Introduction
America is built on available energy
There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure
Dwight D. Eisenhower
US general & Republican politician (1890 - 1969)
When President Eisenhower uttered those words, I don't imagine he would have envisioned the critical role which energy plays in 21st Century America. Everywhere we look, energy is being transformed and consumed. Our cars need it. Our emails to family use it. The strawberries we eat in Wisconsin arrived here, courtesy of the energy used in the transportation systems.
America has always thrived on abundant energy.
Early American Energy Sources
Many of the pre-revolutionary portraits show famous people standing by a fireplace. Wood was the plentiful energy source in pre-revolutionary years in America. Trees were available free for the taking in the early years of our country.
In the 1600's, 1700's and 1800's, wood was by far the dominant energy source, but coal growing in use.
But, as scientists dug deeper into the sources of energy and matter, in 1776 Cavendish discovered Hydrogen. His experiments isolated this most fundamental of elements, setting the stage for expanded use of Hydrogen in the 21st Century.
1900's Energy Sources
In the first half of the century, coal becomes the dominant energy source in America. During the 1900's, when population increased nearly 4 times, energy usage increased 10 times . Petroleum energy usage grew dramatically and became the dominant energy source by the end of the century. By the end of the century, energy usage in America quadrupled compared to the 1800's. Partly this was due to the increased population in America, but mostly this was due to the need for societal changes brought on by World Wars I and II.
2000's Energy Sources
In this early portion of the 21st century, petroleum energy remains the dominant energy source. And, due to the changing nature of our industries, natural gas has become much more common as an energy source than coal or wood. But a growing energy resource is Hydrogen.
What is hydrogen?
The name Hydrogen comes from the Greek language: Hydro: water, genes: forming . As we noted earlier, Henry Cavendish is given credit for isolating pure Hydrogen and defining some of its key properties. Some of those properties include that it is:
Colorless
Ordorless
Non-metalic
Univalent
Highly flammable
Diatomic gas.
It is the most abundant element in the universe.
Coal is by far the most abundant of fossil fuels, and will be available for much longer than oil. Having been harvested and burned since the 13th century, a massive infrastructure has been formed to quickly and efficiently mine, deliver, and burn coal. Coal is also the cheapest of fossil fuels (The Futurist, 1997)
Hydrogen lies in one of the copious replacements for gasoline. It is not an energy source such as oil, but an energy carrier that is produced instead of digging and finding it underground. Though replacing fossil fuels by hydrogen fuel cell is very hard and costs a great deal, for the most part, hydrogen fuel cell is a zero carbon emission fuel which highly reduces the carbon emissions that causes pandemic global warming. Hydrogen is very helpful for nature by cause of replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen fuel cells might end global warming once and for all.
Hydrogen is a diatomic element that is in a gaseous form at room temperature. Its most identifying characteristic is the fact that it is highly explosive. It is the lightest element in the world, and has a lifting power of 8% more than that of helium. Hydrogen was used in airships and zeppelins for more than 20 years during the beginning of the 20th century. This practice stopped abruptly after the German airship Hindenburg disaster over New Jersey. It is used in fuel cells to create electricity, and to power cars and planes. Liquid hydrogen is mixed with liquid oxygen to form a cryogenic liquid that is burnt in Solid Rocket Boosters to power the space shuttle. Hydrogen is used to fill weather balloons because of its superb lifting power.
The United States has so many resources such as solar, wind, hydro, and natural gas that we need more research on. The government has tried and weighed in on the energy crisis in the world but it may be too late to become the world leader of new energy. The United States has failed to conduct vigorous research and development in the removal of fossil fuels and has tried to figure out a more efficient way of using the fuels already in use. This can cause of alarm in the upcoming decades with cars and planes using up petroleum faster than previously thought.
Hydrogen gas was first identified as an element in 1766, by British scientist Henry Cavendish, in an experiment wherein he separated hydrogen gas by reacting zinc metal plates with hydrochloric acid. Cavendish found that when he applied a spark to the resulting hydrogen gas, it yielded water. It wasn’t until some years later that French chemist Antoine Lavoisier gave hydrogen its modern name. The word hydrogen is derived from the Greek words ‘hydro’ and ‘genes’, which translate as ‘born of water.’ In 1800, two English scientists, William Nicholson and Sir Anthony Carlisle, discovered electrolysis. They found that by applying an electric current to water, the resulting reaction produced both oxygen and hydrogen gases. This discovery eventually gave birth to the concept of the fuel cell. In essence, a fuel cell is no more complex than performing electrolysis in reverse. In 1839, a Swiss chemist, by the name of Christian Schoenbein, performed the first fuel cell experiment wherein he combined oxygen and hydrogen to produce water and a small electric current. Only six short years later, in 1845, Sir William Grove utilized Schoenbein’s discovery to create the very first functioning hydrogen gas battery. It is for this reason that Grove is known as the ‘Father of the Fuel Cell.’ Both a physicist and inventor, Sir William Grove, developed the concept of generating electrical power by means of introducing oxygen and hydrogen in the presence of an electrolyte almost 170 years ago. He conceived the first hydrogen fuel cell in 1839 and developed a working prototype. Although he is credited with this invention, the reality is that his concept and experimentation were far more valuable than the actual cell itself as it was unable to ...
