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Bringing Space Age Technology Down To Earth

Can NASA technologies help to clean up the Earth's environment? Absolutely yes. In fact, NASA technologies form the cornerstone of an emission-free energy system known as the hydrogen economy. Emission-free, you say? Yes, meaning no CO2 emissions, no nitrogen oxides, no particulates, no ground level ozone. And what does that imply? Quite simply, no greenhouse gas emissions or global warming, no acid rain, no nutrient pollution and no smog.

The center of the hydrogen energy economy, as the name implies, is hydrogen fuel. NASA's rockets have run on hydrogen fuel from the beginning. Why? Because it contains more energy per pound than any other fuel, and they want to minimize the weight, or payload, which they are lifting into orbit. In other words, it is the most efficient fuel available.

When it comes to sustainability, hydrogen is also the perfect choice. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and one of the most abundant on earth.

There are two potential sources of hydrogen and two methods of creating it already available. The first, known as "steam reformation" is the one currently used by NASA to obtain fuel. It uses steam to split natural gas (CH4) into carbon and hydrogen. This implies releasing that one carbon atom into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming just as combustion of fossil fuels or any of the other biological fuel does (ethanol, biodiesel).

The other source of hydrogen fuel is electrolysis-the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen with electricity. The technology is painfully simple. I recall splitting hydrogen and oxygen from water using a 12 volt battery, some wire, a beaker and a couple of test tubes in high school chemistry class some 30 years ago.

Ironically, steam reformation is currently cheaper. Why? Because natural gas is so cheap that no one has bothered to invest the money in commercial electrolysis production on a large scale.

The perfect technology for implementing hydrogen fuel was also developed by NASA. This technology is known as a "hydrogen fuel cell." They've been used to provide electricity on the space shuttle for decades now.

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device, similar to a battery to which you add fuel (hydrogen). The fuel cell recombines the hydrogen fuel with oxygen from the atmosphere to produce three things: waste heat (just like an internal combustion engine), electricity, and water vapor (the only emission). Otherwise fuel cell powered

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