces of some of them have soared six­fold in the same peri­od. Com­pared with rare earth ele­ments, gold and plat­i­num are like a tame kit­ten. It nat­u­ral­ly eats and swells but at a rate of only up to 40% a year. And what about the lith­i­um under­ly­ing the idea of elec­tric vehi­cles stag­ing a mass entrance into our dai­ly life and econ­o­my if and when oil is exhaust­ed? But it is in rare ele­ments where the secret of future skir­mish­es over resour­ces lies. Because across the world, they are real­ly hard to extract
but Chi­na holds 97% of their glob­al pro­duc­tion! No mis­take, Chi­na pro­du­ces 33 times as much rare met­als as the rest of the world. This may as well be changed some day as cur­rent­ly huge efforts and mon­ey are put into look­ing for rare met­als around the globe. Hypo­thet­i­cal­ly, only a third of the res­erves is in Chi­na with the oth­er two thirds lying some­where else.
Too bad it is any­one's guess where, although Cana­da, South Afri­ca and some Afri­can coun­tries are con­sid­ered prom­is­ing in this regard
. Still, for the time being this is how things are: Chi­na has almost every­thing and the rest of the world hard­ly any­thing. Does any­one have any doubts why Chi­na has the ambi­tion to become the top dog? Of course, the world is by no means tread­ing water in one oth­er respect: sub­sti­tute tech­nol­o­gies are sought
for that would not be so crit­i­cal­ly depend­ent on rare earth ele­ments, yet, more in the long rath­er than short run
. By the way, why are we dis­cuss­ing ura­ni­um pri­ces along with all oth­er sorts of pri­ces in US dol­lars? The answer is clear: because the dol­lar is the glob­al reserve cur­ren­cy. The rea­son for this, though, is more com­pli­cat­ed. True, the US is the larg­est econ­o­my for the time being. But it is also among the most indebt­ed coun­tries in the world. And its debt is increas­ing­ly sur­ging. Still, this is not the most impor­tant. The most impor­tant thing is that the US has the most pow­er­ful, most mobile and one of the most effect­ive armies in the world. Lit­tle like­ly is it for some­one to reject the US dol­lar as a reserve cur­ren­cy while the 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion of the US Army,

based at Fort Bragg North Car­o­li­na, is the holy ter­ror it is at the moment. And there is much more to it than the 82nd Divi­sion. So the time bomb of ura­ni­um
and rare earth ele­ments dearth is tick­ing
. And lit­tle idea do we have of the time it is set for. Or wheth­er, when it final­ly goes off, some­body might remem­ber the first mas­sive appli­ca­tion of ura­ni­um, which turned thou­sands into ash
­es
some 67 years ago.
And be temp­ted to use it again
. For 67 years now, we have been show­ing rea­son and sur­viv­ing. Let us hope
fierce defi­cien­cy of nat­u­ral resour­ces
, food and water that is loom­ing will not take it away
from us.

(Ocean Energy Programs, The Johns Hopkins University William H. Avery Director (retired), Annapolis William H. Chih Wu Professor of Mechanical Engineering U.S. Naval Academy , Oxford University Press, Mar 17, 1994, “Renewable Energy From the Ocean : A Guide to OTEC: A Guide to OTEC” pg 192)
4.5 PLATFORM The term OTEC platform is used here to denote the structure that houses and supports the systems involved in ocean thermal energy conversion, storage, and transfer. It may take many forms depending on size, site, purpose, and subsystems designs. A basic distinction may be made between floating platforms and fixed installations constructed onshore or bottom-mounted in shallow water near the shore. Engineering studies have shown that the design and constuction can use technology already well developed in the shipbuilding and offshore oil industries such as Deep Oil Technology (Brewer, 1979), Gibbs and Cox, Inc.
(Scott and Rogalski,
1978), M. Rosenblatt & Son, Inc.
(Basaret al.. 1979), Gilbert/Common- wealth (Bartonc, Jr., 1978), and Mitre
Corp.
(Roberts, 1977). Some modifications or extensions of U.S. facilities would be necessary . A vigorous
OTEC program could revitalize the U.S. shipbuilding industry.
(Navy League of the United States, “America’s Maritime Industry The foundation of American seapower”, 2012, http://www.navyleague.org/files/americas-maritime-industry.pdf, Date
Verification – http://gsship.org/industry-links/)
Defense Industrial Base: Shipbuilding The American Maritime Industry also contributes to our national defense by sustaining the shipbuilding and repair sector of our national defense industrial base upon which our standing as a seapower is based.
History has proven that without a strong maritime infrastructure — shipyards, suppliers, and seafarers—no country can hope to build and support a Navy of sufficient size and capability to protect its interests on a global basis.
Both our commercial and naval fleets rely on U.S. shipyards and their numerous industrial vendors for building and repairs . The U.S. commercial shipbuilding and repair industry also impacts our national economy by adding billions of dollars to U.S. economic output annually. In 2004, there were 89 shipyards in the major shipbuilding and repair base of the United States, defined by the Maritime Administration as including those shipyards capable of building, repairing, or providing topside repairs for ships 122 meters (400 feet) in length and over. This includes six large shipyards that build large ships for the U.S. Navy. Based on U.S. Coast Guard vessel registration data for 2008, in that year U.S. shipyards delivered 13 large deepdraft vessels including naval ships, merchant ships, and drilling rigs; 58 offshore service vessels; 142 tugs and towboats, 51 passenger vessels greater than 50 feet in length; 9 commercial fishing vessels; 240 other self- propelled vessels; 23 mega-yachts; 10 oceangoing barges; and 224 tank barges under 5,000 GT. 11 Since the mid 1990’s, the industry has been experiencing a period of modernization and renewal that is largely market-driven, backed by long-term customer commitments. Over the six-year period from 2000-05, a total of $2.336 billion was invested in the industry, while in 2006, capital investments in the U.S. shipbuilding and repair industry amounted to $270 million.12 The state of the industrial base that services this nation’s Sea Services is of great concern to the U.S. Navy.
Even a modest increase in oceangoing commercial shipbuilding would give a substantial boost to our shipyards and marine vendors . Shipyard facilities at the larger shipyards in the United States are capable of constructing merchant ships as well as warships, but often cannot match the output of shipyards in Europe and Asia. On the other hand, U.S. yards construct and equip the best warships, aircraft carriers and submarines in the world. They are unmatched in capability, but must maintain that lead . 13

It’s hopeless for hydrogen vehicles—competition from electric vehicles crush them and infrastructure is too expensive
Russ 14
(Jason Russ holds engineering degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and worked in the telecom industry before starting his own company. Russ, J. “Tesla: The Current Scorecard Reads 64,000 to 65,” Seeking Alpha, July 22, 2014, http://seekingalpha.com/article/2328985tesla-the-current-scorecard-reads-64000-to-65?app=1&uprof=45&dr=1//ghs-kw)
Hydrogen Stations According to the latest information I could find, here are the figures on existing public hydrogen filling stations: Germany: 15 stations as of September 2013. Japan: 17 stations as of end of 2012.
South Korea: 13
stations as of end of 2012.
Norway: 6
stations as of end of 2012. UK: 1 station as of June 2012. Iceland: 1 station as of February 2009.
US: 12
stations as of April
2013.
The total number of worldwide public hydrogen filling stations, therefore, is about 65.
Future plans include: California: up to 100 by 2024. Germany: 35 stations. Japan: up to 100 stations.
Electric Charging Stations
Telsa's supercharging stations alone total 146 worldwide locations, with 15 more currently under construction. In total, there were about 64,000 public charging stations as of October, 2013. IHS expects there to be 199,000 fast-charging stations by 2020.
By way of comparison, there were 121,446 gas stations in the US as of January, 2014. There are approximately 330,000 stations in the top 7 countries; my guess is that the total worldwide number of stations is somewhere between 350,000 to 400,000
. More on Future Construction
Of course, there are plans to build out both more hydrogen stations
and charging stations. As I noted above, the expectations for fastcharging electric stations are quite aggressive. The expectations for hydrogen stations are quite modest.
Naturally, there is more incentive to build electric charging stations at this time, because there are orders of magnitude more PEVs on the road than FCEVs.
However, another major consideration is cost.
According to greencarreports.com:
It's also ambitious in monetary terms.
Hydrogen fueling stations today cost more than $1 million apiece to install,
against less than
$100,000 for public electric-car fast-charging stations. Car and Driver had this to say: Unlike gas, hydrogen for fuel-cell purposes might not have to be shipped or trucked in but rather is captured and packaged on site
, extracted from the station's supply of water (as is the case with the West L.A. station) or from natural gas.
The equipment required for this
, of course, is not cheap for station owners, with costs ranging between $500,000 and $5,000,000 per installation.
The price depends on factors such as the number and pressure of the pumps, security measures, and the types of vehicles the facility intends to serve (i.e., passenger vehicles or commercial vehicles), according to GM's environmental and energy spokesman Shad Balch. Conclusion
Future plans to build more hydrogen stations are both rather modest in coverage and expensive in cost.
For the foreseeable future, owners of hydrogen fuel cell cars will be extremely limited in where they can drive.
The first drive across America in a Tesla Model S using only superchargers took place in January 2014. At a cost of $0 for fuel! At this time, it is impossible to speculate when, if ever, that feat will be possible in an FCEV (and will likely cost quite a bit in fuel).
Meanwhile, fast-charging stations are being built at a brisk pace, and expectations for the future are enormous. Currently, the scorecard is at about 64,000 to 65 in favor of charging stations
. If the research group IHS is correct, then within six years, the score could be something like 200,000 to 300-500. Charging stations could even have similar coverage as gasoline stations by the early 2020s
. The infrastructure lead that PEVs enjoy over FCEVs is substantial and not expected to change any time soon.
It may be such an insurmountable lead that FCEVs are doomed from any widespread adoption.