The use of fossil fuels on a large scale, specifically coal, began with the Industrial Revolution in England. Industries/corporations first used coal as a main source of energy to fuel their factories, and it became even more popular when railroads started. According to the United States Energy Department, "...by the early 20th century coal had become the major fuel in the United States, accounting for nearly 75% of the nation's energy requirements." Soon after, newer and cheaper fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas, were high in demand. Energy Supplies, Sustainability, and Costs, by Sandra Alters, states oil was used as the main source of fuel to heat homes and offices, and gas powered the growing number of cars (57). "Oil shoved aside coal as the world's primary fuel, just as coal had replaced wood", says Tom Mast in Over a Barrel: A Simple Guide to the Oil Shortage (15). Most Americans were not concerned wit...
Current projections show that in the next 20 years, natural gas consumption will increase by 23.4 percent, and coal by 9.9 percent, and together both will supply 80 percent of the U.S energy supply by
The fuel cell is a form of electrochemical energy conversion device which produce electricity by a chemical response. Each fuel has two electrodes, one is known as anode produce positive charge and the other is known as cathode that produced negative charge. Hydrogen is one kind of fuel cell. Hydrogen reacted with oxygen and produce electricity. After reaction hydrogen cell produce harmful byproduct water. Hydrogen cell has a proton exchange membrane. According to the American history.edu, hydrogen cell enters into the fuel cell as anode from the hydrogen tank. Later it was ionized it carry a plus charge and negative charge produced current that is used for operating the device. Oxygen enters into the cell as cathode from air and pluck up an electron that is coming from hydrogen and combine with hydrogen produce water as a by-product. The fuel cell generates electricity as long as the supply of hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on the earth. It can be found in the oceans as well as the atmosphere. Over the last few years, talk about the future of hydrogen power has grown from a whisper to a roar. The use of hydrogen is not just the burning of the gas, but of its use in a fuel cell. Fuel cells might be the device that causes the extinction of the internal combustion engine. A fuel cell is a device that produces electricity from a fuel and an oxidizer, a substance that combines with the fuel. The fuel and oxidizer react chemically at two separate electrodes to produce the direct electric current; These cells use hydrogen as the fuel and oxygen as the oxidizer. Hydrogen power could be the silver bullet to the current and future energy situation.
Numerous technologies are already existing in the marketplace for the industrial production of hydrogen. Dating from the late 1920s, the first commercial technology to produce pure hydrogen was the electrolysis of water. The main source for hydrogen production today was brought about in 1960’s when the production shifted slowly towards a non-renewable fossil based feedstock.
Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel produced in the United States. Hundreds of millions of years ago swamps occurred in areas where coal is now existing. Coal is one of the world’s most significant sources of energy, fuelling almost 40% of electricity worldwide. Coal has been the world’s fastest growing energy source in recent years – faster than gas, oil, nuclear, hydro and renewables.
...g the Energy Revolution." Foreign Affairs. Nov/Dec 2010: 111. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Nov 2011.
The steam engine has marked the end of the use of renewable resources, and started the era of fossil energy sources, such as coal. At that time the people thought that coal was an limitless resource.
With an ever-growing urban population, the world requires progressively larger amounts of energy to sustain a city lifestyle in which a person can drive to work, purchase food from stores, and use technology such as computers and phones. Over two thirds of the United States’ electricity is generated with the use of fossil fuels, contributing to the emissions causing global warming and degrading the environment. (UCSUSA coal) When people recognized that using coal and natural gas as ways to obtain electricity have severe negative long term impacts on the Earth, and that there is a fixed amount of these resources to be used, they began seeking alternatives to meet their energy demands. According to Malthus’ theory, wars should arise in order to obtain the last of these invaluable resources, however, it can be seen that that is not the case and people are instead trying to use different types of renewable energy. The Union of Concerned Scientists states that “we have the technologies and resources to reliably produce at least 40 percent of our electricity from renewable energy sources within the next 20 years, and 80 percent by 2050” (UCSUSA renewable energy). Humans have been able to progress towards renewable energy sources, limiting reliance on finite resources and opting for non-renewable ones, such as solar and wind energy. To help with this initiative, many state