Question

hydrogen may not be advantageous as a fuel because of

Answer 1

Answer on Question#39987-Chemistry-Inorganic Chemistry

Question

Hydrogen may not be advantageous as a fuel because of...

Answer

Hydrogen may not be advantageous as a fuel because of

1. **Expensiveness**: Hydrogen gas also requires a lot of work to free if from other elements. It's already being used to power some hybrid cars, but at the moment it is not a viable source of fuel for everyone. That's simply because it's expensive and time-consuming to produce. That means until technology advances enough to simplify and ease the process; hydrogen energy will continue to be too expensive for most people.

2. **Difficulty of Storage**: Hydrogen is also hard to move around. Whereas oil can be sent through pipelines, and coal can be carried in the back of dump trucks, super-light hydrogen is hard to transport in a reasonable fashion. It is very expensive to move anything more than small amounts of it, making it impractical for most functions.

3. **Difficulty of Existing Infrastructure Replacement**: As expensive as hydrogen is to produce and transport, it becomes even more expensive when you consider trying to use it to replace gasoline. There is no existing infrastructure in place to accommodate hydrogen as a fuel source for the average motorist. Gas stations and cars themselves would all have to be refitted at an astronomical cost to taxpayers and governments. It seems insane to even suggest that current fuel sources be replaced when what is already in place is working so well.

4. **High Flammability**: Hydrogen is very flammable and when mixing with atmospheric may form explosive mixtures.

5. **Dependency on Fossil Fuels**: Though hydrogen energy is renewable and its environmental impacts are minimal, we still need other non-renewable sources like coal, oil and natural gas to separate it from oxygen. We may reduce our dependency on fossil fuels by using hydrogen but in turn we are actually using them to produce hydrogen fuel.