Solutions: Switch to faucet fuel from fossil fuel to stop global warming

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Is it possible that amidst all the bogus claims, political controversy and foul cries about looming economic destruction, thereโ€™s actually a simple solution to the ravages of climateย change?

A prominent Canadian engineer and scientist believes the solution โ€“ not just any solution but the only solution โ€“ rests within a tiny cell we ingest every day. And it can eliminate both carbon emissions and world conflict over oil supplies while saving the planet from globalย warming.

So pour yourself a glass of water and readย on.

Climate destruction is more critical than we realize and weโ€™re going to have to do more than just reduce greenhouse emissions, says engineer and scientist David Sanborn Scott. We must quit burning fossil fuelsย altogether.

โ€œWe have lulled ourselves into believing we can resolve climate change simply by reducing fossil fuelling but thatโ€™s not enough,โ€ Scott said. โ€œWe must eliminate all fossilย fuelling.โ€

Scott was frustrated by how little was actually said about solutions to global warming last December at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. The focus, as usual, was on โ€œcoping strategiesโ€ which, ultimately, will be woefullyย inadequate.

โ€œI wrote a bitter email to several of my policy-guru friends, one of whom responded: โ€˜David, you must realize this conference was not about solutions, it was about โ€˜fairnessโ€™โ€”fairness on whether developing nations should be expected to set emission reduction targets equivalent to those set for developedย nationsโ€™.

โ€œNobody even mentioned the single overarching strategy that can enable us to escape climateย catastrophe.โ€

For Scott, that strategy rests within the simplest element in the universe โ€“ hydrogen. An atom of hydrogen is odorless and non-toxic, with but one electron circling one proton. Yet, despite its simplicity, hydrogen contains more energy per unit mass than any other chemical fuel โ€“ almost three times as much asย gasoline.

And, unlike carbon-belching fossil fuels, the only waste product from hydrogen is pure water, giving it great advantages not only for generating clean electricity but also as a transportationย fuel.

Together, hydrogen and fossil-free electricity can fly airplanes, propel cars and run computers. And theyโ€™re interchangeable: Hydrogen can be converted into electricity; electricity into hydrogen, for a more versatile energyย system.

We already generate fossil-free electricity from hydro-power stations as well as some employing wind and solar power. The crucial next step is to produce liquid hydrogen and then use it to fly airplanes and driveย cars.

โ€œWe flew to the moon with hydrogen,โ€ Scott remarked. โ€œIt was the only fuel that could do the job because itโ€™s soย light.

โ€œHydrogen is the colossal missing link between non-fossil power sources and bigย transportation.โ€

Scott is vice-president (Americas) of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy and the first Canadian awarded the Jules Verne Award. Heโ€™s also founder of University of Victoriaโ€™s Institute for Integrated Energyย Systems.

His climate-change best seller, Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defense against Climate Catastrophe, was published last fall and is already in second printing โ€“ as a revised edition with an added chapter. Appropriately, Smelling Land is a metaphor for โ€œseeing things the other wayย around.โ€

During several wide-ranging interviews with DeSmogBlog, Scott said the worldโ€™s climate is already perilously near its โ€œmetastable tippingย point.โ€

Once that point is passed, collapse of the West Antarctic ice shelf and a rise in ocean levels of five metres or more would follow, destroying nine of the worldโ€™s 10 largest cities as well as the low-lying communities of southern Florida, Netherlands, Bangladesh andย Oceania.

Rising seas would inundate Tokyo, Mumbai, Sรกo Paulo, New York, Shanghai, Lagos, Los Angeles, Calcutta and Buenos Aires. Only Mexico City, the sole non-coastal municipality among the 10 largest, would escape. Some cities with smaller populations such as London and Venice would alsoย disappear.

โ€œTo physically visualize a sudden rise in ocean levels is difficult but possible,โ€ said Scott. โ€œBut the human consequences are impossible to graspโ€”and climate shockers even more difficult to envisage could be just round theย corner.โ€

Scott predicts electricity will continue to dominate communication, and hydrogen must dominate transportation in a new Hydrogenย Age.

The easiest way to obtain hydrogen is through electrolysis. Zap water with an electric current and oxygen bubbles rise from one electrode, hydrogen from the other. The collected hydrogen then releases its energy by recombining with oxygen to formย water.

While hydrogen can certainly warm houses and boil water, Scott believes its greatest potential is fuel for modern internal-combustion engines because itโ€™s carbon-free and has higher energy content per unit of weight thanย gasoline.

Hydrogen is more voluminous than gasoline, but Scott says that drawback is mitigated by its high energy content and because most technologies that will use hydrogen, like fuelcells, are more efficient that their counterpart fossil-fuelledย technologies.

But where will the electricity come from to mine hydrogen from water? Renewables such as wind and solar currently produce less than one per cent of Americaโ€™s energy. And that only addresses electricity. What about transportation fuel? Do we attach windmills to cars andย airplanes?

Ultimately, Scott says nuclear power is the only carbon-free source that can produce the vast quantities of hydrogen and electricity required for the next several centuries. But it will be a major challenge to get people to accept it due to continuing badย publicity.

In fact, decades of โ€œmedia infatuation with distorting the environmental and safety record of nuclear powerโ€ has actually strengthened our ties to fossil fuels and, hence, soaring greenhouse emissions and globalย warming.

Scott says hydrogen and electricity could power 70 per cent to 90 per cent of the worldโ€™s energy demands within 20ย years.

The big hold-up is โ€œthe go-slow folksโ€ in oil and gas, car manufacturing and land development, who still argue for spending money on adaptation strategies instead of carbon-free energyย systems.

โ€œThey claim that if we too quickly replace our fossil-fuelled system with a sustainable system weโ€™d face economic ruin,โ€ Scott said. โ€œBut I suspect their real fear is disruption of their own way of doingย business.

โ€œAnd they neglect the reality that major technological and infrastructure missions almost always spur economicย growth.โ€

Transition to the Hydrogen Age will require major technology and infrastructure development, but weโ€™ve already set the stage during World War II and the spaceย program.

In Scottโ€™s view, the U.S. effort from Pearl Harbor to the invasion of Normandy โ€“ in science and engineering, building infrastructure, training and deploying people โ€“ surpassed the commitment required to launch a global Hydrogen Age. The U.S. built on that foundation to put men on theย Moon.

World War II was followed by economic boom, and the space race triggered technological innovation that drives consumer product development to this day. Similar patterns will attend transition to the Hydrogenย Age.

โ€œMy point is this: the challenge of designing, building and then deploying these early hydrogen systems, jammed as it was within the twelve years between Sputnik and stepping on the Moon, exceeded the technological challenges required to take us from today to the Hydrogenย Age.โ€

โ€œGive us two decades and weโ€™ll have itย done.โ€

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