I was reading this article on Ecogeek.com about a Shell station in LA offering Hydrogen and I got very frustrated. People are embracing hydrogen as a clean energy source to solve our energy crisis and Global Warming, but it isn't.
Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source. Running hydrogen through a fuel cell produces energy, but first you have to refine the hydrogen and that step takes a lot of energy. One of the more popular ways of doing it is through electrolysis (running electricity through water separating the hydrogen from the oxygen) although it can be refined from natural gas. So hydrogen can't solve the energy crisis as it is not an energy source.
It could be used in the fight against Global Warming but it could also exacerbate the problem. If the electricity used to refine hydrogen is generated by coal, it will result in increased carbon emissions. But if the energy used to refine hydrogen is wind, solar or geothermal (which is the case in Iceland) then the carbon footprint is practically non-existent
Also, taking into account the massive infrastructure costs that transforming the US to a hydrogen economy would require this is a technology that we should not adopt as a serious solution.
