Fuel of the Future

How will man fill his future need for energy when the world begins to run out of readily accessible supplies of gas and oil? One answer now being investigated is hydrogen. It is an extremely efficient fuel that burns with almost no pollution, and the supply is virtually limitless in the water that covers two-thirds of the earth's surface.

The economics of energy production now limits hydrogen to a small role. To extract hydrogen from water or petroleum products with conventional electrolytic processes makes it cost about three times as much per unit of energy as natural gas. Of the 7 trillion cu. ft. produced annually, most is used in refining ores and in making ammonia. NASA powers its moon rockets with liquid hydrogen, but that is prohibitively expensive for use as a common fuel.

Scientists at the Common Market's Euratom research center in Ispra, near Milan, are working on a process that they say can cut the cost of hydrogen in half. This process subjects ordinary water to the 800DEG C. heat of a nuclear reactor. At such temperatures, the hydrogen and oxygen in the water begin to separate; each can then be combined with other chemicals and eventually extracted from them. Dr. Cesare Marchetti, head of Euratom's materials division, predicts: "By improving the technology through experience, we can push the costs of hydrogen fuel down by perhaps 5% to 10% annually." The era of cheap hydrogen will start, he thinks, by 1982.

Promising as the process sounds, it still involves certain risks. Many scientists oppose the proliferation of nuclear reactors, which create lethal wastes and might accidentally release disastrous amounts of radioactivity. The spread of reactors appears to be inevitable, however, in view of the increasing demand for power and the dwindling reserves of conventional fuels. Hydrogen also scares people who cannot forget the fiery end of the dirigible Hindenburg in 1937. Nevertheless, German industry daily pumps hydrogen through 185 miles of pipeline, and researchers at Oklahoma State University use it to power four experimental cars that produce almost no pollution. It even has been used to run the domestic appliances in the Institute of Gas Technology's experimental "Hydrogen House" in Chicago. As experience with hydrogen grows, researchers are betting that the fuel that thrust man to the moon will help him to live better on earth.

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