No hydrogen cars—electric cars out compete them
Konrad 10
(Tom Konrad, PhD., CFA is a financial analyst, freelance writer, and portfolio manager specializing in renewable energy and energy efficiency. He is Editor at AltEnergyStocks.com and Head of Research at The Green Economy Fund. Konrad, T. “Peak Oil Investments
I’m Putting My Money On: Part II, Hydrogen and Vehicle Electrification,” March 22, 2010. Seeking Alpha, http://seekingalpha.com/article/194822-peak-oil-investments-im-putting-my-money-on-part-ii-hydrogen-and-vehicle-electrification//ghskw)
Hydrogen
I don't see current hydrogen technology as a viable alternative to oil
, but I thought I should mention it since it does have its proponents.
The main barriers to the hydrogen economy are 1. The price of hydrogen fuel cells 2. Lack of hydrogen infrastructure 3. Inefficiency of hydrogen electrolysis
A hydrogen fuel cell converts hydrogen stored in the Fuel Cell Vehicle's [FCV] tank into electricity, which is then used to power an electric motor. Because fuel cells are extremely expensive
, it makes sense to use as small a fuel cell as possible. This can be accomplished by configuring the FCV as a PHEV, and using the fuel cell constantly while the vehicle is in operation, keeping the batteries charged for when extra power for acceleration is needed. Hence, even if I am wrong about FCVs being the wave of the future, battery investors are likely to benefit as well as investors in other vehicle components.
The lack of hydrogen infrastructure and inefficiency of electrolysis (making hydrogen) both point to the conclusion that PHEVs are superior solutions for displacing oil than Fuel Cell Vehicles are. There is already an electric grid everywhere in the developed world, so a charging infrastructure only requires the installation of charging points, not a new set of hydrogen pipelines as well. And if you have electricity and want to use it to propel a car with an electric motor, your car is going to be able to go much farther if you simply charge the car's batteries than if you first convert the electricity to hydrogen using electrolysis, then convert it back to electricity with a fuel cell, losing energy in each conversion step.

Hydrogen economy fails—lack of infrastructure and low energy inefficiency
Sufiy 12
(Sufiy is a Seeking Alpha Contributor. “Better Place: Hydrogen VS Plug-In Electric Vehicles,” Seeking Alpha. March 26, 2012. Quoting
Werner Zittel; Reinhold Wurster; "Chapter 3: Production of Hydrogen. Part 4: Production from electricity by means of electrolysis".
HyWeb: Knowledge - Hydrogen in the Energy Sector. Ludwig-Bölkow-Systemtechnik GmbH. http://www.hyweb.de/Knowledge/w-ienergiew-eng3.html; http://corporate.honda.com/environment/fuel_cells.aspx?id=fuel_cells_fcx; Ulf Bossel, "E fficiency of hydrogen fuel cell, diesel-SOFC-hybrid and battery electric vehicles", Discussion paper E04, European Fuel Cell Forum, 2003. http://www.efcf.com/reports/E04.pdf; Henning Lohse-Busch, Thomas Wallner & Neeraj Shidore (2007), "Efficiency-Optimized
Operating Strategy of a Supercharged Hydrogen-Powered Four-Cylinder Engine for Hybrid Environments", SAE International JSAE
20077209; Ulf Bossel, "Does a Hydrogen Economy Make Sense?" Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 94, No 10, pp 1826-1837; Original SA
Article Link: http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/21153-sufiy/410601-better-place-hydrogen-versus-plug-in-electric-vehicles//ghs-kw)
Hydrogen is often touted as "the next big thing" in transportation fuels, used either in a fuel-cell-powered electric car, or as fuel for vehicles with an internal combustion engine
("ICE vehicle"). This technical note examines the relative merits of using hydrogen to power our cars in either of these ways, compared with using electricity in battery electric vehicles, looking at the entire supply chain ("well-to-wheel") for both energy sources. Whilst there can be no doubt that hydrogen cars themselves are clean - their direct emissions are mostly water vapour - it is critical for any comparison to examine the entire energy life cycle.
This raises the question: are hydrogen cars the best way to use our limited energy resources and how do they compare with electric cars? HYDROGEN PRODUCTION
Hydrogen gas does not occur naturally on earth. To use hydrogen as a fuel, it first needs to be separated from other atoms with which it is bound up, and isolated it in its elemental form: H2
(hydrogen gas).
There are two main ways to make hydrogen gas: from a fossil fuel, or from water by using electricity. Both methods involve a large inherent efficiency loss. From fossil fuel: Hydrogen gas can be extracted from natural gas (methane) by mixing it with steam under very high temperature and pressure, leading to the production of H2 and carbon dioxide (CO2). Further processing separates the H2 for storage and distribution. Whilst natural gas is both plentiful and cheap, this method of hydrogen production produces vast amounts of CO2, both as a byproduct from the process itself, and also from the production of the electricity and heat required to drive it. As a result, a hydrogen-based transportation system delivers few environmental benefits if the H2 is formed in this way, and it will not be considered further here. It would make much more sense to put the methane directly into the car rather than turning it into H2 first, but even this is far less efficient than using the gas to produce electricity for a pure electric car.1
From water: Electrolysis - where an electric current is passed through water to produce H2 and O2 - is a more environmentally friendly method of hydrogen production.
However, since this is the reverse of the combustion reaction, it uses a significant amount of energy to drive the process. The efficiency claims for hydrogen produced in this way are in the range of 50-
80%
,2 so a massive amount of energy is lost in order to produce the hydrogen from electricity.
HYDROGEN DISTRIBUTION, STORAGE AND SAFETY
Hydrogen is a dangerous and difficult substance to handle, and therefore costly to safely store and distribute
. In principle it would be possible to produce hydrogen gas locally, at filling stations or even at homes, in the latter case even perhaps using solar power.
However, th e cost and safety considerations would be considerable, and so for the purpose of this document we will presume that the hydrogen is produced at central facilities optimised for economical operation and safety.
Distribution:
Building a network of underground pipelines for distribution of hydrogen to service stations would be extremely expensive, and would likely also pose a grave and unacceptable safety risk given the explosive nature of the gas, and its tendency to leak through many materials.
The only alternative to pipelines would be to distribute the fuel by truck, but because of the low volumetric energy density of compressed H2 and the heavy weight of the steel pressure tanks, it would take more than 20 tanker trucks to distribute the same amount of energy that can be distributed by a single petrol tanker. Hydrogen is easier to transport in large quantities if it's liquefied, but this requires further large amounts of energy to cool it
below -250°C under pressure. Storage:
Wherever it is produced, hydrogen gas must be compressed and liquefied for storage in a vehicle's specially designed high-

