HYDROGEN AS AN ENERGY SOURCE STUDY MADE FOR BELIZE, CENTRAL AMERICA.

HYDROGEN AS AN ENERGY SOURCE STUDY MADE FOR BELIZE, CENTRAL AMERICA.

One way to make hydrogen, as you note, is through the electrolysis route.

Electrolysers use electrical energy to produce hydrogen. Basically, the hydrogen is simply another form of energy. However, in the process, the electrolyser is about 60% efficient. So, if you start with water and 100 kw-hr of electrical energy, you will end up with about 60 kw-hr of energy in the hydrogen.

What then? How do you release the energy for doing something useful?

Well, if you put it through a fuel cell, you can get back electricity, at about 60% efficiency, giving you about 36 kw-hr of electrical energy. If you then use this energy in a motor of 80% efficiency, you can then get about .8 x 36 = 28.8 kw-hr of shaft power energy.

Not very good.

However, if you used the hydrogen to fuel an Internal combustion engine, having an efficiency of about 25%, then you would get back about .25 x 60 = 15 kw-hr of shaft power.energy.

Not very good either. As a matter of fact, it is even worse again, in that there is a loss of energy required for compressing the hydrogen.

It is hard to get enthused about the potential for hydrogen as a fuel.