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1、International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 27(2002) futures:toward a sustainable energy system?Seth DunnWorldwatch Institute,1776 Massachusetts Avenue,NW Washington,DC 20036 1904,USAAbstractFueled by concerns about urban air pollution,energy security,and climate change,the notion of a“hydrogen economy

2、”ismoving beyond the realm of scientists and engineers and into the lexicon of political and business leaders.Interest in hydrogen,the simplest and most abundant element in the universe,is also rising due to technical advances in fuel cells the potentialsuccessors to batteries in portable electronic

3、s,power plants,and the internal combustion engine.But where will the hydrogencome from?Government and industry,keeping one foot in the hydrocarbon economy,are pursuing an incremental route,using gasoline or methanol as the source of the hydrogen,with the fuel reformed on board vehicles.A cleaner pat

4、h,derivinghydrogen from natural gas and renewable energy and using the fuel directly on board vehicles,has received signi5cantlyless support,in part because the cost of building a hydrogen infrastructure is widely viewed as prohibitively high.Yet anumber of recent studies suggest that moving to the

5、direct use of hydrogen may be much cleaner and far less expensive.Just as government played a catalytic role in the creation of the Internet,government will have an essential part in buildinga hydrogen economy.Research and development,incentives and regulations,and partnerships with industry have sp

6、arkedisolated initiatives.But stronger public policies and educational e8orts are needed to accelerate the process.Choices madetoday will likely determine which countries and companies seize the enormous political power and economic prizes associatedwith the hydrogen age now dawning.?2002 Internatio

7、nal Association for Hydrogen Energy.Published by Elsevier ScienceLtd.All rights reserved.1.IntroductionHermina Morita has a grand vision for Hawaiis energyfuture.A state representative,Morita chairs a legislativecommittee to reduce Hawaiis dependence on oil,whichaccounts for 88 percent of its energy

8、 and is mainly importedon tankers from Asia and Alaska.In April 2001,the com-mittee approved a$200,000“jumpstart”grant to supporta public=private partnership in hydrogen research and de-velopment,tapping the island states plentiful geothermal,solar,and wind resources to split water and produce hydro

9、-gen for use in fuel cells to power buses and cars,homes andbusinesses,and military and 5shing Ceets.The grant grewout of a consultant study suggesting that hydrogen couldbecome widely cost-e8ective in Hawaii this decade.The?Printed with the permission of the Worldwatch Institute.Tel.:+1-202-452-199

10、9;fax:+1-202-296-7365.E-mail address:sdunnworldwatch.org(S.Dunn).University of Hawaii,meanwhile,has received$2 millionfrom the US Department of Defense for a fuel cell project.Possibilities include Hawaiis becoming a mid-Paci5c re-fueling point,shipping its own hydrogen to Oceania,otherstates,and Ja

11、pan.Instead of importing energy,Morita tolda San Francisco reporter,“Ultimately what we want.is tobe capable of producing more hydrogen than we need,sowe can send the excess to California”1.Leaders of the tiny South Paci5c island of Vanuatuhave similar aspirations.In September 2000,PresidentJohn Ban

12、i appealed to international donors and energy ex-perts to help prepare a feasibility study for developing ahydrogen-based renewable energy economy.The econom-ically depressed and climatically vulnerable island,whichspends nearly as much money on petroleum-based productsas it receives from all of its

13、 exports,hopes to become 100percent renewable-energy-based by 2020.Like Hawaii,ithas abundant geothermal and solar energy,which can beused to make hydrogen.And like Hawaii,it hopes to be-come an exporter,providing energy to neighboring islands.0360-3199/02/$20.00?2002 International Association for H

14、ydrogen Energy.Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.All rights reserved.PII:S0360-3199(01)00131-8236S.Dunn/International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 27(2002)235264“As part of the hydrogen power and renewable energy ini-tiative we will strive to provide electricity to every villagein Vanuatu”,the governm

15、ent announced 2.Hawaii and Vanuatu are following the lead of yet anotherisland,Iceland,which amazed the world in 1999 when it an-nounced its intention to become the worlds 5rst hydrogensociety.Iceland,which spent$185 million a quarter ofits trade de5cit on oil imports in 2000,has joined forceswith S

16、hell Hydrogen,DaimlerChrysler,and Norsk Hydro ina multimillion-dollar initiative to convert the islands buses,cars,and boats to hydrogen and fuel cells over the next3040 years.Brainchild of a chemist named BragiQArnasonand nicknamed“Professor Hydrogen”,the project will beginin the capital of Reykjav

