Chapter 3 - 2

02 Technology

Now listen to a lecture related to the topic in step 1. Fill in the blanks of the new diagram below.

W: As engineers, we’re constantly on the lookout for new sources of energy, correct?

Many alternatives to gasoline have been suggested, and one of the more popular alternatives is the idea of using hydrogen cells as a new source of energy.

Although hydrogen cells sound beneficial, there are several reasons which suggest that hydrogen’s really not an efficient energy source.

First of all, hydrogen isn’t readily available in a pure form. One of the most common sources of hydrogen is water, but we can’t use water by itself to create fuel.

Water is not made up of hydrogen only; It is also made up of oxygen atoms.

However, we need a pure form of hydrogen in order for it to work as energy. You cannot get this with just water. So, even though hydrogen might technically be located in a number of areas around the world, it’s not really available in a form that we can just immediately use.

Hydrogen would also be very dangerous to place into vehicles. Many people criticize the use of gasoline and vehicles because it is flammable.

Well, let me tell you, hydrogen is one of the most flammable elements we know of − I mean, we make bombs out of hydrogen.

If you had a track of hydrogen fuel cells and it got into an accident on the road, you would have a massive explosion in gasoline, by comparison, is pretty safe.

Sure, gasoline is flammable, too, but it won’t explode… it will just burn. To claim that hydrogen is safer is just really misleading.

On the surface, it also seems like hydrogen is more efficient to using cars than gasoline is, but in actuality, it’s a lot less efficient.

Remember how I said before that hydrogen is not really available in a pure form? Well, we can get hydrogen into a pure form, but to do so requires a lot of energy.

The end result is that gasoline ends up being far more efficient than hydrogen, when you take into account the amount of energy it takes to get hydrogen as it exists in the environment into a form we can use in our vehicles.

So, again, to maintain that hydrogen is more efficient than gasoline is misleading − it doesn’t consider the purification process, and this process requires a lot of energy.

The facts speak for themselves: hydrogen is not as available as it might seem, since it exists in usable forms. It isn’t safe at all and, well, it’s not as efficient as gasoline when you look at it more logically.

We definitely need to find alternative sources of energy, but hydrogen cells don’t look like they’re the solution.