strength fuel tank
. Once there, it must be used quite quickly, as it otherwise boils off over time.
Safety: There are many issues surrounding the storage and transport of hydrogen in a vehicle.
With a gravimetric density 14 times lower than air, H2 has to be compressed to extremes to provide a driver with reasonable range.
There is only one hydrogenfuelled car that has made it past the concept stage: Honda's FCX Clarity
. The pressure inside its tank when fully fuelled is 5000 psi,3 which is 350 times atmospheric pressure. This pressure requires a tank with very thick walls to contain it, which in turn adds considerable weight and bulk to the vehicle (and further reduces its efficiency).
The Clarity needs a 173 litre tank (compared to 50 litres in a similarly-sized ICE vehicle) to contain 4.1 kg of H2 that delivers a range of 300 km. VEHICLE EFFICIENCY Considering all the inefficiencies of generating, transporting and distributing hydrogen, and comparing them with generating and distributing electricity, how do the "well-to-wheel" efficiencies compare? Ulf
Bossel, director of the European Fuel Cell Forum, has published just such a comparison.4 He found that " the power-plant-to-wheel efficiency of a fuel cell vehicle operated on compressed gaseous hydrogen [produced by electrolysis] will be in the vicinity of 22%", and that "using liquefied hydrogen does not improve the situation… the power-plant-to wheel efficiency of a fuel cell vehicle operated on liquid hydrogen will be in the vicinity of 17%". In comparison,
he finds that electric cars are a much more attractive proposition:
"with these numbers, the power-plant-to-wheel efficiency of an electric car with regenerative braking becomes 66%". This means that a driver could travel three times as far in an electric car as they could in a hydrogenpowered car using the same amount of electricity. Hydrogen-fuelled ICE vehicles are even less efficient than hydrogen fuel cell vehicles,5 and thus provide even poorer overall efficiency again: around 14% and 11% for compressed and liquefied hydrogen respectively. The distance driven by a vehicle is proportional to the mechanical energy available. Even for the most favourable comparison, being against a hydrogen fuel-cell car, the electric vehicle can drive three times further per kWh of electricity consumed. Compared with a H2-fuelled internal combustion vehicle, the electric car can drive around five times further (see graph below).
The fundamental problem of using hydrogen as fuel is that the process uses electricity to produce H2, then more energy to compress and transport it, and more energy again to convert the H2 back into electricity that is finally used to drive the same electric motor that is found in a battery-powered electric car.
That is in part why, when concluding his paper to the IEEE entitled "Does a hydrogen economy make sense?", Bossel answered with one word: "Never."6
Hydrogen economy fails—consumes more energy than it generates and is too expensive
Bossel 06
(Ulf Bossel was born in 1936 in Germany. He studied mechanical engineering in Darmstadt, Germany, and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, where he received the Diploma Degree in fluid mechanics and thermodynamics in 1961. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968 for experimental research on the production of aerodynamically intensified molecular beams. After two years as Assistant Professor at Syracuse University, he returned to Germany to lead the free molecular flow research group at the DLR in Gottingen. He left the field for solar energy in 1976, was founder and first president of the German Solar
Energy Society, and started his own R&D consulting firm for renewable energy technologies in 1979. In 1986, Brown Boveri asked him to join their new technology group in Switzerland. He became involved in fuel cells in 1987 and later (after BBC's merger with Asea to
ABB) director of the company's fuel cell development efforts worldwide. After ABB decided to concentrate its resources on the development of conventional energy technologies, he established himself as a freelance fuel cell consultant, with clients in Europe, Japan, and the United States. He has created and is still in charge of the annual fuel cell conference series of the European Fuel Cell Forum in
Lucerne, Switzerland. Bossel, U. “Does a Hydrogen Economy Make Sense?” Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 94, No 10, October 2006. http://www.biowasserstoff.org/fileadmin/Quellen/Unser_Kommentar/Wasserstoff_loest_keine_Energieprobleme/Does_a_Hydrogen_Eco nomy_Make_Sense.pdf//ghs-kw)
INVITED PAPER Proceedings of the IEEE October 2006 Does a Hydrogen Economy Make Sense?
Electricity obtained from hydrogen fuel cells appears to be four times as expensive as electricity drawn from the electrical transmission grid.
By ULF BOSSEL ABSTRACT | The establishment of a sustainable energy future is one of the most pressing tasks of mankind.
With the exhaustion of fossil resources the energy economy will change from a chemical to an electrical base. This transition is one of physics, not one of politics. It must be based on proven technology and existing engineering experience.
The transition process will take many years
and should start soon. Unfortunately, politics seems to listen to the advice of visionaries and lobby groups. Many of their qualitative arguments are not based on facts and physics.
A secure sustainable energy future cannot be based on hype and activism, but has to be built on solid grounds of established science and engineering. In this paper the energy needs of a hydrogen economy are quantified.
Only 20%-25% of the source energy needed to synthesized hydrogen from natural compounds can be recovered for end use by efficient fuel cells. Because of the high energy losses
within a hydrogen
economy the synthetic energy

carrier cannot compete with electricity
. As the fundamental laws of physics cannot be changed by research, politics or investments, a hydrogen economy will never make sense.
KEYWORDS | Electrolysis; electron economy; energy; energy efficiency; heating values; heat of formation; hydrogen; hydro-gen compression; hydrogen economy; hydrogen liquefaction; hydrogen pipelines; hydrogen storage; hydrogen transfer; hydrogen transport; metal hydrides; onsite hydrogen generation; reforming I. INTRODUCTION The technology needed to establish a hydrogen economy is available or can be developed. Two comprehensive 2004 studies by the U.S. National Research Council [1] and the American Physical Society [2] summarize technical options and
identify needs for further improvements
. They are concerned with the cost of hydrogen obtained from various sources, but fail to address the key question of the overall energy balance of a hydrogen economy.
Energy is needed to synthesize hydrogen and to deliver it to the user, and energy is lost when the gas is converted back to electricity by fuel cells
. How much energy is needed to liberate hydrogen from water by electrolysis or high-temperature thermodynamics or by chemistry? Where does the energy come from and in which form is it harvested? Do we have enough clean water for electrolysis and steam reforming? How and where do we safely deposit the enormous amounts of carbon dioxide if hydrogen is derived from coal? This paper extends a previous analysis of the parasitic energy needs of a hydrogen economy [3]. It argues that the energy problem cannot be solved in a sustainable way by introducing hydrogen as an energy carrier. Instead, energy from renewable sources and high energy efficiency between source and service will become the key points of a sustainable solution. The establishment of an efficient "electron economy" appears to be more appropriate than the creation of a much less efficient "hydrogen economy." II. THE CHALLENGE The following examples illustrate the nature of the challenge involved in creating a hydrogen economy.
It takes about 1 kg of hydrogen to replace
1 U.S. gal of gasoline. About 200 MJ (55 kWh) of dc electricity are needed to liberate 1 kg of hydrogen from 9 kg of water by electrolysis.
Steam reforming of methane (natural gas) requires only 4.5 kg of water for each kilogram of hydrogen, but 5.5 kg of CO2 emerge from the process.
One kilogram of hydrogen can also be obtained from
3 kg of coal and 9 kg of water, but 11 kg of CO2 are released and need to be sequestered.
Even with most efficient fuel cell systems, at most 50% of the hydrogen
HHV energy can be converted back to electricity
. The full dimensions of the challenge become apparent when these numbers are translated to a specific case
. The following case study may serve to illustrate the point. About
50 jumbo jets leave Frankfurt Airport every day, each loaded with
130 tons of kerosene. If replaced
on a 1 : 1 energy base by 50 tons of liquid hydrogen, the daily needs would be
2500 tons
or 36 000 m3 of the cryogenic liquid, enough to fill 18 Olympic-size swimming pools. Every day
22 500 tons of water would have to be electrolyzed.
The continuous output of eight 1-GW power plants would be required for electrolysis, liquefaction, and transport of hydrogen.
If all 550 planes leaving the airport were converted to hydrogen, the entire water consumption of Frankfurt (650 000 inhabitants) and the output of 25 full-size power plants would be needed to meet the hydrogen demand of air planes leaving just one airport in
Germany.
For hydrogen derived from fossil hydrocarbons, the availability of water and the safe sequestration of CO2 may pose serious problems, not because of inadequate technology, but with respect to logistics, infrastructure, costs, safety, and energy consumption. To fuel the 50 jumbo jets with hydrogen, about 7500 tons of coal and 11 250 tons of water are needed daily and 27 500 tons of carbon dioxide must be liquefied for transport, shipped to a suitable disposal site (perhaps in the deep waters of the mid-Atlantic) and safely deposited.
The significant energy needs for hydrogen liquefaction and transport are the same for any source of hydrogen.
Fuelingthe50jumbo jets at Frankfurt airport is only an insignificant part of a hydrogen economy. Has the magnitude of the task been recognized? Questions of this nature need to be addressed before resources are invested in a hydrogen infrastructure. The mission should not be the development of technology and the introduction of new energy carriers, but the establishment of a sustainable energy future. There are other options to be considered before we make major commitments to a hydrogen future. III. SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE In this paper, fossil and nuclear energy are defined as unsustainable because the resources are finite and the waste cannot be absorbed by nature. If one accepts this definition, renewable energy harvested in a sustainable way becomes the key to a sustainable energy future. With the exception of biomass, all renewable energy is of a physical nature: heat (solar, geothermal), solar radiation (photovoltaic) and mechanical energy (wind, hydro, waves, etc.). Heat obtained from solar collectors, geothermal sources, and waste incineration may also be converted to electricity. Thus, in one vision of a sustainable future, electricity from renewable sources will become the dominant primary energy carrier replacing chemical carriers of today's economy. Physical energy provided by nature is best distributed as physical energy without intermediate chemical carriers, because, excepting food, people need physical energy for transport, space conditioning, fabrication processes, cooking, lighting, and communication.
Hydrogen would make sense only if its production, distribution, and use are superior to the distribution of electricity by wires
. For centuries hydrogen has fascinated people. Hydrogen can be derived from water and other chemical compounds. The conversion of hydrogen to heat or power is often simplified by the popular equation "hydrogen plus air yields electricity and drinking water." Also, hydrogen, the most common chemical element on the planet, is hailed as an everlasting energy source [5]. But nature does not provide hydrogen in its elemental form. High-grade energy (electricity or heat) is needed to liberate hydrogen from its chemical source. Economy means trade. A hydrogen economy involves all economic stages between hydrogen production and hydrogen use, i.e., between renewable electricity received to electrolyzers and useful electricity drawn from fuel cells. Between the two ends of the economic chain hydrogen has to be packaged by compression or liquefaction to become a commodity.
In the transportation, hydrogen has to be produced, packaged, transported, stored, transferred to cars, then stored and transported again before it is finally admitted to fuel cells. All these processes require energy
.
Compared to natural gas (methane) or liquid fuels much more energy is required for the marketing of hydrogen . This is directly related to the physical properties of hydrogen
(density 0.09 kg/m3, boiling point 20.3 K [6], [7]). Compared to methane, the volumetric energy density of hydrogen is less than one third. Even in the liquid state, the density of hydrogen (70 kg/m3) is not much above the density of heavy duty Styrofoam.
Gasoline and even wood pellets carry 3.5 or 1.2 times more energy per volume than liquefied hydrogen. One cubic meter of the cold liquid holds 70 kg, the same

