Hydrogen Economy:- with the growth of modern civilization, the need of energy has been continuously increasing at a very fast rate. The natural reserves of the world for energy such as coal and oil are finite. The continuous use of these sources may exhaust them completely and this may cause a serious problem for getting energy. The nuclear power can also not meet all our energy requirements, particularly for small mobile units such as cars, etc. the search for alternative sources of energy has given a solution as “Hydrogen economy” whereby energy is transported and stored in the form of liquid or gaseous hydrogen. Hydrogen is considered to be a possible source of clean energy. The major problem is to make hydrogen cheaply. Various methods of obtaining hydrogen are being explored.
If the problems of its safety and it’s economically production are solved, it may eventually be delivered to homes and industry by pipelines as natural gas. Hydrogen might even be used as fuel to run vehicles and jet planes and produce electricity. For this purpose it might be stored as a liquid at very low temperature or as solid metal hydride that when heated decomposes to produce hydrogen. Better ways of storing hydrogen are worked out. In USA, technology exists for producing hydrogen electrically and storing it in bulk. For example large quantities of liquid hydrogen are routinely stored in vacuum insulated cryogenic tanks for US space program.