Estimates of the price of hydrogen as a medium for wind and solar sources

The rejection of hydrogen as a solution to global warming by becoming the medium of wind and solar was made when gasoline was priced at $1/gallon. From wind, H-2 would now cost (by electrolysis of water and steam) less than $3 for an amount equivalent in energy to that in a gallon of gasoline ("equivalent"). From solar photovoltaics (pv), H-2 would be sinking in price between $8 toward $5 equivalent as the efficiency of solar pv increases toward 20%.(1) Solar thermal's present prices offer about one-half the solar pv prices. Prediction of the maximum of the delivery rate of world oil is [Laherre's Oil Production Forecast, 1950-2150. Reprinted with permission from correspondence with William Horvath, U.S. Department of Energy, March 29, 2001] 2010. Future energy sources will develop inexhaustible energies from wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and wave sources. The common media will be hydrogen and electricity. These sources yield energy at around one-half the cost of nuclear fission. Growing corn to make alcohol involves a net loss of energy and need for a heating mechanism. It(2) may increase the Greenhouse. (C) 2007 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.