volume of gasoline 128 kg of hydrogen. The best way to store hydrogen is in chemical combination with carbon. The volumetric higher heating values (HHV) of common energy carriers are shown in Fig. 1 IV. ENERGY NEEDS OF A HYDROGEN ECONOMY The energy needed to produce, compress, liq uefy, transport, transfer, and store hydrogen and the energy lost for its conversion back to electricity with fuel cells can never be recovered [3]. The heat of formation or HHV has been used throughout to base the analysis on true energy contents in agreement with the law of energy conservation. In contrast, the lower heating value (LHV), a man-created accounting convention, is appropriate only when energetic processes are compared for identical fuels. In for an isothermal compression. Pressure is not obtained for free, but by this meaningful procedure compression losses and equipment costs are reduced. Pressure electrolysis offers energetic and commercial advantages over atmospheric electrolyzers. Electrolysis may be the only practical link between renewable energy and hydrogen. Although solar or nuclear heat can also be used for high-temperature cyclic processes, it is unlikely that a recognizable fraction of the global energy demand can be served with hydrogen from solar concentrators or high-temperature reactors. Local wind farms may deliver energy at lower costs than distant solar or nuclear installations. many "well-towheel" studies[8],[9],hydrogen solutions are embellished by 10% as a result of an LHV accounting.
When hydrogen is made by whatever process at least the heat of formation HHV of the synthetic energy carrier has to be invested in form of electricity, heat, or HHV energy content of precursor materials.
For a correct accounting the output of a fuel cell should also be related to the HHV, not the LHV energy content of the hydrogen gas. Also, LHV accounting may turn conventional energy equipment into perpetual motion machines with efficiencies exceed-ing 100%.
The use of the higher heating value HHV is appropriate for all serious energy analyses [10]. Although cost of energy is an important issue, this study is only concerned with energy balances. Energy is needed for solving the energy problem and energy waste has to be minimized. However, a quick visit to the market is helpful. According to [11], every GJ of hydrogen energy will cost
around $5.60 when produced from natural gas, $10.30 from coal, and
$20.10 from electrolysis of water. Before taxes, gasoline costs about $3.00 per GJ
. A. Production of Hydrogen by Electrolysis
Making hydrogen from water by electrolysis is an energy-intensive process
.ALL THE FOLLOWING IS ORIGINAL RESEARCH
However, in a sustainable energy future, this is the direct route from renewable electricity to a chemical energy carrier. The standard potential for the water formation is 1.48 V, corresponding to the heat of formation or the higher heating value HHV of hydrogen. For advanced solid polymer or alkaline electrolyzers about 0.1 V is lost by polarization, while 0.2 ^-cm2 is typical for the areaspecific resistance. For an atmospheric low-temperature electrolyzer, the characteristic shown in Fig. 2 is representative. Under optimized conditions the electrolyzer is operated at 2.00 V and a current density of about 2.00 A/cm2. Compared to 1.48 V, about 1.35 times higher voltage has to be applied for an rate-optimized hydrogen production resulting in an electric process efficiency of about 75%. The electrolysis is frequently performed under pressure. In that case, part of the electrical energy input is used B. Hydrogen From Biomass Hydrogen from biomass is another option with uncertain future. Biomass has to be converted to biomethane by aerobic fermentation or gasification before hydrogen can be made. However, biomethane of natural gas quality (above 96% CH4) is already a perfect fuel for transport and stationary applications. Why reform it to hydrogen? In many European countries, biomethane from sewage digesters is already sold at fueling stations to a growing number of satisfied driver s. In a sustainable future, hydrogen could also be obtained by reforming of alcohols or wood. This is not likely to happen, because the listed biofuels are much better energy carriers than hydrogen. The inherent value of these substances is the natural bond of hydrogen and carbon atoms. By chemical rearrangement (e.g., Fischer Tropsch) it is possible to synthesize liquid hydrocarbons for long distance transport by air, ship, rail, or road. Hydrogen production from biomass shall not be considered in this context. Using autothermal processes the conversion can be very efficient. The process heat obtained by burning some of the biomass is transferred to the hydrogen stream. Industrial natural gas reformers generate hydrogen with energetic HHV efficiencies of 90%. Today, this is the most economical method to obtain hydrogen. As stated earl ier, hydrogen production from fossil hydrocarbons is not here considered sustainable. C. Packaging of Hydrogen by Compression Compressing gas requires energy. The compression work depends on the thermodynamic process. Ideal isothermal compression, which is impossible in practice, follows the simple equation W = p0 V 0ln(p1 /P0). W (1) For ideal gases, and real gases far above their boiling temperature, the actual thermodynamic process is more closely described by the adiabatic compression equation [12] [7/(7 - 1)]PcVo [(P1 /P0)(7"1)/7 where W [J/kg] specific compression work; p0 [Pa] initial pressure; p1 [Pa] final pressure; V0 [m3/kg] initial specific volume; 7 [ -] ratio of specific heats, adiabatic coefficient. In both isothermal and adiabatic compression, the compression work is the difference between the final and the initial energy states of the gas. At identical final pressures, the different compression processes yield different temperatures of the compressed medium. In the ideal isothermal case, the temperature would remain constant, while it rises considerably under adiabatic conditions. Moreover, the compression work depends on the nature of the gas. For example, for hydrogen and methane, the adiabatic coefficients and initial specific volumes are H2 7 = 1.41 V0 = 11.11 m3/kg
CH4 7 = 1.31 V0 = 1.39 m3/kg. For adiabatic compression of diatomic hydrogen and five-atomic methane from atmospheric conditions to higher pressures, the energy consumed is shown in Fig. 3. Compared to methane, about nine times more en¬ergy per kg is required to compress hydrogen, and 15 times more (ratio of molecular masses) than for air. The energy consumption for compression of hydrogen is substantial and has to be considered. Multistage compressors with intercoolers operate somewhere between the isothermal and adiabatic limits. Compared with methane, hydrogen passes the compres¬sion heat faster to the cooler walls thus bringing the process closer to isothermal. Data provided by a leading temperatures, no heat sinks exist for cooling and con¬densing hydrogen. Generally, a three-stage propane re¬frigeration system is used for cooling hydrogen gas from ambient temperature to about 170 K, followed by multi¬stage nitrogen expansion to obtain 77 K, and a multistage helium compression-expansion to complete the liquefac¬tion of hydrogen at 20.3 K and atmospheric pressure [15]. The energy consumed by these three stages is much higher than the exergetic limit mentioned above. Therefore, published data of representative hydrogen liquefaction plants are used for reference. The medium size liquefaction plant of Linde Gas AG at Ingolstadt in Germany produces 182 kg/h of LH2 [16] at a specific energy consumption of about 54 MJ/kgLH2 [14]. Advanced larger plants in the United States require 36 MJ/kgLH2 to liquefy hydr ogen [14]. In a Japanese feasibility study [17] of a hydrogen liquefaction plant of 300 metric tons LH2 per day or 12 500 kgLH2/h, the best case power consumption is given at 105.2 MW. This corresponds to 30.3 MJ/kgLH2 for a plant about six times larger than any existing facility. The use a helium-neonmixtureforthelow-temperaturecyclehasbeen suggested to reduce the energy consumption to, perhaps, 25.2MJ/kgLH2(= 7kWh/kgLH2) for a plant producing 7200 kgLH2 per hour, or 173 metric tons LH2 per day [14]. However, experimental results are not yet available. The real-world requirements are much higher. Twenty-five hundred metric tons of liquid hydrogen would be required daily to fuel 50 jumbo jets departing from Frankfurt Airport. For this, 22 500 m3 of clean water must be split by electrolysis. Hydrogen production and lique¬faction consumes the continuous output of eight 1-GW power plants. The numbers may be multiplied by five if Frankfurt airport were totally converted to hydrogen.
Large liquefaction plants are more efficient than small facilities. The variation of energy consumption with capacity for existing hydrogen liquefaction plants [18] is reflected in Fig. 5. More electrical energy is consumed for the liq¬uefaction of hydrogen in small plants than in large facilities.
For very small liquefaction plants (> 5kgLH2/h),the energy needed to liquefy hydrogen may exceed the HHV energy. Even 10 000 kgLH2/ hplants(perhapsfourtimes larger than any existing liquefaction facility) would consume about 25% of the HHV energy of the liquefied hy drogen.For theavailable technology,40% wouldbea reasonable number. On other words, 1.4 units of energy wouldhavetobesuppliedtotheliquefi erashydrogenand electricity to obtain 1 HHV unit of liquid hydrogen. How¬ever, no liquefaction plants of comparable performance have yet been built.
Moreover, liquid hydrogen storage systems lose some hydrogen gas by boiloff. This is due to unavoidable heat leakage, and must be permitted for safety reasons. The loss rate is dependent on the size of the store, but would be significant for those used in vehicles, and may amount to 3%-4% a day [19]. Boiloff hydrogen has to be vented from parked vehicles. For example, when a car is left at an airport for two weeks, 50% of the original hydrogen may be lost by evaporation. E. Physical Metal Hydrides Hydrogen may be stored physically, e.g., by adsorption in spongy matrices of special alloys of metal hydrides. The hydrogen forms a very close physical, but not a perfect chemical bond with alloys like LaNi5 or ZrCr2. The energy balance shall be described in general terms. Again, energy is needed to produce and compress hy-drogen.Someofthisenergyislost.
Also,heatisreleased and normally lost when metal hydride storage containers are filled with hydrogen. Conversely, heat must be added to liberate the stored hydrogen from the hydrides. The energy needed to store hydrogen in physical metal hydrides and to liberate it later is significantly more than the energy needed to compress the gas to 3 MPa, the typical filling pressure of hydride storage containers [20]. However, according to [21], metal hydrides store only around 55-60 kg of hydrogen per m3 of storage volume. For comparison, liquid hydrogen has a volumetric density of 70 kg/m3. Moreover, metal hydride cartridges are heavy. A small metal hydride container holding less than 2 g of hydrogen has a weight of 230 g. Hence, around 50 kg of hydrides are required to store 1 kg of hydrogen, the equivalent of about 4 L or 1 U.S. gal of gasoline. Hydride storage of hydrogen is not practical for automotive ap¬plication, unless the volumetric and gravimetric energy density of the storage medium can be raised. Today, the specific energy density of metal hydride storage devices is comparable to that of advanced Li-Ion batteries. F. Chemical Metal
Hydrides Hydrogen may also be stored chemically in alkali metal hydrides. Alkali metal hydrides have high energy densities with gravimetric energy content comparable to firewood. The weight of alkali hydride materials poses no problems. One kg of CaH2 or LiH rea cting with water yields
