NATURAL GAS BRIDGE TO HYDROGEN?

Oh, Fareed -- two of New Energy's worst canards: The hydrogen economy is a long, long way down the hydrogen highway. Natural gas is cleaner than coal or oil but it is hardly clean, it is NOT renewable and there are many who believe it is NOT "plentiful" in the sense of being a real answer to long term energy needs.

It’s Not ‘Star Wars’; Energy’s Future: Robdert Hefner says natural gas offers a bridge to a squeaky-clean ‘hydrogen economy’
Fareed Zakaria, October 1, 2007 (Newsweek)

WHO
Robert A. Hefner, founder of natural gas giant, GHK; Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek Magazine, ABC News, PBS

Fossil fuels resources run out sooner or later. The more we depend on them, the sooner they run out. They are not renewable. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Zakaria interviewed Hefner about the future of energy in general and Hefner talks about the US' 70-100 year natural gas supply.

WHEN
The Fuel Use Act in 1978 stopped the widespread use of natural gas for power generation in the US.

WHERE
Oklahoma once generated 80% of its electricity from gas. Singapore now gets 85% of its electricity from gas.

WHY
- Hefner contends natural gas is cleaner than coal for electricity and cleaner than gasoline for transportation.
- Hefner argues the traditional case for a tax on fossil fuel (but not natural gas), to be offset with payroll tax cuts.
- Hefner points out the natural gas transmission infrastructure already exists in home gas lines and contends compressed gas cars could be fueled at home.
- Hefner sees 50 years out: hydrogen fuels cells for transportation and wind, solar and gas for electricity. (NewEnergyNews: 50 years out.

This is about where we are, in any practical sense, with hydrogen powered vehicles.

QUOTES
- Hefner: “Coal and oil have become by far America's largest energy problems. Together, they produce about 80 percent of our CO2 emissions, and our addiction to foreign oil creates very large problems and risks. So I believe we should phase in taxes on coal and oil and oil products—say, over the next five years, so everyone has the chance to adapt. Our principal energy solutions are natural gas, solar, wind and efficiency; policy should encourage their use.”
- Hefner: “Fifty years from now we will have developed a new energy infra-structure that is many times more efficient, largely through natural gas, solar and wind-powered electric generation, hydrogen fuel cells in the transportation sector and massive increases in end-use efficiency. We will then be entering the hydrogen economy as a result of a transition that began with natural gas.”
- Hefner, on 50 years out: “An economy powered by hydrogen gas released from seawater by electrical current, produced by solar or wind generation. Although this process of electrolysis has been known and used for over 100 years, it is not commercial for our economy today…Somewhere in the second half of this century, civilization will have finally achieved an energy system that can power its economic growth on an environmentally stabilized Earth. The hydrogen economy should be civilization's energy endgame.”