17、Q Rk,with the citys bus Ceet drawingon hydrogen from a nearby fertilizer plant,and later re5llingfrom a station that produces hydrogen onsite from abundantsupplies of geothermal and hydroelectric energy whichfurnish 99 percent of Icelands power.If the project is suc-cessful,the island hopes to becom

18、e a“Kuwait of the North”,exporting hydrogen to Europe and other countries.“Icelandis already a world leader in using renewable energy”,an-nounced Thorsteinn SigfQ usson,chairman of the venture,in March 2001,adding that the bus project“is the 5rstimportant step towards becoming the worlds 5rst hydrog

19、eneconomy”3.Jules Verne would be pleased though not surprised to see his vision of a planet powered by hydrogen un-folding in this way.After all,it was in an 1874 book titledThe Mysterious Island that Verne 5rst sketched a world inwhichwater,andthehydrogenthat,alongwithoxygen,com-posed it,would be“t

20、he coal of the future”.A century anda quarter later,the idea of using hydrogen the simplest,lightest,and most abundant element in the universe as aprimary form of energy is beginning to move from the pagesof science 5ction and into the speeches of industry execu-tives.“Greenery,innovation,and market

21、 forces are shapingthe future of our industry and propelling us inexorably to-ward hydrogen energy”,Texaco executive Frank Ingriselliexplained to members of the Science Committee of the USHouse of Representatives in April 2001.“Those who dontpursue it,will rue it”4.Indeed,several converging forces e

22、xplain this renewedinterest in hydrogen.Technological advances and the adventof greater competition in the energy industry are part of theequation.But equally important motivations for exploringhydrogen are the energy-related problems of energy secu-rity,air pollution,and climate change problems tha

23、t arecollectively calling into question the fundamental sustain-ability of the current energy system.These factors revealwhy islands,stationed on the front lines of vulnerability tohigh oil prices and climate change,are in the vanguard ofthe hydrogen transition 5.Yet Iceland and other nations repres

24、ent just the barebeginning in terms of the changes that lie ahead in theenergy world.The commercial implications of a transi-tion to hydrogen as the worlds major energy currencywill be staggering,putting the$2 trillion energy indus-try through its greatest tumult since the early days ofStandard Oil

25、and Rockefeller.Over 100 companies areaiming to commercialize fuel cells for a broad range ofapplications,from cell phones,laptop computers,andsoda machines,to homes,oTces,and factories,to vehi-cles of all kinds.Hydrogen is also being researched fordirect use in cars and planes.Fuel and auto compani

26、esare spending between$500 million and$1 billion annu-ally on hydrogen.Leading energy suppliers are creatinghydrogen divisions,while major carmakers are pouringbillions of dollars into a race to put the 5rst fuel cellvehicles on the market between 2003 and 2005.In Cal-ifornia,23 auto,fuel,and fuel c

27、ell companies and sevengovernment agencies are partnering to fuel and test drive70 cars and buses over the next few years.Hydrogenand fuel cell companies have captured the attention ofventure capital 5rms and investment banks anxious toget into the hot new space known as“ET”,or energytechnology 6.Th

28、e geopolitical implications of hydrogen are enormousas well.Coal fueled the 18th-and 19th-century rise of GreatBritain and modern Germany;in the 20th century,oil laidthe foundation for the United States unprecedented eco-nomic and military power.Todays US superpower status,in turn,may eventually be

29、eclipsed by countries that harnesshydrogen as aggressively as the United States tapped oil acentury ago.Countries that focus their e8orts on produc-ing oil until the resource is gone will be left behind in therush for tomorrows prize.As Don Huberts,CEO of ShellHydrogen,has noted:“The Stone Age did n

30、ot end becausewe ran out of stones,and the oil age will not end becausewe run out of oil.”Access to geographically concentratedpetroleum has also inCuenced world wars,the 1991 GulfWar,and relations between and among western economies,the Middle East,and the developing world.Shifting to theplentiful,

31、more dispersed hydrogen could alter the powerbalances among energy-producing and energy-consumingnations,possibly turning todays importers into tomorrowsexporters 7.The most important consequence of a hydrogen economymay be the replacement of the 20th-century“hydrocarbonsociety”with something far be

32、tter.Twentieth-century hu-mans used 10 times as much energy their ancestors had inthe 1000 years preceding 1900.This increase was enabledprimarily by fossil fuels,which account for 90 percent ofenergy worldwide.Global energy consumption is projectedto rise by close to 60 percent over the next 20 yea

33、rs.Use ofcoal and oil are projected to increase by approximately 30and 40 percent,respectively 8.Most of the future growth in energy is expected totake place in transportation,where motorization contin-ues to rise and where petroleum is the dominant fuel,accounting for 95 percent of the total.Failur

