Why Hydrogen?

Climate change and energy security of supply are two of the greatest issues that society faces this century, and both are a result of our increasing dependence on oil and gas.

Scientific and now increasingly economic consensus is that climate change represents one of, if not the most significant threat to our way of life.

In parallel to this, demand for oil and gas is growing rapidly. America consumes 25% of the world’s oil, but represents just 5% of its population. China and India with 38% of the world’s population consume just 11% of its oil, but this is rising quickly. For example, China currently has approximately 30 million vehicles on its roads (a similar figure to that of the UK), but this is likely to double in the next four to five years, and then double again by 2015!

Whilst energy demand in China, India and many other fast developing countries grows rapidly, the UK is becoming increasingly dependent on imported oil and gas. 

So the question is, can we - or should we - rely on the Middle East (which claims to hold 65% of the world's remaining oil reserves) or Russia (which holds huge gas reserves) for so much of our energy?  

There are very strong environmental and commercial reasons for exploiting new, secure and low carbon energy sources, and developing  important technologies such as green hydrogen.

As a storage medium for renewable electricity, hydrogen offers the capability to satisfy the UK's increasing energy demands without contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, and to improve security of supply, both in terms of source and the amount available for consumption.

Used in fuel cells, hydrogen emits no pollutants at point of use, the only emission being pure water.