13.6 or 36.1 MJ of HHV hydrogen energy, respectively. However, the energy needed to produce the alkali metal hydrides would discourage their commercial use on a larger scale. There are many options in the alkali group like LiH, NaH, KH, and CaH2. Complex binary hydride compounds like LiBH4,NaBH4,KBH4,LiAlH4,orNaAlH4 have also been proposed for hydrogen storage [22]. None of these compounds can be found in nature. All have to be synthe¬sized from pure metals and hydrogen. Let us consider the case of calcium hydride CaH2.The compound is produced by combining calcium metal with hydrogen at 480 °C. Energy is needed to extract calcium from calcium carbonate (limestone) and hydrogen from water by electrolysis according to the following endother-mic processes: CaCO3 ! Ca + CO2 + 1/2O2 + 808 kJ/mol H2O ! H2 + 1/2O2 + 286 kJ/mol. Some of the energy is recovered when the two ele¬ments are combined at 480 °C by an exothermic process Ca + H2 ! CaH2 - 192 kJ/mol. The three equations combine to the virtual net reaction CaCO3 + H2O ! CaH2 + CO2 + O2 + 902 kJ/mol. Similarly, for the production of NaH and LiH from NaCl or LiCl, one obtains NaCl + 0.5H2O ! NaH + Cl + 0.25 O2 + 500 kJ/mol and LiCl + 0.5H2O ! LiH + Cl + 0.25 O2 + 460 kJ/mol. The material is then cooled to room temperature under hydrogen, granulated, and packaged in airtight containers. In use, the hydrides react vigorously with water, and release heat and hydrogen CaH2 + 2H2O ! Ca(OH)2 + 2H2 - 224 kJ/mol NaH + H2O ! NaOH + H2 - 85 kJ/mol LiH + H2O ! LiOH + H2 - 111 kJ/mol. In fact, the reaction of hydrides with water produces twice the hydrogen contained in the hydride compound itself, because the water is reduced in the process while the hydrides are oxidized to hydroxides. Normally, the gen¬erated heat is lost by cooling. For three common hydrides, the energy balances are shown in Table 1. For hydrogen storage in hydrides, at least 1.6 times more high-grade energy has to be invested to produce 1 HHV energy unit of hydrogen, resulting in a stage efficiency of less than 60%. G. Road Delivery of Hydrogen Although pipeline transport is preferred for gases, hydrogen transport by trucks will play a role in a hydrogen economy. Because of the low density of the gaseous energy carrier, transport of pressurized or liquid hydrogen is extremely inefficient. Forty-ton trucks can carry only 350 kg of hydrogen at 200 bar in the gaseous, or 3500 kg in the liquid state. The bulk weight is st eel for pressure tanks and cryogenic vessels. It takes about 22 hydrogen tube trailers to deliver the same amount of energy as a single gasoline tanker. The energy analysis is based on information obtained from some of the leading providers of industrial gases in Germany and Switzerland: Messer-Griesheim [23], Esso (Schweiz) AG [24], Jani
GmbH [25], and Hoyer [26]. The following assumptions are made. Hydrogen gas (at 20 MPa = 200 bar), liquid hydrogen, methanol, ethanol, propane, and octane (representing gasoline) are trucked from the refinery or hydrogen plant to the consumer. Trucks with a gross weight of 40 metric tons are fitted with suitable containers. Fuel consumption is 40 kg of diesel fuel per 100 km and metric ton. The engine effi ciency does not depend on the vehicle weight. The 40-metric-ton tanker trucks are designed to carry a maximum of fuel. For liquids like gasoline, ethanol, and methanol, the payload is about 26 metric tons. One hundred percent of the liquid fuels are delivered to the customer. In contrast, only 80% of the compressed gases are transferred by blow-down. The remaining 20% of the gas load is returned to the gas plant. Such pressure cascades are stan¬dard practice today. As a consequence, the payload of pressurized gas carriers is 80% of the load. However, in anticipation of technical developments, this analysis as¬sumes that in future, trucks will be able to carry 4000 kg methane or 500 kg of hydrogen, of which 80% (3200 kg or 400 kg, respectively) are delivered to the consumer. The transport of liquid hydrogen is limited by volume, not by weight. A large trailer-truck may have a useful box volume of 2.4-m width, 2.5-m height, and 10-m length, i.e., 60 m3. As the density of 70 kg/m3,only4200kgof liquid hydrogen could possibly be loaded. But space is needed for the cryogenic container, thermal insulation, safety equipment, etc. In fact, a large truck has room for about 2100 kg of the cryogenic liquid. However, trucking liquid hydrogen is more energy efficient than delivering the pressurized gas. For common energy carriers, Fig. 6 shows the ratio of energy consumed for delivery compared to the energy delivered to the customer. The energy needed to transport any of the liquid hydro carbon fuels is reasonably small. For a one-way delivery distance of 100 km, the diesel fuel consumption remains below 0.5% of the HHV energy content of the delivered liquid fuels. However, for de¬livering pressurized hydrogen, the parasitic energy con¬sumption is significant. About 7% of the delivered energy is consumed for delivery, about 13 times more than for gasoline. For l iquid hydrogen the ratio is about 3.5. H. Pipeline Delivery of Hydrogen Hydrogen pipelines exist to transport the chemical commodit y "hydrogen" from sources to production sites. The energy required to deliver the gas is part of the production process and energy costs are absorbed in the final price of the product. People do not mind paying for hydrogen in aspirin, plastic materials, or steel. However, energy is the currency in pipeline transport of hydrogen. Parasitic energy losses reduce the amount of energy available for useful purposes. Hydrogen transport by pipelines has to compete with electricity transport by wires. The assessment of the energy required to pump hy¬drogen through pipelines is derived from natural gas pipeline operating experience. It is assumed that the same amount of energy is delivered through identical pipelines. In reality, existing pipelines must be modified for hydrogen, because of diffusion losses (mainly in sealing areas), brittleness of materials and seals, compressor lubri¬cation, and other technical issues. Also, as the volumetric HHV energy content of hydrogen is about 3.5 times less than that of natural gas, pipes of larger diameters are needed to accommodate similar energy flow rates. Natural gas is diluted by adding hydrogen, not upgraded. In our analysis, the symbols have the following meaning: Vo volumetric flow rate[m3/s]; A cross section of pipe [m2]; v flow velocity of the gas [m/s]; Ap pressure drop [Pa]; D pipeline diameter [m]; L pipeline length [m]; 9 density of the gas [kg/m3]; HHV higher heating value of the transported gas [MJ/kg]; Re Reynolds number; V dynamic viscosity [kg/(m s)]; c resistance coefficient. TheenergyflowthroughthepipelineQ[W] Q = Vo 9HHV =
Av9HHV. (2) At a pressure of 1 MPa (= 10 bar), the densities of methane and hydrogen are 7.2 and 0.9 kg/m3,respectively. According to (2), for the same energy flow through a pipelineofthesamediameter, thevelocityofhydrogenhas to be 3.13 times that of methane. Re (3)
TheReynoldsnumberisgivenby 9vD/v. At a pressure of 1 MPa, the dynamic viscosities of methane and hydrogen are 11.0 X 10-6 and 8.92 X 10-6 kg/(sm), respectively [27]. Hence, accord-ingto(3)andforapipediameterof1m,theReynolds numbers of methane and hydrogen are 6.55 106 and
3.16 X 106, respectively. Since both values greatly exceed 2000, the flow regime is turbulent in both cases. For turbulent flow the theoretical pumping power N [W] requirement is given by (4) N = VoAp =AvAp = p/4 D2vAp = p/4 D2vL/D 1/2 pv2(. (5) From (4), the ratio of the theoretical pumping powers NH2 for hydrogen and NCH4 for methane, is NH2 /NCH4 = (PH2/pCH4)(vH2/vCH4 f Hence, for the same energy flow hydrogen requires about 3.85 times more energy than for natural gas. Typically, a compressor is installed every 150 km for natural gas transport through pipelines at 10 m/s. The compressor motors are fueled from the gas taken from the stream, each compressor consuming about 0.3% of the local energy flow [28]. Applying this model to the transport of hydrogen through the same pipeline, (5), each compressor would require 3.85 more energy or 1.16% of the local energy flow. The remaining mass flow is decreasing with pipeline length. This crude model needs to be r efined by pipeline experts. It does not consider the higher energy needs for hydrogen compres¬sion discussed above. For a pipeline length of 3000 km (e.g., for gas from Russian fields to Germany), the mass fraction consumed for transporting natural gas is about 20%, while transport-inghydrogengasoverthesamedistancewouldrequire about 35% of the original mass flow. This result was obtained for pipes of equal diameter. In Fig. 7, the energy consumed for transport is related to the HHV of the delivered gases. For a transport distance of 3000 km, at least 1.5 kg of hydrogen must be fed into thelineforthedeliveryof1kgtothecustomer. Moving hydrogen over long distances by pipeline is not a good option. However, hydrogen pipelines have been suggested for the transport of solar energy from northern Africa or the Middle East to central Europe. I. On-Site Generation of Hydrogen One option for providing hydrogen at filling stations and dispersed depots is on-site generation of the gas by electrolysis. Again, the energy needed to generate and compress hydrogen by this scheme is compared to the HHV energy content of the hydrogen transferred to cars. Natural gas reforming is not a sustainable solution and thus not considered for the reasons stated earlier. Consider a filling station now pumping 60
000 L of fuel (gasoline or diesel) into 1000 cars, trucks, or buses perday.Thisnumberistypicalforserviceareasalong European freeways. In most parts of the United States, many smaller filling stations are located roadside at free¬way exits. On a 1 : 1 energy base, 60 000 L of fuel corresponds to about 17 000 kg of hydrogen. However, hydrogen vehicles are assumed to have a 1.5 times higher tank -to-wheel efficiency than IC engine cars [29]. The frequently cited number of 2.5 cannot be justified any longer in light of the high efficiency of diesel or hybrid vehicles. In fact, the well-to-wheel studies of 2002 [8], [9] are based on lower heating values, optimistic assumptions of fuel cells, and disregard of the efficiency potentials of diesel engines and hybrid systems. The shortcoming of LHV analyses is discussed in [30]. Furthermore, more recent well-to-wheel studies appropriately based on the higher heating values [10] do not identify hydrogen-fuel-cell cars as the best transportation option. In fact, the efficiency of all-electric cars is three times better than for hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles [31]. Under the favorable assumption of a 1.5 advantage of hydrogen versus gasoline, 60 000 liters of fuel will be replaced by 12 000 kg of hydrogen per day. The electrolyzer efficiency may be 75%. Also, losses occur in the ac-dc power conversion. Making 12 000 kg of hydrogen per day by electrolysis requires 25 MW of continuous power and 108
000 liters of water must be pumped and demineralized. Compression power is needed for storing the hydrogen to 10 MPa and for transfer at 40 MPa to vehicle tanks at 35 MPa. In all, to generate and store 12 000 kg of hydrogen per day, the filling station must be supplied with continuous electric power of about 28 MW. There are many sites in arid regions where neither the electricity nor the water is a vailable for hydrogen production. The final results of this analysis are shown in Fig. 8. For 12 000 kg of hydrogen per day ( this corresponds to 1000 conventional vehicles per day), about 1.65 units of energy must be invested to obtain 1 unit of hydrogen HHV, giving a stage efficiency of 60%. Assuming continuous operation, a 1-GW electric power plant must be available for every 20-30 hydrogen filling stations on European freeways. Today, about one fifth of the total energy consumption is electricity. The national electric power generating capacity must be significantly increased to power the transition from fossil fuels to hydrogen.
It may be difficult to derive the needed elec¬trical energy from "renewable sources" as suggested by hydrogen promoters
.
One would certainly use off-peak power from wind and solar sources for hydrogen pro¬duction. However, electrolyzers, pumps, and storage tanks must be sized for peak demand during rush hours and vacation traffic. Not only must the electric peak power demand be considered, but also the storage of substantial amounts of hydrogen to meet the daily and seasonal demands at filling stations.
J. Transfer of Hydrogen Liquids can be drained from a full tank into an empty container

