For years we have been dependant on Fossil fuels – Petroleum, Diesel, Kerosene etc. While there are still many millions of barrels under the sandy deserts of Saudi Arabia to feed the world for years to come, there is an immediate need to look at other possible sources of fuels. Today the reason for this is Global Warming.

The United States alone depends on these fossil fuels to meet 68% of its requirement. The problem with fossil fuels lies in the fact that when burnt in engines, owing to incomplete combustion, they lead to the emission of Carbon monoxide, Nitrogen Oxides and unburnt hydro carbons. All of these have either an impact on our health or the health of our atmosphere contributing to Global Warming. Global warming today is real and noticeable. It is no longer fiction.

In the European Union for instance, Transport accounts for some 71% of all oil consumption, with the automotive sector alone dependent on oil at 98%. It is owing to this reason that several automobile makers the world over are switching to go GREEN with fuel cell cars which run on Hydrogen and give out only water. With more and more cars on the road switching to Fuel cells, the world is going to see the emergence of what is termed Hydrogen Economy. (That is a new term I just got to know by the way). It was in 2003 that President Bush announced his $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative in the State of the Union Address. Back then however, the reason for this move was definitely NOT Global Warming. It was primarily to minimise America’s dependence on foreign oil.

The problems facing the shift to Hydrogen based technology was covered in my earlier post and so were the advantages (if we manage to overcome these teething problems).

Between the two - sourcing Hydrogen and storing it, perhaps storing and distribution is the lesser problem. Making free Hydrogen is perhaps the biggest challenge we face. Easy as it is to split Water into its components Hydrogen and Oxygen, it requires electricity. Where is such a lot of electricity going to come from? It would clearly have to be from a non fossil fuel source or else we would be defeating the purpose for which we are making the switch to H₂ technology. Therefore it would have to come from either Solar or Nuclear power or Hydro electricity. Unfortunately Solar power is still an expensive proposition still while Nuclear is both expensive and has political and social implications.

Where do we (India) ,as a nation, stand in terms of switching over to Hydrogen economy? Surprisingly, as early as 2006 itself, the Indian government had unveiled a National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap with the goal of having one million hydrogen-fuelled vehicles on the road by 2020 and generating 1,000 MW from hydrogen through public-private initiatives. The national plan includes two major new programmes: the green initiative for future transport (GIFT) and the green initiative for power generation (GIP) that will develop and demonstrate a hydrogen-powered engine and fuel cell-based cars ranging from small cars and taxis to buses and vans. Several automobile manufacturers of two, three wheelers and four wheelers have initiated research into this field to design automobiles that will be powered by Hydrogen.

By the looks of it, it seems we are headed in the right direction and for once we don’t have a late start. We can only hope that petty politics and red tape bureaucracy does not stand in the way of tapping into this new economy especially since were are poised to be among the top three economies of the world very soon. Now that would truly be India’s GIFT to the world won’t it?