34、e to developalternatives to oil would heighten growing reliance on oilimports,raising the risk of political and military conCictS.Dunn/International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 27(2002)235264237and economic disruption.In industrial nations,the shareof imports in overall oil demand would rise from rou

35、ghly56 percent today to 72 percent by 2010.Coal,meanwhile,is projected to maintain its grip on more than half theworlds power supply.Continued rises in coal and oiluse would exacerbate urban air problems in industrial-ized cities that still exceed air pollution health standardsand in megacities such

36、 as Delhi,Beijing,and MexicoCity which experience thousands of pollution-relateddeaths each year.And prolonging petroleum and coalreliance in transportation and electricity would increaseannual global carbon emissions from 6.1 to 9.8 billion tonsby 2020,accelerating climate change and the associated

37、impacts of sea level rise,coastal Cooding,and loss ofsmall islands;extreme weather events;reduced agriculturalproductivity and water availability;and the loss of bio-diversity 9.Hydrogen cannot,on its own,entirely solve each of thesecomplex problems,which are a8ected not only by fuelsupply but also

38、by factors such as population,over-andunder-consumption,sprawl,congestion,and vehicle depen-dence.But hydrogen could provide a major hedge againstthese risks.By enabling the spread of appliances,moredecentralized“micropower”plants,and vehicles based oneTcient fuel cells,whose only byproduct is water

39、,hydrogenwould dramatically cut emissions of particulates,carbonmonoxide,sulfur and nitrogen oxides,and other local airpollutants.By providing a secure and abundant domesticsupply of fuel,hydrogen would signi5cantly reduce oil im-port requirements,providing the energy independence andsecurity that m

40、any nations crave 10.Hydrogen would,in addition,facilitate the transition fromlimited non-renewable stocks of fossil fuels to unlimitedCows of renewable sources,playing an essential role in the“decarbonization”of the global energy system needed toavoid the most severe e8ects of climate change.Accord

41、ingto the World Energy Assessment,released in 2000 by sev-eral UN agencies and the World Energy Council,which em-phasizes“the strategic importance of hydrogen as an energycarrier”,the accelerated replacement of oil and other fossilfuels with hydrogen could help achieve“deep reductions”in carbon emis

42、sions and avoid a doubling of pre-industrialcarbon dioxide(CO2)concentrations in the atmosphere a level at which scientists expect major,and potentiallyirreversible,ecological and economic disruptions.Hydrogenfuel cells could also help address global energy inequities providing fuel and power and sp

43、urring employment andexports in the rural regions of the developing world,wherenearly 2 billion people lack access to modern energyservices 11.Despite these potential bene5ts,and despite early move-ments toward a hydrogen economy,its full realization facesan array of technical and economic obstacles

44、.Hydrogen hasyet to be piped into the mainstream of the energy policiesand strategies of governments and businesses,which tendto aim at preserving the hydrocarbon-based status quo with the proposed US energy policy,and its emphasis onexpanding fossil fuel production,serving as the most recentexample

45、 of this mindset.In the energy sectors equivalentof US political campaign 5nance,market structures havelong been tilted toward fossil fuel production.Subsidies tothese energy sources in the form of direct supports andthe“external”costs of pollution are estimated at roughly$300 billion annually 12.Th

46、e perverse signals in todays energy market,whichlead to arti5cially low fossil fuel prices and encourage theproduction and use of those fuels,make it diTcult for hy-drogen and fuel cells whose production,delivery,andstorage costs are improving but look high under such cir-cumstances to compete with

47、the entrenched gasoline-runinternal combustion engines(ICEs)and coal-5red powerplants.This skewed market could push the broad avail-ability of fuel cell vehicles and power plants a decade ormore into the future.Unless the antiquated rules of theenergy economy aimed at keeping hydrocarbon produc-tion

48、 cheap by shifting the cost to consumers and the environ-ment are reformed,hydrogen will be slow to make majorinroads 12.One of the most signi5cant obstacles to realizing thefull promise of hydrogen is the prevailing perception that afull-Cedged hydrogen infrastructure the system for pro-ducing,stor

49、ing,anddeliveringthegaswouldimmediatelycost hundreds of billions of dollars to build,far more than asystem based on liquid fuels such as gasoline or methanol.As a result,auto and energy companies are investing mil-lions of dollars in the development of reformer and vehicletechnologies that would der

50、ive and use hydrogen from theseliquids,keeping the current petroleum-based infrastructureintact 13.This incremental path continuing to rely on the dirt-ier,less secure fossil fuels as a bridge to the new energysystem represents a costly wrong turn,both 5nanciallyand environmentally.Should manufactur