Hydrogen is the quintessential eco-fuel. This invisible, tasteless gas is the most ample element in the universe. It is the basic building block and fuel of stars and an necessary raw material in innumerable biological and chemical processes. As a exclusively nonpolluting fuel, it may hold the answer to growing environmental worries when it comes to atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide and the resultant Greenhouse Effect. In this book Peter Hoffmann describes current exploration toward a hydrogen-based economy. He presents the history of hydrogen energy and discusses the environmental dangers of continued dependence on fossil fuels.Hydrogen is not an energy source but a carrier that, like electricity, ought to be manufactured. Today hydrogen is fabricated by “decarbonizing” fossil fuels. In the future it will be derived from water and solar energy and perhaps from “cleaner” versions of nuclear energy. Because it may be made by a assortment of methods, Hoffmann argues, it may be without apparent effort adapted by dissimilar countries and economies. Hoffmann acknowledges the social, political, and economic difficulties in replacing current energy schemes with an totally new one. Although the procedure of converting to a hydrogen-based economy would be complex, he demonstrates that the environmental and health gains would far outweigh the costs.
ReviewThe word hydrogen conjures images of desolating bombs and burning zeppelins (the Hindenburg) for most of us, but it inspires visionaries like Peter Hoffmann to picture clear skies and safer roads. Hoffmann’s book Tomorrow’s Energy traces the history of the volatile gas and explores choices for it is use as fuel. Though the author can’t stay clear from using a great deal of technical language, his writing must still appeal well beyond the community of automotive and power-plant engineers. His coverage, altho reasonably balanced, have a tendancy toward the positive attempts made by government, corporations, environmentalists, and scientists to promote hydrogen as a clean, comparatively safe, and potentially cheap substitute to carbon-heavy fuels.
Party-line Greens may gasp at galore of the suggested schemes, which include using fixed nuclear power to generate hydrogen from water. But Hoffmann convincingly assures the reader that ultimately, the planet will be better off this way. Many will be astonished at how far hydrogen has modern since severe exploration restarted for the duration of the 1970s fuel crisis: the range of cars, planes, and power networks using the gas for power storage is impressive and underreported.
Though he makes his case for hydrogen as a means of powering our lives, Hoffmann also shows off it is uses in medicine, agriculture, metallurgy, and other fields. Using economic data, he shows that we may suppose to live in a hydrogen economy sometime midcentury; if so, we may all breathe a collective, CO2-laden sigh of relief. –Rob Lightner
From Library JournalEditor of The Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter and author of The Forever Fuel: The Story of Hydrogen, Hoffmann chronicles the global progression of hydrogen energy from a niche market to a viable mercantile product. Arguing that fossil fuels will not be cheap to find in the future and that renewables are getting less expensive, he advocates the use of hydrogen as a nonpolluting form of energy for fuel cells and as an energy storage medium. Hoffmann exhaustively details the history of hydrogen projects global from experimental fuel cell vehicles produced by the major automati makers to exploration into the use of hydrogen as airplane fuel, the application of hydrogen in utilities in Germany and China, and a few experimental hydrogen-powered houses in the United States. Hoffmann frankly explains the pros and cons of the hydrogen debate, including safety issues, economics, and the difficultness in moving our national energy policy away from fossil fuels. Because there are so few books on this energy source, academic and public libraries that have a strong interest in substitute energy materials will want to buy for informed readers. Eva Lautemann, Georgia Perimeter Coll., Clarkston Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“This book has everything the reader needs to know in regards to hydrogen….” Richard N. Cooper Foreign Affairs
“Hoffmann conveys both hydrogen’s history and coming hurdles. Balance and completeness distinguish the book. No other book compares.”–Jesse H. Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University
“Peter Hoffmann has succeeded in writing a comprehensive history of hydrogen as an energy carrier along with an evaluation of it is current status, so that the reader may judge the progress made to date in fabricating hydrogen as a supplement to electricity in delivering energy without environmental degradation. I do not know of any other book that covers this full range of hydrogen energy issues.”–C. E. (Sandy) Thomas, Vice President, Energy and Environment, Directed Technologies, Inc.