by gravity.
No additional energy is required, unless the transfer is from a lower to a higher level, or at accelerated flow rates. However,
energy is needed to transfer hydrogen from a voluminous low-pressure storage container into the small high-pressure tank of a fuel cell vehicle. This adds to the parasitic energy consumption of a hydrogen economy. T he amount of energy required for gas transfer by pumping is given by the difference of the work needed to compress the gas to final pressure p2 (e.g., 40 MPa) and work needed to reach the intermediate pressure p1 of the large volume store (e.g., 10 MPa).
(6) Consider the following typical case. For multistage compressors, the compression work is about twice the ideal isothermal compression W ~ 2poVo [ln(p2/po)- ln(pi/po). specific compression work; initial pressure; intermediate pressure; final pressure; initial specific volume. For the example case p0 = 10 MPa (= ibar) p1 = 10
MPa (= 100 bar) P2 = 40 MPa (= 400 bar) V0 = 11.11 m3/kg P0 V0 = 1.111 MJ/kg. To transfer the remaining hydrogen from the supply tank into the receiving tank by a multistage compression, the energy required is W = 1.54 MJ/kg. This is about 1.1% of the HHV energy content of the compressed hydrogen. Including mechanical and electri¬cal losses of the small compressors installed at the filling stations, this number may be closer to 3%. Moreover, to transfer hydrogen from a large storage tank at 10 MPa into a small vehicle tank at 35 MPa would require at least 4.32 MJ/kg or, including other losses, at least 3% of the HHV energy content of the transferred hydrogen. Hence, to transfer one unit of HHV hydrogen energy from a 10-MPa storage tank to a 35-MPa vehicle tank requires at least 1.08 units of
(electrical) energy for the transfer against pressure. At least 1.08 electrical energy units must be invested to transfer 1 HHV hydrogen energy unit from a 10-MPa storage vessel to the 70-MPa gas tank of a hydrogen vehicle. V. ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF A HYDROGEN ECONOMY When the original report [3] was published in 2003, the parasitic energy needs of a hydrogen economy had not even been considered by promoters of a hydrogen economy
. The intent of the original study was to create an awareness of the fundamental energetic weaknesses of using hydrogen as an energy vector. Since then equa¬tions and results for producing, packaging, distributing, storing, and transferring hydrogen have been checked by others and found correct. For selected hydrogen strategies, the accumulated parasitic energy needs of all important stages can be determined by multiplication or addition of the losses of the stages involved. Four cases may serve to illustrate the point [3]. A)
Hydrogen is produced by electrolysis
, compressed to 20 MPa and distributed by road to filling stations, stored at 10 MPa, then compressed to 40 MPa for rapid transfer to vehicles at
35 MPa. Energy input to hydrogen energy delivered: 1.59 B) Hydrogen is produced by electrolysis, liquefied, and distributed by road to filling stations, then transferred to vehicles. Energy input to hydrogen energy delivered: 2.02 C) Hydrogen is produced by electrolysis on-site at filling stations or consumers, stored at 10
MPa, and subsequently compressed to 40 MPa for rapid transfer to vehicles at 35 MPa. Energy input to hydrogen energy delivered: 1.59 D) Hydrogen is produced by electrolysis and used to make alkali metal hydrides. Hydrogen is then released by reaction of the hydride with water. Energy input to hydrogen energy delivered: 1.90
The analysis reveals that between 1.6 and 2.0 electrical energy units must be harvested from renewable sources for every energy unit of hydrogen gas sold to the user. The high energy losses may be tolerated for some niche markets, but it is unlikely that hydrogen will ever become an important energy carrier in a sustainable energy economy built on renewable sources and efficiency. Moreover, the delivered hydrogen must be converted to motion for all transport applications
. IC engines convert hydrogen within 45% efficiency directly into mechanical motion, while equally efficient fuel cells systems produce dc electricity for traction motors. Fur¬ther losses may occur in transmissions, etc. All in all, hardly 50% of the hydrogen energy contained in a vehicle tank is converted to motion of a car. The overall efficiency between electricity from renewable sources and wheel motion is only 20
to 25
%. In comparison, over
60% of the original electricity can be used for transportation, if the energy is not converted to hydrogen, but directly used in electric vehicles
[30]. Fig. 9 illustrates the energy flow for transportation systems based on hydrogen or electricity. The energy advantages of battery-electric cars over hydrogen-fuel-cell-electric vehicles are obvious. However, further work is needed in the area of electricity storage, converters, drive systems, and electricity transfer. VI. HYDROGEN ECONOMY OR ELECTRON ECONOMY The foregoing analysis of the parasitic energy losses within a hydrogen economy shows that a hydrogen economy is an extremely inefficient proposition for the distribution of electricity from renewable sources to useful electricity from fuel cells. Only about 25% of the power generated from wind, water, or sun is converted to practical use. If the original electricity had been directly supplied by wires, as much as 90% could have been put to service. This has two serious consequences to be considered in future energy strategies. A)
About four renewable power plants have to be erected to deliver the output of one plant to stationary or mobile consumers via hydrogen and fuel cells.
Three of these plants generate energy to cover the parasitic losses of the hydrogen economy while only one of them is producing useful energy. Can we base our energy future on such wasteful schemes? B
)
As energy losses will be charged to the customer, electricity from hydrogen fuel cells will be at least four times more expensive than electricity from the grid.
Who wants to use fuel cells? Who wants to drive a hydrogen-fuel-cell car?
Fundamental laws of physics expose the weakness of a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen, the artificial energy carrier, can never compete with its own energy source, electricity, in a sustainable future.
The discussion about a hydrogen economy is adding irritation to the energy debate. We need to focus our attention on sustainable energy solutions. It seems that the establishment of an efficient electron economy should become the common goal.
There are many topics to be addressed, like electricity storage and automatic electricity transfer to vehicles, yet electric cars equipped with Li-Ion-batteries already have a driving range of 250 km
[32]. In 2010, Mitsubishi will commercialize an electric car with 260hponfourwheelsandadrivingrangeof500km (300 mi). It seems that by focusing attention on hydrogen we are missing the chance to meet the challenges of a

