Paul Kruger, Stanford University
Although hydrogen is presently produced primarily by reforming of methane in natural gas, the long-term demand for hydrogen as an automotive fuel may make the total demand for natural gas an unsustainable feedstock resource. With expected reduction in the combustion of fossil fuels for generation of electric energy, sustainable world production of electricity and hydrogen fuel must come from some combination of renewable and nuclear energy resources. The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) of 1970 requires for future industrial programs in the United States that consideration be given to such factors as energy resources and appropriate technology. In evaluation of the appropriate technologies suitable for large-scale production of electricity and hydrogen fuel, the relative specific energy of renewable and nuclear energy resources provides a useful index for long-term planning of sustainable energy supply. The values of specific energy of large-scale electricity-generating energy resources clearly suggests that low-specific energy resources are most suitable for large numbers of distributed small-scale applications (such as electricity supply of individual homes and rural hydrogen production stations) and high-specific energy resources are most suitable for the smaller number of central large-scale applications (such as electricity supply of large metropolitan cities and urban hydrogen production facilities).
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