The hydrogen myth
Hydrogen is a versatile fuel. In contrast to many myths, hydrogen is neither dangerous nor futuristic. It is already used in many applications ranging from rockets, submarines, planes to cars, power plants and even heating.
Especially the chemical industry uses a lot of hydrogen to produce fertilizer.
The fact that the hydrogen atom is the smallest atom in the periodic table doesn’t mean that hydrogen gas (H2) can magically go through barriers. All of the applications above have no problem not losing hydrogen to the environment.
Many fear hydrogen explosions. But no one fears explosion from the litres of gasoline in their cars or the gas pipes in their house, despite these fuels having a comparable energy density. The required mixture of 33,33 % Oxygen and 66,6 % Hydrogen for the famous hydrogen explosions we all loved in chemistry class is impossible to achieve in an atmosphere that only contains 21 % Oxygen, to begin with.
The pressurized tanks for hydrogen have been tested in car crashes with lorries, fires and even tests with gunfire have been made. All security tests proved the concept to be very secure and even superior to gasoline tanks as the hydrogen can be released into the atmosphere and no flammable liquids spill all over the accident site.
For all the applications above the products have met the official security standards and have been approved by the respective authorities in many countries.
Hydrogen production
Until now most of the hydrogen is produced by steam reformation of natural gas. Many carbohydrates can be used for the process but methane, the main component of natural gas, shall be used as an example.
Methane and Hydrogen (CH4 and H20) are heated and under high pressure, they react to form carbon monoxide and hydrogen (CO and H2). The carbon monoxide is used as the fuel to heat the reaction and burned with oxygen. This way pure hydrogen is produced (which is mostly needed for the chemical industry), but no CO2 is saved.
A different process is an electrolysis: Two metallic rods put into water are enough to produce hydrogen. With cheap desert energy that process is ideal to supply green hydrogen without any harmful byproducts (the only byproduct is pure oxygen).
This green hydrogen can then be shipped around the world to be used in the chemical industry, as fuel for transportation, heating or local power production.
At the moment different processes are developed to use heat directly to split water into hydrogen and oxygen making the process much more efficient.