Hydrogen is not a renewable energy source

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 06 July 2008 10:17

Opinion and Analysis

Telstra has installed a hydrogen powered fuel cell in its Melbourne headquarters as part of its renewable energy programme. A commendable initiative, but let's be clear about this, hydrogen is not an energy source, let alone a renewable one.

According to CEO, Sol Trujillo , "this is a corporate priority – it’s not a fashion or a fad. We are at a unique moment in time when we have a tight alignment between the business need to reduce costs and the benefit to the environment. This will create benefits for our customers, our shareholders and for all of us as members of the community.”

Telstra claims that one  five kilowatt  hydrogen fuel cell unit with  five  50 litre hydrogen cylinders  could provide 12 hours of continuous 5kW back up power for the access platform  of its  Next IP  network.

By describing the initiative as "part of its renewable energy programme," Telstra is only mildly guilty of perpetrating a myth have seen in more reports of hydrogen powered  systems than I care to name. Others go so far as to claim that hydrogen can substitute for greenhouse gas producing coal and oil as an energy source.

There is just one small problem: you won't find any free hydrogen hanging around to use. Hydrogen atoms just love oxygen atoms and it requires a great deal of energy to prise them apart. Once you have done this, hydrogen becomes a very useful means of storing energy and transporting it to where and when it is required.

Mix it with some oxygen and you can release that energy as heat in one spectacular big bang or in a more controlled manner in an internal combustion engine. Get really smart and you can convert it directly to electrical energy in a fuel cell.

But hydrogen only contributes to reducing the environmental impacts of energy consumption by separating the source and means of production of the energy from the point of consumption: for example by enabling 'dirty' processes such as burning oil to be centralised in large, more efficient and, hopefully less polluting facilities than motor vehicles and small back up electricity generators.

But unless these details are spelt out, Telstra's claim that its use of hydrogen powered fuel cells will benefit the environment do not  carry much weight.