The book was a critical success, especially with people in the clean energy business.
Technically, hydrogen is not a source of renewable energy, but instead is an energy carrier. By taking electricity generated from wind turbines, solar panels, tidal and wave action, river currents, and geothermal steam and running it through an electrolyser, you can split water molecules into their constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then by stored for use on demand. It can be used to power internal combustion engines likes those in most cars or turbines like those in jet aircraft. It can also be used in a device called a fuel cell to produce useful electrical energy.
The transition to a 'Hydrogen Economy' is moving ahead, particularly on the other side of the Atlantic, where the European Union and Germany in particular, are directing billions of Euros in a transition away from fossil fuel dependence to a sustainable economy, whose foundation is clean, renewably produced energy with hydrogen as its principle storage medium.[more on the European transition in my earlier blog entry - The Third Industrial Revolution]
In the US, the move to clean, renewably produced energy is proceeding, but at a much slower pace. This is almost entirely because energy policy in the US is controlled by 'big oil' and other entrenched energy lobbies.
By the year 2015, many of the world's leading automakers are expected to offer their first hydrogen fueled vehicles for sale in their retail showrooms. Things appear on very much on track for that to happen in Europe and Japan, and perhaps China, where efforts are underway to put the fueling infrastructure in place to support hydrogen powered vehicles. Unfortunately, public policy in the US is badly corrupted. It favors old school energy interests over the common good. I very much hiope that will change.
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