sustainable energy future. The title question "Does a hydrogen economy make sense?" must be answered with a definite "Never."
However, niche applications for the use of hydrogen energy are abundant and should be addressed.

No alt causes—coal can grow while emissions are reduced
Brewer 14
(Reuben Gregg Brewer spent 15 years at world renowned Value Line, the publisher of The Value Line Investment Survey, before joining
The Motley Fool Blog Community. He started at Value Line as a Mutual Funds analyst After graduating from Columbia University with a Master's degree in Social Work. That role required him to discuss investment tactics with professional asset managers and to analyze a vast array of investment tactics. Although he had been an avid investor since his late teens, being thrown into the fire with “pros” provided an investment education that no school could have provided. Reuben Gregg quickly rose to the management ranks, earning an
MBA from Regis University along the way, and eventually ascended to the role of Executive Director of Research. This position left him with the managerial responsibility for all of Value Line's research and publishing efforts, including the company's newsletters in the equities, mutual funds, convertibles, and options spaces. Although his roles at Value Line didn't deter Reuben Gregg from his own research and investing efforts, it did impose material limits on his flexibility to invest and write. Unconstrained by those limits, he is now publishing his thoughts with The Motley Fool. Brewer, R. “China Will Make India’s Coal Habit Even Worse,” The Motley Fool, July 19,
2014. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/07/19/china-will-make-indias-coal-habit-even-worse.aspx//ghs-kw)
China has an insatiable appetite for power.
So far, coal has been the main fuel used
to sate the country's demand.
And with that, coal miners around the world have shifted into high gear.
Only
China's overall growth rate is starting to slow and coal supply has outstripped demand
. But low prices just make it that much easier for fellow emerging market giant India to get stuck on coal, too
.
Long cycles
The lifespan of a coal power plant is between 30 and 40 years.
That's one of the reasons why the
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) believes
China
, which is now the world's largest consumer of coal, will see its consumption of coal peak in 2025 at 57% of world supply
and only fall off two percentage points by 2040. And that's despite the fact that China is increasingly concerned with pollution
. In fact, Peabody Energy
(NYSE: BTU ) uses the U.S. example to explain why
China can clean up its act without shutting coal power down: Regulated emissions from U.S. coal plants has fallen nearly 90% since 1970. Since
China is only just starting to work on cleaning its power supply, look for similar success
.
And Peabody Energy likes to point out that the
U.S. emissions reductions took place over a span in which coal power generation increased by 173%. Thus, there's no reason why China can't have its cake and eat it too.

China makes growth in coal inevitable—means you can’t solve
Brewer 14
(Reuben Gregg Brewer spent 15 years at world renowned Value Line, the publisher of The Value Line Investment Survey, before joining
The Motley Fool Blog Community. He started at Value Line as a Mutual Funds analyst After graduating from Columbia University with a Master's degree in Social Work. That role required him to discuss investment tactics with professional asset managers and to analyze a vast array of investment tactics. Although he had been an avid investor since his late teens, being thrown into the fire with “pros” provided an investment education that no school could have provided. Reuben Gregg quickly rose to the management ranks, earning an
MBA from Regis University along the way, and eventually ascended to the role of Executive Director of Research. This position left him with the managerial responsibility for all of Value Line's research and publishing efforts, including the company's newsletters in the equities, mutual funds, convertibles, and options spaces. Although his roles at Value Line didn't deter Reuben Gregg from his own research and investing efforts, it did impose material limits on his flexibility to invest and write. Unconstrained by those limits, he is now publishing his thoughts with The Motley Fool. Brewer, R. “China Will Make India’s Coal Habit Even Worse,” The Motley Fool, July 19,
2014. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/07/19/china-will-make-indias-coal-habit-even-worse.aspx//ghs-kw)
That should be good news for coal miners like Peabody Energy, but
right now the coal market is flooded with supply because everyone knows just how big the Chinese power appetite is.
Peabody Energy has lost money in each of the past two years. In fact, after a first quarter loss, it looks increasingly like 2014 will be another full year of red ink. Margin compression Peabody Energy's Australian operations, which serve Asia, saw revenues per ton fall nearly 17% year over year in the first quarter.
Its gross margin per ton in the division fell even more, dropping to just $0.22 per ton from over $12.15. And the only thing that salvaged even that tiny gross margin was a roughly 4% drop in costs. In fact, Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI ) specifically discussed the problem in its first quarter earnings release: " the seaborne market remains challenged, as oversupply has pressured global prices for metallurgical and thermal coals
." The company's operating margin per ton was lower year over year in each of its three divisions, falling from a combined loss of $0.37 per ton to a loss of $1.61 per ton. Although the absolute difference isn't huge, the percentage increase in the operating margin loss per ton is. Keep in mind, too, that Arch Coal sold 31 million tons of coal in the first quarter, so even small numbers add up quickly and continued price pressure in the seaborn market is a big drag. BTU Chart BTU data by YCharts There's good news here? So the coal industry has a price problem right now, and it's taking even the largest and most diversified miners for a ride into red ink. But that's not as bad as it looks for Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and others. Why? Because supply and demand will eventually even out
and fatter profit margins will return. However, along the way, fellow emerging market giant
India, among others, is getting foreign coal on the cheap.
That's why
Peabody Energy and Arch
Coal both like the long-term outlook
. But what about the near term?
Arch Coal is expecting 100 gigawatts of coal power to come online in 2014 alone. That means, "more than 300 million metric tonnes of incremental annual coal demand this year." And that demand won't go away for the next 30 or 40 years.
And over the next five to 10 years, Peabody Energy thinks
India will be a bigger demand growth story than China.
It projects that
India's demand for seaborn coal will increase 85 million tonnes versus China's growth of 70 million tonnes.
Note, too, that
India's growth is coming off a smaller base, so the percentage growth is vastly more impressive.
Thank you China! So, in some ways, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal need to send a big thank you to
China
. The problem this duo is facing right now because of that country looks like it will set the stage for continued international growth down the line. Coal may be out of favor today, but lower prices will help ensure the industry has a long future.

Can’t solve sea surface temperature—heat is released naturally
NOAA 13
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraiton, “Why did Earth’s Surface Temperature Stop
Rising in the Past Decade?” November 8, 2013. http://www.climate.gov/news-features/climateqa/why-did-earth%E2%80%99s-surface-temperature-stop-rising-past-decade//ghs-kw)
Unlike the ENSO cycle, which affects the climate on a year-to-year basis, the PDO affects the climate on decadal timescales. Since the late
1990s, the negative phase of the PDO cycle has contributed to cooler sea temperatures at the surface of the tropical (similar to La Niña) and northeastern Pacific. Strong prevailing winds during the negative phase of the PDO also stir up the ocean and mix surface waters down into the deep ocean, allowing heat to penetrate to greater depths.
The deep ocean may have been able to "hide" excess heat trapped in the Earth system by greenhouse gases, contributing to the warming
“pause” in the last decade, but scientists know that heat energy doesn't just disappear.
Eventually, natural ocean circulation may bring some of the extra heat stored in the deep ocean back to the surface,
which can happen during an El Niño event, for example. Meanwhile, other environmental indicators of climate change—melting ice in Greenland, the retreat of Arctic sea ice, global sea level rise—continue to send a clear signal that Earth is still warming. Over
the coming century, humancaused warming will continue, with natural variability periodically speeding up or slowing down the pace from decade to decade.