“How numerous times have worthful contributions to scholarship–written and oral–been compromised because of inadequate communication? This is far less likely to take place if economists read and think regarding the issues discussed in William Thomson’s book.”–John Pencavel, Department of Economics, Stanford University
“One of the most engaging pieces of pedagogical writing that I have ever encountered.”–Suzanne Scotchmer, Department of Economics and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
“This magnificent book reveals the a great deal of chances hydrogen offers for satisfying innovative energy needs.”–Hermann Scheer, President, EUROSOLAR
“Peter Hoffmann is a keen observer who has kept his finger on the pulse of international hydrogen and fuel-cell developments. His critical perceptivities and noesis are elegantly packaged in this very readable and highly commended book. The author lays out the possiblenesses and challenges–can we as a society respond with the necessary imaginativeness and commitment?”–Alan C. Lloyd, Chairman, California Air Resources Board
“Peter Hoffmann…is competent to commune well for those new to the field.” New Scientist
“Smil has the best macroscope of all current energy analysts.”–Jesse H. Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University
Most helpful client reviews
71 of 73 persons found the following review helpful. A Good Introduction To Hydrogen By Kevin Spoering Peter Hoffmann is the editor and publisher of “The Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter”, and this book focuses on the myriad uses of fuel cells, in great detail. But other uses of hydrogen are covered to a great deal of extent also. Topics discussed are automotive, utility, feed production, home heating, hydrogen production, and some others. Hoffman notes in this volume time and again that hydrogen is an energy carrier, like electricity, and not an energy source, so it will have to be devised by way of energy roots such as coal, wind, solar, and nuclear, amid others. Hoffmann does a very good occupation in this area, and the generation of greenhouse gasses is a central theme of this book, basically how we may generate hydrogen with little or no carbon dioxide buildup. As you may know, the combustion of hydrogen with oxygen only formulates water. Safety of hydrogen use is another area extensive covered. The book begins with Hoffmann giving a history of hydrogen use and exploration over the past 200 years or so, right up to the present time, politics having an effect on our energy future also, of course. Senator Tom Harkin gives readers a very good foreward to the book.
One area of outstanding interest to me that was noted in this book is the possibleness of using atomic hydrogen (this is hydrogen in it’s disassociated state, not the molecular hydrogen) as rocket fuel, as Hoffmann says, a specific instinctive of over 1000 seconds may be achieved, well above today’s rocket engines, if it may be safely stabilized. I wish this topic was covered better than the brief sketch Hoffmann gave it.
The final chapter of the book attempts to extrapolate the future use of hydrogen. Various experts are cited by Hoffmann as to what we may suppose in the decades in front with regards to hydrogen use. Hoffmann does himself say that the existent energy infrastructure may be difficult to replace due to the economic inertia of change, and a good deal of decades may be required, in the United States it’s immense coal reserves may preclude widespread hydrogen use idefinitely. Overall, the volume is a good introduction to energy if occasionally a little short on the science. At the back of the book there are spacious notes with references to further reading for those desiring to do so.
23 of 25 humans found the following review helpful. Half the story By A. A Slezak This book has a lot of utile data but the problem is not the material but the book could use an editor. The story continually jumps back and forth. When the book uses comparings it goes from Joules to BTUs then Gallons to Liters so you never seem to compare apples to apples or the book will have to have had a conversion table. It’s as if the author is scared to tell the truth of how it might be a little pricey now to convert, but in the long run it will be cost effective. The book also has no diagrams, or graphs that would explain fuel cells or cost effectiveness. …
The author seems to timid away from nuclear power as a solution for creating hydrogen. I think it would be a outstanding interim solution where you could put the nuclear reactor on websites off shore or in the Great Lakes so you would have a supply of water and pump all the hydrogen and electricity devised to the city. The hydrogen could be sent to fuel cell power plants and fuel stations for vehicles. Eventually from the cash made from this move on to geothermal methods.
I don’t want to seem down on this book because it gave me a lot of good data the best portion was the dissimilar ways that they may fabricate hydrogen. Hydropower, Wind, Solar, Photovoltaic, Biomass, Advanced Solar concepts, orbiting solar mirrors, converting thermal energy from oceans and Geothermal. The one that I left out that I thought was the coolest was the Giant Solar Chimneys. I found out that they are in truth making one in Australia; I may only hope that it works. I liked the portion with the solar mirrors and why they didn’t work, that was kind of funny.
The book never explains why they are not doing some of these things. I guess because of the cost but it is not clear. The best and safest way would be to manufacture hydrogen is geothermal but the book never explains why we don’t do it.
The chapter on the uses for hydrogen started out interesting but ends with a walk into the cosmos with the SETI stuff. It was parenthetical selective information that the author wanted us to be conscious of that did not belong in this book.
This book seem like a confused mass of projects that never seemed to get off the ground and a couple that could be a solution for the future. I wish the book was organized so that the history came introductory and then focus in on respective areas, production, types of fuel cells, dissimilar forms of hydrogen, infrastructure, present uses, future use and the road in front and what are the possible type of plans for the future.
I wish the book could have commended more books to read on the subject that could answer some of these questions.
I guess I was looking for more clear cut solutions.
13 of 13 persons found the following review helpful. Somehow disappointing By Emmanuel Lambert This book holds a large total of valuable info and is surely worth reading. But at the same time, I had expected more of it. It describes too numerous factual details in regards to the history of hydrogen’s use in respective apps and gives too few technical data with regards to hydrogen as a fuel. The book does not give a very indepth analysis of how a hydrogen economy could be established, how those massive quantities of hydrogen will be produced in a way that is both surroundings friendly and realistic, why or why not to use nuclear power to do so, etc. Rather, it leaves a lot of open questions and does not give answers to the issues that in truth matter (e.g. if hydrogen is produced through reforming of established carbon fuels, what to do with the carbon then at the production plant). Nevertheless, the book is surely worth reading… I think it’s one of the only severe books on hydrogen at this time.
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A Good Introduction To Hydrogen
Half the story