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Another essay in my written class. Welcome discussion.
With the fast depletion of carbon resource in nature and the global warming as a result of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide), the current carbon economy will sooner or later transform to hydrogen economy. The hydrogen economy means the production, storage, distribution, and use of hydrogen as an energy carrier, which produces only water. Hydrogen as a new and clean energy carrier, primarily derived from water, can address issue of sustainability, environmental emissions, and energy security. Hydrogen can be generated from water, bio-mass, natural gas, coal gasification, and the solar-derived, wind, nuclear, geothermal energy is the major resources for sustainable hydrogen production. Sustainable hydrogen production technologies that may affect the production in the future include photobiological and photoelectrochemical approaches. These systems produce hydrogen directly from sunlight and water, and offer the possibility of increasing the efficiency of the solar-to-hydrogen pathway and lowering the capital cost of the system. Sustainable energy systems can easily provide, at some cost, sufficient amounts of both electricity and hydrogen. Integrating sustainable energy systems into the infrastructure would allow rapid adoption of electrolysis-based hydrogen production. Hydrogen economy is clearly achievable, but only with a sustained, focused effort. |
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