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Designing a sustainable hydrogen energy economy

journal contribution
posted on 2024-11-01, 10:31 authored by John AndrewsJohn Andrews
A general vision of a sustainable energy economy relying substantially on hydrogen produced from renewables is sketched as a potential solution to the twin global crises of climate change and depleting oil reserves. Core differences between this 'sustainable hydrogen economy' (SHE) and the original hydrogen economy (HE) proposed in the early 1970s are discussed. In transport, rather than posing a binary choice between hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric vehicles, it is argued that the old maxim of 'horses for courses' should be followed, with complementary deployment of these two technologies depending on the transport service to be supplied. Other key features of SHE are the use of distributed bulk hydrogen storages for season-to-season storage on electricity grids, and as a strategic energy reserve. The conduct of detailed energy-economic-environmental modelling is recommended to evaluate the SHE vision in particular national and regional contexts, and hence globally.

History

Journal

International Journal of Sustainable Design

Volume

1

Issue

4

Start page

361

End page

380

Total pages

20

Publisher

Inderscience Publishers

Place published

United Kingdom

Language

English

Copyright

© 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

Former Identifier

2006029986

Esploro creation date

2020-06-22

Fedora creation date

2012-02-23