Friday, April 09, 2004
Letters Editor
300 - 1450 Don Mills Road
Don Mills, Ontario
Canada
M3B 3R5
Hydrogen is an energy carrier that can be carried
Dear Editor:
Brian Piccione’s article provides advice to investors on hydrogen as a component of energy use. (Hydrogen’s non-future, April 3,2004, pp. FP11)
He correctly notes that hydrogen is not a fuel source but an energy carrier. He misses its subtly different and important potential as a fuel which can be carried by our cars and trucks. It can be produced using electricity from immobile sources of energy such as nuclear, coal and renewable energy power plants. The long term goal is to provide a replacement for the convenient oil based liquid fuels which power our vehicles. Hydrogen can also facilitate the use of greenhouse gas free energy sources to serve the transportation market.
Mr. Piccione makes much of the overall inefficiency of hydrogen production and use as an energy carrier. That inefficiency is not a fundamental shortcoming. It may be at least partially offset by the inherent efficiency of fuel cells at the final point of use. We do need mobile energy sources, regardless of their efficiency. Hydrogen promises that mobility.
Additional information on the use of hydrogen in transportation can be found at Computare’s website (www.computare.org/publication.htm) under the title “Transportation and Hydrogen”.
Computare is a small think tank headquartered in Lethbridge, Alberta.
Yours truly,
Duane Pendergast