The Case for Hydrogen in a Carbon Constrained World

Unlike other fuels, hydrogen $(H2)$ can be generated and consumed without generating carbon dioxide $(CO2)$. This creates both significant engineering challenges and unsurpassed ecological advantages for $H2$ as a fuel, while enabling an inexhaustible (closed) global fuel cycle based on the cleanest, most abundant, natural, and elementary substances: $H2$, $O2$, and $H2O$. If generated using light, heat, and/or electrical energy from solar, wind, fission, or (future) fusion power sources, $H2$ becomes a versatile, storable, and universal carbonless energy carrier, a necessary element for future global energy system(s) aimed at being free of air and water pollution, $CO2$, and other greenhouse gases. The case for hydrogen rests fundamentally on the need to eliminate pollution and stabilize Earth’s atmosphere and climate system.