The hydrogen economy: A question of definition

William McDowall and Malcolm Eames of the Policy Studies Institute (PSI) in London, UK, conducted a survey by examining 40 papers related to the hydrogen economy, written between 1996 and 2004, to analyze the future of hydrogen and fuel-cells. The PSI literature survey identified two scenarios under which a hydrogen economy is expected to thrive. These scenarios include a world in which people and governments have strong concerns about the environment, and the situation when traditional energy supplies become very expensive or are threatened, triggering energy-security concerns in countries that do not possess significant reserves of oil and gas. This literature represented a rich resource describing the diversity of opinions about possible and desirable hydrogen futures, demonstrating that the the hydrogen economy is not a simple, single idea, and shape of future hydrogen economy is contested rather than shared.