No solvency for sea surface temperature—deep ocean water is warm now
Balmaseda et al 12
(Madalena A. Balmaseda, European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts. Balmaseda, M.
Trenberth, K. E. Kallen, E. “Distinctive Climate Signals In Reanalysis of Global Ocean Heat
Content,” Geophysical Research Letters, American Geophysical Union, Volume 40, 1754-1759.
May 10, 2013. Ghs-kw)
The time evolution of the global OHC for the period 1958–2009, as estimated by the ORAS4 ocean reanalysis, is dominated by a warming trend
and pronounced cooling episodes, and shows an increasing warming trend at depths below 700 m.
The cooling episodes correspond to cooling seen in SSTs in response to the El Chichón and Mt
Pinatubo eruptions, and the radiative imbalance associated with the latter [Trenberth and Dai, 2007] is consistent with the cooling found here.
More surprising is the extra cooling following 1998, a likely consequence of the ocean heat discharge associated with the massive 1997–1998 El
Niño event [Trenberth et al., 2002]. Meehl et al. [2011] have demonstrated in a model study how
La Niña events and negative
PDO events could
cause a hiatus in warming of the top 300 m while sequestering heat at deeper layers.
This mechanism can also explain the increasing role of the depths below 700 m after 1999 in the ORAS4 OHC, consistent with La Niña-like conditions and a negative phase of the PDO which has dominated the last decade.
The deep ocean warming, which mostly involves the depth range 700–2000 m, may also be related to the weakening of the MOC after 1995, which is present in ORAS4 [BMW13].
Possibly changes in MOC and PDO are connected through changes in the atmospheric circulation patterns. [16]
The deep ocean has continued to warm,
while the upper 300 m
OHC appears to have stabilized. The differences in recent trends among the different ocean layers are profound. The small warming in the upper
300 m is belied by the continuing warming for the ocean as a whole, with considerable warming occurring below 700 m
. However, this raises the question of whether this result is simply because of the new Argo observing system? The results shown here suggest otherwise, although Argo clearly is vitally important quantitatively. Instead changes in surface winds play a major role, and although the exact nature of the wind influence still needs to be understood, the changes are consistent with the intensification of the trades in subtropical gyres.
Another supporting factor is the uniqueness of the radiative forcing associated with global warming. [17] The magnitude of the warming trend is consistent with observational estimates, being equivalent to an average 0.47 0.03 W m–2 for the period 1975–2009. There is large decadal variability in the heat uptake, the latest decade being significantly higher (1.19 0.11 W m–2 ) than the preceding record. Globally this corresponds to 0.84 W m–2 , consistent with earlier estimates [Trenberth et al., 2009]. In an observing system experiment where Argo is withdrawn, the ocean heating for the last decade is reduced (0.82 0.10 W m–2 ), but is still significantly higher than in previous decades. The estimation shows depths below 700 m
becoming much more strongly involved in the heat uptake after 1998, and subsequently accounting for about 30% of the ocean warming.
[18] The analysis of ORAS4 OHC shows some interesting signals. In particular, the prolonged and intense cooling events during the 1980s and 1990s are not as distinct in other observation-only analyses [BMW13], and the rapid involvement of the deep ocean starting around the 1998–1999 La Niña needs further investigation. Sensitivity experiments indicate that these features are robust, and suggest that changes in the atmospheric circulation play an important role in the heat uptake. Detecting, understanding and modelling the processes that lead to the vertical distribution of heat within the ocean is a key for the correct initialization of decadal predictions, because the trends in forecasts of the SST will likely depend on whether the ocean is in a recharge (low stratification) or discharge
(high stratification) mode.
Impacts inevitable and deep ocean water is no longer cool—mixing sea water now only accelerates glacier melt
(Joe Romm is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. In the 1990s, Romm served as Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. He is the Founding Editor of Climate Progress, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named one of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010." In 2009, Rolling
Stone put Romm #88 on its list of 100 "people who are reinventing America." Time named him a "Hero of the Environment″ and “The
Web’s most influential climate-change blogger." Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in 1997, where he oversaw $1 billion in R&D, demonstration, and deployment of low-carbon technology. Romm, J. “Deep Ocean
Heat is Rapidly Melting Antarctic Ice,” ThinkProgress, December 15, 2010. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/12/15/207091/deepocean-heat-is-rapidly-melting-antarctic-ice-global-warmin///ghs-kw)
Antarctica is disintegrating much faster than almost anybody imagined — see “Nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier.” In 2001, the IPCC “consensus” said neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100. They both already are. As Penn State climatologist Richard Alley said in March 2006, the ice sheets appear to be shrinking “100 years ahead of schedule.” A presentation Monday at the fall meeting of the American

Geophysical Union sheds some light on the underlying cause of this rapid melt — the ice is being attacked from the bottom.
Discovery News has the story:
Global warming is sneaky. For more than a century it has been hiding large amounts of excess heat in the world’s deep seas.
Now that heat is coming to the surface again in one of the worst possible places:
Antarctica.
New analyses of the heat content of the waters off Western Antarctic Peninsula are now showing a clear and exponential increase in warming waters undermining the sea ice, raising air temperatures, melting glaciers and wiping out entire penguin colonies.
“In the area I work there is the highest increase in temperatures of anywhere on Earth,” said physical oceanographer Doug Martinson of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Martinson has been collecting ocean water heat content data for more than 18 years at Palmer Island, on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula.
“Eighty-seven percent of the alpine glaciers are in retreat
,” said Martinson of the Western Antarctic Peninsula.
“Some of the Adele penguin colonies have already gone extinct .” Martinson and his colleagues looked not only at their very detailed and mapped water heat data from the last two decades, but compared them with sketchier data from the past and deep ocean heat content measurements worldwide. All show the same rising trend that is being seen in Antarctica. “When I saw that my jaw just dropped,” said Martinson. The most dramatic rise has happened since 1960, he said. The figure comes from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (via
Columbia University’s Earth Institute blog), which quotes Martinson explaining,
“This is like a huge freight of hot coalsfresh, hot water being delivered right to the the front door.”
So while global warming has continued its fitful warming of the temperature on Earth’s surface, the planet is warming from human-cause greenhouse gases just where climate science said it would “” the oceans, which is where more than 90% of the warming was projected to end up (as we learned in two key 2009 papers, see
“Skeptical Science explains how we know global warming is happening.“). The key findings in the second study are summed up in these two figures: Total Earth Heat Content from 1950 to 2003 (Murphy 2009). Time series of global mean heat storage (0-2000 m), measured in 108 Jm-2
This new finding makes action now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions all the more important because we’re already stuck with more melting to come:
What the rising water heat means, he said, is that even if humanity got organized and soon stopped emitting greenhouse gases, there is already too much heat in the oceans to stop a lot of impacts — like the melting of a huge amount of Antarctic ice.
“There’s the potential that we’re locked into long term sea level rise for a long time
,” Martinson told Discovery News…. As for how fast the ice will melt and in what locations, that depends largely on whether the upwelling warm water comes in contact with the thick ice shelf that crowds the coast and holds the block the glaciers from reaching the sea. That, in turn, depends on the winds which drive away the surface waters and make it possible for the deeper waters to rise to the surface, said senior researcher Robert Bindschadler of NASA’s Goddard Earth Science and Technology Center and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. “It can destroy the ice shelf if that heat can get to it,” said
Bindschadler, who at the same meeting presented his work from the melting Pine Island Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Now that the upwelling deep sea water is the clear cause of the melting ice shelf
, rather than summer melt water, as had been thought in the past, it’s a question of how winds will change in a warming world and whether they will drive more warm water into the ice shelves.
The warming of West Antarctica is most worrisome (at least for this century) because it’s going to disintegrate long before the East Antarctic Ice Sheet does. Not only is the WAIS melting from underneath, it is, as I wrote in the “high water” part of my book, inherently less stable: Perhaps the most important, and worrisome, fact about the WAIS is that it is fundamentally far less stable than the Greenland ice sheet because most of it is grounded far below sea level. The WAIS rests on bedrock as deep as two kilometers underwater. One 2004 NASA-led study found that most of the glaciers they were studying “flow into floating ice shelves over bedrock up to hundreds of meters deeper than previous estimates, providing exit routes for ice from further inland if ice-sheet collapse is under way.”
A 2002 study in Science examined the underwater grounding lines-the points where the ice starts floating. Using satellites, the researchers determined that “ bottom melt rates experienced by large outlet glaciers near their grounding lines are far higher than generally assumed.” And that melt rate is positively correlated with ocean temperature.
The warmer it gets, the more unstable WAIS outlet glaciers will become
. Since so much of the ice sheet is grounded underwater, rising sea levels may have the effect of lifting the sheets, allowing more-and increasingly warmer-water underneath it, leading to further bottom melting, more ice shelf disintegration, accelerated glacial flow, and further sea level rise, and so on and on, another vicious cycle. The combination of global warming and accelerating sea level rise from Greenland could be the trigger for catastrophic collapse in the WAIS (see, for instance, here).
The time to act was a while ago,
but now is far better than later.

No temperature rise and sulfur aerosols offset any risk of warming
Ryan 11
(Bob Ryan, StormWatch 7 Weather Blog, ABC 7 News, “Is China’s coal pollution helping us slow down global warming?,” 7/8/2011, http://wj.la/pFrB9N)
We are sweating through the middle of a hot summer once again. What better time to jump back into the climate debate? A few years back, I wrote a series on the science of climate change and, yes, the third rail some meteorologists refer to as “global warming.” Well, a paper recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences really got the blogosphere fired up – pro and con but unfortunately not much in between – about the climate. In particular, people are arguing about the effect that China’s rapid urbanization and burning of fossil fuels is having on global temperature changes.
(Abstract, full paper.) I think there are several interesting points to be drawn from the study, performed by researchers from
Boston University, Harvard and Finland's University of Turku: 1) China more than doubled its consumption/burning of coal from 2004 to 2007. (The last time China’s coal consumption doubled, it took 22 years.) 2) Sulfur aerosol emissions created by burning coal tend to have a net cooling effect on the atmosphere. 3) Before 2002, there was a net worldwide decrease in sulfur emissions, primarily because of clean-air acts and mitigation efforts in the U.S. and
Europe. 4) The cooling effects of sulfur aerosols has essentially countered any global temperature rise caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide. 5) This balancing act between sulfur and carbon dioxide, along with the slight decrease in solar energy during the solar minimum and the cool La Nina, meant there was essentially no statistically meaningful change in the global temperature from 1999 to 2008.