why use fossil fuels instead of hydrogen?

Question

if we extract hydrogen from water with electrons and burn the hydrogen does it turn back to water??

Answer 1

If the oil barons and the multinational companies could figure out a way to make trillions of dollars on Hydrogen fuel, we'd have them in less than a decade.

The problem is, the world's infrastructure has been set up for petroleum use. It would take us almost 100 years to change our entire infrastructure to accept a new fuel source and evenly distribute it in the manner we distribute oil.

Storage and transport is also a big problem. It takes alot of energy to make oil burn but, once it starts burning, it burns ferociously and is hard to put out.
Hydrogen is flammable and explosive in a static electricity environment.
Hydrogen is the most plentiful fuel source their is since it could theoretically be pulled out of the air (or the vacuum of space) using electromagnets, but it would have to be channeled into a FUSION generator so it could be used as energy. That kind of technology would cost trillions of dollars to develop.

You are right, when Hydrogen is used, the end result would be water molecules. Of course, the same thing can be said about Alcohol fuels like ETHANOL 100%.
The only problem I see is that science does not know what the reprocutions of extra Hydrogren in the atmosphere would be.
Perhaps their would be more violent electric storms - we just don't know yet.

Also keep in mind, the world isn't sure what the next fuel will be. Some people want it to be ETHANOL. Some want it to be HYDROGEN. Some want it to be some form of NUCLEAR FISSION or FUSION.
Fusion is the most advanced and most difficult to develop but, at least it would create far more energy than fission and the reactors could not be used to produce nuclear weapons.

Answer 2

Momentum, mostly...
If we had started burning Hydrogen 100 years ago, we would probably have in place a tremendous & efficient hydrogen distribution/creation network.
But we didn't.

So why use fossil fuels? ease of use/access was what started their use. Heck, you could find coal sitting on the ground in some places. And oil has been known to bubble to the surface on its own. We already had water well drilling technology that was easily adaptable to drilling for oil. We got started, and over the years, we have become dependent upon it. We have a huge distribution network for oil and coal and natural gas-something we don't have yet for hydrogen.

One of the biggest problems with hydrogen is that it is not as readily available as oil. It takes an awful lot of energy to break it down out of water (which is why some of the best possibilities for hydrogen fuel cells actually use fossil fuels as their hydrogen source!!). Yes, it is in water all around us, but the energy to remove it is currently at a higher ratio that what we use to extract oil from the ground (and refine and deliver it).

One other thing that makes oil attractive-the storage problem. Nikola Tesla knew this was an issue 100 years ago. It isn't really about generating energy, the problems are all about storage. You can store energy in a spring. You can store it in a battery. You can store it in a chemical. You can store it in atomic nuclei. pound for pound, fossil fuels-especially gasoline- are incredibly energy-dense. You can extract a LOT of energy from gasoline. Current Internal Combustion engines (what's in your car) are only about 25-30% efficient. I have heard that airplane engines are close to 65%. With either, that is still a lot of power dissappearing, and the vehicle can still achieve tremendous speeds and torques.

Nukes-Nuclear fuel is great-it sits there and does its thing. But it is awfully messy to clean up. Hopefully we start seeing some more research into Pebble-bed Nuclear reactors.

Finally, yes, if you burn Hydrogen, in an oxygen-rich environment, the exhaust will be water.

PS-5toes-Hydrogen is NOT the most explosive substance. Very flammable? yes. The most? Not even close.

Hydrogen recombined with Oxygen gives you water H (subscript "2") O. It absolutely does NOT give you heavy water.

In addition, Heavy water is Water where the Hydrogen has extra Neutrons. No plutonium is present in "heavy water".

Please get your information from science classes and books, and NOT movies.

Answer 3

yes pure hydrogen would become pure water. If burned in the air there would be some small amount of byproducts produced.
If converted in a fuel cell that amount might be very small.

But the issue is where do you get the hydrogen.
From fossile fuel? -- worse than just burning the fuel.
From Fussion/fisson -- there are other byproducts to consider


Best to think of Hydrogen as an energy storage and transportaion "device" rather than an energy source

Answer 4

The amount of energy released when burning carbon is far greater than the amount of energy released when burning hydrogen. Also, the energy needed to break hydrogen free from water is large, and the hydrogen cannot easily be stored. Stripping hydrogen from hydrocarbons is easier, but there is still the storage problem. Also, just think of all that greenhouse gas that is produced when you burn hydrogen; yes, water vapor is a greenhouse gas.

Answer 5

Yes/no. If we used it in cars, it would come out as water. (OOPS I MESSED UP THE FIRST TIME THEN REREAD MY ANSWER SORRY BOUT THIS:) With some stray particles when creating it from the fossil fuels. I dont know why --its one of those things like long division.

We learned about it in the 7th grade pre-chemistry and enviornmental science class. If someone doesnt give you a completely awesome explanation you might want to try a spark notes on alternate fuel sources.

>> However, we dont use hydrogen becuause the process to prepare it is expensive and takes a long time.
WIND IS THE MOST EFFICIENT ENERGY SOURCE, but anything thats helpful to the enviornment, is not appealing to lazy/greedy people who do that. Not all of them are like that, but some are. And some dont think windmills are attractive and ruin ambeince, but i think they look awesome.

Answer 6

1) Fossil fuel are a lot cheaper (but this is to be reconsidered, as the oil is getting rarer and with the extremely high environmental and social cost that the uses of such fuels have) Furthermore, the distribution network for fossil fuel is well established and efficient.

Hydrogen pollute less than fossil fuels when used but it's very expensive to produce and store (as solid hydride, of liquefied) . It's not sure if the energy/environmental cost of producing hydrogen worth creating a alternative distribution network for this source of energy.

Having such "energy on demand" will always cost a lot anyway ...

Answer 7

storage of hydrogen is the biggest subject. it somewhat isn't hardship-free superb suited now. Nanotechnology looks promising in this section. is likewise the subject of producing hydrogen. maximum many times it takes the flexibility from the intake of a few poluting fossil gas. So why not in basic terms short decrease hydrogen and use the fossil gas? will not be able to look ahead to fusion!

Answer 8

I think your question should be the other way around, about the hydrogen vs. fossil fuels. And yes, it does turn back into water, releasing energy as well. It turns into pure, pure water after it explodes. You're right.

Answer 9

because teh economy of hte world is based on hydrocarbons. ie the oil companies. hydrogen does indeed come from water, it splits into H20, 1 hydrogen and two oxygen molecules, seperating them is relatively easy, cathode, anode and some power... here ends the good news. Hydrogen is the most explosive substance..when recombined, into H202, we get heavy water.. enriched with plutonium and used for making very big bangs. (see the film, heroes of telemark)

you could use the oxygen as an oxidiser (well what else) and use it to recombine in the combustion chamber as fuel and accellerant... (we now start singing either, leaving on a jet plane... or fly me to the moon...) the real answer is of course, were still dependent on oil... it makes certain people very very rich, and they dont want to let go of it.

Answer 10

The exhaust from a fuel cell is water.

NASA used fuel cells, but they were big and bulky.

Car manufacturers are working on fuel cell technology, but the problem is hydrogen storage. Extracting hydrogen from fossil fuels is one possibility.