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Could a hydrogen fuel based economy lead to global wetting, and worse?
If we developed cars, home heating, and industrial power based on burning hydrogen, and some of that hydrogen was made from sources other than splitting water, then could we have a situation even worse than from carbon based burning.
With fossil fuel burning, we take carbon out of the ground and put it in the air, affecting the CO2 balance. But at least there is a giant biosphere working to split the CO2, but the carbon back in the earth, and put the oxygen back in the air.
With burning of hydrogen that didn't come from water (and there are cheaper sources of hydrogen than electrolysis of water), each new water molecule made is here to stay. There is no bio-cycle to break the water back.
Every passing day, the earth would be wetter, and the atmosphere would deplete in oxygen. Oh no! global wet asphyxiation.
5 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
water is not that sort of ultra stable.
Plants produce oxygen by splitting water. The hydrogen is used to produce carbohydrates (sugar)
- Vincent GLv 71 decade ago
Not really.
If you get your hydrogen from hydrocarbons, you basically are doing what is being done now, except without dumping CO2. Now, what one would do with the carbon that had been scrubbed off the hydrocarbon? Most likely the hydrogen extraction process would have released it as CO2. So in the end, it is the same as now (the hydrogen advantage here is that you'd be using fuel cells that are more efficient than internal combustion engines).
Plants would capture both the CO2 and the water to grow. And if all your hydrogen comes from the fermentation of plants, you have a renewable ressource, with no long term variation in the oxygen in the atmosphere, or the CO2, or the water for that matter.
- 1 decade ago
of course not. as you said, hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water, and hydrogen burning produces water (plus a few other things). Thus, what we take (in terms of water) we return. the problem is that for electrolysis to take place we need energy, and all the wise environmentally-friendly scientists and companies, suggest fossil fuel, and of course -what else?- nuclear power (!!!!!). people are not learning; they actually become more and more evil, covering this energy -consuming technology, with an environmentally-friendly face. we just have to save energy. how to start? a good start is being vegan. all calculations show it is a start. period.
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